Pictures!

Since my last post was such a downer and I have not posted pictures of the boys in ages, I thought I'd post a few recent pictures (and one video). Samuel is 8 1/2 months already. I can't believe how much he has changed. I'll do a formal update post when he turns 9 months but until then, I leave you with these:












Samuel dancing (please ignore my stupid laugh at the end):

(Un)happy Mother's Day

For all of the years we were trying to have a baby, Mother's Day was a painful reminder of what we did not have. When I finally became a mom, I was looking forward to finally being able to celebrate Mother's Day. Unfortunately things didn't work out that way. My mom (who was the best mom on the planet and my best friend) was diagnosed with acute leukemia the week Davis got released from the NICU. After a seven week stay in the NICU, the son we had waited so long for was finally coming home. What should have been one of the happiest times of my life was also one of the saddest.

My mom fought hard to beat her cancer, but unfortunately she lost her battle. She died on Mother's Day (May 9) in 2004. Every since then, Mother's Day has left me sad. I am so sad that my mom died, sad that I cannot celebrate her as a mom, sad that she only got to see Davis a few times (she was not allowed to be near children under two due to a compromised immune system), sad that she will never get to meet Samuel, sad that my boys will not know her. On a day that I should be so happy with the way things have turned out for us, I continue to feel sadness about my loss. I hope and pray that as time goes by that I will be able to enjoy the day more and celebrate being a mom to the best sons on the planet. I am truly blessed and need to remember that when I start to feel blue.

My Two Sons

I have had this post knocking around in my head for awhile and decided I would take a stab at writing something substantive on this blog for once.

I used to work with a guy (he was a much older partner at my former law firm) that had three children. He had two biological sons and an adopted daughter. I remember that he would always mention that his daughter was adopted when talking about her. She had some emotional issues and it was like he was embarrassed by her behavior so he would qualify stuff with "she's adopted." I am not sure why I am thinking about this as its been since 2000 that I even worked with this guy and that is way before adoption was even a thought for us but for some reason that has stuck with me. I wonder if part of his daughter's issues were caused by being labeled adopted rather than just his daughter?

I can't imagine talking about Samuel like that regardless of what issues we might face in the future. I do not have one biological son and one adopted son, I have two sons - plain and simple. I am very proud of the way Samuel joined our family but do not think it is something that will come up that often when talking to people outside of our family. It will obviously be something we discuss in our house and with him but I never want him to feel like he is any less our son because of the way he joined our family.