For Connor

My Dearest Baby Blue:

I am beginning this post on the date of your adoption, knowing that I will not have time to finish it. Things always get crazy and this day will be no different. If I post it late, please do not think it is because I do not think this is a very special day for us.

Today, the law calls me your mother. Today I am granted all the rights and priviledges and responsibilities that come from being someone's parent. Today the world cannot deny that you are my son. Today is significant, because it means that I will truly be able to protect you should that need to happen.

But I did not become your mother today. I became your mother the moment you were concieved. Really, I became your mother the moment we dreamed you so many years ago.

And, baby blue, what a beautiful child you are. I have fallen so completely in love with you. With your grunts and your full body stretches. With your stinky head and the sweat smell of your breath. I see your little mouth working and pouting while you are sleeping and my insides melt. When I lift you and you stick your little butt out and then curl into my chest, I feel a rush of love that I never thought I would feel again. You are my baby blue, and you are my world.

Second children often get less of their parents, and you are no exception to this rule. Connor, you have a beautiful sister who is large and loud and commands the room when she walks into it. You may feel slighted by this, but I want you to know right now that you will never be our second child. You are not second in our hearts or second in our lives. You are our baby...the final link in a dream that began many years ago. You are the boy who completes us and makes us the family we have always wanted to be.

I will guide you, teach you, watch you grow and eventually let you go. I will love you with all of my heart, fully and without hesitiation forever. I will be a soft place for you to land when you fall and I will help you define who you want to be in this world. Ultimately, I will be nothing more and nothing less than one person in this world who will never abandon you. You will always havea place to turn, a home, as long as I am in this world.

I love you, son. More than I have words for and I feel that I can never do justice in a letter. Perhaps one day, when you look at your child, you will understand that the words can never convey how deeply you are born into me.

Our adoption day is the stamp of approval from the world. But our bond is what I give to you forever.

All my love - Your Momma