Motherly Sacrifice

On Mother's Day I remember two incredible mothers in my life. They are the women who made me a mother. They both love their children so much they were able to make a sacrifice most people will never be able to fathom. Similar to the way most people find it hard to understand why God sacrificed his own son on the cross. Sometimes love hurts. I have learned that in becoming a parent. I love my children so fiercely that sometimes I ache with the feeling. The love in my heart won't pour onto them fast enough to relieve the ache. I know for a fact that Maddox's and Mia's birth mothers feel that same kind of painful love every day. I am forever bonded to these special women, our hearts sewn together through the intense motherly love of the same son and daughter. 

On Mother's Day my heart aches for those who gave me the gift only God himself can give: the gift of life. Thank you to birth mothers everywhere for your sacrifice. It is through your pain and heartache that families are created. 

Prescription for Sleep

It was no secret that Brother slept in our room until he turned six. In fact, it was often a subject we openly complained about. When we first brought him home at eight months old, we were overly cautious about everything. One of the many things we were afraid of was the effects of him not forming a solid attachment to us. Of course he was attached to us right away, more to Jamie than to me. Not to say anything about my mothering. It's just that Jamie is an amazing father. He can't help it. He's a baby magnet. He draws them in. My strategy to form a solid attachment with my baby included rocking him. I don't regret it, even now. It did lead to him sleeping in our room for five years though.

When he was around three we convinced him that it would be way cooler to sleep in a Disney Cars themed bed tent than on a mattress next to our bed. He made it all the way through the night for three nights in a row. Then a storm came. The power transformer carrying power to our house that attached to our house right outside of Brother's window blew up in the middle of the night. Three things happened at once: a blinding blue flash, a loud boom, and the drum roll of a screaming toddler's feet zipping across the hallway to our bedroom. He was traumatized. He is seven now and still talks about "the scary night."

We left it alone and let him sleep on a mattress on our floor indefinitely. When we started talking about bringing Baby into our family though, we had to make some hard choices and sleeping arrangements was one of those hard choices. We managed to get Brother into his own bed, and even got Baby into her own crib. We still had to rock Baby to sleep and lay down with Brother until he fell asleep, but we were very proud of our accomplishments. In fact, I wrote a blog post about it. I thought that was as good as it could get. It was still stressful when one parent had to put two kids to bed at the same time, but that only happened once a week.

I stand corrected. It got better. At Baby's fifteen month checkup our pediatrician asked if she was going to sleep by herself. My answer was a proud, "Yes, she sleeps all night in her crib." Then as I was saying it I remembered the week before when she woke up six times in one night. I added, "Well, most nights."

Our pediatrician is perceptive and noticed that I didn't answer the question. He said, "So you lay her down awake and she goes to sleep by herself?"

I laughed, then caught myself when I realized he was serious. I didn't know that was possible. I'd heard parents say that's how they did it, but I still didn't believe it. I told him we'd have to start doing that with Brother first. His eyes widened. He's usually very laissez faire when it comes to parenting. He teaches us to handle things on our own and rarely gives orders when he isn't asked. So when he pushed the sleep issue we listened. He nicely asked me when I was going to stop being selfish and let her be independent. I hadn't thought of it that way. He said it wouldn't cause permanent emotional effects from letting her cry. I knew that was true…for her. I laughed when I told him the lasting emotional damage would be mine and not hers. He says in many couples one parent can't handle crying when the other can. Jamie had to look all manly in front of the Dr. and made it clear that he didn't mind the crying when he knows she's safe in the crib. So our Dr. gave us a prescription for sleep.

Step #1 Establish a bedtime routine. It should last for 20-30 minutes. Something predictable to start signaling to Baby that we are getting ready to go to bed. For our bedtime routine we give her a bath, give her a baby massage while putting on her coconut oil and creamy lotion, then we go around the house and tell everyone goodnight, then we rock her for a few minutes.

