23 years, 5 months, 14 days, 19 hours, 57 minutes and 59 seconds ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. He was perfect but he wasn’t exactly mine.

"We both desired an open adoption but what that looked like I don't think either of us knew. We both had hopes but could they be a reality?" - Emily, adoptive mom #BraveLove

Of course, when I think about things for any length of time, I tend to see them in view of adoption. There is no moment in life that I can think of where joy and grief are more present (in an all-out battle, if you will) than during an adoption.

I have always wanted to be a father. Even as a child I would think about what it would be like when, one day, I have a child of my own. I thought of the things I would like to pass down to them, the experiences, the memories I would like to create with them, my faith, my fanboy level love of Superman. The one thing that never crossed my mind was adoption.

"As a child, I would have never dreamed I would adopt, but after several years of marriage it became very apparent that God had built us for just that."

I longed to be a mother, and I had an emptiness that I so desperately wanted to be filled. But I didn’t realize that it was important for me to grieve for the children I could never bear.

"I make the decision every day to fight past the fears. I do it for my boys. Because they deserve to know that they are loved and that they are wanted."

"I have absolutely no negative feelings about my adoption and I never have. "

"We cannot put into words how enormously grateful we are to her, and we hope to be able to do her legacy justice when raising Finlay." #BraveLove

"I figured out that Beth is as capable of loving two different mothers as I am of loving my two different children." #BraveLove