Zero to Mom in 15 Days...

I'm writing this post as part of a link up from Kelly's Korner's post "Show Us Your Life: All About Adoption".  Honestly, it is so hard to know where to begin this explanation of our journey to adoption because it's not what I would refer to as a traditional one in any sense of the word.  But I guess the safest place to start is from an honest place and that includes saying that I'm not sure I would have ever found the strength to adopt had God not brought the opportunity to us. 

But I can't get to our adoption story without acknowledging first how much our long journey through infertility completely changed me.   

Early on, as my husband and I experienced disappointment after disappointment in our attempts to grow our family, I often went to God to "negotiate" a bargain. See God, I'll love you more wholeheartedly IF you'll just go ahead and give us a baby.

A little further along in the years of infertility, I would approach Him out of sheer need for something to grasp onto.  I often felt like I couldn't survive without believing there was some bigger "good" that had to come out of all of the waiting for "one day".

Even later I reached for Him because I kept thinking, "If I could just figure out what He's trying to tell me...if I can get this right...He'll give us a baby."  As if being good enough would merit some reward.   

And finally, after much wrestling, I began reaching out to God for strength and simply because, through all the pain, I had finally learned to really love and trust Him. He was my Father and He was my friend.  Leaning on Him was the only way I could make sense of the pain and I believed He had a plan, no matter that there were days it hurt so bad I just wanted to die.

"If your instruction had not been my delight I would have died in my affliction..." Psalm 119:92

I got to the point where my life became a version of the old gospel song by Norman Hutchins, "Lord, you are the Potter, I am the Clay. Mold me and make me, have Your own way..." I felt like I was in the furnace and the heat had grown so unbelievably uncomfortable.  I begged Him to remove me from this fire and, boy, did He!

Our life changed in February 2012 on an all-around hot mess of a day. I was a week “late” and every sign pointed to the fact that I was pregnant and then…bam. Confirmation of what I feared. Another Not yet. I cried all day and admitted to DW, my husband, I felt like I wasn’t too far off from absolute rock bottom.  In fact, I was pretty sure I was there.  It was one of those days where I felt like I was a zombie, simply going through the motions of life but unable to enjoy anything or anyone. When the soul-crushing unhappiness finally passed, it seemed to simply shift into feelings of hopelessness and listlessness.

 

That night, I checked my Facebook and wham! Potential adoption opportunity a high school friend wanted to talk to me about. But it definitely wasn’t our first rodeo with being approached about adoption and, I guess, deep down I just thought it would be another near miss. 

Plans were made, prayers for wisdom were lifted up and, less than a week later, we were flying out to meet this "Maybe Baby" as we had begun to call her. Even though DW and I didn't know for sure that this particular situation was going to work out, there was no denying we could both feel God at work.

 

Our first meeting with the little one who would be our daughter was way less than ideal.  The first night we met this Maybe Baby we had some concerns about whether something was wrong developmentally with her, especially her eyesight. It'd take a while to go into details about what caused those concerns and, for the sake of her privacy, I won't. We both saw the "characteristics" and my parents, who were with us, saw them as well. But bottom line, there were concerns Maybe Baby couldn't hear and likely saw nothing more than what one of us might see in the "negative" of a photograph. "Functional blindness" we were told. 

 

When we asked the Foster Mom about what we were seeing, she told us they were taking Maybe Baby to see a developmental specialist to address those concerns. Later, as it turned out, she was cleared for having perfect hearing but was diagnosed as being 100% delayed in fine motor, 100% in adaptive, and 100% in cognitive/recognition.

As you might imagine, my heart just sank in my chest. That was major.

I'd wanted things to just be "easy" and "clear". You know, the way it would have gone if we were in a movie but this isn't a movie...it's real life and in real life there isn't much that's simple or easy. In my movie, she would have looked at me and I at her and there would have been this instantaneous sense of knowing she was mine. Right? Wrong.

As I was talking to the foster and birth mom, I had begun the process of emotionally withdrawing from the situation..trying to cope with the overload of information. I wasn't sure I could handle developmental delays...not because she wasn't worthy of being loved but because what if I wasn't the best person to address what she needed.

Let me pause for a minute here and speak from my most honest place...this is/was what made me afraid of adoption in the first place. Issues, delays, unknowns...all the things, we are (sorta) taught to fear because, after all, we don't want our life to be hard.  On top of those fears, I wondered if I would be incapable of loving another person that didn't have our "biology".  Would that matter?  Would I love her less because of it?

