The Beginning

Emma’s arrival in our life ended a very painful chapter of infertility for us. She was a light illuminating the darkness that had descended upon us, and she arrived in a flash. After carefully considering the risks, opportunities and costs, we had decided against a domestic adoption. But as soon as our home study was completed a unique situation arose, and in a matter of weeks, we found ourselves expectant parents. Just one month later, Emma was born and we held her for the first time.

Now let’s be honest, most babies are not that cute when they are first born. They are red and wrinkly and a little ill-proportioned. Not Emma. She was already gorgeous – soft round face, piercing blue eyes and perfectly proportioned. She was also already sweet. In fact, she was such a delightful little package, the nurses in the nursery were not quite sure they wanted to hand her over to us. They looked us over carefully and reluctantly let us hold and feed the precious little baby they had cooed over for the last several hours.

When I held her for the first time, my heart melted, really melted. I could feel the pain dripping away and my spirit lightening. Two months before her arrival in our lives we had considered ourselves miserably unlucky people because it seemed that we would never realize our dream of being parents. Yet here we were holding a beautiful baby – our beautiful baby. Turns out we were the luckiest people in the world.