All I Know

I read a book this past weekend about adoption. I cannot seem to get it out of my mind.

The way the story and characters were developed allowed the reader to see the viewpoints of the birth mother, her parents, and the adoptive family.

I sat on my couch and cried and cried.

The similarities between the book and our lives were uncanny: nineteen year old girl, very supportive parents, not ready to be a mother, wanted to go to college, and unwilling to ever have the child call the biological father "daddy".

No matter how many years go by, or how many stories I hear, adoption is still amazing. Heart wrenching, emotional, exciting, scary....and amazing.

But here is what I keep forgetting -- my adoption experience is very one-sided. I don't often take the time to imagine what my son's birth mother must have been thinking and feeling for the entire seven months before she allowed us to enter her world. All I know is that she picked us mid-December and asked our attorney to wait and not call until Christmas Eve so the news would be a Christmas present for us.

I don't know how many times she decided adoption was best and then changed her mind, only to choose adoption yet again. Maybe she did that five or six times, or maybe not at all. All I know is that she signed the paperwork when her attorney arrived at the hospital 18 hours after our son was born.

I don't know how difficult it was for her parents to walk through this process with her. A once childless couple, who 19 years ago had adopted their own baby girl, were now handing over their first grandchild to an adoptive family 1,500 miles away. I do not know how they did it. All I know is how gracious and kind they were, albeit a tad timid and quiet, through the process, inviting us to her hospital room for pizza the evening the papers were signed, and out to dinner to meet our mothers and 3 year old son before we all flew home.

I don't know how they survived it, our son's birth mother and her parents, when we left the restaurant, said our final goodbyes, and walked our separate ways. It felt like a scene from a movie, my husband and I walking away with our 3 year old, both his grandmas, and a beautiful new baby. I remember turning around and watching the three of them walking to their car, arms around each other, empty handed. I do not know the excruciating pain they must have been feeling. All I know is how their decision to choose adoption changed our lives, and how thankful we are for it.

"Thankful" seems trite, not enough, too unfeeling. We are beyond thankful. We are overjoyed, blessed.....amazed.