The Time I Met My Son

Before I saw him, I heard him.  He cried from the other room while Brent and I waited on a low bench in a small dressing room usually used by nurses.  Only a few minutes had passed since we had been asked to take a seat and wait in our silly blue scrubs.  Our son was born C-Section from the belly of a remarkable woman named Cindy who had chosen us by our online profile just 5 weeks before.  She had black hair, a short but petite build and a big smile.  Well, not today.  Today had to be one of the toughest days of her life - to bear a child and then to know she would say goodbye to him. We knew all these things as we sat waiting for the word that our son was born, but it didn't quell the excitement at that time.

In moments, a nurse appeared and asked us to follow her.  My heart raced.  The little baby cry became louder as we approached the sterile white room.  We had had strict orders not to enter the operating room and were surprised when the doctor motioned us to "come".  We were too confused to pass the threshold to cut the umbilical cord, so he did it himself while we watched.

It wasn't long before I was holding baby Alec.  Cindy was being stitched up and going straight into the recovery room, so we would be the first of the three parents he would meet face-to-face.  We were in awe of this tiny little purplish, squirmy, spindly amazing child who had already won our hearts.  I was awed and humbled and had no idea what would lie ahead for any of us, just that we were destined to be a family.

In the hours to follow our family would begin forming, parents and siblings from our family and Cindy's family would all arrive at the hospital in turn to wish our two families well and to coo over the new life that had just entered the world.  My sister and brother-in-law would arrive with fresh purple leis in hand for each woman there; they had just arrived back to the Mid-west from a Hawaiian vacation.  Seeing my son with a gorgeous purple and white lei around his neck is one of my favorite first memories. This was to be the beginning of a very special bond that few outside of the adoptive world could imagine - and maybe few inside of it as well.  It is a bond that remains strong to this day. It is one of love and mutual respect and gratefulness between two families brought together by disparate but mutual pain.