It will be very hard to put into a few words what Nathaniel's eighteen day stay at Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital meant to our family. The hospital specializes in moving medically complex children from acute care hospitalizations to home - a bridge.

I had known since 8:30 that they were coming at 11 o'clock, but when they walked in the door dressed in blue and pushing an ambulance gurney, I stated to sob uncontrollably.

We had been at the hospital for forty-eight hours when a nurse stopped me in the hall. "Kim," he said, "Can I talk to you?" I was returning from the vending machine having taken a moment away from the crib side. One of my first moments away.

I immediately assumed the worse. "No, the baby is fine," he said. "I'm the charge nurse on the floor tonight and I wanted to share an idea with you."

This weekend marks five years that Rich's father has lived with us. We considered waiting to adopt until our season of assisting Grandpa was over. Caring for an aging parent in your home is a unique challenge that only those in the trenches can fully understand. Accepting additional responsibility through adoption seemed... let's be honest... risky? Or extreme? Or radical? At the very least - hard. One of my struggles while taking the foster and adoption classes was the long mental list of the sacrifices I've already made for the sake of elderly care. "Surely God, you don't expect me to take in a child when I'm already giving so much?"

The ambulance man in the white shirt asked me to promise one thing as we entered the emergency room garage - that I not take the baby home again until the nursing agency found a new night nurse. I promised. Then back doors opened and hospital fluorescent flooded what had become a calm space.