Step #2 for me, leave the house. Dr.'s orders. :) He said since I can't take the crying I should leave, go for a walk, or just get away. I decided on a hot bath with both bathroom fans on so I couldn't hear a thing.

Step #2 for Jamie, lay her down and walk away. While Jamie was rocking her for a few minutes he talked quietly telling her it's time for night night, and telling her he loves her. Then he laid her down and walked out of the room. Of course she cried right away.

Step #3 Set a timer for 10 minutes. If she was still crying when the timer goes off, he would go into her room and pick her up and soothe her for 30 seconds or less. Then he leaves again.

Step #4 Repeat Step #3 as needed. Our Dr. said on average the first night takes 45 minutes. and by the fourth night you'll not hear much crying at all. Our results were similar. The first night for us took 35 minutes and on the fifth night she didn't cry at all.

Her preferred sleeping position is on her face, butt in the air.

The first night we started working on this with Baby, we had a talk with Brother. We told him Baby is being brave and learning to go to bed by herself. He giggled in that "ha ha my sibling is in trouble" way. Then we told him he needed to be a good example for her and be brave and go to sleep on his own too. his laughter quickly turned into a quivering bottom lip. We tucked him in, turned on his nightlight, and reminded him that we would be right outside the door if he got scared. We didn't hear anything from him for the rest of the night.

He looks so sweet when he's sleeping.

I have free time at night again! And this is all thanks to my wonderful husband. He completes me. When I'm not strong enough be the tough parent I need to be, he takes over and gets the job done. Our whole family is now well rested and happy.

Thank you Jamie!!

Baby Girl's Story Part 4 of 4

Our marriage has an amazing quality: it bounces. Jamie and I are separately very happy-go-lucky, generally laid back people (him more so than me) and together those qualities are multiplied. We have faced many different types of adversity in the time we’ve been together and we always come out the other side intact and stronger than before. So although the failed adoption kicked our feet out from under us, we knew we would keep going. We knew there was a baby out there for us, and we knew that no matter when we moved forward on it she would find her way to us. So we decided to be still, and work on healing.

A few months later we got another call from our Tennessee agency. There was another birth mother and father coming in to look at profiles. They were pregnant with an African American girl, and they chose to meet with us and one other family. That time Jamie and I were a little jaded to the process. We were still hurt from the previous attempt. We were very calm going into the meeting. We had already discussed that we wouldn’t worry so much about winning them over. We would just be ourselves and give a true representation of who we are and what life would be like with us as parents. We met them in lobby on the way in and by the time we were sitting down with them we were all laughing and enjoying each other’s company. We all told stories about our families and found a lot of similarities in the way we grew up. Especially with our birth mother and Jamie. They both grew up eating the same things in the country.

It’s kind of like finding love. Before you’ve experienced it, you don’t know what it is and may think you’ve found it when it’s not even close. Then when you find real love it smacks you in the face, and you say, “Oh.” Some people find love without having to try too hard. I had to have my heart broken a few times before I figured it out. And the same is true of my adoption experience I had to have my heart broken before I could really understand what it felt like to meet the real mother of my baby. The only thing I was worried about was showing her just how much I loved her, even though we’d just met, and scaring her off. I did (and do) love her though. I knew she was going to change my life and give me something I could never have on my own.

They loved us back. I’m not sure when they actually decided that they were choosing us, but after talking with them for an hour or so they told us. And to seal the deal she handed me ultrasound pictures of a tiny baby. Jamie and I were in shock from that moment until we were halfway home. We kept looking at each other and asking, “Did that really happen?” and, “Could it be that simple? It just felt too…right.”

We felt a lot more secure in their decision than we had in the previous possibility, but we chose not to make the information public yet. We liked keeping it between us and the key people in our lives (family, close friends, and work – to prepare for time off). We got to spend some more time with the birth parents and got to know them more. The more time we spent with them, the more we liked them. She was even going to let me be in the room with her when she gave birth. I had never dreamed that I would be able to be in a hospital room when my baby was born. Even though it wouldn’t be me in the bed, I was thrilled.

