Adoption :: She Is OUR BLESSING
Motherhood is a role that I have been preparing for my whole life. As a child, I played with my baby and Barbie dolls all of the time. When I turned 12 years old, I started babysitting for neighbors and family friends while they were at work or needed a night out. At a college sorority meeting, I blurted out that my goal is to be a mom one day, an embarrassment at the time because I always wanted to be a successful professional, too. Once I had my first child, I knew that I wanted more than one child and wanted them to be close in age so we planned on having another child one to two years later. As most people know, life does not always happen according to your plan and for that blessing I am forever thankful.
Non Traditional Family Then
My parents divorced when I was young and my mom married a man that I call my dad, the only dad that many of my friends know. He is the ying to my mom’s yang so to speak and if you know my parents you will most certainly agree. His influence in my life is unmatched with his calm spirit, his undercover affectionate ways and his intellect. I could literally go on and on about the positive ways he has impacted my life which I often keep quiet because I am part of a blended family and not everyone experienced him the way that I experienced him. When my mom was being super strict with school work or with chores at home, he was my soft place to land, no words needed just a shoulder to lay my head, a tight hug and a warm pat on my back for comfort. I did not always have the right words to describe him but soulmate sums it up as we often think the same things at the sam
e time(s), laugh at the same jokes whether others find them funny or not and enjoy intellectual conversation about trivia and history. He loves me like one of his own and taught me that you do not have to have the same DNA to love someone fully. Dad is the reason that adoption was always an option for the family that I was creating so much so that Mike and I discussed adoption before I became pregnant, not because we were having problems but because I knew that we had the capacity to love a baby not from my womb.
Our Adoption Journey
Six months after Finn was born, I discovered that I had a health condition, one that could possibly cause me to need a heart transplant should I carry another baby. After weighing our options of surrogacy and adoption, we knew that adoption would be best for our family. We started the arduous process and before we knew it, we were introduced to Nina’s biological family, Nina in utero, and began to develop a relationship.
I got the call from Nina’s biological mom that it was time for Nina’s arrival, 2 weeks early! I literally dropped everything, went home, packed a bag and got on the road to drive the 3 hours it would take to get to the hospital, there was no way that I would miss her birth. I wanted to be able to tell her that I was there for her from the beginning. Nina was born a couple of days later and then we had to wait the 3 days in the hospital for her birthparents to sign over their rights. This was one of the most emotional times of my life, happiness for her birth but so sad for her and her birthparents. Having a biological child of our own, we were able to empathize with the loss Nina and Nina’s birth parents were experiencing.
Our Family
There was literally no second that passed that I did not love her like I love Finn. She was my baby from the day I cut the umbilical cord and has since brought us so much joy that if I had to rename her today her name would be JOY. She completes our family in every sense of the word and we could not imagine our lives without her.
So many people with good intentions will say that she is blessed to have us to which I always reply, “we are blessed to have her.” Our family is not one that we planned for but one for which I am so thankful. Nina knows that she is not from Mommy’s belly but from Mommy’s heart, and she’s fine with that for now. She knows that she’s adopted but also knows that her adoption is not the main focus of our family but was the only way that God could send her to us because He could not put her in my belly. Families are made from love not DNA, my family is proof.
