A year down...

Sorry I haven't been around to post the last week or so, but I have been busy getting ready for the holidays and spending time with Greg, Gabriel and my parents who are in town through New Years.

I sit here and still cannot believe that it has been a full year since Gabriel came home. It is hard for Greg and I to remember a time when he has not been with us. We will never forget the journey it took to bring him home, but over time those long days of not knowing his fate and wondering what if this and what if that, slowly fade away. I never thought I wanted to be a mother -- it was a role I didn't think I was truly ready or cut out for. But I jumped in not knowing what I was headed for only to uncover a love like no other. A love that must be experienced to fully understand.

I will find myself trying to remember what life was like before Gabriel came home and all I keep remembering is an emptiness and loneliness that is no longer there. Surely Greg and I were a happily married couple, but after three miscarriages (in two years of marriage) of which the third one truly rocked me to my core, you can't help but wonder if someone would ever call us Mom and Dad. Unfortunately those losses are a part of us and while the pain dulls over time, you never truly let it all go. But through those losses, I learned how much I wanted to be a mother and how that love had been hidden within me all that time. When we visited Gabriel at 2 weeks old and had to say goodbye, I knew right then and there, that my heart was no longer my own and that this little boy would forever change my life.

This year, when I reflect on what I am thankful for, there simply are no words to explain the happiness in my heart when I look at Gabriel and know that our family is now complete. It might have taken Greg and I awhile to get here, but Gabriel was worth every night we worried, every tear we cried and every prayer we prayed.