We debated on what to name her. The first time around we had chosen Mia, and the birth mother chose the middle name of Olivia. It hurt to think of naming another baby Mia. It felt like I was just swapping out babies like we had swapped out Brother’s beta fish: Optimus Prime, Optimus Prime #2, Optimus Prime #3… At the same time, Mia was my name that I chose for my baby.

We asked Brother what he wanted to name the baby and he said, “Mia.”

We said, “No, that was the other baby’s name. We need to pick out a new name.”

He shook his head incredulously. “My sister’s name is Mia.”

It’s hard to argue with the logic of a five year old. Her name would be Mia. (Mee-yah)

Somehow in the middle of all of this, we decided to build a new house. Our old house – that we loved – was just that, old. We had taken on the project of remodeling it, along with my dad. We were making progress on it, but we realized that it would never end. We would always have to spend all our money on keeping it up and we would always have to spend all of our time working on it. With a new baby coming, we wanted to free up our schedule a bit so we would be able to enjoy the family we’d worked so hard to build. So we put our house on the market and started building a new house.

We didn’t have much trouble selling our house, we had a contract on it in less than a week. We were hesitant to count our chicken that wasn’t fully hatched though. Our history with buying and selling houses has more bumps than our history of trying to add children to our family. We’d had contracts on other houses before that never panned out. We’d started building two houses that we never got to move into. We knew better than to count on it. After the contract came the inspections and then more inspections. It was an old house and the buyers wanted to be thorough. We finally had a closing date. We signed our papers, but our buyers had a death in the family and couldn’t do their part. They had to mail the signing packet to them so they could sign. There was a lot of confusion and we didn’t know if or when our house would actually close. This wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but we needed the money from the house to finish paying for baby’s adoption.

We hadn’t planned on making the ten hour drive to North Carolina for Christmas that year. The baby was due the second week of January, and I had a feeling she would come early. (Maybe I just really wanted to hold her as soon as possible.) The week before Christmas Jamie’s grandfather died. There wasn’t a question on whether we would go to the funeral; we would. The question was to drive ten hours or fly for less than two. We decided to fly so we could get there and back quicker in case we needed to rush home for the baby.

The funeral was on a Friday. It was good, if funerals can be good. There was closure happening and family coming together. There was sadness, but there was peace in it. Afterwards the entire family went back to Jamie’s grandfather’s house to eat. We were all spending time together, visiting with cousins and nieces and nephews, some I had never met. We started sharing the story of our Christmas miracle that was waiting for us at home. Everyone was so excited for the possibility of a new baby in the family. Jamie’s sister and I had gone out earlier that day and jokingly said that once we got to the point where we couldn’t get an earlier flight out, our birth mother would go into labor. 

A wise person once told me that the Lord doesn’t always work quickly but he always works suddenly. Our flight was to leave Saturday at 6:00 p.m. Friday night right after the only flight earlier than ours, Jamie got a call. Our house had finally closed and our money would be in our account on Monday. During that call, someone called through. It was the adoption agency saying our birth mother was in labor.

We were trying to think of how to get home. We’d flown so we didn’t even have our car to drive. We thought about renting a car or borrowing one. Papa jumped in and just said, “Let’s go. Road trip.” So at 10:00 p.m. Me, Jamie, Brother, Papa, and Mimi all piled into Papa’s car. We all took turns driving and Maddox slept flopping his head from shoulder to shoulder depending on who was next to him in the back seat. There was snow in the mountains so we decided to take the south loop through Atlanta. We couldn’t chance getting stuck in a blizzard; there were babies to be held. Well, one baby for me to hold anyway. While we were passing through Augusta, Georgia, at around 1:45 a.m. my phone rang. It was the birth father. Our baby had arrived. He let me hear her cry into the phone. She was minutes old.

