Just over a year ago I got a phone call saying that the family of the little boy chose us.
I said, "Are you serious?"
After I told my husband and then the kids, I looked at his paperwork again. He didn't pass hearing or vision tests, he doesn't eat by mouth, he has Down syndrome and he has IA. What is IA? Google. Oh no! He could have a colostomy for the rest of his life! Do they mean he's deaf and blind? Do I have to learn how to insert a feeding tube? I had not read this paperwork very well when I said yes. What does all of this mean? Can we possibly do this??
Yes. We're doing it.
Four days later, we were allowed to meet this baby for the first time. Once I held him, I never wanted to let him go. He was the baby we had been waiting for.
We called our son "Silas" and his first year was filled with surgeries, ER trips, more doctors appointments than I can count and ongoing physical therapy. It felt like a very long year. And it felt like a very short year. Because this same little boy who had no mama to hold him in the NICU now lifts his arms and yells for me to rock him. He snuggles his little face into my neck. He stares at my face with perfect vision, and he listens to my lullabies with perfect hearing. He climbs into my lap with no colostomy in the way.
Silas was once "a little boy with Down syndrome and VACTERL and no mama." Now, he's MY little boy who wants to be tickled and eat bananas all day. He plays peekaboo with his siblings and screams "Dada!" when Daddy gets home from work.
Silas - and all of us - have worked very hard this last year. But the truth is that God loves children and they progress so much easier when they are in a family who loves them too.
Silas is such a beautiful and happy little soul who is made in the image of God...and he will ALWAYS belong in our family! 
- Jessica Peters
