One Month Post Placement

I just sealed the envelope containing our written one month post placement report. It feels good to have a month under our belts.

As I was reading through all the adoption papers we received in Addis I couldn't help but recall, all too well, the many nights I sat fretting over our dossier checklist feeling desperate for some paper or another to add to the pile while wondering just who our child to be was, wanting desperately to jump ahead in time to cross the finish line. Now here we are with Jonas asleep in his room. He's real. He's our son. It's finished. Well, mostly. There's still the post placement reports to file at 3, 6 and 12 mos and then every year until he turns 18. Oh and we still have to readopt him here in the state of AZ. But we're mostly done, anyway.

As far as adjustment goes he doing remarkably well so far. Every day brings with it new joys. Lately he's taken to patting our backs when we hold him and even more recently he's been rubbing my back or my side with his hand when I hold him to feed him. He grabs onto us for hugs and seems to snuggle in just a bit more when we squeeze him.

I cannot fathom life without him. One month might as well be eternity at this point. Only in hindsight can we recognize what was the giant Jonas sized hole that was in our family prior to his homecoming.