My mind has been drifting back lately. Even though I am in a good place now, it wasn't always like this. The days when Alex's adoption was new were a great swell of sadness. I hadn't had proper time to grieve the loss of my husband when she came into view. Both losses threatened to drown me in their riptides. I was trying to swim above the swell. I knew that I'd made my decision. I'd done so much talking it up that I didn't want anyone to see how sad I was. Tears made rivers on my face at a moment's notice and at unpredictable times. I would run to the bathroom to try to clean myself up rather than let anyone see. I didn't want anyone to worry that I'd made the wrong choice or changed my mind. Even if I had, it was too late now. I had such little aftercare. In fact, most birthmoms do. Either because they don't seek it or it is non-existent in the first place. Such a great loss and so few options.
I did a lot of equating the loss of my husband with Alex. The intensity was the same. Although, when you lose a spouse, everyone expects you to fall apart. That is normal. In the instance of choosing adoption the dogmatic response to a grieving birthmother seems to be "but you did a great thing". Let me tell you something. There are a lot of things that one could say to someone who is suffering a loss but trying to help them see the sunny side when the sky is falling is not the right thing to do. It was of little consequence to me to hear that I'd done anything of merit when what I'd done was hurting me to badly. I felt the same way when people would pat my back, hand me a tissue and say "at least you have his daughter" or "be grateful for the time you had". Well meaning things that fail to comfort. You want to make someone feel better? Cry along with them and give them a hug. That speaks volumes without saying a word.
When I started to rally I began to feel guilty. To me, feeling better was the same as not caring as much but I still did and I didn't want anyone to feel like my feelings had changed based on my demeanor. Finding myself walking out of the surf of sadness almost made me want to run back into the tide! Why did I feel that way? I suspect that the grief was a way that I could still feel connected to what I'd lost. Somehow I was afraid that if I let go of the pain that I would forget.
Now that I am in a better place I can look back and see how flawed my logic was. How I could systematically forget about two people who have left an indelible mark on my life is almost laughable. Now I can see that these experiences can be used for more good than upping the stock prices of the Kleenex company. It's not to say that I don't have my times of revisiting the feelings of loss, of course I still do, but I don't let it fool me into thinking that this is the only way to show love to the two people who are no longer in my life. I can take these experiences and channel the feelings into something worthwhile, something that can benefit others. In this way, I can still remember them every day and show everyone else how much they mean to me in a way that lets people know it's okay to feel better even if their world will never be the same.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
Birthmother Superior
Coming off the stiletto heels of my debut speaking engagement in Atlanta at Together for Adoption's National Conference, I was welcomed that Monday morning to a flood of emails, tweets and requests to have me come and speak at other conferences and events. Of course that was exactly what I was hoping for. I even had a job offer at a local church thrown in as an added bonus. Voila! Even just the other day our ministry had its first 'ministry baby', a little precious named Christian came into the world and into the arms of his mother and expecting adoptive family. You couldn't write a better script and gifted as I am, I only wish I'd be so creative as to make it up. Still, I felt some emotional pull inside. Something was not quite right but I couldn't articulate the 'what' in "What's wrong?".
As the week continued and I followed up on emails and calls for my attention, I shared and shared my vision some more. Accolades, tears, and "atta girl"s flooded my ears and my heart. In a former life, I'd have sopped it up like a dry sponge but now I am not so anxious to soak in it. There is a heaviness and a somber air around me.
I finally figured out what it is. I am unwittingly being attached to an ideal of something that isn't real. I am sure it can be easy to hoist my clay feet onto a marble pedestal and call me blessed. Please don't. I am not courageous half as much as I am driven to deliver a message. I have been given a great assignment and my job is to carry it out. The courage belongs to Him and so do the compliments. I am a girl who got it wrong, screwed up and asked God to fix it. He is the one who brought me through the pain, dried my tears and helped me see how something so destructive could be made into something amazingly beautiful. I didn't put it together, I just marveled at the work and asked to have it. I am not a gifted speaker. I've been given a voice by the One who needs the message said. It is Him that says the words, I just yield my mouth and my mind. The glory does not belong to me.
I don't want to take hold of something that is not mine. This is new. I will make mistakes. I might put my foot in my mouth as soon as someone pats me on the back. In fact, I may do it tonight. I am sharing my story and my vision for my ministry on "Pro-Life Friday". It's a blog radio show that has featured such pro-life speakers such as Melissa Ohden, Abby Johnson and now me.
