thank you...

Thank you so much, all you wonderful friends, for your very kind words and prayers. We really appreciate all the love you've sent our way. I know we are going to get through this and we'll be just fine.

What I know for sure is that love doesn't end. It is a kind of energy that just goes on and on. We will always love him.

Just now as I held him napping in my lap, I pulled his sweet little head close to my lips and whispered to him that I loved him. I willed those words to seep into his skin and find a place deep within him where he could keep them always.

We are going to be sad and miss him. But we have each other and we have our love for him. His father has offered that we can visit as often as we like. We can also visit him by webcam (which he's been doing with his dad for a few weeks now). We are definitely planning to go see him for his second birthday in January.

We've decided that we need some time to pull ourselves together and to grieve our loss before we take in another little one. We want to be whole, healthy people when we foster again both for ourselves and for that new little one. We are thinking that January will be a good time for us, after the holidays and a full year after we first met sweet Baby.

I don't think I ever shared on the blog that when he first came to us he had a broken arm. He was like a little frightened bird with a broken wing. We were just about as afraid as he was, so unsure of how to care for him. He came to us on a Wednesday afternoon. On Saturday morning, just a few days after he arrived, at the breakfast table, Rich was feeding him and I was reading a book aloud to him. We're not sure exactly how it happened but he pulled his cast off his arm. Can you imagine our shock? Here is a little baby with an arm that was broken just a week before that is now out of the cast and waving all around. Rich was so scared that he just tried to hold the arm in place and he kept shouting (very loudly) "No!" I think I was running around like a chicken with her head cut off, trying to figure out what we were supposed to do in situations like this. I made a few phone calls to social workers and the hospital, got us all ready and dressed and out the door to the emergency room, in, I think, just about five minutes.

When I think of all of us back then, Baby, Rich, and me...it makes me smile to think of how much we've grown together in the last 9 months. We all communicate so well and work so well as a family. We have a very nice rhythm and we are so happy together. I don't imagine that every placement will be this wonderful. But I thank God for his great grace in giving us Baby first, for the blessing of the love and experience and beauty of being a mother and a father.

We have no regrets...we'd do it again (and will! in a few months) It is the best thing we've ever done, for ourselves, our hearts, our marriage, and our faith. And we are so happy that we were able to give this Baby a safe little nest to grow in and feel loved in.