We finally made it to the hospital around 7:00 a.m. and went straight to the nursery. We saw her through the glass. She was tiny. They had her bundled up tight and in a couple of blankets so it was hard to tell just how tiny she was. We just saw a little round head covered in straight black hair and a tiny red bow on top. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her. When I unwrapped her I saw just how tiny she was. 4 lbs 6 ounces, 17.25 inches long. No one could understand from the pictures just how tiny she was, so we took this picture for comparison.

We all fell in love with her immediately. She was my Christmas miracle. We even brought her home on Christmas Eve. 

I wrote in an earlier post that an adoptive parent should protect their children's stories because it's their stories to share. It's more than that though. It's a story shared by the child and their birth parents. The details represent the special bond between baby and her birth mother and father, and that is something that is precious and not to be disturbed. I love my children's birth parents for the brave decisions they made and for the heartache they endured (and maybe still endure) so that I can have a family. It is the greatest sacrifice anyone has ever made for me or for my children and it's a beautiful thing. Out of their great pain, I was given life and love.I can't wait for my children to grow to an age where they can understand how beautiful and love-filled the process is so that I can share this with them.

Baby Girl's Story Part Three of Four

I know this content is sad. It's sad for me to write it. So I'm adding a cute baby picture to remind you that this story does have a happy ending. Bear with me. 

The miscarriage only whetted our baby appetite. Once we worked through the pain, I was ready to do whatever I had to do to be able to hold my baby girl, wherever she was. We worked hard and finished up the last few items we needed for our home study to be complete. I had just finished my photo book that the agency in Florida required when our social worker from our home study agency in TN contacted us.

Side note: in case you're wondering, you have to have an agency within your state complete your home study. The agency you choose as your placing agency can be anywhere. 

The social worker said that they had a birth mother coming in that day to look at profiles. She wanted to know if we wanted her to show ours. Our answer was, "Heck yeah! Do you even have to ask?" Every agency has different requirements as to what you put together for the birth mother to look over. The TN agency wanted a letter with pictures. I had done the hard part - written out all that I wanted to say - in my photo book for the FL agency. So I put it together in a letter format and sent it in. Jamie and I were both at work and couldn't get to our pictures, so our social worker was able to pull some pictures off of our Facebook pages to add to my letter, and voila a complete profile was created in about ten minutes. 

After reviewing all the family profiles, the birth mother wanted to meet with us and a few more families. When we met with her it was a little awkward at first. I have a hard time opening up to people I don't know, especially if I'm uncomfortable. It was also our first meeting with a birth mother. There were so many emotions going through my head. I couldn't even get to my emotions because I was analyzing what must have been going through her mind. You think you know what a birth mother is like. There is definitely a stereotype - young, confused, giving up her baby because she is still in school, etc. The birth mother we met with was not so young that keeping a baby would have changed her life. If you think that birth mothers are giving their children away and so they must not be too attached, you're wrong. That's not true at all. I could see how much pain she was in just meeting with families who might raise the child she was carrying. All of that made me feel very uncomfortable. For the first time I felt like I was the bad guy for taking her baby away. With brother's adoption we were completely removed form the birth mother and all the emotions that ensued. Seeing firsthand the pain a birth mother goes through sobers you up. 

After meeting with her I didn't really feel like she got to see the real me, so we asked if she would meet with us again. That time was much better. We both shared and opened up more. That night I got a call saying she chose us. I sat at the top of our staircase and cried tears of joy. All the pain, all the waiting was part of the plan. I would hold my baby in only a few more months. 

We then started scrambling to finish up our nursery and get baby ready. We had two baby showers where we received way more than we would ever need. People were so generous with us. We met with our birth mother a few more times and got to go with her to some of her doctor's appointments. 

