If you love my family....

I posted this on Facebook a long time ago and realized that it should be on my blog too.

I have a request for anyone that cares about my family or our birthmothers. Please stop using the terms “keep” and “give up” when referring to adoption. These are terms commonly used in reference to purging one's house of garbage and other objects. You have to decide what to keep and what to give up or throw away. These terms should never be used in reference to a child or the thought process behind a birth mother’s decision.

There are a tiny number of exceptions to this but overwhelmingly, an adoption begins when a birth mother (sometimes a birth father) carefully ponders what will be the best future for her unborn child. If she concludes that parenting the child herself isn’t the best option, she may choose to place her child with adoptive parents. She pours over adoptive parent profiles, she may pray, talk to her family and friends, and after much thought and consideration, she chooses a family to place her unborn child with.

Please don’t dismiss these word choices as simple semantics. “Keep” and “give up” are so charged with negative ideas. They reduce a child to something akin to garbage and a birthmother to someone who treated a child like garbage. I know it doesn’t roll off the tongue and will take some effort but please try to use the words “parent” or “place” when referring to what a birth mother decided to do.

I am eternally grateful to my children’s birth mothers for carefully considering what the children they carried would need and deciding to place them with my family. Birth mothers are my heroes.

I have never heard someone use “keep” and “give up” with the intention to hurt or offend. I do not get offended by people who use those words. So rest assured, I am not angry or hurt by any of my friends or acquaintances. I am worried about how my children or their birth mothers will feel when they hear people use those words. Thank you to all of you who already understand and use the words “parent” and “place”. There are many of you.

Bad News

I just heard from the twins birthmother - she had a miscarriage.  Very sad.  I was looking forward to another little one.  We'll make the best of things and enjoy the three we have.  Plenty to keep busy with and enjoy.  I may be able to do two consecutive semesters of school now.

No we are not crazy

My husband and I learned this week that we’re going to have another baby!  I know we sound crazy.  The twins birth mother is pregnant and would like us to adopt the baby.  We discussed and prayed, and pondered all week and we know this baby is supposed to be in our family.  We are thrilled.  I always wanted a large family but didn't think it would be possible for us.  Not sure when baby's coming exactly but probably 6 or 7 months if all goes well.  The twins will be not quite 2.  I will have some good stories to tell.  

So I’ve been thinking a lot about motherhood this week.  Today I was listening to a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love” (by Adele, really great!) and the lyrics describe how I feel about my children really well. I suspect many mothers would feel the same.  There is something there that especially speaks to the journey adoptive parents take.

"Make You Feel My Love"

When the rain is blowin' in your face

And the whole world is on your case

I could offer you a warm embrace

To make you feel my love.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear

And there is no one there to dry your tears

I could hold you for a million years

To make you feel my love.

I know you haven't made your mind up yet

But I would never do you wrong

I've known it from the moment that we met

No doubt in my mind where you belong.

I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue

I'd go crawlin' down the avenue

No, there's nothin' that I wouldn't do

To make you feel my love.

Though storms are raging on the rollin' sea

And on the highway of regrets

Though winds of change are throwing wild and free

You ain't seen nothin' like me yet.

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true

Nothing that I wouldn't do

Go to the ends of the Earth for you

To make you feel my love.

It also reminds me of a passage from The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett, which I recently read.  One of the main characters, Dickon, a 12-year-old boy, befriends two motherless 10-year-old cousins, Colin and Mary.  Dickon’s mother, Susan Sowerby, is the archetypal loving, gentle, understanding mother.  Colin finally meets her one day and when it’s time to say goodbye he

“stood quite close to Susan and fixed his eyes on her with a kind of bewildered adoration and he suddenly caught hold of the fold of her blue cloak and held it fast. 

‘You were just what I—what I wanted,’ he said.  ‘I wish you were my mother—as well as Dickon’s!’

“All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew him with her warm arms close against the bosom under the blue cloak—as if he had been Dickon’s brother.  The quick mist swept over her eyes.

‘Eh! Dear lad!’ she said.  ‘Thy own mother’s in this ‘ere very garden, I do believe.  She couldna’ keep out of it.’”

I can’t read that passage without choking up.  I’d love and mother all the motherless children in the world if it were possible.  My husband is afraid I might try.

Thanks Juli, for helping me connect all these dots.

Searching for Baby # 2

It has taken longer than we planned but we have finally been approved for adoption again with LDS Family Services. Most people don't know that for every baby that becomes available for adoption, there are 6 or 7 families hoping to adopt the baby. The statistics are not in our favor but we feel confident that our children will get to us somehow.

We found Isabel because my cousin felt inspired to share our story with a birthmother. We are hopeful that another friend or family member can help us make a connection with our next birth mother. Here's a link to our profile, http://www.providentliving.org/ses/birthmother/viewsingleprofile/0,12272,2133-1-5321-1-1,00.html

Please share it freely!