Christmas gifts

One of the purposes of this blog is to communicate with our family and friends about our adoption process. It is a long and complicated process and we wanted to help our family be a part of it so that they too can already be thinking and dreaming about our baby.

This has had some degree of success I think, however my brother Paul did comment after a long chat about our baby that he is amazed about how real the baby is in our minds. To him, so far, the baby seems very theoretical. He knows we're engaged in the process, but he is so far removed from the whole thing that the idea that any day we might receive our call is hard to imagine. This is understandable. Even for Marc and I, who are steeped in adoption preparations, adoption support groups, and read books on adoption and South Africa, there is still a great deal of "imagining" that has to occur. We realize that our baby and our adoption won't quite hit home for our family until he actually arrives.

That is why the support and encouragement that was expressed by siblings and parents this Christmas was a wonderful surprise. Every time we met with family over Christmas there was another expression of love for our baby and for us.

My sister, Karen, gave me a beautiful shell and beaded necklace from Africa, and her daughter Kendra gave Leah African animals: an elephant, a zebra, and a giraffe. Leah loves them and keeps them on her special shelf above her bed where she puts things only she may touch. Eric and Bonnie gave us a cute little sleeper for our baby adorned with jungle animals.

Paul and Jenn gave us three beaded star Christmas ornaments, made in Durban, South Africa, one for each of our children.

The family even started to name the baby. The Boston Brinks and Opa are rooting for "Nelson", after Nelson Mandela, and have even begun using it to refer to our baby.

Marc's parents give each of their grandchildren their first pair of shoes and then, after the children have out grown them, they take them back. The shoes come out every year again to adorn their Christmas tree. Every Christmas, while we are at Mom and Dad Hoogstad's, the children find their shoes, their special place on the tree. This year, Mom and Dad had extra tree decorations. Mom had made homemade boxes to decorate the tree, each with a gift inside for her children and grandchildren. Inside our box were tiny little shoes, the first for our little boy. We keep them on the baby shelf in his soon to be nursery, waiting till we can put them on his little feet, knowing that they too will eventually find their way on Grandma and Grandpa's tree, their own special place.

Even when we visited Marc's Opa, on our way home from the Hoogstad Christmas we were surpised to see evidence of preparations for our baby. Marc's Opa has a 5x8" portrait of each of his great grandchildren hanging in his living room. There are a lot of them so the pictures take up the entire livingroom wall. The pictures are organized according to family so that Opa can remember who belongs to which parents. In our "row" Sara has the top spot and Leah is below her. At the bottom, beneath Leah's picture, is a screw, the place where our baby's picture will hang as soon as it arrives. Even Opa is getting ready for our little boy.

We feel so blessed to have a family that already loves our baby and is preparing room in their homes, their lives, and in their hearts for our little boy. We love you guys! Thank you.