To Love

To Love

To Love is to hold a child for the first time
to love is to hold a hand for the last time

to love is to laugh out loud at nothing
to love is to sit in a thunderous silence

to love is to carry you anywhere you need to go
to love is to wait for your eventual return

to love is to have a thousand words to say
to love is to say it all with a kiss

to love is to be so full of emotion it leaks out in tears
to love is to have cried so much you can't cry any more....and then you do.

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I guess i'm feeling poetic tonight. I haven't written a poem in so many years i apologize to anyone who reads this and goes......uhm yeah.

I'm thinking about what it means to love a child, I'm struggling to understand other people. To me each one of my children is a precious gift from God, each having arrived in such a unique way, with a story to tell from the moment i learned of their existence.

Darla has been with us for almost a month now and I told myself that this time adoption would be different. That i wouldn't hold back anything from the moment she arrived. With Maggie, Adam and I were in such unfamiliar territory (pertaining to foster adoption) that we didn't know how to feel right away. It's scary to love someone who could be ripped away at a moments notice if the family decided they wanted her back. So we cared for her and loved her as best we could without loving her fully and completely right away. Well for me that only lasted a few weeks before i had to let go and just love her cause she was so dang cute and tiny, but still a part of me wanted to keep her at arm's distance to protect myself from the hurt that could happen if she were given back to her birth family. You see part of me also hurt for the family, not necessarily the birth parents who were living in their own mistakes and couldn't see their way out of them even for a helpless child, but for the extended family who at any moment could decide they wanted this tiny baby. Obviously you know the outcome is that no one ever stepped forward, Maggie was adopted by us in a process that took almost two years (long story) and in the end i hated myself for not just loving her 100% from day one. But that was then.....this is now. Now Darla is in our family, Darla is my 5th child, my precious tiny wonder. She has such bright eyes and a sweet spirit. I loved her the moment i held her.....for that matter i loved her the moment we decided to say "yes." I have told myself that no matter what happens....it is never wrong to love a child. Even if that means loving them in someone else's arms.

A social worker called yesterday to set up a visit for Darla with her grandmother....which makes this person also Maggie's grandmother (by birth.) I find myself wondering why she never visited Maggie when she was born.....but at the same time feeling glad that it shows a sign that someone in the family cares. I'm torn in so many different directions. If I were that grandmother I would want to see her, but then i also would have wanted to see Maggie too, and all of the other 6 children besides these two (yes can you believe that?) I find myself stressing internally, wondering if this means she wants to petition for custody. I suppose it's a possibility. And if i allow myself to consider the chance that she could get custody of her I would have to say that it still wasn't wrong to love her this much from the first moment, it has fostered a strong and healthy child who will grow and blossom from such a wonderful start. But a piece of my heart breaks at the thought of my child being gone.....I can't imagine, and I'm going to stop imagining because it's hard to type when you're crying.

Now to clarify, I have discussed with the social worker the whole scenario....what if this grandmother wants to petition for custody? She says that ultimately it is up to the social workers to decide what the best permanent placement for the child is and that they would side (most likely) with US, because we would adopt her and we are young and she has a full sibling here. But there's a part of my brain that wants to play this out in every way possibly, which often ends in a worst case scenario.

The visit is tomorrow and although i find myself in emotional unrest over the possible implications, I also want to do everything I can to help the family know that I am not the enemy because we have their children in our family. That we are a loving family who wants only the best for these children (and all of our children.) I'm going to write them a letter, mostly it will tell about how well Darla and Maggie are doing, and how much they're loved. I still have no idea exactly how i'll word it or what I'll say, but i needed this moment to put together all my thoughts and to get some emotion out before i write it. I only hope that I can be strong enough to handle whatever God's plan for Darla is.....she's a part of us now and we can't imagine life without her.....hopefully we'll never have to.