Finalization Day is a special anniversary for us as a family. It’s a day we acknowledge but don’t “celebrate.” It’s a day we remember the formalities and ceremonials associated with growing from a couple into a family. You see while this day is very important to us and a very important part of our son’s story, it does not make him any more our son than another other day. It is the anniversary of when we took an oath in front of a judge to love, support, nurture, and care for him in every way possible on this earth. We became his parents on legal sheets of paper.
We don’t routinely celebrate this day but we do always let him chose to do something fun around this day. Instead of calling this day “A-Day” or “adoption day” or “gotcha day,” we refer to as E’s day. We celebrate him and our lives together – just the three of us as a family. It’s a special time for us to praise God for our family, for our son, and reaffirm our commitment to Him. It’s a day to soak our son up and watch him do something that brings him great joy.
You see we don’t “celebrate” this particular day because this was not the day that he truly became our son. God predestined that long before my husband and I ever met. His perfect plans brought us together. He knew we would meet and get married. And he knew that the two of us together would not be able to conceive a biological child. He knew our greatest hope would be to adopt a child and have an open adoption with the birth family, showing love in all we do. He knew the timing of that and he knew there would be a young woman who became pregnant who would be searching for a family to raise her son – to give him the life she so desperately wanted to but couldn’t at the time. Yes God knew the very instant he would be conceived would be the same time my husband and I would begin our adoption journey. He knew she would realize he was growing in her womb on my husband’s birthday. He knew she would walk into our attorney’s office out of the handful of choices she was given. And in that instant, our attorney felt the Lord speak that she would choose us out of all the couples to raise him. God knew every single detail and just how perfect it would all play out.
We don’t believe in coincidences. Our son is not a coincidence at all. But what we do believe is in the Lord and His perfect plans for us all. Our son was chosen by the Lord well before his time for us to raise. He didn’t become our son on October 6, 2011, our Finalization Day. He was written in God’s Book of Life from the beginning. He was always meant to be our son and always meant to lead the life that God prepared for him.
