Arin

Last week I sent off the final report to our adoption agency regarding the welfare of the child we adopted through them from India. We were required to send reports that would make their way to the Indian government for five years after we brought him home. When Arin first came to us that seemed like a long time. I could never have imagined then what our life would have been like when I sent off that last report five years later. I could not have imagined that concurrent with sending the report I would have been sending our I-600A to US Citizenship and Immigration in anticipation of another child or children entering our family. I would not have guessed that I would be working on yet another dossier for yet another adoption. I would not have guessed I would be presently trading e-mails with the same social worker (the best ever) whom I peppered with questions about the first batch of adoption paperwork I ever made my way through. The social worker that told me that YES, Arindam was ours, may soon tell us that another child will be ours as well.

We are getting ready to celebrate Arin's 8th birthday. At the back of my head, though I have the awareness that right now over in Ghana a child or children who will one day live in my house, and be my kid may be having a birthday now, or any day now. It is an amazing place to be. I kind of compare it to imagining the potential the baby in my tummy will bring with it when it emerges, except that my new adopted children have already been born. There is worry, anticipation, but also confidence. Arin has been through a good bit of adjustment with us. He has been basically our first born adopted child, and we all survived up until this point. I am proud of the loving sensitive, eager-to-please-others, kid he is now, and I am glad we can include more kids into our family the same way he came