Daxton Jack is officially our son. 🙂 We finalized our adoption on June 16^th, and Dax is officially and legally the man in our lives! It’s hard to believe it went so quickly this time. The laws are different in Indiana, so it was, indeed, faster. In fact, Dax wasn’t yet four months old when we finalized, compared to Darby’s age of six months in Ohio. But we’re not comparing our kids to one another. Haha.

What a ride this journey has been.  Five years of creating up-to-date introduction profiles, writing things we hope will represent us and connect with a prospective birthparent.  Five years of social worker inquiries, interviews, paperwork reviews, and visits.  Five years of living life contingently – saying things like “if we have a baby by then”.  Five years of thin patience and absolutely no control over anything except whether or not we go forward.  And here we are.  

It’s fun to think we’re just a regular ol’ family now.  But the thing is, we kind of always were.  Laura and I, as you know, don’t solely define ourselves as part of the LGBTQ+ community.  We have been fortunate not to experience much discrimination (some, yes) because of who we are and who we love, and we hope Darby and Dax don’t either.  We also know that part of our role as adoptive parents is to keep learning about how to best parent our children, despite the fact that their lives began with loss.  And we accept that our role is to pass on some of that learning, too, in the hope of making our kids’ lives a little easier.  The world keeps changing, sometimes for the better, and sometimes in the most terrifying ways.  But for now, we will teach our children love, kindness, and community – and we sure as shit hope other parents out there are doing the same.

This blog has been pretty vulnerable and transparent, and we have really appreciated all of the heartfelt support and love that you have all shared with us along this wild journey.  And now we think it’s time we wrap it up, and put it on a shelf.  We’re now putting all our energy into showing these kids the magic of a family game night, a Michael Jackson record, Kings Island, malted milk balls, corn hole, nature walks, and the “tickle bug” who makes them squeal.

Darby and Dax, if life goes as it should, we will be around for many years to come.  But if the world has other plans for any of us, we both hope these words will give you a little glimpse into the road we traveled to find you.  We know we are not perfect (far from it!), and there are likely things in this journal of emotions that may strike a feeling in you at some point in your life.  If you read something in here that makes you feel some kind of way (that’s 2020s language for having unpleasant feelings about things), please always know that we did the best we could to walk the road toward you, and we wanted to bring our community with us.  

Please know we always only ever moved forward out of love and a commitment to provide you each with a sibling to hold your hand for the rest of your lives.  Because we’re older parents, it is important to us that you have each other. And we adore our family mornings, watching you both so excited to be together, and the smiles you have for each other. Darby, you rush in as soon as you hear Dax cooing, and flip on the light so that you can touch Dax’s face to wish him good morning. Your gleeful sing-song cadence of “Good morning, Smiley” makes us smile every single day, and so does the parade of toys that you place inside the crib for him to play with. Dax, you always pop up your head and smile at Darby in a way you don’t even smile at us. These mornings on the baby monitor are precious for us to watch, and, we hope, the beginning of a connection that will last forever. You will grow and life will become more complex, but this foundation of love you have is already established.

We hope so many things for you both:

• We hope when you’re older you remember to lean toward one another – no matter what. 
• We hope we do a good job showing you the world, helping you navigate emotions in the complicated circus of today’s world of over-education, politics, and social media.  
• We hope we teach you *how* to think and that we leave space for you to decide *what* to think. 
• We hope you only ever know love and that life provides you both with the opportunities you deserve.  
• We hope you both, at some point, give the cats in the world (and their tails) a break.
• We hope we give you an honest view of your respective birthmothers and how much they love you. We hope you never wonder how they proved their love, in the most impossible way, by giving you what they believed was the best path, to be part of our loving family. And, we hope their decision means neither of you ever face this sort of impossible decision.
• We hope you know how much we love you, and how much we already see what an impact you will have on this world and the people around you.
• We hope one day you realize the crust on a PBJ isn’t all that bad.
• We hope you know that you have the world by the ass.  Go get it.

For all of our friends and family, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for going on this journey with us.  Thank you for the texts, the calls, the visits, the gifts, and most of all for the love.  We are better because of all of you.  And to my sister, thank you for all that you did while we were in Indiana for 12 days.

Many years ago, when Darby was a baby, our dear friend AmySchwinn (one word, because that’s how Darby says it 🙂 ) gave us the advice to create email addresses for our kids. We did, and we actively use them to send pictures and notes about significant dates, events, birthdays, funny things they say and do, and moments we want to share.

As we wrap up this blog, we invite you to send a note to Darby and Dax, because there can never be too much love and support in this world. If you have a relevant story, insight, or you’ve just been moved by something in this blog, or you want to tell them something ridiculous or serious about me or Laura, we invite you to use their email address as well. You could also share how you know us, how you’ve followed along, and what your hopes are for them and their lives, if you wish.

The email addresses are perfectlydarby@gmail.com and perfectlydaxton@gmail.com.  

We would welcome notes from anyone who chooses to do this.  The letters will become part of their adoption books, which will help them celebrate their stories.

We love you all.

The Dougherty Party of Four