A Letter to My Son

Hello, my son! You’re turning 13 months old today, and growing into a strong and handsome little boy. I wish we were able to celebrate this day with you but for now we must continue to wait until the day we are finally reunited. I admit that each day of waiting chips away a piece of my heart. I’m afraid there won’t be much left to chip away at if we don’t receive news of our court date soon. There are so many family members and friends who want to meet you. Daddy & I want to see you again and bring you home.

Your daddy and I miss you terribly. You have no idea how much we want to see your smiling little face and hear your adorable laugh. We want to hold you close and feel your little arms wrap around our necks again. We want to watch you play and to play with you. We want to give you our fingers to hold onto as you walk. We want to feed you, read to you, bathe you and dress you in some of the adorable little clothes we and Grandma have bought you. We want to see in person, not on video, how cute it is when you suck on those two chubby middle fingers. We want to rock you to sleep, to watch you sleep, and be there for you when you wake up. Ilyusha, we want to be there for you ALWAYS…and we will be. Please know we will.

Today is also the anniversary of when we last saw you. I’ve looked at your pictures and videos every day since, but that just isn’t the same as having you here…having you home. There’s a possibility that today we will know which judge will preside over your adoption hearing, and that we will also learn of our court date and the date we will get to see you again. I’m afraid to become too excited over this possibility, because I’ve been disappointed every Monday we’ve been back home. I thought each of those days would be “the day” we got “the call”, and each time I was wrong. But that doesn’t mean you’re not coming home. You will, according to God’s will. I won’t give up hope of receiving this news, I hope you won’t either.

On Friday we recruited a chain of prayer warriors across the U.S. to pray for your homecoming, as well as little Kaden’s. Please don’t think, though, that if we don’t receive the news we want today that that means prayers are “wasted” or never answered. It just means that God’s timing isn’t matching our own, for reasons we don’t yet understand. After all, years of prayers led us to you, our sweet boy, and none of those prayers, no not one, were wasted. You are our son, our precious baby boy, and we are waiting with open arms and open hearts to bring you home once and for all.

All our love,
Mommy & Daddy