This one is going to be an emotional one for me. It is so important to me that I am able to use words that best encompass this journey and all of the events and emotions that go with it.
My main goal, in all of this, is to honor Raelynn and to honor her birth parents and their family and the story they all share. The story that has changed our lives and our hearts. The story that we have been honored and privileged enough to be a part of. We have chosen to never share Mama L's story and there are parts of Raelynn's story that we won't share because those are not ours to share. They are theirs and we hold them sacred.
When Paul and I first began pursuing adoption we were naive and uneducated. It breaks my heart thinking about the way that I thought about things when we first began our journey. I had made it a journey about us when in reality, this journey isn't about us at all. It is about our child and her first family and we are just blessed enough to be a part of it! Very early on it became important to me to become as educated as possible about all parts of the adoption triad: the birth mom/family, the adoptee, and the adoptive parents. I will never know what it is like to be two of the three parts of that triad but I wanted to be able to have as much compassion and empathy and understanding for those two sides so I started reading things written by both birth parents and adoptees. Let me tell you, some of those things were hard to read and made me really look at my heart and evaluate why we were on this journey. So many of the things talked about by those other two sides of the triad were of hurt, and pain, and suffering and it devastated me. It softened my heart and made me think hard about the words I used and the way we did things. I became passionate about open adoption, something that terrified me when we started the process just due to lack of education on it. I became someone who wanted to listen to the voices of birth parents and families and of adoptees, even when it broke my heart, made me self-reflect, or made me uncomfortable. Because, friends, something this painful and broken should be uncomfortable. Knowing that some families will be broken so that other families can be made whole should hurt your heart and make you uncomfortable.
I began to have a deep love for birth parents/families and a part of my heart became constantly heartbroken for their pain and grief. It became important to me that the woman who would choose us to parent her sweet child felt cared about and for, honored, loved, and valued. It became important to me that all the women choosing to place their child were treated fairly and ethically. I also began to have a new heart for adoptees and the conflict they may feel as they grow up. I began to acknowledge the trauma and grief that they go through. I began to recognize that they were the only part of the adoption triad that didn't have a choice in their adoption and it made me want to create a home that our child would feel okay expressing their grief and questions and to learn ways to walk next to them as they worked through some of those things.
Paul and I get asked often why we chose adoption. I have talked about this in other posts briefly but adoption was never Plan B for us. Adoption is something that has been on my heart since I was in grade school and something that Paul has wanted to do since high school. We knew it was something that we would pursue we just didn't know when. We are able to have children biologically. We didn't chose adoption because we are unable to have biological children, we chose adoption because God called us to love other people the way He loves us and we felt like this is the way He was prompting us to do that.
I talk very openly about adoption appropriate/ friendly language. Things like "her birth mom made an adoption plan and placed her child for adoption" should be used instead of "she gave her child up". We hear SO much how blessed Raelynn is to have us as her parents and that she is so lucky to be in a better home. I get so angry and saddened when I hear this. People mean well and are trying to be nice but we are the lucky ones. We are blessed to be chosen to be her parents. We are also not a "better" home. We didn't adopt to "save a child". Raelynn didn't need to be saved from her first family. They love her very very much, they just didn't feel like they were ready or able to parent at this time. I will tell you, that after the time we spent with them, we know they will both be INCREDIBLE parents when the time is right. We are a home who wants to love and provide but we are not a better home.
When I have the privilege of sharing some of the story we are so blessed to be apart of, I cry. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. You can ask Paul and my mom. I talk with them the most about it and I have tears in my eyes every time. I pray it always does that to me- makes me feel raw and vulnerable and happy and heartbroken. I want to have a heart that always knows the weight of the story we are a part of.
When we were chosen by Rae's birth mama my heart felt all kinds of emotions but peace was the biggest one. It just felt like we were meant to be loving her from the moment we found out about her! I remember a couple days after we were chosen to parent sweet Rae, Paul and I were standing in the nursery getting things ready and we just stopped and hugged each other. Our whole life was changing... it had changed the moment we spoke to Mama L the first time. During that hug I said to Paul, "I just love her so much already." Paul answered me, "Which one?" That man knows my heart. He knows that I love hard. He knew that when I said I love her already I wasn't just talking about the baby we were going to get to parent, I was talking about her incredible birth mama, too. I had said to Paul, at the beginning of our journey that I couldn't wait to parent and love a sweet child, but maybe even more than that, I couldn't wait to love their first mama and family as big and as well as I knew how. I couldn't wait to grow our family by as many people as possible.
We got to spend exactly six weeks getting to know Mama L and her sweet mom and I watched over those six weeks as our hearts and lives changed. We began getting to know a woman who would make us parents. We learned her hobbies and likes. We learned her feelings and fears. I learned her dreams and wishes and we learned all about the love she had for Raelynn. About 2 weeks before her due date, I got a text from Mama L that she was working on her birth plan and wanted to know if I would be interested in cutting the umbilical cord. I sat on the couch and cried. I cry now writing about it. What an incredible honor to be a small part of such an incredibly intimate thing. I told her how honored I was and thanked her for asking me. As her due date quickly approached I found myself dealing with so much anxiety. I didn't have any anxiety about the situation itself or about any of the things I was feeling. I had anxiety about quickly approaching the day that Mama L began experiencing incredible grief because of the love she had for her daughter. I found myself wanting to protect her from that inevitable hurt. I still feel like that, honestly. I break a little when I think about the difficulties she is dealing with as we are getting to experience the joys of parenting our sweet girl.
