“Did you talk to Dad about getting my belly button pierced?” she asked. My raised eyebrows and stunned look didn’t tell her a thing. She smiled back at me and said, “After all, I passed Math.”
Yes, it’s absolutely true the issues of parenting get larger with increased age, but take a deep breath as you can handle anything you tell yourself. You will have had years of tests, read hundreds of articles, and called your mother a few times to get the age old wisdom no book can deliver as well as her. Let’s go back to the beginning where it all starts.
As a mother of three adopted children I’m experienced but no expert on parenting just like most of the world . When I look back it was a daunting process which didn’t go smoothly, kind of like the infertility issues my husband and I were treated for. Many people, mostly couples, give up right then and there, and don’t go any further. They decide they’ve had enough. You are on your own to decipher which advice you will take. Will you take your friends advice who heard it through the grapevine of other friends who did this or that? When you finally trust someone, or an agency, will they deliver? Will you be super lucky and get twins?
If you went through infertility treatments and they worked, well, you are blessed! But if it didn’t work, you are left again to figure it all out if you have the energy, time and money leftover. At this point you wish someone would take your hand and lead you through the maze. This happened for myself after my husband and I stood in our kitchen and he said, “I just can’t do anymore.” He had stood beside me all those years of trying, and I had truly felt his encouragement and desire for kids. If we didn’t go any further I would not be a mom. For some reason I felt destined to be a mother all my life. I could not figure out why God would keep this from me. I said the prayers and asked the question “why” over and over?
Friends and one fellow co-worker responded back with “When God closes a door, he opens a window.” So, I held onto the window theory for quite awhile. Then one day while working in a post-anesthesia care unit at my local hospital my patient woke up. She was a young girl from India and she stared into my eyes. I hadn’t even spoken yet when she said, “Are you a mother?”
I replied, “No. Why do you ask?”
She looked and smiled at me. She said, “Because you should be one.”
Of course I said, “Yes, I know.” This was not the time or place to express the longings of becoming a mother and God forbid the unanswered whys.
Very happily she said, “I’m adopted and it’s the best thing. I love it. I have the best parents in the world.” She went on and on and on. That was my first angel I met.
And the second one came when I called an agency, run by two ladies who had been there done that. The fee was 500 bucks and it became the best money I’d ever spent on our trials and tribulations of becoming parents. They met with you and together came up with five or so agencies that fit your budget and criteria. Details like did you want a newborn, a toddler, siblings, health concerns, maternal drug use, etc., etc.? It’s a scary world out there and you have to come up with your comfort zone. You have to figure out what you can do. Can you take care of special needs? This is realism to the core, honesty and a test, yet again. You get to know yourself very well through this process.
Honestly, I thought maybe it was over for me as I approached the big 4-0. One of my angels I had just met on the phone asked me when that birthday was and I replied, “November.”
I heard her on the other end counting out the months from March. Then she said, “We can do this. It’s possible!” These words gave me hope and my earthly angels were going to look out for me. They understood the pain, the anguish of a basic need … the need to nurture and love. There are no words to describe the feeling when someone believes in you, and wants to help you after everything you’ve endured. This agency called Adoption Information Services did set us up with another wonderful agency called Gift of Life. Both can be found online thanks to the wonderful internet.
Before Gift of Life was able to provide to us our lovely twin daughters, another gift came our way. Our son arrived via what I call the domino effect. Someone who knew someone, who knew another someone who knew our friend, that had told them about us, became our adoption reality. It really does work like that, as they tell you to tell friends and family you want adoption in your life. We were able to be in the delivery room with the birth-mother after only meeting her two weeks before. By the way I turned forty two days later. What a blessing!
Why do I write about something so personal, so revealing? Because now is the time in my life I am prepared to write these human interest stories, stories of love and brave acts. It’s time we treat these birth mother’s with the respect and dignity they deserve. They are carrying the life and love of a family for which they are brave enough to sacrifice themselves. This is not rejection but the unconditional love we all long for in life. If we can respect these women that decide this fate, then maybe the children who already love their new families can rest their minds knowing society is behind them and the woman who sacrifices. These are good women who give birth to life and a soul the future.
Adoption was a wonderful decision I made back in 1997. My husband thanked me (when our son was born) for continuing the process when he had had enough turbulence with infertility.
Kim Troike is a writer, mother and nurse from Atlanta, Georgia. Her latest novel is “Into the Vines” and is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. She blogs about themes like this one(adoption) present in her contemporary novel of fiction onto theivorytide.com. See her Amazon page here.
By Kim Troike
Cupids Pic Credit by Kim
Google Images Credit
Adoption.com
AdoptionInformationServices
Homestudies
GiftofLifeAdoptions.com
Parenting.com
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Tags: Adoption, Adoption Information Services, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, belly button piercing, Fertility, Gift of Life, Home Studies, Infertility, Into the Vines, Kim Troike, Parenting, theivorytide.com
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