When he was three days old his mother said goodbye to him, gave him to a family she had worked for in Mexico City, and never saw him again. Five days later my wife Harriet and I flew to Mexico to adopt him and bring him with us to the United States. 


In his mind, Andrew tells us, he has always been our child and we his parents, but sometimes, when I try to imagine those first eight days in which he lost a mother and floated on a stream of strangers, I feel an urge to comfort him and the woman who gave birth to him. I wonder, too, if part of the ache I feel is for myself, for the moments in my own life when I felt abandoned and unable to speak. 


When Andrew was still a toddler, I told the story of how we became a family. It's called "Here in My Arms." 


This is part one of Andrew's story.


Read the transcript