Those same, sad eyes

In my last post I let you in our secret, and announced that we are adopting again from AHOPE.

As I said, I had no idea when we first met Solomon that he would be ours. In fact, we believe that he already had a family committed to him. (Which is probably a good thing, because at that point I was so consumed by Belane and her adoption process that I never would have even considered another child).

We got Belane home, she settled in perfectly and life got to feeling “normal” really quickly. I volunteered to be the supplies coordinator for AHOPE, and I got involved with Project HOPEFUL, which is a group of moms who were working to get the waiver process changed for HIV+ children (and succeeded!), and work to “enable, educate and encourage families adopting children with HIV/AIDS”.

I also started a Yahoo group for parents of HIV+ children and stayed involved in several HIV adoption groups. I got (and continue to get) lots of emails with questions about HIV adoption from lots of people.

One day I got an email from someone who had recently traveled and was interested in getting more information about a little guy she had met. I contacted Chances By Choice and asked if they had a little boy on their list (and gave his name and age).

A short while later I got an email back from Chances By Choice saying that they did not have a file on the boy I had named, and that the only little boy they had in that age range was the one they had attached a photo of.

When I opened the photo, I was shocked to see Solomon’s big, sad eyes looking back at me. I knew him instantly. I am almost positive the photo was taken the same day that we met him. In the picture he is wearing the same shirt, sitting in the same white crib, with the same expression as when we saw him.

I quickly emailed back and told them I thought that this child had a family, and after some checking with the adoption agency, I was informed that the family had changed their mind about adopting an HIV+ child.

And that was when the idea of adopting him and my love for him as my son, were planted. At that point they were just tiny seeds, but they quickly grew and blossomed.

Continued in my next post.

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