Please tune in if you can at 6PM EDT:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-visible-conservative-christians-unleashed/2012/09/21/pro-life-fridays
As the week continued and I followed up on emails and calls for my attention, I shared and shared my vision some more. Accolades, tears, and "atta girl"s flooded my ears and my heart. In a former life, I'd have sopped it up like a dry sponge but now I am not so anxious to soak in it. There is a heaviness and a somber air around me.
I finally figured out what it is. I am unwittingly being attached to an ideal of something that isn't real. I am sure it can be easy to hoist my clay feet onto a marble pedestal and call me blessed. Please don't. I am not courageous half as much as I am driven to deliver a message. I have been given a great assignment and my job is to carry it out. The courage belongs to Him and so do the compliments. I am a girl who got it wrong, screwed up and asked God to fix it. He is the one who brought me through the pain, dried my tears and helped me see how something so destructive could be made into something amazingly beautiful. I didn't put it together, I just marveled at the work and asked to have it. I am not a gifted speaker. I've been given a voice by the One who needs the message said. It is Him that says the words, I just yield my mouth and my mind. The glory does not belong to me.
I don't want to take hold of something that is not mine. This is new. I will make mistakes. I might put my foot in my mouth as soon as someone pats me on the back. In fact, I may do it tonight. I am sharing my story and my vision for my ministry on "Pro-Life Friday". It's a blog radio show that has featured such pro-life speakers such as Melissa Ohden, Abby Johnson and now me.
Please tune in if you can at 6PM EDT:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-visible-conservative-christians-unleashed/2012/09/21/pro-life-fridays
Thursday, September 13, 2012
We Have Lift Off!
This weekend I will embark on a new mission. I will launch my career as a Pro-life speaker. I never saw this coming from 5 years ago. Who'd have guessed I'd write a book and want to get involved in all the hullabaloo. As I sit in a hotel lobby, I realize I can't step back from the launching pad. We are all systems go. The countdown is on. I will sign in tomorrow at Together For Adoption's National Conference and take my name badge entitled 'Brittany Hudson' Executive Director for The Vessel -For Life and Speaker.
What on earth possessed me to take on such an endeavor? It wasn't part of my initial plan at first. I just wanted to write a book and let that be that but as I started looking into the writing world, I realized that there was so much more to making a statement than penning some pages. The privilege of author takes a commitment to building a platform. I got it, you need to be out there promoting your message in order to sell books but what was my message other than sharing my testimony?
I had such a profound experience with my adoption that I never slowed down enough to consider that others might me a lot less fortunate than me. As I researched blogs written by other birthmothers it became clear, I was not so much the norm as the exception as far as the bloggers out there. What a hole in my heart, my tears poured through as I read the stories of birthmothers who'd felt coerced, lied to, rejected, dismissed and left to suffer to the scoffing of a public that wanted them to keep quiet and tow the company line, should anyone care to ask. It shouldn't surprise anyone that as I made myself know out there on Planet Internet that my very experience would make their skin wrinkle. Obviously I was a religious delusional who'd not been made aware of my harsh reality, poor dear.
I expected to be embraced by my newly found nation only to be rejected and rather unceremoniously.
So what was different about me? Why was I doing so well when others suffered seemingly endless grief and loss? The answer is clear to me. I understand that my adoption story had amazing purpose. It was ordained by my Creator, loving handed to me to carry out and I chose to respectfully and reverently bow my knee and take my assignment.
Do I feel any pain in my adoption even today? Of course I do. I pain for my daughters who unwillingly take my choices on as part of their lives. I regret that they may grieve because of me. I have times of reflection where I wish this wasn't part of my life, because it isn't easy to live with this story you see.
I get up every day with a commitment to honor my life assignment. I use my pain to bring hope and healing to others but I am not the message. I am the messenger sent by the only one who can make something like this whole. Jesus is the Healer and I get to bring His love to every woman and unborn child I touch. I would cry a river every day to share in the joy for 10 minutes that I have with these woman when they understand that this time, even for the first time, someone loves them unconditionally. I get to let God's love pour out of me and into the hearts of these beautiful people. What a joy it is to serve!
