Everyone spends lots of time while they are in the adoption process
imagining what things will be like with a new child from another country
fitting into the family dynamic. So much goes into planning which room
they will go into, talking about bringing a new baby home from Africa with
our 3 year old daughter, and completely failing to learn a single word of
the native language (despite our best intentions). The anticipation only
grew when we received photos and got matched with Eric, and even more when
I made the first trip halfway around the world to spend an hour with him.
But as much as we did to prepare ourselves, the reality of bringing Eric
home was so much better than everything we expected and prepared for.
Seeing the conditions that Eric lived in at both the orphanage and the
village where his parents lived, it was incredible to us that he adapted
so quickly to his new life. It took only a matter of hours for him to be
comfortable playing and spending time with his new family (except for a
couple of weeks that it took to get over the terror of our 13 pound Shih
Tzu). Within days Eric was totally accustomed to the diet in the U.S.
(sometimes more than we would like). And within weeks he was sleeping
soundly in his own bedroom after 2 years of living with 15 other children
in the same 3 room building.
Now that we are 4 months into our journey with Eric, he is speaking about
40 words of English, including the most important words in our language
("more", "please", "thank you", "bless you", and "Mickey"). Watching Eric
run toward me when I get home with his arms out yelling "Daddy" is a close
second place to seeing the joy in all of our kids as they run around the
house playing together.
Life never plays out as any of us imagine. I never would have guessed 10,
or even 5, years ago that I would be blessed with the family we have
today. I tell people all of the time that if I knew the joys of
fatherhood and family earlier in my life, that I would have dropped
everything to find my wife and build my family then. Luckily, fate makes
her own time for us, and I am so grateful for the payoff from our decision
to bring Eric into our lives. I hope every day that people who see him in
our lives might make the decision to go through the same challenges we
faced to bring a wonderful life to another child looking for a family.
Raymond Lamb, Las Vegas, Nevada
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