The more we got to know her it seemed we might be getting to know each other too well. With any relationship if you get to know enough about someone you're bound to find something you don't like or agree with. If you choose to be their friend anyway, you accept those things. If you don't accept them, you drift apart and remain acquaintances only. We were approaching that point with the birth mother, and it seemed the feeling was mutual. It wasn't unpleasant or cause for alarm, we just slowly stopped the sharing in fear of over sharing. In addition to toeing the friendship line, she began to make comments that seemed strange to me and there was a general vibe from her that left me confused. The Friday night before our third shower we were going to meet her for dinner. She called to say she was having stomach pains and was going to the hospital. It turned out to be Braxton Hicks contractions, but it was enough to wake her up to the whole situation. The social worker called. She just wanted us to be aware that the birth mother was having second thoughts. She hadn't decided anything for sure, she said. 

Jamie and I talked about it and decided the best thing to do was to go ahead with the shower. We didn't know what would happen after all, and we didn't want to needlessly upset all the people who were so happy for us that they bought gifts for the baby, who may or may not be ours. It was hard to open the beautiful and thoughtful presents and wonder if I would ever get to use them, and wonder if I should give them back. I tried to keep telling myself she hadn't decided yet. There was still a chance. 

Monday morning I went to work like normal. About an hour after I'd arrived I looked up and saw Jamie at the door. I knew then that she had decided, and that she was keeping her baby. He didn't have to say a word. Jamie had the forethought to text my boss and go ahead and let her know that I would probably be taking the rest of the day off. And I did. And also the next day. 

The initial reaction was shock, then came the pain, more than I anticipated, more than with the miscarriage. Even though I had never held that baby, she was mine, for a few months anyway. I had to mourn the loss so that I could move on. 

Looking back I can now see that it was the right thing to happen. That birth mother wasn't ready to let go. She wanted to raise her baby and she was able to. She just didn't know how she could make it work. I am not interested in taking a baby that isn't available for the taking. Adoption is not about taking someone's baby away. It's about love and taking in a baby who needs a home. Her baby didn't need a home. 

The only thing I regret is letting Brother get so close to her. We weren't going to at first, but we talked to her about it and she wanted a relationship with him. He asked where she was for months after her baby was born. Try explaining that to a five year old. He is already confused as to where babies come from. His only experiences with birth are meeting with pregnant women where we tell him that his baby sister might be in her belly. Poor kid. The birds and bees talk is going to be a total shock to him.

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. 

Baby Girl's Story Part One

I started thinking this week about sharing the story about how Baby came into our family, and where the story begins. It's not as simple as God sent an angel in the form of a birth mother to my doorstep and handed me a baby. When it comes to babies, life is never that simple. While Baby's story ends joyously, it was a long and arduous journey to get there, and there were many on and off ramps that I think are worth mentioning. This story could be long, so this will be the first part of how we came to the decision that we wanted another child in our family.

In some ways this story began when Jamie and I got married. We had always talked about kids. Even before we were married. I wanted him to know up front that I would have a hard time getting pregnant. He said he had thought about it before and he'd always known that he would be ok with kids that weren't his biologically. Just because we couldn't have biological kids didn't mean we couldn't have kids. There are other ways. (Isn't it amazing when God speaks directly to you through your spouse?) Kids were always part of our plans. I wanted three. Jamie didn't care how many, or maybe he just didn't want to put anymore pressure on me to get pregnant. I was putting enough on myself as it was.

With Brother's adoption process there was a lot of legal turmoil going on. Guatemala was in the process of trying to shut down their international adoptions. We brought him home in September and they closed officially in November. We made it out by our teeth skin. I knew I would get him out. I would have stopped at nothing short of becoming a Guatemalan citizen myself if that's what it took. So I wasn't worried that I wouldn't get my baby, it was a very stressful time though. It was such an intense emotional roller coaster that when we finally did make it home with our new baby boy, we were both emotionally wiped out. Any energy or emotion we had left we poured directly onto our baby. We cherished him, we savored him, we smothered him with love, and we spoiled him. Good thing he's kindhearted because he's a good kid despite our lack of parenting skills in the beginning.

