Placement Ceremony

Yesterday it became official that Malachi has been "placed" in our home for good. We still will not officially adopt him for another 6 months, because we have to have 3 home visits and then go to court to obtain the papers and his birth certificate and things. But the "legal risk" period where his birth mother can take him back is now up, and he's ours!!!

To celebrate this, we had a "Placement Ceremony" at the adoption agency yesterday. We were there along with our social worker and Malachi's birth mom, birth grandma, and birth aunt (I guess that's how to say it). It was awesome to see Ashley again and to watch her get to hold Malachi. During the ceremony we each had a part to say or read, and Ashley wrote out a letter to Malachi and to us. We all cried through the whole thing. She told Mac that her biggest fear is that he will grow up thinking she doesn't love him, but that's the furthest thing from the truth. She cries herself to sleep at night thinking of him, and she has a picture of him in her room that she kisses every night before she goes to bed and every morning before she gets up. She misses him like crazy, but then said she is so thankful for Aaron and me, because she knows Malachi will be loved and taken care of. Through my tears, I told Ashley that we pray for her every day and that I tell Malachi every single day that he is so loved by Ashley. I can't wait until he gets old enough to understand so that I can tell him the whole story of how much she loves him.

Malachi is a lucky guy, because he has 2 "moms" who love him dearly. Ashley is an amazing young woman, and as we said in the ceremony, we're both excited for Malachi and sad at the same time, knowing how hard it is for her to give him up. She is so courageous. This probably sounds like the whole ceremony was really sad, but by the end we were all laughing at Malachi as he made funny faces, and the tears had stopped, replaced by a peace of knowing that we had all done the right thing. Ashley and her family left without tears - they had gotten to see him and knew he was doing all right. We will be sending her pictures right after Christmas so she can see how darn cute he is and all the presents he's getting, and hopefully we'll be setting up another meeting soon. We feel so blessed to have Ashley in our lives. She gave us a priceless gift, just as God gave up His Son for us. Now that is love.