Exciting Announcement #2!! Meet Zeke!
Meet Zeke!
Our newest family member
Two blogposts in 1 week - I know, WILD. But we’ve had some big things happen and they just happened to fall within a few days of each other. And this one, well this one takes the cake for sure.
We’ve been keeping a bit of a secret (on the interwebs) for the better part of 2020. But today, a judge named this sweet boy a Salmon for life.
Listen, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 1000x’s: Adoption is complex.
It’s one of the few things in life that demands that joy and grief and loss and gain all coexist together. And we, as adoptive parents, do what we can to make space for all those emotions to be acknowledged and worked through with every significant milestone in this journey - including today. We recognize that a day that we celebrate brings loss for our son’s birth mom. We recognize that although we are overjoyed at his presence in our family, he might one day have mixed feelings about how both loss and love brought him here.
And so today, on a day that we choose joy, we also intentionally acknowledge the complexity and nuances that joy birthed from suffering brings. We choose to make space for all the feelings, because simply pretending they don’t exist or only focusing on the ones that make us feel good tells an incomplete story. This sweet boy is worthy of us making space so that one day he can fully process the complexities of adoption.
Adoption is both/and instead of either/or.
But make no mistake, He is also worthy of celebration. He is worthy of love and laughter and a family. Every child deserves a safe and loving home - I believe that deep in my bones - and so today we are grateful that his birth mom chose us to give him one. So we celebrate, because we love this child fiercely and we’re immensely grateful for his presence in our family. Y’all, I am just in awe of him and am just so proud of who he is already.
And so this morning, we went through all the emotions because a judge declared legally what we’ve known for the last few months: that we’re family.
Forever family.
Salmon, party of 6, coming at ya.
So with that said, dear friends, it gives me great joy to introduce our son, Ezekiel John Salmon. We call him Zeke. And yes, over the course of the next few days, you’ll be getting an onslaught of pics that we’ve been snapping over the last few months. Sorry not sorry about it.
Y’all, we welcome your celebration, but we also welcome your prayers. Prayers for our family, but also prayers for Zeke’s birth mom today. That the very presence of God would be near her, that He would guide her footsteps, and for healing and comfort from the grief of placing a child for adoption. Just as she chose life for her son, we are praying LIFE over her as well.
(And lastly, Zeke, my sweet son, when you one day look back at this post, I’m not sure what exactly you’ll think. But I want you to know there’s room for whatever you’re feeling. My prayer is that you will know how much you’ve always been loved - not just by our family, but by your birth mom. Her love brought you here. Her love chose this for you. And her love and ours together, supports you. May you know that strength and beauty and fierceness are in your DNA, I’ve witnessed it. May you know that Scripture tells us that our God isn’t afraid of mess and suffering, but instead He came to earth to right every wrong. And His word says that He is close to the brokenhearted, and that He can use all things for our good and His glory. And although I pray that one day you’ll know the saving love of our good and heavenly Father, here on this earth you have a mother and father who are forever in your corner - cheering you on & loving you fiercely.)