Are We Willing?

“We will adopt your baby!”  We have seen the posts and read the comments.  We have seen the pictures of individuals and couples holding signs with this printed message, standing outside the clinics and at the pro-life rallies.  And while this is a well-meaning response to the recent abortion legislation and subsequent media attention, is offering to adopt her baby the right answer?  The intent is good!  Big-hearted and noble even!  But offering to adopt her baby is an overly simplistic answer to a complex and much deeper issue.

The offer itself, if anyone chooses to be so brave, will need to be an offer that is made unconditionally.  It is an offer that cannot be made with any exceptions. Not a single “if.“   Offering to adopt a child who has not yet been born is a serious consideration, a game-changing decision that could significantly affect us and the other members of our family for the rest of our lives!  

Can we honestly say that we would be willing to adopt a baby with a different ethnicity than our own?  One with special needs or who may be born with serious birth defects?  One whose birthmother has AIDS or other communicable diseases?  A baby who has already been exposed to dangerous substances that most assuredly has negatively impacted his or her brain development?  If we are unable or unwilling to adopt a child with no questions asked, then perhaps we should not be offering at all. 

Please hear me . . . I am not saying that a baby with significant special needs is ever a valid reason to have an abortion! Not at all!  But if we ourselves are unwilling or unable to raise a child with significant special needs, perhaps we should not be so quick to criticize the expectant mother who is unwilling or unable to do so either.

And let’s take a step back for a moment, so we can look at the bigger picture. While offering to adopt her baby – unconditionally and without exceptions - is certainly a valid alternative to abortion, adoption is not the only alternative.  Nor is adoption necessarily the best alternative.  Adoption can be a beautiful thing, a moment when an orphaned child and a loving family find each other, joining their hearts together for the rest of their lives.  Many of us have a story that includes adoption, and we are so, so thankful that it does!  

But adoption only tells half of the story. What we often miss is that adoption is, or at least should be, the last resort.  Adoption is the solution for when all other options have failed.   If our response to abortion is to stand up and say, “We will adopt your baby!” we are inadvertently skipping to the last resort. And when we do so, we miss entirely the other piece of the equation.  We completely overlook the mother who is carrying the baby.

The Steps You Take

When I reach my hand into the mailbox and see the crisp white envelope with the county logo in the corner, my heart, as it invariably does, skips a beat.  Important news seems to always come with a phone call or in a crisp white envelope.  I half hold my breath while I rip open the seal.  As I read the document that had been carefully folded inside, it takes a moment for my mind to catch up with my eyes.  Although I can read the words quite clearly, I can not fully comprehend the enormity of their meaning.  I cannot reconcile the harshness of the words with you, my sweet little one, who are perched securely on my hip.  

Mother’s whereabouts unknown.

At first I am outraged.  How could your mother, the one who was supposed to love you forever, so carelessly abandon her responsibilities?  How could she bear to disappear into a world that doesn’t include you in it?  How could she walk away from such an amazing child?  Such a precious gift?

But I am also saddened.  I grieve for this young woman who gave birth to you.  I cannot imagine the choices and circumstances and steps that led her to this point.  My heart breaks when I think that she could feel so wrecked, so trapped in her brokenness that she could see no other option except to leave.   

I am so sorry for everything she is missing in her absence:  your beautiful smile and your funny baby words and your wild hair that will not be contained and your tight squeezes around my neck.  I am sad that she is not here to witness your first tentative steps. 

Most of all, it grieves me to think that because of her choices, because of her destructive relationships and deadly habits, it means that you, my sweet one, do not have the permanence and stability and security that every child deserve.

Loving Her

I am just sitting down to feed the baby, her eyes getting heavier with each sway of the rocking chair, when the phone interrupts my peaceful moment with it’s shrill ring.  A phone call in our home usually means something important is about to happen . . . a new placement, an update on our children’s case, a new or rescheduled appointment, someone who needs something from me.  Whoever it is will just have to wait, I think to myself.  That’s why we have voice mail.  I’ll listen to the message in a few minutes, after this sweet thing is asleep.

I must admit that this is one of my favorite times of the day, a brief respite of quiet and calm, when loving her is the only thing on my mind.  Oh, how precious she is to me!  She has this habit of looking at me with her deep brown eyes, as if she is looking into my heart, begging me to love her.  Everything about her is miraculous and beautiful and breathtaking.  She frequently touches my mouth, as if to say, I don’t just want to hear your words; I want to feel them.  She snuggles up to my neck in that sweet place that children know how to find, and there is nothing else I would rather be doing.  Nowhere else I would rather be.  I feel like the luckiest person in the world; every day I get to experience the joy, the sheer pleasure, of loving her.

Empty Arms

“I loved you like there was no tomorrow.

And then one day there wasn’t.”  - unknown

The image, the haunting, nagging image, is forever etched in my mind.  The image of the white county-issue car, the social worker in the driver’s seat, the top of the baby seat just visible through the back window, heading down my driveway, the brake lights getting smaller with each turn of the wheels.  One of my most beloved treasures, the little one I adore to the very center of my marrow, is leaving.

I know that it is only for the day, for a little while.  I know that she will return later this afternoon, and I will once again hug her close and squeeze her chubby thighs and tickle her round tummy that jiggles when she laughs.  But for the next few hours there is a hollowness in my heart, a void that only she is able to fill.  For the next few hours, in a dark foreshadowing of what may indeed become real when the judge bangs the gavel for the last time, my arms are empty.

The image, the haunting, nagging image, is forever etched in my mind.  The image of the clear hospital bassinet, the wires snaking into it from the machines against the wall, the top of my baby’s head just visible underneath the blankets.  I am walking away from my beloved treasure, the little one I adore to the very center of my marrow, unsure of when I will see my baby again.

I know that it is only temporary, for a little while.  I know that I will see my child next week, or maybe the week after that, and will once again kiss her round cheeks and feel those tiny fingers wrapped tightly around mine.  But for the next few days, or maybe weeks, there is a hollowness in my heart, a void that only this baby is able to fill.  For now, with a frightening foreboding of what the future might hold, my arms are empty.

A Tale of Two Mothers

Every time I hear the glass doors slide open, my eyes lift with a twinge of apprehension, wondering if it is her.   Because I had been warned that she would be here today, I have purposely arrived early for this appointment, so that I could check in at the front desk, fill out the necessary paperwork, and get settled in the waiting room before having to face her.

Inevitably, the doors slide open once again, and this time she storms in.   She takes one look at the child – her child - sitting on my lap, and scowls daggers at me before choosing a seat far enough away from me to ensure that we won’t feel the need for small talk.  I  mean, what could we possibly have to say to one another?  In spite of her strongest objections and denials of any wrongdoing, Child Protective Services has taken her child away from her and placed him in foster care.  In my home.  In a white woman’s home!  She is furious that I am caring for her child. Furious that someone somewhere considered me a more “fit” parent than her.  Even though she has never met me, in her mind I am the enemy.

While we are waiting for the child’s name to be called, I discreetly steal glances her way, trying to size her up and form an opinion.  I have been told that she can be confrontational and spiteful, so naturally I am wary.  She is smaller than I expected.  Short and extremely thin, with hands that fidget nervously.  Her tiny braids hang down her back and partially cover her face, a face that might be pretty if it wasn’t so clearly filled with anger.  I know the reasons why her child is in foster care.  I have heard about her faults as a mother.  I have little tolerance for parents who do not properly care for their children.  Why is she angry?  It’s her fault that her child is in foster care.  Even though I have never met her, in my mind she is the enemy.