The transition from non-parent to parent was hard for us. It took a while for us to find our balance. Jamie tended to err on the side of leniency and I tended to err on the side of strictness. We would both lean into our methods of erring to try to counteract the other, which kept the vicious cycle going. Once we figured out what we were doing to each other, we met in the middle, and life started to get easier. For instance, I didn't want my child to eat processed foods. Yes, George, I'm referring to the hot dog incident. Stop laughing at me. It was a noble fight. Jamie would try to even things out for Brother by letting him eat more candy than he should have. I gave in a little and started introducing some processed foods into Brother's diet. So I felt he was eating healthy, but Jamie didn't feel like he was being deprived. Parenting is a complicated dance. With all the emotions and learning going on we couldn't think about going through the adoption process all over again for a while. It took until Brother was four for us to decide we were ready.

Once we decided, we tried the biological route again. I love adoption and wish everyone wanted to experience it as much as I do, but I still wanted to experience pregnancy and birth too. Through adoption I got to feel God's love for us, and I wanted to feel a part of God's creation process through pregnancy. As I said before, I wanted three. I loved the idea of having the middle child be the biological child. That way people would see that I chose adoption, and not just because I couldn't have biological children. So while we knew we would adopt again someday, we wanted to try for the second the old fashioned way.

When we had tried before (before Brother) we went in completely blind. We had never given it a go on our own before we walked into the fertility clinic. This time I wanted to know what I was doing. I read books and did research. I tracked my temperature everyday and analyzed it. In my research I came across the subject of acupuncture for treatment. It seemed more natural than what I'd been through before, it was cheaper, and the success rate was way better than any fertility treatment, even in vitro. So I tried it for several months. I enjoyed it for stress relief, but when I wasn't seeing any results, I decided to take some time off to regroup. Brother was almost five and I didn't think I wanted my children that far apart. (turns out six years apart is the magic number, but more on that later.) That was when we moved full force into adoption mode.

To be continued...

What Not to Say to An Adoptive Mother

When it comes to adoption people really don't know what to say. Anything out of the norm throws people off their game. And when they're off their game, crazy things come out of their mouths. I believe that most people mean well. Many of them want to show that they're in favor of adoption and are merely trying to express it. And a large portion of people are just plain nosy. And though Jamie and I have been on the receiving end of some interesting comments, we take it all in stride. We understand that people don't mean what they say sometimes.

The number one topic people always ask about when it comes to adoption leads me to taboo #1: Don't ask about personal details of the birth mother's choice to place her child for adoption.

"Why not?" you may ask.

"Because it's none of your darn business," I answer.

The best rule of thumb is to not ask anything that you wouldn't ask in an equivalent question to a pregnant woman. You know not to ask a pregnant woman details of her conception, such as what day she ovulated on, how many times a day did she and the father have sex, even the relationship between mother and father can be an off limit topic. So don't ask if I'm adopting because I couldn't "have a baby of my own" or if I'm "scared of childbirth." One well meaning person even told me he hoped I wasn't too attached because it might not work out. You wouldn't tell a pregnant woman not to get attached to her baby because she might have a miscarriage, so don't tell me that my adoption might fail. I have had a miscarriage and a failed adoption (both in the last year). They felt a lot alike, and neither is something a mother should be burdened with when planning and decorating a nursery and making room for a new person in her family.

This rule of thumb extends to the birth mothers and birth fathers as well. There are many reasons that a woman chooses adoption. They are all good reasons. There is never a reason that could be considered bad or not from loving her child so much her heart breaks. If she chooses adoption, it's the best decision for her and the baby, and that's all you need to know. It's not an easy or careless decision, and it's certainly not a decision that can be explained in a few simple words to a stranger. Also, the story is my child's story, not mine. It's not mine to share even if I wanted to. And when my children grow up and are ready to share their story, don't ask them. You don't go up to random people and ask them to share details of their birth and upbringing, don't ask that of adopted children either.

