Is This Your Baby?

Our second son, Micah, is our catch-up boy.

While he was still in the hospital after he was born, the doctors and nurses tried to skip newborn care with us. After all, we have a five-year-old son named Isaiah. The refrain we kept hearing was, "But you know about this already."

And we kept saying, "No, treat us like first time parents because we really are."

Their confusion was easy to understand. When Isaiah was placed with us, he was already four months old. We missed those months with him and so we had no idea what to expect with Micah. The doctors and nurses, while a bit surprised, took it in stride and went over it all, step by step.

While a lot of what we knew from Isaiah's first days with us translated very well, there are still areas where Micah is our catch-up boy. Part of that is dealing with our suddenly "conspicuous family."

In some ways, we should have experienced this already. Isaiah has a very diverse ethnic heritage. He is Korean, Caucasian, African American, and Japanese. And yet many people have commented that Isaiah bears a strong resemblance to me. We're not sure how that happened, exactly, but when our family went out, no one gave us a second look.

Now, though, we're playing catch up with Micah. Micah's birthparents are African immigrants. The first time Jill, my wife, took him out grocery shopping, a little old lady saw the car seat on the cart and went around to see the baby. Jill says that when the woman saw Micah, she froze, her eyes went wide, and she (very rudely) asked Jill, "Is this your baby?"

Jill's response was probably the best: "Yes, he is. And we love him very much."

Me, I would have gone with: "No, he's not. Shhhhh! Don't tell anyone." I'm sure the cops would have found it hilarious, too.

We're probably going to have more experiences like that one in the future, but we're okay with that, because what Jill said is true. Micah is our son and we love him very much. More than that, we know that Micah is God's child and He loves him very much, too.

In some ways, our family has become a microcosm of God's family of faith, the Church. God also has a "conspicuous family!" As St. Paul wrote, "In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ." (Galatians 3:26-28, ESV)

So we've learned our lesson: when people ask us if Micah is ours, we'll always respond with a positive and joyful, "Yes!" just as God says "Yes!" to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. May He bless all our families with His rich grace.

Otte family photo by Sydnee Bickett