These past few days have been filled with sadness, reflection, and gratitude. Last year at this time we found out that our second match with a birth mother had failed. We had kept this match very quiet despite feeling pretty confident that this was going to be "the match". We spoke with our birth mother often throughout the end of her pregnancy. We got the call at the end of December that the baby girl had been born. We named her R. We heard baby R cry. We knew before R was born that she would be going into transitional care while we waited out the 31 day registry. During the registry period we spoke often with our birth mother who was having weekly visits with R in the nursery at our adoption agency. We spoke with R's transitional care family who she was living with at that time. We got pictures of R. Phones calls every other day. Everything was going great. We got the phone call that we needed to be there in four days to come pick R up. We began to prepare for R's arrival. Then, the day before we were to go pick R up (end of January 2012), we got a phone call that despite having gone a month without living with R, her birth mother had decided to parent. We were stunned, shocked, angry, confused, etc... We couldn't imagine how a parent could go a month without living with their baby before deciding to parent. It just seemed (and seems ever more so now) that this was nuts that a mom would endure this absence and then change her mind. It was after this failed match that our hearts just were not in the adoption process. We ultimately decided to get out of the adoption process.
You can read about that decision at this post,
If you've read that post then you know that ultimately adoption worked out for us, but I can't seem to stop thinking about the events that were taking place at this time last year and the events that are taking place at this same time this year. Whereas this time last year we were nursing severe sadness, this year we are preparing for Evie's first birthday. I know that on this day in 2012, I shed tears every moment that I was alone. In 2013, I am spending my moments alone doing Evie's laundry, washing bottles, and all of the other bajillion things mom's do to keep their world functioning. What a difference a year makes.
R is on my mind a lot these days. I hope that she is loved, taken care of, and healthy. I hope she has people around her who will fight like crazy for her to have a bright and successful future. As much as I am sure we would have been over the moon with R, I cannot help but feel some gratitude that this birth mother changed her mind. If she would have gone through with the adoption, Evie wouldn't currently be trying to scale my legs to get into my lap. Evie is our missing piece that no other child could have filled.
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