When we only had big brother we didn't get as many comments. He is from Guatemala and he is Ladino (not a misspelling most Guatemalan people are either of Mayan decent or Ladino). Even though I am caucasian people are confused with the two of us. They sense something is different, but don't know what it is exactly, so they assume he is my biological child. I toted him around on my hip everywhere I went. Several people asked me if I had a lot of heartburn. At first I didn't know that you supposedly have more heartburn during a pregnancy when the baby has a lot of hair. So until I figured out why they were asking I just looked back at them confused and said no, I feel pretty good right now. Once I did figure it out, I amended my answer to "Yes, I did have a lot of heartburn. All the paperwork and waiting was very stressful."

While in the process with big brother, at least two people asked us if he would speak Spanish. Um...no. I don't know many 8 month old babies who speak at all. That would be cool though.

She was so tiny when she was born I had to give people a little perspective of just how tiny she was, thus the universal point of reference, the Vitamin Water bottle.

With baby girl the fact that she is adopted is a little more obvious. She is African American with beautiful dark chocolate skin. At least I think this is obvious. I have actually had two people tell me with seriousness on their faces that I look good to have just had a baby. And no they didn't mean you look like you've slept a little. They actually thought I gave birth to her. Those comments are my husband's favorites.

Some other contenders include when we were at our favorite Nashville burger place and our friend the cashier asked if we were babysitting, and then the cashier at a home decor place we frequent saw baby girl and exclaimed, "You bought you a baby."

Just to reiterate, We were not offended by these comments, we understand that unless you are educated on what you should say and what you should probably keep to yourself, you don't know. So we are very understanding, like most adoptive parents are. If I sense that the comment was from a good place I will laugh inside and try not to embarrass the speaker too much. And if I feel it's time to give a little education, I don't mind putting people in their place. My job as an adoptive mother is to protect my children and their stories, and also to protect their birth mothers and birth fathers and give them the respect and love they deserve. It's a tall order, and one I accept with aplomb.

New Arrivals Day

This past Sunday was New Arrivals Day at our church. Because our new baby girl snuck in at the tail end of 2012, we got to present her to and celebrate her with our church family. We were asked to speak about our story of becoming parents, but I was too busy to even think of putting something together to say. I had forgotten about the following that I wrote a while back. It means a lot to me, so I would like share it. This was written before my newest arrival came into my life. I promise to write about her journey into our family too. Her story is as beautiful and as special as her big brother's.

The Choice of Adoption

I remember when my sister told me she and her husband were trying to get pregnant.  My response was one word: why?  I’m not sure which was more of a driver behind my question, that my formerly party-crazed sister wanted to be a mother or that people could choose to have a baby.  I thought babies happened accidentally for the most part.  I’d never thought about someone planning to have one.  My sister was three and a half years older than me. Most of my friends were still in the stage where you pray that you aren’t pregnant and not the reverse.  On top of that my sister and I, both, have health problems that complicate the whole fertility process.  I found out when I was eighteen.  A nurse practitioner ordered an ultrasound, handed me a pamphlet, and sent me on my way.  I didn’t even know what it meant until I shared the pamphlet with my mother.  She cried, mourning the loss of future grandchildren that I may not have had anyway.  My mom’s tears affected me, and I did feel bad, like I’d lost something that I never even thought about pursuing, but I was eighteen.  Not having children didn’t mean much to me at that point. I never fully accepted that pregnancy was even an option.

My sister shared her fertility pursuit with me.  I was curious to learn how much people would go through just to have a baby.  I watched her cry over failed pregnancy test after failed pregnancy test and the strain it put on her marriage. And still, when I reached that same decision point in my life, after scoffing at my sister’s choice a few years earlier, I walked straight into the door of hope, believing that I, too, could get pregnant.  My sister was older and I knew that meant that she would have the first grandchild.  I really struggled with the decision to start the process.  I saw how much pain she had been through in her quest to become a mother, and I didn’t want to add to it by getting pregnant before she did.  At the same time, I didn’t want to miss my chance.  The odds were stacked against me; I at least needed youth on my side. 

