Finding the silver lining

I have one relationship in my life that is different than any other.  It’s existence has had a greater impact on my life and the enjoyment of life than few others have.  The thing is I have only been in the presence of this person a few times.  Actually just two times over a period of a week, but the feelings that I have for this person grow every day.  This person is my daughter’s birth mother.  We met her in the hospital, two days after she had given birth and the baby was still in the NICU.  I have never been so nervous to meet someone in my entire life.  It was a blind date that decided our fate!!  We knew that she had chosen us to parent her child, but that was just on paper.  What would she think of us in person?  What if we said something that offended her and she changed her mind?  How could we be sensitive to what she was going through without it seeming like we thought we knew what she was going through?

All of my fears were erased when I walked in the room and we met each other’s eyes.  As we both cried and tried to introduce ourselves, I knew that she had made her decision and I didn’t need to worry.  We got to see her again later that week, as we were getting ready to take our daughter home the next day.  She brought presents for the baby and for us, which was beyond what I could imagine.  As we made small talk about how well the baby was doing and how much she had grown, we all knew what was coming.  How do you say thank you and goodbye to someone who has just blessed you with the most amazing gift?  There are no words in the English language that are sufficient for it.  We had agreed to write letters twice a year to her and send them through the agency, so we knew we could communicate in that way.  But none of it felt like enough.

I remember in those first months thinking about her all the time.  I worried about how she was doing, if she had enough support, and if she regretted her decision.  Every parent wants to be the best parent they can be for their children.  Sometimes I wonder if other adoptive parents feel like I do, in that you want to do your best job for the birth-parents too.  It isn’t like a dark cloud that hangs over your head, but there are moments that I feel like I am mothering for both of us.  My family thinks I am strange, that I put unneeded pressure on myself in this way.  I just don’t think until you have had someone hand you there flesh and blood and say ” I trust you with this precious life” can you really understand the feeling.

So six years have passed and we have sent letters and packages and she has done the same.  She is doing extremly well and has gone on to get married and have two more children.  She is a precious person that always reminds us that “she prays for us everyday” and “how blessed she feels that we were brought into her life”.  She is amazing.  And with our sharing of stories of our children and how much we love this six year old girl, we have formed a relationship that is so dear to me.  It is one that I guard with my heart and hold very close.

I never imagined that I would feel this way towards my daughter’s birth-mother.  I was afraid of open adoption.  I thought that it would just keep the loss and pain in the forefront of their minds.  I have learned otherwise.  In our situation, the letters and pictures ease that loss and pain and bring her a sense of peace.  And I get a sense of peace as well, when I hear how she is doing.

I don’t know if our daughter will want to meet her birth-mother one day.  That will be her decision to make.  But I know for myself, I would treasure just a moment to share with her, in person, what she has come to mean to me.  I would tell her that I not only think of her as the woman who gave my daughter life, but I also think of her as a very special friend.  A friend who holds a piece of my heart…that is her’s alone.