This past weekend we celebrated our oldest’s 5th birthday. It was a wonderful and a bit of an emotional weekend – the good kind though. My parents, my brother, my in-laws, dear friends, his friends from church and preschool were all around. Wow, hard to believe Nathan was born 5 years ago – feels so much longer and so much shorter. Time feels funny these days.
Susan and I are so proud of our son – he’s sharp, he’s funny, we really do think he is intellectually gifted and we’re excited for him. If you don’t know our story, we are one of those couples who went through years of infertility, decided to adopt, then had two more biological kids, Dylan and Janelle, within a few years.
We have our theories on how all this works. My current favorite is the angel who was in charge of our family planning didn’t think we’d be good with kids – I’m guessing he was a member of my youth ministry? Anyway I’m speculating that angel changed his mind when he saw how we adored Nathan. I know, I know, this is absolutely ridiculous, theologically speaking angels don’t change their minds but it’s all I got for now.
This weekend we revisited his adoption story, it’s one of the better domestic ones we’ve heard. We were contacted by his biological mother a few weeks before he was born, asking us to adopt her child who she thought was a girl. We said yes immediately, flew out with a suitcase full of pink and purple clothing and met the young woman and her family. Turned out the baby was going to be a boy – boy, girl, it made no difference to us – and getting the right color clothes was fairly easy. We were thrilled to be there, honored to be invited to name him and grateful we could be there for the birth of Nathan Micah on April 26, 2008.
He was a c-section baby and I’ll never forget this little guy being wheeled out past us in the crib cart by the nurses from the surgery room to the nursery. He was swaddled, crying, and I assume, looking for a cup of coffee after being stuck in a womb for 9 months but I was a first-time father, so I just kept my hunches to myself. (Turns out you don’t give coffee to infants until … ;)
I really do remember so much about it all. I remember the joy, I remember the anxiety of wondering if the biological parents might change their minds – even though they gave us no indication of that (it’s a very long and beautiful story). I remember being convinced that it’s going to work out and I remember standing next to Susan outside the nursery and we just stared at this kid. Soon he’s going to be crying in our home, soon he’s going to be sleeping in his own room that was just our office two weeks ago, soon he’ll be crawling, talking, walking, riding his bike in our driveway. He’ll be my parents first grandchild, they’ve prayed for this kid for so long. He’ll have two full sets of grandparents, an uncle, an aunt, he’ll have friends, and who knows – possibly siblings. I also remember the support and love we got from our families. My family, parents and extended have always been wonderful to us, and Susan’s are terrific too but based on the circumstances, we got to connect in a different way with Susan’s extended family as they were an essential part of us finding Nathan. Will always be thankful for this.
Outside of our family and small number of friends – no one knew why we were really down in Florida. My in-laws live there so we were visiting them and a great friend from college had just gotten married so the timing was great – the only weird thing was that we didn’t have any real reasons of being there a second week (kid didn’t want to come out, what can you do?). It’s comical now but between church, seminary and normal life stuff, I don’t know how many texts/calls I got saying, “Where are you?” and “Are you ok?” I dodged and lied, hoping that if worked out, all would be forgiven.
The other really special day is just two days after his birthday – April 28th – the day Nathan was released in our custody. A fellow adoptive parent in our office calls this “Gotcha Day.” I think we’re going to borrow that. This year it hit us particularly more. Not sure why exactly but we’re grateful.
Nathan knows his adoption story and we love sharing his narrative. We tell him all the time “God let us have more babies because of you.” (Yeah, he found that angel bit in the beginning too theologically inaccurate as well – smart kid, I’m telling you.)
It’s hard for me to talk about things like abortion and adoption sometimes because I don’t want to hold up my kid as Exhibit A. Maybe I will down the road as I see this as a moral/justice issue but I share this only as a personal reflection, nothing else. In our case, the birth mom was young, in a tough place, and she shared so many of her thoughts with us as she went through her pregnancy. I won’t get into what she said here but I acutely remember the difficult dilemmas she was in and I want to tell you that we regard her as an amazing young woman, full of courage and a true heart of love. She’s like Ellen Page in Juno – but cooler. (In case you’re wondering, the biological father handled it all as well one could – supportive and kind).
I remember the four of us saying, “We all love this child, let’s do what’s really best for him.” Seriously, we embraced each other after that. I imagine they think about this little boy all the time, particularly this last weekend. And I imagine it’s painful in a lot of ways. And I imagine when the realities are remembered, a smile creeps across their faces when they imagine this little boy gathered with his friends at his birthday party, proud of his Mickey Mouse cake, and smiling as he rides his new bike. I imagine they remember our last time together as emotionally powerful and beautiful as we do.
An hour later the hospital staff would put Susan in a wheelchair and placed Nathan in her lap – that’s hospital procedure of mothers and infants being discharged. I remember it all. I remember Susan being wheeled into the elevator, I remember our kind nurse being with us, I remember everyone checking to see if I installed the car seat correctly, I remember Nathan crying, I remember the sunshine, I remember all the phone calls, I remember the excitement of beginning this new chapter.
Soon I would be on a plane by myself heading back to Jersey. It was then I remembered that I had signed up to give the Mother’s Day sermon. Our church didn’t have a senior pastor at the time and I had agreed with the intention of inviting my mother to the service. Mother’s Day for couples struggling through infertility is a tough thing – I remember realizing that it would be different for us this year. Turned out to be a pretty amazing day, the last three rows of the church were filled with my family and relatives excited to see the little guy.
I still pray for couples who find such occasions difficult – if I could have it my way, I wish they all could experience their 5 year olds riding around on their new bikes. I pray for those who lost their children – people near me, people I’ve never met. Having been through our series of heartbreaks and tragedies, knowing life will bring more in one form or another, I know this – Even now with a lump in my throat, I’m grateful for the faith God is growing in our souls. The God of life, the God of meaning, the God of redemption meeting us where we are, inviting us to walk alongside of Him on the journey. I think this is part of what Jesus meant when He said, “I’ve come to give the abundant life.” There is joy in this life, there is joy in the next, there’s joy in the life with God.
Sorry to get spiritual there but I really believe this stuff. The world is complicated, filled with great pain and great joy and we find ourselves grateful to experience the goodness of such days – of our oldest turning 5. Happy Birthday Nathan – we’re all proud of you.
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