Together for Adoption's National Conference will focus on the reality that every adoption involves suffering. The joy that comes through it is promised in James 1:1-4. Read it and may you understand, what He promises is what is gained in the trial. If you can't join me at the conference this weekend, please pray for me as I share my story and the ministry's vision for how I bring healing and what needs to be done for better aftercare for women who have placed. Launch will commence in T-Minus 12 hours...
www.togetherforadoption.org
www.the-vessel.org
What on earth possessed me to take on such an endeavor? It wasn't part of my initial plan at first. I just wanted to write a book and let that be that but as I started looking into the writing world, I realized that there was so much more to making a statement than penning some pages. The privilege of author takes a commitment to building a platform. I got it, you need to be out there promoting your message in order to sell books but what was my message other than sharing my testimony?
I had such a profound experience with my adoption that I never slowed down enough to consider that others might me a lot less fortunate than me. As I researched blogs written by other birthmothers it became clear, I was not so much the norm as the exception as far as the bloggers out there. What a hole in my heart, my tears poured through as I read the stories of birthmothers who'd felt coerced, lied to, rejected, dismissed and left to suffer to the scoffing of a public that wanted them to keep quiet and tow the company line, should anyone care to ask. It shouldn't surprise anyone that as I made myself know out there on Planet Internet that my very experience would make their skin wrinkle. Obviously I was a religious delusional who'd not been made aware of my harsh reality, poor dear.
I expected to be embraced by my newly found nation only to be rejected and rather unceremoniously.
So what was different about me? Why was I doing so well when others suffered seemingly endless grief and loss? The answer is clear to me. I understand that my adoption story had amazing purpose. It was ordained by my Creator, loving handed to me to carry out and I chose to respectfully and reverently bow my knee and take my assignment.
Do I feel any pain in my adoption even today? Of course I do. I pain for my daughters who unwillingly take my choices on as part of their lives. I regret that they may grieve because of me. I have times of reflection where I wish this wasn't part of my life, because it isn't easy to live with this story you see.
I get up every day with a commitment to honor my life assignment. I use my pain to bring hope and healing to others but I am not the message. I am the messenger sent by the only one who can make something like this whole. Jesus is the Healer and I get to bring His love to every woman and unborn child I touch. I would cry a river every day to share in the joy for 10 minutes that I have with these woman when they understand that this time, even for the first time, someone loves them unconditionally. I get to let God's love pour out of me and into the hearts of these beautiful people. What a joy it is to serve!
Together for Adoption's National Conference will focus on the reality that every adoption involves suffering. The joy that comes through it is promised in James 1:1-4. Read it and may you understand, what He promises is what is gained in the trial. If you can't join me at the conference this weekend, please pray for me as I share my story and the ministry's vision for how I bring healing and what needs to be done for better aftercare for women who have placed. Launch will commence in T-Minus 12 hours...
www.togetherforadoption.org
www.the-vessel.org
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
How Do I Bring Her Back?
Life after placement is a no man's land. I came home to my daughter who was relieved to see mom not in a hospital bed. My mother did her best to try to keep things 'normal' so we could just go on and live our lives. The hormones, the loss. No one ever talks about postpartum depression in birthmothers. How could there not be? Your body is its usual upside down pattern when you give birth but there is a baby that is supposed to help with that. Not in this case.
If I couldn't have a baby to show the world for my out of shape and pudgy frame, I wanted to snap back to normal like an elastic but it doesn't work that way. I resented my breasts for being heavy with the sustenance it was producing for a child that was no longer in my care. Why couldn't my body just be like it was the day before I got pregnant? I hid in baggy things and tried not to notice.
I felt happy and purposeful before Alex was born. What was I now? I felt like a work horse that had been sent out to pasture. Did anyone in my adoption have a need for me any more? Could I ask if I was still needed or loved? Will they still reach out to me now that we're done?
All these things circled in my mind like fish in a tank. I was secretive and reclusive. I didn't know what to say about what I'd been up to for the past 10 months. I kept to myself and hoped that no one would ask much or require great detail. Who could I share this with? What would they think of me? The church I had been attending persecuted me for having the gall to get pregnant out of wedlock as one of their members. When the oppression from the leadership got too much, I resigned my membership on the advice of pastors outside the church. I felt hated and dirty. I felt rejected and lied to. They were supposed to love me and support me and instead I felt like the woman in 'The Scarlet Letter'. If I couldn't talk to my church family, who could I trust?
