.Our "Meetcha Day".

How do I put into words....

the emotions of this moment, this culmination of so much prayer, anticipation. I am inadequate. It was everything and nothing like I had imagined. As our van bumped down the street that held the Transition Home, that held my son, my heart beat out of sync, clapping against my chest manicly. Tears spilled at my lids, as the America World sign came into view. Then those gates, oh those gates that I had seen in countless other adopting family's photos and videos. Only this time they were real....there....before me. As the gates opened my heart began to thrash even more wildly. My eyes blurred, my throat burned. We were the first family alphabetically to meet our child. This was it. No more waiting. No more wondering.

We handed off cameras, and stood on the porch.

What to expect?

What to expect? My heart beat out.

The moments seemed to slow to an eternity, and then he was there before us, being brought to us. He was woken from a nap for our moment, and terrified. He cried huge crocodile tears, and as I held him to my thumping chest his chest beat out a similar rhythm as mine. Wild. Flesh, blood, hearts. My son. The one that God sewed into my heart the very first time I learned of Ethiopia and her orphans.

My hands were so hungry to know him, his curls- soft and springy, his skin- chocolate satin, his cheeks and neck begged to be kissed, and my lips found them over and over, as his tears splashed me wet and warm. He smells of Africa. I smell of another world, and it frightened him. He would bury his head in my neck and nuzzle in my shoulders, and then quickly withdraw from the foreigness of my scent, my shape. Jim reached out to him. Daddy, son, they were perfect as their tears mingled.

I wondered if it would feel anything like real love. And it did. It does. He settled. He slept in our arms for hours, we began to bond over a bottle, and rice, and songs and dance. Giggles, little hands exploring my face, my hair, and my hands mimicing back.

He is my son. Heart of my heart.

The dance has begun.