• Blessings

    Date: 2012.02.20 | Category: Benjamin, Hope, Maisey | Tags:

    I’ve been thinking about this lately because I’ve had so many people say “you are wonderful to do what you are doing”.  I’m never sure how to respond to that, especially since no one tells you that “you are a wonderful for doing what you are doing” when you get pregnant.

    I can tell you without a doubt that my 3 adopted children are my children and have been since the moment I laid eyes on them.  It was love at first sight.  With Hope it wasn’t even first sight. Dan called to tell me that he had to ask another resident to go back to a delivery because he couldn’t do it.  He had heard this story about a little girl with a heart defect, the adoptive parents backed out, and the biological mother had decided not to treat her, which meant that she would die within a week or two.  He had been to many deliveries, heard and seen many things, but he could not go to her delivery.  He was attached to this little girl.

    He was supposed to write the orders to stop her prostaglandins.  He couldn’t do it.  Instead he went to the hospitals gift shop.  He called me after she was born to tell me that he had bought her booties and stuffed animals.  He couldn’t stand that her bed looked so empty.  He wrote an order for the nurses to rock her every hour.  He called me and I knew it the minute he said it.  She was supposed to be ours.

    The kids, Dan and I decided to bring her home so that she wouldn’t die alone in the hospital.  We had already been through Kyle’s death and knew we could handle it. Cassie said she didn’t care if she was only here for a day she would be her sister forever.  Cassie got on her knees and begged.  Zach said no child should die alone and without a name.  We knew that we could proceed with the adoption after she died because friends of ours had a child die during the adoption process and in Iowa you can still finish the adoption.  So we knew she would die with our name and she would be loved for as long as we had.  We were prepared. Well, at least as prepared as you can be.

    Once we had decided on that though, the cardiac  surgeon came up to us and said if we would proceed with the adoption, he would do everything in his power to get her through her surgeries. We decided to try.  Dan’s mom even called me the day after I told her about this baby and she said, “How is she doing?  It’s the strangest thing.  I feel like I’m her grandma or something.”  I laughed and said, “Well, that’s good because guess what we’ve decided to do.”  Someday I’ll have to write about all the God things that have happened with Hope.  It should be a book.  She is a miracle, a gift.  Any wonderful thing I did pales in comparison with the blessings that God has given me by letting me be her mother.

    Benjamin and Maisey’s story were my first journals on this blog.  We looked at many, many babies on the CCAI web-site.  I knew the instant I saw them that they were my children.  I can’t explain it.  I can’t explain how God works.  It just was.  I cried when I saw their faces, much like I did after I delivered my babies.  These are my children.  I can’t stand the fact that they were abandoned.  I don’t want to tell them that, but it is their truth.  I can, however, tell them over and over again what led them to us.  How God works and how their lives were meant to be.  They were meant to be my children.  I would do anything for them.  I would gladly give up my life for them.   I haven’t done anything special except love my children.  So if you say, “It’s wonderful what you are doing” and I stare at you like I don’t know what you are talking about – this is the reason.  I haven’t done anything except trust that what God has laid upon my heart is the truth.   I’m so blessed that these children are mine.   Hope is named Hope for just that reason because it means trust and faith.  It’s not hard to trust a perfect God.  When you have trust, have faith, and follow what He lays upon your heart, amazing things happen.