The Adoption Exponent

[SalBac]

When women tilt their heads and say to me sympathetically, "I'm sorry you never got to experience the joy of pregnancy" I widen my eyes and say "I'm sorry you've never experienced the joy of adoption!"  I truly am.

To these women pregnancy is the way to have a child.  Two people who (hopefully) love each other join together and create an experience that brings a precious new life to both of them.  They imagine anything else is somehow less - the life is less of a miracle, the experience is less profound, the parenting is less something... less secure, less bonded, perhaps less "real." 

To me adoption is the exponent of the creation miracle.  Adoption takes the superlative event of humanity and makes it even more so.  More profound.  More breathtaking.  More incomprehensible.  More everything. 

It is the ultimate trust - very often forged by strangers who searched without knowing who they were searching for, yet found each other among everyone in the world.  Birth parents and adoptive parents trust each other to be who they seem to be.  Each trust the other to weigh their decision with the greatest care, and to speak only what they know to be true.  Birth parents trust adoptive parents with the gift of a life they created, and adoptive parents trust birth parents to know their own hearts.   

Experiencing adoption is akin to receiving an organ donation or being rescued from a burning building by a complete stranger.  It is incredibly humbling to be chosen to receive a birth mother's grace.  At the same time it is intoxicating to know that you have the power to change her life forever by accepting her gift. 

If you think my life is less because I will not experience pregnancy, please keep that to yourself.  And I'll hold private my thought that yours is less because you have not been blessed to witness the purest form of motherhood - sacrificing one's own heart for the sake of your child. 
       
I will live the rest of my days amazed and grateful that our daughter's birth mother had the grace, maturity and love to give her child the life and the mother God intended her to have.

[KathySRW]

Aug. 3, 2008 at 7:16 PM

I can't believe someone said that to you! They're so rude!

[Bryn1020]

Aug. 3, 2008 at 9:26 PM

Beautifully written!  You have expressed so eloquently what my heart feels.  It truly is incredible when you think about the miracle of adoption.  I am amazed everytime I look into the faces of my children to know that I was given the gift of motherhood by another mother.  It is a responsibility I do not take for granted, I cherish with every womanly fiber in my body, and my soul rejoices that have been chosen to raise two precious beautiful souls.  Your daughter is surely blessed by having you as her mother.  You understand the delicacies of adoption, something that will surely make her life story an incredible journey.

[ceallaigh]

Aug. 3, 2008 at 9:32 PM

AMEN!!! And you are absolutely right.  Because my children's birthmother did not give up her rights voluntarily, I consider a blessing that God kept them safe until they were matched up to us.