I also had fears and questions about whether she would bond with me or whether I'd be capable of bonding with her.  And maybe my biggest concern about adoption: how could you really discern what you were "getting yourself into" for the future? I'd repeatedly wondered each time I considered adoption for our family.  DW was less concerned...or more accurately, not concerned at all.  He constantly tried to remind me that God would not give us more than we could handle.  But what if God thought I could handle more than I thought I could handle?

Adoption I've since come to understand, is really not any "riskier" than pregnancy.  It's all a little like playing Russian Roulette, biological or otherwise, when I really truly stopped to think about it. I didn't really know what I was committing to there, either. I don't know if I'd be the one who has the glowing, beautiful "perfect" one or the one where I would be sick the whole time. There were no promises I'd get the kid who sleeps all night or the one with the worst case of acid reflux known to man. I had no guarantees that "perfect" and "early" prenatal care would provide a glowing, healthy baby...when in reality, there is always a chance we carry recessive genes and illnesses that could manifest at anytime.  We are not immune to pain and suffering just because we are careful.  If you've been reading blogs for any amount of time, we should all know that by now. This "community" has been eye-opening for me into how little we truly "control".

Bottom line, my point is, I had personally glorified pregnancy over adoption. With pregnancy, I had this idea I would be "in control"...and that viewpoint was seriously challenged in those first days and weeks.  And control as a Mom...ummmmm, well, what's that? 

But back to the story of our first meeting...

God, in His sovereignty, had known what was ahead and had worked it out where the buddy pass we were given took us to Dallas instead of directly into Maybe Baby's birth city. From there, we had asked my parents to drive us over so we could spend time with them. They almost couldn't make it work and I told them "it wasn't a big deal if they weren't there" - but God knew differently.

I was doing my best to leave the situation so I could get alone and "think" about all I had seen and heard. It overwhelmed me. It was simply too much...and too different from what I had expected. I had already begun to wrestle with God in my spirit...knowing He had brought us here and terribly afraid of what He might be calling us to do.

But as I was talking to the Foster/Bio Mom, my Mom and DW had taken Maybe Baby and began gently talking to her and cooing. It was my Mom and DW who first saw a "light" turn on. A glimpse of hope. I wasn't standing there so I missed it and by the time they called me over to see, this so-called "light" was gone.

I cried myself to sleep that night, wondering if my future would include a baby with such serious "needs". At this point, feel free to feel disgusted with me. I was disgusted with myself. But, in my deepest most honest place, I had/have to admit my dreams of motherhood didn't include that and, bottom line, I just hadn't been mentally preparing for that in the least upon meeting her. Not to say our dreams don't change...but still. Hopefully you know what I mean. I'm just trying to share everything...the good, the bad, the ugly about myself.

That night in the hotel room, as I laid there, tears quietly pouring down my face and later, crying until I absolutely felt ill, I knew in my heart that I couldn't abandon this little girl just because she wasn't, by every worldly standard, "perfect". I knew DW felt the same. I knew this because he looked into my eyes as he was climbing in bed and said, "Bud, I know you didn't see it, but I can't get the smile she gave your Mom out of my head...she connected. She just needs someone to like us to love her. She needs US to love her."

The longer I laid there and prayed, the more I knew, at the very core of myself, that we were supposed to "walk forward" despite every fear and "what if" rolling around my brain. I knew (and know) God would be faithful to close the door if it wasn't right for us and comforted myself with that thought.

But, then again, I also knew His answer because the thought that I fell asleep on was that Jesus didn't adopt us because we were perfect...He chose us despite our flaws and "imperfections". He loved us "as is" and gave His life for us. His sacrifice was painful but beautiful. Beauty for ashes. It was redemptive: an old life for a new one. Blindness becomes Sight. Where we are weak and spiritually delayed, He is strong.

So it's not really that far of a reach to realize He may expect the same of us.

Despite the fact that so many modern churches sell the idea that Christianity means a life of blessing and ease and prosperity, in my own experience at least, I've found the opposite can be true. To those much is given, much is expected...

