Gotcha!

Many adoptive families celebrate Gotcha Day, the day when the child was adopted into their family. With HopeAnne, we were never quite sure which day we should celebrate. Her day of birth happened to be the same day that we were approved as a foster family so even though we didn't know about her that day, it does have double significance for us. Five days later we picked her up from the NICU of the hospital so that's a Gotcha Day of sorts, although at that point we didn't know for certain that she'd be with us forever. Then of course there was the day a year later when we found out that her goal was changed to adoption and we had a family meeting to discuss what her name would be. And finally, 9 months after that, the day we went to court to be told that she was, indeed, ours forever. In the end, it was just easier to celebrate her birthdays, so that is what we do.

For Shoun, we have a similar dilemma. Do we celebrate the day we became power of attorney, or the day we are granted custody, or the day, several years down the road when he become a legal citizen and is legally adopted? Certainly not the latter as we would have nothing to celebrate for about 3 1/2 years (although in actuality we have much to celebrate!). So together with his aunt and uncle and the family receiving his sister, we decided upon Feb. 25 as a night to celebrate, a Night of New Beginnings as our evening's program stated, or Gotcha! Night as we have been calling it in our home.

Gotcha! Night was a wonderful evening of getting to know our new, larger family which now includes relatives originally from Kenya, several families from the church Shoun's been attending in Harrisburg, and others. Of course we had to start our evening with food - 13 pizzas, to be exact, and numerous desserts to share. Who needs anything else?

Thanks and gifts were given to each person and family who has played a significant role in the lives of Shoun and his sister.

A special quilt for the family who so lovingly accepted the children into their home almost a year ago. We thank them for being available "for such a time as this," and for sacrificially preparing the children for their forever families. As they use the quilt in their family, it is our prayer that they will be reminded of how God designs our lives with many connecting patches.

Shoun honored his older sister with a scrapbook so we can continue to send her pictures. She'll be able to watch him grow and see what he's up to.

One of Shoun's favorite past-times is drawing so he drew pictures for his sister which I made into a quilt for her. We even included patches made from King family jeans, so she is now related as she shares our genes!

For Shoun, we each selected a gift and shared words of encouragement and welcome. Some gifts were humorous, others symbolic, many meaningful. Of course, we had to end with our new family picture, the first of many, many to come!