The morning of her due date, Mama L's mom called us and said, "Who goes into labor on their due date?!" We were told to take our time, it was all just kind of starting and that they would stay home for a bit still. We got everything all packed up and began our drive! When we were about an hour away I got a text saying, "How far away are you guys? She is 9 cm dilated!" I made Paul drive a little faster! Her mom told us that she was trying hard to wait so we could be there in time. Her mom then sent a text to me saying, "Lauren, L wants you in the delivery room with her and I. She wants you to be there to meet your daughter right away and cut the cord." I turned into a complete puddle. This woman, who is going to be experiencing the most intimate event in her life, has asked me to be next to her for that. I was honored and so incredibly humbled. We got there just in time and twenty minutes after our arrival sweet Raelynn Ember made her grand entrance into the world.
I got to hold the hand of the bravest, most graceful person I know as she delivered the baby we both call our daughter. The first few moments of our daughter's life she was surrounded by her first mama, her grandma, and her forever mama. It was the most incredible thing I have ever had the honor of being a part of and I pray one day when we get to both tell Rae the story about the day she was born, that she is able to see how incredibly loved and cherished she is. I lack the ability to put into words what that day has done to me. It has completely changed me. As I watched Mama L hold and look at Rae laying on her chest after she was born, I could see the love she had for her just radiate from her. That is the first time I felt my heart feel so incredibly full of joy and so incredibly heartbroken at the same time. I have felt that feeling many times since that day and I am learning that there are very few times that we feel those two feelings coexist but this is one of them and I am learning that that's okay. I pray that it feels like that to me for forever. I never want to forget the pain being felt by her first mama in the midst of all of the joy I feel. I have told some of the people I am close to that it is not lost on me that the very best day of my life is one of the hardest of hers. And because of the love I feel for her, it completely breaks my heart.
We had the opportunity to spend some incredible time in the hospital with Mama L, her mom, their family, Rae's birth father, and his family. Those four days were the hardest, most awesome days of my life. I felt emotions I didn't know existed and I cried more tears than I knew I had. Most were good tears but there were a lot that were also tears of pain and grief for Mama L, her family, Raelynn's birth father, and his family. There were tears of fear and exhaustion. There were tears that stemmed from wanting to always do what was best for Rae and Mama L and not always knowing what that was. I called my mom crying one night, talking through my emotions with her. I remember just telling her that this situation is so fragile. I felt like I was torn between wanting to jump right into being Rae's mama but also wanting to love and honor Mama L the best that I could. We got to have some incredible conversations about what we all wanted the adoption to look like, what we desired for Raelynn as she grew up, and who we dreamed she would be. We also talked about the hard stuff. We talked about the pain we knew Mama L was going to feel. We talked about the legal stuff and paperwork. We talked about how fragile the whole situation was and wanting to handle it with as much care as possible. We also had the opportunity to talk about how we were all feeling, the fears we had, the things we were experiencing, and the situation we so delicately worked to weave together. We talked about how we loved the new family we had and that we know that Rae is so incredibly loved! Mama L's mom was also such an incredible blessing. She was an amazing support for Mama L but she also supported Paul and I with a sense of grace and compassion that I didn't know existed. She encouraged us and prayed for us. She called us mama and daddy. She talked about the way they were so happy and so sad all at the same time. I had an amazing conversation with her one night. She told me that we don't need to worry about anything except being Raelynn's parents. Don't worry about the legal things or anyone changing their mind. I broke down and through tears I just told her that we loved them so much and that while we were so full of joy and happiness, there was this overwhelming amount of sadness I felt for them. She shared that they felt the same way. And she ended the conversation by telling me that she loved us. That conversation changed me. It changed my heart. I had tried my hardest to show how much we cared for them all but tried not to be overwhelming. And now this incredible woman, who we had known for six weeks, shared how much they all loved us. We feel so incredibly blessed. The love we feel for Mama L, her family, and Rae's first daddy and his family is overwhelming. It is a love we didn't know existed. It is a love that comes from the mutual desire to do what is best for Raelynn. It is a love that is difficult to put into words. It is a life-changing kind of love. I saw God work in ways, through those four days, and our new family, that grew my faith infinitely. Watching a woman break her own heart for the benefit of her child, changes you.
We know that adoption is broken. In a perfect world adoption wouldn't exist but our world is broken and so adoption does exist. I feel like it is our duty to share the brokenness and painful parts as much as we share the beautiful parts. It is our duty to honor the birth family and most importantly, to honor the child. There is beauty in brokenness though and we know that God has weaved the brokenness of adoption so perfectly into His plan in order to glorify Him.
Adoption has completely wrecked me. In a devastatingly beautiful way. It has changed my heart and it has changed me. It has broken my heart into a million pieces while simultaneously filling it more full than I knew possible. It has shown me how to love people big and well. It has taught me that God's timing is nothing short of perfect. And I have seen the God's grace more clearly through Raelynn, Mama L, Mama L's mom, and the rest of Rae's birth family than I have seen through anything or anyone before. Adoption is the gospel. Jesus himself was adopted. He was raised by people other than His Father. To watch the gospel unfold in front of us has been life changing. My faith has grown exponentially through this experience. I have learned that He is in control and that He is in the business of changing lives. I prayed daily that I would be able to be a vessel of His hope, love, and grace to Mama L, and all of Raelynn's birth family throughout the process. I fall short of that daily, I think we all do at times. I have learned to give myself grace as we continue to process this story and continue to grow it.
I pray that I am always as in awe and humbled to be chosen to be Raelynn's mama as I am now. I want this experience to forever wreck me to my core. I want to always cry every time I share our story so that people can try to understand the love that we have for Mama L and the rest of Raelynn's birth family. My heart will never be the same and I am so incredibly grateful for that.