photo courteousy of phil de haan Dir. of Media Relations Phil de Haan holds his son, Lee.

I’m taking some time off this week, getting to know my new son. He joined our family on Nov. 7, 2000 (a very tumultuous election day that we’ll tell him about someday!).

Our new son is five months old, weighs 20 pounds and is some 27 inches long. He has a round face, set with dark, almond-shaped eyes and topped by the beginnings of what will likely be a straight, shock of beautiful black hair. His fingers are short and chubby, but he’s got a grip like a junior Jim VandenBosch. His top lip disappears when he smiles, but a dimple pops into place so it’s more or less an even exchange. Yet all of that describes simply what one can see.

For what one cannot see is, to me, just as extraordinary. Not visible is the amazing process that brought Lee (the name was his Korean surname) to our lives. It’s the same process that brought our daughter Gina, now 4 1/2 years old, into my life. The technical term is “an adoption plan.” I prefer miracle. Let me tell you why.

On November 2, 2000 my wife and I journeyed to Seoul, Korea, the most populous city in South Korea with a population of some 12 million people.

Tucked into that sprawling metropolis was a small boy whose birth mother had decided while pregnant that she could not best take care of him.

She made an adoption plan for him and upon his birth, on June 3, 2000, her son was brought to a foster family in Seoul to be cared for.

In late summer that boy became connected to my family via what is called “a referral.” For adoptive parents it’s perhaps akin to getting pregnant. We received pictures of our son and some basic biographical information on him. We began to dream of his eventual presence in our lives, just as pregnant women and their husbands dream of the day when their child will be part of their lives.

In late October we got the call that all adoptive parents wait for. Our son was ready to be picked up. Soon after we made the 26-hour journey from Grand Rapids to Seoul. My wife and I joked that it was like a long delivery except that we flew business class on the way to Seoul and not too many hospital delivery rooms include good food and drink, complimentary slippers, a variety of movies, hot towels for the face and other amenities.

Nonetheless, at the end of the 26-hour adventure we landed in Seoul. And on Nov. 7 we were given our son, just as four years earlier we had been presented our daughter. Lee, like Gina, had been with a foster family since birth. And his foster mother clearly loved and cherished him. This, of course, is good. For lots of love is the best way for any kid to begin life. But it makes for an emotional parting. And on Nov. 7 we experienced the same emotions we experienced four years prior with Gina.

We gathered at Holt, the agency with whom we worked in Korea, and Lee’s foster mother met us at the appointed hour. And, of course, she could not bear to part with him.

So, tears streaming down her face she reluctantly handed him to a Holt worker who presented Lee to us. And we entered the waiting cab for the 20-minute ride to the airport feeling all the while like both parents and thieves, crying tears that were a mix of pain and pleasure, while, behind us the tears were delivered solely from a wellspring of hurt.

In that moment it is all you can do to keep going forward, for the impulse is to turn around. But you know, too, that this child is at that moment, and from that moment forward, your son. The biology is not important, for where the genes fall short the heart bridges the gap. The months and years of dreaming of this day have created an overwhelming urge and instinct to cherish and protect. And you rock this child, who looks at you with tender eyes, and you say simply: “I love you.”

And that, to me, is a miracle.