It's been 5.5 years since Hudson became part of our forever family! I just found this note on my computer that I had typed up shortly after he came home. He entered our family has a talkative, 5 year old wearing 12-18 months clothes. Today he's a talkative 10 year old wearing 12-14 boys clothes! He's such a blessing and I didn't want to lose this writing so I'm posting it here...
The wait for this child felt so much longer than when I was pregnant. Some of that feeling was because of the massive amounts of paperwork and all of the unknowns of when this child will actually be coming into your home. This was a pregnancy on paper. I never got to feel him move inside my stomach like I did my other children, but I had a picture of a 4.5 year old boy sitting on my dresser knowing that he was waiting for a mom and a dad just like we were waiting for him.
It was the day before we were to go pick Hudson up. We were filled with excitement and yet it did not seem real yet. It reminded me of going to the hospital to deliver my other babies. We were excited, but it did not seem real until we were holding them in our arms.
A lot of the same unknowns exist in adoption and biological births...What will their personality be like? What will they like to eat? What will make them smile/laugh? These things you gradually learn about your baby as they grow up in your arms. Adopting a five year old, some of those things are already formed/forming and we just get to discover them.
Some things we were prepared for, other we were not. I think the biggest surprise for me is that I thought we were adopting a 5 year old. I know a lot about 5 year olds. I have had 4 of them, and one of those is still 5, but Hudson has not had the privilege of growing up in a family. He has been in an institution his whole life, so many of those developmental/experiences that a child in a family would have, he has not had. At times, I feel like I have adopted triplets all in one little guy :) He is mentally a five year old. He likes to do 5 year old things and he talks and thinks like one. He also seems like a toddler because he does not know what is safe and what is not. He gets into everything...just like a toddler would. At the beginning, I also felt like I had a newborn. How does he like to sleep? He was still getting up several times at night to either go to the bathroom or ask for water. I woke up tired, just like those first several weeks after coming home from the hospital.
The main thing that is the same? The love we have for this little guy. From the minute he walked out and they handed him over to us, my heart melted. He was my son, and I loved him just as he was. He has brought such joy into our lives and added so much into our family!
