The Profundity of Pregnancy as an Adoptee, Post-Reunion

Eleven more weeks. Approximately eleven more weeks, and our firstborn child will be here--in my arms, face to face.

My Omma and I and my Appa and I have continued to correspond via letters over the past six to seven months.

It has been almost two years since I first received the news that each of my Korean parents had emerged. Yet it still feels so surreal--so startling--so unbelievable.

It is overwhelming to try to grasp fully the depth, the meaning, the reality of the current circumstances.

There is something so profound and so indescribable about the fact that my son has already had the opportunity to connect with my Appa and Omma, before even being born, in ways that I never have. And yet indirectly, I know that what they are doing for my son, they are doing for me. Redemption at its fullest, I suppose.

My Omma has sent gifts and letters.

My Appa has mailed two giant boxes from Korea packed and bulging with clothes, socks, hats, and blankets for our son--his grandson.

This will be his first grandchild.

My Appa never had the opportunity to meet me or provide for me, and yet now, with the upcoming birth of my husband's and my son, my Appa is lavishing all that he has upon this child.

And it floods me with emotion that I cannot grasp or articulate. It is neither joy nor sorrow, but some inexplicable, incomprehensible plexus of joy and sorrow and everything in between.

I smile through my tears, and I weep through my smile.

I am simply speechless when I try to utter exactly how this experience affects me and how I try to make sense of it all.

I cannot wait to meet our son. I anticipate with eagerness the day that he will meet his American grandparents and one day his Korean grandparents. I anticipate my American parents and brothers meeting our son and being a part of his life.

And what an unfathomable moment it will be to witness my Omma embracing my son in her own arms...to see my Appa holding our son and gazing into his face--an opportunity my Appa lost with me...and yet somehow, now that we have found one another again, there is hope for absolution.

There is no doubt that this child is loved, deeply.

Although the division that remains between my families pierces me deeply, like a thorn plunged irretrievably into my side, I try to cling to the hope that endures, the hope of what may be possible.

And certainly, I want to be able to rejoice over the tiny yet profound life that will soon emerge--the one who will teach me things that I have never known.