Am I your mother?

Where are you at in your adoption process?
A straightforward enough question asked by many... many... many people. And the response is often the same...
"We are saving up right now, fundraising and working extra hours." *Said with an excited smile*
"Oh..." (Comes the disappointed and somewhat confused response) "So do you have one picked out?"
Do we "have one picked out"?... a pang of frustration/anger/confusion pulses through my heart... but honestly I'm sure I would've asked a similar ignorant question before I (in many painstaking hours) researched the adoption process. I had no idea, no clue that you don't just walk into an agency with oodles expectant mothers waiting at the door to give their new baby to a happy couple. I assumed - like many- that we were the pickers, and that the costs would be minimal.
In fact my friends it is quite the opposite. We are the picked, we are one of the masses praying that we will be chosen by a woman (or couple)... and after all my research, listening to podcasts, and reading stories and learning the "adoption lingo" I have grown a massive respect for these expectant parents walking into the agency. They (contrary to what I once believed) are not selfish, just looking to maintain their lifestyle and not be inconvenienced by a baby. They are the parents, she is the mother of our child (whoever and wherever she is) making the brave and selfless decision to find a better life for her child, in a loving home. She doesn't know us, she may never know us "well" depending on the adoption plan created, but she is going to ask us to be the parents of her child.  She is going to ask me to be the mother of her baby.
I have not gone through a full pregnancy, bonding with my baby for nine months, awaiting their arrival. But still I cannot imagine going through that and finally seeing them, and then giving them to someone else, regardless of my situation. I know this because I am selfish... she is not.
 She will go through that nine months, feeling their very first movements, hearing their heartbeat and seeing them on the ultrasound. She will labor, she will deliver and she will see all her hard work in ten tiny toes and ten tiny fingers. She will hear it in the newborn cry, and see it in the tiny newborn squinting eyes seeing the outside world for the first time. She will hold her baby, and then she will hand her baby to us, because she will love that baby more than herself. I hope to hold our baby together with her, I hope to hug her, to thank her, to wipe her tears as I cry mine.
A statement that once scared me, now brings a feeling of respect... "She will always be my babies mother." But so will I, I will hold our baby when they cry, laugh when they giggle, pull my hair our through their tantrums and worry as they grow up. But they grew in her womb and that is something I will never take away from her, God used her to create our baby. They will always be her baby, but they will always be mine, mine to me.

I am not offended by your pregnancy...

 

I am not mad that you're pregnant, I'm not offended by your big (adorable!) protruding belly full of tiny human, I'm not upset that you're able to procreate and I am not. Being pregnant is a blessing, having the ability to make a new human with your spouse is a beautiful thing. Please don't think you have to announce your pregnancy to me differently than anyone else, it doesn't need to be made to me in hushed tones just the two of us, or with a sad side-glance toward me, I promise I don't have meltdowns over pregnancy announcements… anymore…

If I'm honest, I used to. If I'm honest, it felt like literally EVERYONE was getting pregnant right as I was struggling with the reality that it was something I would probably never experience (unless the Lord wills otherwise). Like most, motherhood has always played itself out in my head starting with the joyful discovery of a positive pregnancy test, followed by 9 months of beauty, pain, and lots of vomiting. An experience I would gladly endure because of the tiny little scream of a newborn entering the world that would result at the end. Cradling our newborn in my hospital bed with my husband snuggled up next to us as we both stared into the face that was a beautiful mixture of the two of us.

These were all things I had to let go of before we could move forward with our adoption… things that I now am so happy that others get to experience. Because I was bitter, I was jealous; I envied the many pregnant bellies waddling their way around church on Sunday mornings.

Many people don't realize that you have to grieve through all of this before you can adopt (if you struggled with infertility first) you have to let go of what you thought "motherhood" would look like.

My husband and I don't decide one day that we want to have a baby, we don't try until we see the two little pink lines appear on the test. We raise money, we work extra hours, and we save because we don't have just a deductable to meet before insurance covers the rest. We will sign on with an agency, go through many agonizing and tedious hours of homestudy prep and paperwork until we are "approved" to be parents (that is the part that most easily frustrates me). The state gets to decide if we are fit to be parents. Then we build a profile of ourselves… a profile that we hope finds favor with an expectant parent whom is making an adoption plan. It could be 9 months… it could be 2 years before we are chosen. I know it will be in Gods timing, I pray always that He will help me cope… but we wait.

The path to motherhood looks different than I thought it would, but it is still beautiful. Just like pregnancy, we don't know if it will be a boy or girl, one two or maybe even three babies! (different than pregnancy we don't know what race it will be ;) ) But just the same, that (or those) baby will be ours. I will never see that baby as anything but ours.