[overflowing]

Okay, we are coming up on our youngest sons Gotha Day. He was 11 weeks old when he came home to us on October 18, 2003. My question is...should we celebrate this special day also? Normally I would say absolutely but we have a biological 7yr. old son (with no Gothca Day and a 3 yr. old daughter that we adopted at birth, brought her home less than 24hours after she was born. October 18th is extemely special to us (the baby is only 1, so he doesn't know the difference) but I don't want to exclude the other two because they don't get an extra special holiday. Make sense? I know there are very special aspects to how God brought our precious babies to us and the kids will always know how God knitted our family together. So, I don't know...I'd like to hear some feed back on how you guys handle this...thanks, stacy

[Leigh131313]

Our finalization is coming up too....and we are totally havin a gotcha day party!!

Would it help if you looked at it as more of a "family" day? Your whole family is celebrating...its a good day for ALL of you, not just the lil guy!! Maybe make it a "we got each other" day? lol

Congrats!!
Leigh

[amom4life]

Originally posted by Leigh131313
Would it help if you looked at it as more of a "family" day? Your whole family is celebrating...its a good day for ALL of you, not just the lil guy!! Maybe make it a "we got each other" day? lol

I like it Leigh!

And it works so well overflowing! All three of your kids have their own special birthdays then October 18th is always a special family celebration that you all have each other. That's my birthday too BTW.
Judy

[MommaD]

Our Gotcha Day was 2 weeks ago. We had family at court, and then after we came back to our house and made Gotcha Day t-shirts for the kids, had pizza and all the kids decorated special GD cupcakes. It was a simple family celebration. We plan to mark GD the same way each year. As a special family day. That's really what GD is, a celebration of a new family Congratulations!!

MommaD

[overflowing]

Thanks for your responses. Our Gotcha Day is different than our finalization day. We finalized on Sept. 14th but our munchkin came home to us on Oct. 18th. Anyways, thanks again.

[jennandsteve]

I love the suggestions. Don't call it gotcha day, just family day!!!

[leenab]

We're having gotcha days as well. It's going to be odd for O because his gotcha day is November 18th, 2003 and his adoption (finalization) day is supposed to be November 20th, 2004. So we'll always celebrate these two days. With Raj the dates are far enough apart to really celebrate: Jan 9th, 2004 gotcha day and September 22nd adoption day so his will be more separate than Os.

We don't have the issue of bios. But I imagine you could also make gotcha day special for them as they were on the receiving end of the gotcha. Maybe make it, finally a big sister/brother day, or even became a middle child day. My dear little sister became a middle child at the age of 7 and suffered from "middle child syndrome" I think if she would have had a special day for her when she lost being the baby of the family it would have been a good thing. I remember she went through years of complaining about being the middle child. She's fine now of course as she's all grown up and a mother. But she didn't take being a middle child very well.

-LeenaB

[jean17]

Our daughter was 3 months when we brought her home in Feb of 2003. Her finaliazation day was in Sept so that is the day we celebrate"Forever Family Day". We just had our 1 year Forever Family Day celebration. We decided to take a picture each year to watch our family grow and change. We also do something fun that day and go to church and light a candle for her Birthparents. We also celebrate life that day. Because our daughters Bmom chose life rather than the alternative. i think it is imporant to celebrate no matter how big or how small.

[mlb]

We celebrate Family day as the day our adoption was final. Initially we referred to it as Gotcha day but decided it is really the day we became a family so we changed it. Every year for the past four years we have done something different; but they have all been spent together.

[christinelynn]

My husband and I were just discussing this the other day. We know it will be a day to remember for life and we want to celebrate it every year. I like the idea of making it a celebration for the family.