Reflections of Parents to Be

It is now 1 day before we leave to Taiwan and 5 days before we meet our son. We can't believe our time has finally come to travel! It is quite an overwhelming feeling to know that in a few short days we will finally be able to hold, hug, and kiss Yu-Lin for the very first time. We could have never imagined the intense love we would have for a child that we never met, held or kissed, but we have to say the love we feel for Yu-Lin is stronger than any other we have ever felt before. And though we have technically missed a lot of first (i.e. first poop, first burp, first smile, etc.), we really have not missed any firsts because when we finally do and/or experience these things it will all be "first" to us. Many people told us that we should go out to dinner one last time, sleep in one last time, and just enjoy this last time we have as a family of two. But the reality is that we have spent a lot of time being a family of two, have lots of fun memories, have traveled a lot, and slept in alot. So we are more than ready for this new life change and the joys (as well as stress) that comes along with parenting. We look forward to waking up hearing a crying baby, we look forward to changing diapers, we look forward to seeing toys all over our house, and we look forward to the day when he calls us "mommie" and "daddy". We also know that parenting will be the hardest and most challenging job we will ever have, but a job that we know will have the greatest rewards in life.

When we embarked on this journey to become parents, we never imagined in our wildest dreams that our child was half way around the world. Many people say that children that are adopted are so lucky (we assume because they feel the children are lucky to have a better life, lucky to go to America, lucky etc. etc.), but for us, we feel that we are the lucky ones. We are lucky because of all the children in the world (biological or not) that God chose us to be Yu-Lin's parents. It is an absolute miracle to know that God's chosen child for us would be born to another family in Taiwan, but given to us to raise. We will be forever grateful to the Lord for this wonderful blessing he has given us and entrusting us with one of his most precious gifts. So to our son Yu-Lin, thank you for coming into this world to enrich our lives and we look forward to sharing our lives with you as we become a family of 3.