The answers came one morning as I watched television with my mother. We had been staying with her in her home while I looked for a house to buy back in New England. My daughter fluttered around the house as usual. I tried to ignore the noise and the business while I focused in on the Today Show. A woman came on for an interview. She was a strikingly attractive woman with blond and pink hair. I became interested in why she'd be interviewed. She was not an average guest. She went on to describe what she did. She was a former prostitute who had now escaped her old life and found a new one rescuing women caught in sex-trafficking. She would comb the streets of Las Vegas looking for women out at night and she'd talk to them, pray with them and encourage them to come to her for help. I was enthralled with the conversation. I hung on every word. I felt like the TV would suck me right into the room with her if I stared any harder. My heart burst open with hope. If she could use her old life for something so wonderful and useful I could too! She was not ashamed. She didn't cower over her story. She could have just left her old ways and gone about life silently, hoping no one would find out about her but instead she let God use it for something too marvelous for words. It was in those moments that I uttered a silent prayer for myself, "Lord please use me too."
Now I am the Founder of 4 The Love of Alex. Me and my ministry partner, also a birthmother, are working to raise up the voice of the birthmother to her rightful place on the platform of pro-life. The life of the birthmother is largely silent with little healing after the fact. I am burdened to fix the broken pieces of the adoption process for the birthmother. I want to offer the hope of Christ for the woman facing such a difficult decision and show her that the only healing that can really come is from the loving arms of Jesus.
How did I get me back? I stopped letting the enemy duct tape my mouth shut.
If I couldn't have a baby to show the world for my out of shape and pudgy frame, I wanted to snap back to normal like an elastic but it doesn't work that way. I resented my breasts for being heavy with the sustenance it was producing for a child that was no longer in my care. Why couldn't my body just be like it was the day before I got pregnant? I hid in baggy things and tried not to notice.
I felt happy and purposeful before Alex was born. What was I now? I felt like a work horse that had been sent out to pasture. Did anyone in my adoption have a need for me any more? Could I ask if I was still needed or loved? Will they still reach out to me now that we're done?
All these things circled in my mind like fish in a tank. I was secretive and reclusive. I didn't know what to say about what I'd been up to for the past 10 months. I kept to myself and hoped that no one would ask much or require great detail. Who could I share this with? What would they think of me? The church I had been attending persecuted me for having the gall to get pregnant out of wedlock as one of their members. When the oppression from the leadership got too much, I resigned my membership on the advice of pastors outside the church. I felt hated and dirty. I felt rejected and lied to. They were supposed to love me and support me and instead I felt like the woman in 'The Scarlet Letter'. If I couldn't talk to my church family, who could I trust?
The answers came one morning as I watched television with my mother. We had been staying with her in her home while I looked for a house to buy back in New England. My daughter fluttered around the house as usual. I tried to ignore the noise and the business while I focused in on the Today Show. A woman came on for an interview. She was a strikingly attractive woman with blond and pink hair. I became interested in why she'd be interviewed. She was not an average guest. She went on to describe what she did. She was a former prostitute who had now escaped her old life and found a new one rescuing women caught in sex-trafficking. She would comb the streets of Las Vegas looking for women out at night and she'd talk to them, pray with them and encourage them to come to her for help. I was enthralled with the conversation. I hung on every word. I felt like the TV would suck me right into the room with her if I stared any harder. My heart burst open with hope. If she could use her old life for something so wonderful and useful I could too! She was not ashamed. She didn't cower over her story. She could have just left her old ways and gone about life silently, hoping no one would find out about her but instead she let God use it for something too marvelous for words. It was in those moments that I uttered a silent prayer for myself, "Lord please use me too."
Now I am the Founder of 4 The Love of Alex. Me and my ministry partner, also a birthmother, are working to raise up the voice of the birthmother to her rightful place on the platform of pro-life. The life of the birthmother is largely silent with little healing after the fact. I am burdened to fix the broken pieces of the adoption process for the birthmother. I want to offer the hope of Christ for the woman facing such a difficult decision and show her that the only healing that can really come is from the loving arms of Jesus.
How did I get me back? I stopped letting the enemy duct tape my mouth shut.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The Permanent Like Super Glue
Something fills your lungs when you are about to make something permanent. It's like a gluey coating when you inhale. Exhaling it makes it all stick in some cosmic way, I am sure of it.
I felt that way when I got married. It was exhilarating to get ready for my wedding. I remember having the whole day to primp and celebrate with my bridesmaids. We sang in the limo 'Chapel of Love' all the way to the church but when I stood with my dad and the doors to the sanctuary as they opened, I inhaled and the sense of permanence filled my body. I knew I was making a decision for the rest of my life. But that was a happy kind of sticky.
