Flashback Friday. Four Years Ago, I was given the best gift ever.

I am sure that "flashback friday" should involve memories from more then four years ago. And in a way this does.

My infertility can be traced back to my diagnosis of endometriosis. I was 19, and newly married, and sitting in a doctor's office in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In broken english, the doctor explained that I had this disease, and gave me a brochure, and encouraged me to try to have a baby. Soon. I had just had a large ovarian cyst rupture, and I was in a lot of pain, and I would be having surgery. There. In San Juan. And I was very, very frightened.

That was the beginning. 15 years ago now. And it has been a long and very sad road. The end of my first marriage, the loss of several pregnancies, 13 surgeries, and the joy of a pregnancy brought to term (with only 2 hospitalizations for pre-term labor). And with the birth of my son, complete and utter joy. Yes, there has been joy - and lots of it. But there has been a great deal of disappointment and fear and medical complications, which has at times threatened to overshadow the joy.

And so, we hoped quietly for a second child, but really, didn't dare to try. The audacity of hope (there just isn't another phrase that better describes hoping for a second child after overcoming infertility once) was too much for us to take on. We needed to stay focused on the beautiful gift we had been given with our son, and not take a single moment from his childhood to focus on the medical interventions required to give him a sibling.

And then, a series of almost anonymous phone calls led to the final call.
4 years ago.
"You have a daughter. She is waiting for you in the hospital nursery."

It really was as easy as that, in the end. And we do not forget that. It makes the gift of HER even more miraculous and magical. We cried, we raced to the hospital and down the halls, up the elevator, no idea where to go.....and then we rang the bell of the maternity ward and the nurse who answered said "We have been waiting for you !"

They wheeled out the bassinet.
We peered inside.
And this tiny little girl peered back - she was 6 hours old and she looked like a fairy, with pointy ears and dimples and a cheshire grin.

We clapped our hands, and laughed, hugged each other and the nurse, and then, reached down for our baby. Because there was just no question that she was ours, and honestly if they had run a blood test I wouldn't have been surprised if our genes had matched - it was just that simple and clear.

Remarkably, adopting our daughter - the one thing that should have been the most time consuming and expensive effort, the one fraught with drama and angst and heartache....it had been the easiest, simplest, most natural thing in the world.

The greatest gift, 4 years ago:


Happy Birthday my beautiful darling girl. You are the perfect compliment to your brother, you complete our family in a way we will never be able to explain, and we are the luckiest parents in the world.

And a special thank you to your birth parents. They will be in our hearts forever.