Gotcha. Eleven Years Ago.
Eleven years ago today, we walked up the courthouse steps and into the judge’s chambers.
I held a thriving six month old wrapped in a starched linen dress in the lightest of blue.
These days she’s into earrings and lip gloss, more than the bottle.
A bundle I had prayed for, wept over and grieved about for five years.
Adoption is not for the weak of heart.
But sometimes your heart is so big it has to search for another.
Most people don’t get adoption. Like I can’t get the terror of a cancer diagnosis or the grief of losing a spouse or parent.
Not to say — heaven forbid — that I won’t get to know these things intimately but until you walk through certain challenges in life you can’t begin to understand.
Being unable to get pregnant and bear a child when everyone around you is finding a baby in their belly as easily as going to the store and picking up your favorite ice cream hurts.
More than you can ever imagine.
I did not pursue adoption to “help” a child.
I did not pursue adoption out of any altruistic notion.
I went through the endless, scary process of filling out paperwork, homestudies, home inspection (the two occasions that you literally could eat off the floors in my kitchen) and the waiting to see if the birthparents would sign the papers —
Out of a mad desire to ease the pain of not being able to give birth and watch a child blossom to all they were created to be.
These days, I don’t think so much about adoption. She is mine and I am hers.
August 22 is the exception.
Today we buy a cake, eat dinner out and celebrate.
The gift.
Has adoption touched your life?
Linking up with Greta@Gfunkified and Julie@Mamamash and iPPP.
I love this. I have two adopted siblings and a nephew who was given up for adoption. It’s a beautiful thing.
How beautiful! I’m glad that you both found each other 🙂
And that is an important point Stacey. I am forever grateful to both my children’s birthparents. They will always be a part of their life’s journey.
What a gift to receive!
I have adoption in my family (my aunt adopted her daughter) and among my close friends. It truly is a gift.
That is an awesome gift to receive and definitely one worth celebrating.
I love beautiful adoption stories told years after the event. Because it’s no longer about the struggle and anticipation of the courtroom, but about being a family.
She’s really lovely.
I love this post and the way you describe adoption. Beautifully written.
What a beautiful post – and a beautiful girl.
I love this. My husband was adopted. It’s so very…complicated to think that your birth parents “gave you up.” He still doesn’t know anything about his birth parents, and it’s definitely a sore spot in his heart. But just like you to your daughter, he knows that he is so very loved by his (adoptive) parents.
This moved me to tears. What a beautiful story of unconditional love. Thank you.
You are so right Greta, it is very complicated. But I try to have a very open approach with my daughter and answer questions that she has as they come up. I’m sure it is hard not to be able to fill in all the pieces of your life’s story. I’m prepared to support both my children in their interest level about their birthparents — when the time is right in their lives.
This is beautiful, Jamie. Happy Gotcha Day! What a beautiful family you have!
Wow! What a lovely post! My cousin adopted (her fifth child, then had a sixth), but that is the only adoption story that has a tie to me.
I love the line that she is yours and you are hers. What a beautiful post!
That’s really great you were able to get the adoption to go through in the United States. I’ve heard it can be a real nightmare. I had some friends that were in the process of adopting a foster daughter they had been fostering for a year and a half and at the last minute the courts let the natural mother have the daughter even though she hadn’t even seen the kid once in the last year and a half and was a meth addict. It was sad.
Brittany — that story breaks my heart. That is always the fear in opening your heart and home to someone if you hope that it will lead to finalization. It takes a special person to foster a child.
sweet jamie,
this warmed my heart to the max. to the extreme max. so love this & your words. beautiful story. beautiful life. beautiful opening.
“These days, I don’t think so much about adoption. She is mine and I am hers.”
this melted me like never before.
what my heart longs for.
a desire.
such sweetness.
love you & this.
happiness for you and your sweet girl.
-katie