Any feelings of more time wafted out the door as soon as my adoption counselor arrived. Upon her greetings and minutes of small talk, Brett and Kayla were asked to leave the room with Alex and it was time for us to get down to business. It was time for paperwork. I tried to slow my breathing as she pulled out the papers. The weight of anticipation made my whole body feel slow to move. She tried dutifully and carefully to explain but what was the sense? Anything I didn't agree to or couldn't sign off on meant the deal was off. She read and pointed and I had my pen in hand and tried to lightly lift my clammy fingers off of the paper with each sign so they wouldn't stick.
I didn't ask any questions, I just wanted to get through it. I hadn't changed my mind but I wanted more time. If I had a thousand years, I still would have wanted a thousand and one. Sooner or later, I was going to have to say "good bye". Every page made the decision stick a little more. The last page and it was done. A fixed decision in my life. There is no divorce from this covenant unlike marriage.
People have asked me what was more painful, having to bury my husband or letting Alex go. The honest answer is that I don't really know. Both of them were equally painful but how I feel about those losses are incredibly different. Although Greg and Alex will never be mine again, I can still see Alex. In fact, I have had two great visits already. I didn't have any warning for the day I'd lose Greg. I had several months to see the day I'd terminate my rights to parent Alex. That didn't make it any easier though. Greg is in Heaven with Jesus right now. Who could ask for him to be anywhere better even if it isn't with me? Alex is with two of the best parents I could ask for who love her more than their own lives. Could I have wished for anything more for her?
In the cases of my widowhood and my birthmotherhood I can say one thing about them both. They are both losses, they both hurt sometimes but I have healed by the grace of God and I can see the beauty in it all even though I wish sometimes that it could have been different. I wouldn't change either one of those covenants. I can sleep well in that.
I felt that way when I got married. It was exhilarating to get ready for my wedding. I remember having the whole day to primp and celebrate with my bridesmaids. We sang in the limo 'Chapel of Love' all the way to the church but when I stood with my dad and the doors to the sanctuary as they opened, I inhaled and the sense of permanence filled my body. I knew I was making a decision for the rest of my life. But that was a happy kind of sticky.
Any feelings of more time wafted out the door as soon as my adoption counselor arrived. Upon her greetings and minutes of small talk, Brett and Kayla were asked to leave the room with Alex and it was time for us to get down to business. It was time for paperwork. I tried to slow my breathing as she pulled out the papers. The weight of anticipation made my whole body feel slow to move. She tried dutifully and carefully to explain but what was the sense? Anything I didn't agree to or couldn't sign off on meant the deal was off. She read and pointed and I had my pen in hand and tried to lightly lift my clammy fingers off of the paper with each sign so they wouldn't stick.
I didn't ask any questions, I just wanted to get through it. I hadn't changed my mind but I wanted more time. If I had a thousand years, I still would have wanted a thousand and one. Sooner or later, I was going to have to say "good bye". Every page made the decision stick a little more. The last page and it was done. A fixed decision in my life. There is no divorce from this covenant unlike marriage.
People have asked me what was more painful, having to bury my husband or letting Alex go. The honest answer is that I don't really know. Both of them were equally painful but how I feel about those losses are incredibly different. Although Greg and Alex will never be mine again, I can still see Alex. In fact, I have had two great visits already. I didn't have any warning for the day I'd lose Greg. I had several months to see the day I'd terminate my rights to parent Alex. That didn't make it any easier though. Greg is in Heaven with Jesus right now. Who could ask for him to be anywhere better even if it isn't with me? Alex is with two of the best parents I could ask for who love her more than their own lives. Could I have wished for anything more for her?
In the cases of my widowhood and my birthmotherhood I can say one thing about them both. They are both losses, they both hurt sometimes but I have healed by the grace of God and I can see the beauty in it all even though I wish sometimes that it could have been different. I wouldn't change either one of those covenants. I can sleep well in that.
Friday, June 22, 2012
The Real Parents
Sitting in a hospital bed watching other people fawn over my daughter was a lot like sitting in sound proof room looking out through anti-bullet glass. I sat silent, placidly smiling and feeling ashamed of asking to hold her. There needed to be a full 72 hours from birth to be able to sign any adoption paperwork so legally she was mine. Was she still my daughter?
I shifted in my bed while they passed her around. Mom, dad, then adoptive grandma, aunts, would I be able to hold her too? Do I have to ask for permission? Times would come and someone would ask if I wanted to hold her. I'd offer a lazy 'yes' wanting to leap off of the bed to embrace her if only I wasn't recovering from a c-section. Was it okay that I wanted to see her?
