Baby Girl's Story Part Two

We focused our child pursuit on adoption. I knew I wanted to request a girl. Jamie and Brother were and are best friends. I know Brother loves me too, and there are things he only wants to do with me (such as play Lego Xbox games), but there is a special connection between him and his daddy that can never be replaced. I wanted that kind of a connection too. I wanted my very own shopping buddy and someone to sit next to me in the little pink butterfly pedicure chair when we are getting our toes done. I also knew I wanted a dark skinned baby. I'm not sure I can explain why on that one, but it was as if a seed was just planted inside my brain and every time I pictured her she had dark skin and curly black hair. We were either going to choose Haiti or Ethiopia. We didn't consider domestic adoption because we were scared. We had heard of too many people and personally known people whose birth mothers changed their minds. I also didn't like the idea of being selected. I felt that anyone who wanted to adopt a baby should have an equal chance as anyone else to get one. I didn't want to feel like I was auditioning for a part or interviewing for a job.

Jamie called the agency we had used for our home study agency with Brother's adoption. (I don't like talking on the phone and I always make Jamie do it. He loves talking to people, can't get enough of it. He truly completes me.) He mentioned to the social worker in passing that we wished Guatemala was still open because we love the country and the people. She told us about an agency in Texas where most of the babies were Hispanic and would have a similar background as Brother. We started to think about domestic after all. 

Some people are very adamant about their kids being of the same race so they can relate to each other. We don't really care one way or the other. Within our family we are all different and we embrace that. We can relate to each other through our differences. When we look at our children we see their skin color as another identifier that makes them special like eye color or hair color. The more we thought about domestic adoption the more we got excited about it. The thought of holding a newborn baby was something I had let go of years ago. So even with all the risks involved I found myself wanting to try it. I still wanted my dark skinned baby girl though. We found an agency in Florida that had an African American newborn adoption program. We were going to choose them, but first we had to complete our home study.

Christmas came in the middle of gathering our home study documents and with it came a Christmas miracle. I was very unexpectedly pregnant. So our adoption plans were put on hold for a while. The pregnancy lasted seven weeks before I had a miscarriage. Needless to say, that took us a while to recover from. I think it's natural for women to blame themselves - I took an Advil before I found out or I had too much coffee or wine or _____ (fill in the blank). When it happens you almost need to have a reason to hold on to, even if you pretend it is your fault, because it feels good to point to something and then just not do that the next time and you'll be just fine. It's not that simple though. It's hard to get pregnant.

If you just read that and thought, "It was easy for me," please be sensitive and keep that to yourself. You never know when you're in the presence of someone who has experienced the loss of a miscarriage. It happens to more people than you think. And if it was easy for you, know how lucky you are. You have won the fertility lottery, so enjoy your prizes without rubbing them in the faces of the ones who have bought three tickets a day for years with no results.

Even though it feels good to be able to blame something for a miscarriage--even yourself--it's no one's fault. Something about it wasn't viable. It wouldn't have happened no matter what you did or didn't do. People who really meant well have said that things happen for a reason. I have probably said it myself before I experienced the loss. I don't believe that God caused me to have a miscarriage so that I could comfort friends who go through it too. I do think that God placed some special people in my life who he knew would experience the same loss around the same time in our lives so that we could be a support system for each other though. And I am grateful for a support system of women who understand because they've been there.