That next morning, after meeting Maybe Baby, I woke up with swollen eyes and an aching heart and padded down the hall, expecting to have to stand my ground when I told my parents we were going to continue to walk forward. No matter how anyone else saw it, DW and I had agreed we felt this was supposed to be our Definitely Baby. To my surprise, my Dad practically knocked me to the floor when he said, eyes filled with tears, "If you two are truly the people that I think you are, and if that little girl does have "delays", I think it means you two are exactly what she needs." My Mom, her eyes also full of tears nodded her confirmation.  I was shocked but it also felt amazing to have their support and blessing. 

Each time I had woken up in the night, I'd prayed God would give me a glimmer of hope when we saw her the next day - something to give me a little sliver of confirmation I was truly hearing His voice - although I acknowledged He doesn't always provide something to "see" with our eyes. Sometimes He simply requires blind faith and I was trying to make my peace with that.

DW and I had made our decision to walk forward but I still needed...well, hoped...to see the "light" DW and my Mom had seen, too. That prayer was answered when we were met with lots of smiles and a moment of undeniable eye contact between Maybe Baby and I.  Only briefly...but it was there. There was still questions but my deepest question (or prayer, I guess) had been answered...just a moment of connection or confirmation.  Walk forward.

Oh He is faithful...we knew we were called to this, prepared for this moment and this time...but I also feel like it's important I be transparent. I was scared.  Like really scared. I'm human and the unknowns were so scary to me.

I wanted to love her with the love of both a Mom...and the love that only comes from having a Savior that loves us with all of our flaws and imperfections and enables us to love others that way, too. I had selfishly wanted to have only joy and excitement and for our journey to parenthood to be easy...but, again, that's not real life. And, in retrospect, as the enemy always does, I believe he was trying to cast a dark shadow of doubt...or worse...make us walk away from the greatest blessing we've ever experienced.

The enemy is a thief.  He wants to steal our joy.  He wants to destroy God's good, pleasing and perfect plan for our lives.  And, most of all, the enemy wants to ruin the full glory of what God is capable of doing and I HATE that. I rebuked that then and I rebuke it now and I rebuke the shadow he is trying to cast over God's guidance for your BEST in whatever area that might be.

Perfect situations don't exist as you and I both know. Having faith and enduring warfare is MESSY. Perfect only exists when filtered through Christ: perfect peace, perfect grace, perfect forgiveness, perfect sacrifice. Even in a life filled with trials (joys, too!) I have to rely on these truths. Not a step of this journey has been how I expected motherhood would happen or be...not one step. I simply had to trust God would provide everything we needed...He had the power to heal Maybe Baby...or He could use this child and her every "need" to bring us closer to Him. Or both. 
 

LC, our daughter, is no longer a Maybe Baby.  From the time we met her to the time we picked her up was exactly 15 days.  She is our Definitely Baby these days.  It was an insane whirlwind that feels like six lifetimes ago and only yesterday all at the same time.

She - and we - have been given a new life.  Let me conclude by saying this: there are two kinds of blindness...physical blindness and spiritual blindness. Maybe Baby's "old life" was physical blindness and delays and my "old life" was one of spiritual blindness and delays.  To look at her now and to have seen her then, it's mind blowing. She is a happy, well-adjusted, crazy-loved, smart,  and amazing little girl who incidentally has absolutely none of the initial "delays" she was diagnosed with. LC has brought so much - unspeakable amounts - of life and joy to our family.  And for me, for DW and our families...you don't look into the face of God's glory like that and walk away unchanged.

I still, almost a year later, look at LC and can't help but think this little one is a beautiful picture of what He offers to each of us, to all of us. Adoption. Healing. The enemy DID NOT want us to have this little girl because she would bring healing to what was missing in our lives.  She is God's best for us.  He didn't want her adopted because we were God's best for her.

The enemy played on every doubt, every core fear I've ever had about motherhood...and had we made our decision off of what we could SEE, we wouldn't have experienced the biggest blessing of our entire lives.  Only by Faith, not by sight...

The enemy also doesn't want you to know God in the way we are all capable of knowing Him. The enemy doesn't want you to believe He is infinitely caring. That He is infinitely good and He is seriously intentional about His love and plan for us. I feel sure of that.

So if you're reading this today, I'm praying for your next chapter...whatever that might be.  And if that prayerfully and carefully includes a Call for adoption...recognize, first, that adoption isn't for sissies...but go willingly.  He will prepare your way and you will be blessed beyond your wildest dreams.

Trust me, I speak from experience. :-)