In the evenings the visitors would eventually go home. I'd sit in my silence, afraid to ask the nurses to get her for me. I wanted to be able to feed her, I even asked once but they never returned to either say 'no' or bring Alex to me. I wanted to care for her in the precious hours that I had left before the sand ran out of my hourglass. Could I do that?
My last morning came like an unwelcome relative on a Thanksgiving morning. I didn't want to get up. I knew it was the last day that I'd see her, see them. The yellow island sun beamed through my hospital room window with the promise of another day in paradise to everyone in Key West who wasn't me. Today was the day Brett and Kayla would be bringing Alex home. This was the day they had been waiting for since their adoption journey began. This was the day I was dreading since the start of mine. How much longer do I have?
After pushing my breakfast around with my fork I asked for her. Just a few sweet moments with her alone. I could finally hold her and look into her cherub-like face all nestled tightly in a newborn swaddle. She slept as I held her in my lap, cradling her little head in my hands. I wanted to get a solid look at her, to study her face. I started talking to her. I wanted her to know that it wasn't that I didn't love her. I loved her enough to let her go, for her protection, in her best interest. The all encompassing love of a mother bids her to make the sacrifices she must for her children, forsaking her own life even. This would be one of those times, so few really ever face, and I was doing it.
I told her how much her parents loved her. I told her of how much I have adored them since the minute I saw their pictures. I told her about the sweetness her mother has and how much I looked forward to hearing from her about all of her milestones. Please God, let them tell me about Alex.
Tears spilled forcefully as I wrestled with my emotions. I wanted to be happy for her. This little life, having no choice in coming to be, having nothing to do with our separation was going to have to live the life of an adopted child and I was the one making that decision. I wanted her to know how special we all thought she was. Would she feel special? Would she be sad? Would she be mad at me?
I began to churn with desperation when the door opened to my room. It was Brett and Kayla. I tried to smile through my grief-stricken face and greet them but they shrunk back from the doorway as they took in my appearance.
"We'll give you some more time." Kayla said, looking apologetically.
"No, it's okay. Come in."
I shifted in my bed while they passed her around. Mom, dad, then adoptive grandma, aunts, would I be able to hold her too? Do I have to ask for permission? Times would come and someone would ask if I wanted to hold her. I'd offer a lazy 'yes' wanting to leap off of the bed to embrace her if only I wasn't recovering from a c-section. Was it okay that I wanted to see her?
In the evenings the visitors would eventually go home. I'd sit in my silence, afraid to ask the nurses to get her for me. I wanted to be able to feed her, I even asked once but they never returned to either say 'no' or bring Alex to me. I wanted to care for her in the precious hours that I had left before the sand ran out of my hourglass. Could I do that?
My last morning came like an unwelcome relative on a Thanksgiving morning. I didn't want to get up. I knew it was the last day that I'd see her, see them. The yellow island sun beamed through my hospital room window with the promise of another day in paradise to everyone in Key West who wasn't me. Today was the day Brett and Kayla would be bringing Alex home. This was the day they had been waiting for since their adoption journey began. This was the day I was dreading since the start of mine. How much longer do I have?
After pushing my breakfast around with my fork I asked for her. Just a few sweet moments with her alone. I could finally hold her and look into her cherub-like face all nestled tightly in a newborn swaddle. She slept as I held her in my lap, cradling her little head in my hands. I wanted to get a solid look at her, to study her face. I started talking to her. I wanted her to know that it wasn't that I didn't love her. I loved her enough to let her go, for her protection, in her best interest. The all encompassing love of a mother bids her to make the sacrifices she must for her children, forsaking her own life even. This would be one of those times, so few really ever face, and I was doing it.
I told her how much her parents loved her. I told her of how much I have adored them since the minute I saw their pictures. I told her about the sweetness her mother has and how much I looked forward to hearing from her about all of her milestones. Please God, let them tell me about Alex.
Tears spilled forcefully as I wrestled with my emotions. I wanted to be happy for her. This little life, having no choice in coming to be, having nothing to do with our separation was going to have to live the life of an adopted child and I was the one making that decision. I wanted her to know how special we all thought she was. Would she feel special? Would she be sad? Would she be mad at me?
I began to churn with desperation when the door opened to my room. It was Brett and Kayla. I tried to smile through my grief-stricken face and greet them but they shrunk back from the doorway as they took in my appearance.
"We'll give you some more time." Kayla said, looking apologetically.
"No, it's okay. Come in."
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