Looking back, I don’t know why my husband and I didn’t consider all of our options to begin with.  We, like all other people seemed to, assumed pregnancy was the first route everyone had to choose if you wanted to be parents.  We lined up like cattle along with all the other couples being prodded through the fertility clinic gate.  We went along with the whole regimen.  We did as we were told; I took the pills I was supposed to take.  We had scheduled intercourse according to the doctors’ schedules and not ours, it was no longer making love or even sex, it was a mandated mission.  They made appointments and I showed up, sometimes not even knowing what was on the agenda for the day.  The first time there was a real chance of pregnancy, I found myself believing.  I let go of all my inhibitions and all the voices telling me it was impossible, and I believed.  I enjoyed a few weeks of bliss, a few weeks of still having a chance.  I hadn’t read the negative test yet; I could still pretend it was happening.  I even told my husband to just let me enjoy pretending that it worked because I knew it might be the closest I’d come to getting pregnant. And when I did read the negative test, I fell hard.  I was devastated.  I felt like a fool for believing. I couldn’t go through it again.  I had two more appointments scheduled at that time, but I didn’t show up.  I didn’t even call to cancel. 

I pushed the longing to be a mother just outside my reach and tried to move on with my life.  My husband and I had spoken the word adoption before.  With all the fertility issues, it was bound to come up.  We had always said it was a beautiful thing and that if the biological route didn’t work out we’d consider it.  I was just talking, though.  It was just something you say, something to take the pressure off.  I never even thought it through; at the time I still believed I would get pregnant.  Sometime during my motherhood hiatus, God started to work on me.  Maybe he started before that even, but he kicked it into high gear during that time, while he was rebuilding my heart.  During that time my sister started working at an adoption agency.  She told me beautiful stories of families uniting.  She told me about the process, the good and the bad.  I found it all interesting, but I hadn’t thought about it for me yet.  I think some part of me was still waiting for her to go first. 

This was also the time period when Angelina Jolie was about to adopt her second child.  She has been criticized by the media and has been the butt of many jokes.  I don’t know her.  I don’t know how she is in real life, but she served a purpose in mine.  I saw pictures of her with her tan-skinned baby boy clinging to her neck.  She was his mother and he was her son.  I could see, from a picture of someone I had never met, that your mother is not only the woman who gave birth to you.  Genes don’t matter.  Children know who their mommies are.  I dreamt of my own tan-skinned baby after seeing that picture of her.  She named her baby Maddox and so did I.

My husband and I came to the decision at the same time.  The day we heard on the radio a woman born in Korea, telling her own adoption story, of how at eight-years-old she spit in the face of a tall white man and still he chose her, we grabbed for each other’s hand and shared a look – his wistful, mine tear-filled – and we knew right then that we were going to adopt someone.  We were going to accept a living breathing person as our own and raise him as our child.  Several months later, when we got our referral and were given pictures of a tiny four-day-old baby, we did the math.  My Maddox was conceived around the same time my husband and I had made our decision.  He belonged to me from the beginning.  From the moment he was two cells combining, he was mine. 

Adoption is miraculous and meaningful, but the choice is not as simple as, “I want to be a parent.”  That’s the basis, but it’s more.  You have to also choose to love, accept, and parent a child who is different than you.  Even in same race adoptions, the child is not physically an extension of you.  You have to accept what all that means before you open your arms and your home to a child.  But even though the child isn’t a physical extension of you, he will be an extension of your love, if you let him.   

Someday I will tell Maddox how much he means to me.  How God made him for me, and how special he is.  For he has not one mommy, but three who loved him dearly.  A birth mother who loved him enough to save him from a life of hunger and poverty; a foster mother who loved him as her own for the first eight months of his life, knowing the whole time it would end too soon, and not loving him less because of that; and me, the mother that prayed for him to belong to her for years, not even knowing who he was or how he would come to her.   I will also tell him of the sacrifices the other mommies made for him.  I promised his foster mother that I wouldn’t let him forget her and I intend to keep that promise.