Room in Our Hearts
We've been matched. We've.Been.Matched. We've BEEN MATCHED! WE'VEBEENMATCHEDWE'VEBEENMATCHEDWE'VEBEENMATCHED!
It's insane to think how long we've wanted to say these words. Really since starting this blog almost 7 years ago. So much has changed since then, but our desire to adopt never did. However, now that this day is finally here, the tangle of emotions is intense and varied and about as simple as a Star Wars discussion at our dinner table. (Read: Amazingly complex!)
But, you guys, our Indian princess has a name. And a birthday. And lots of other stuff that we can't share because of legal and confidentiality reasons, BOO! Currently, we are paperworking our behinds off, but won't travel to India before the end of the year. We CAN tell you, we're calling her Wren or Renni (shortened versions of her beautiful, already-given Indian name). She is a year and a half old. And, okay this sounds ridiculous, but her stunning, wide eyes, small, perfect nose, and pouty lips remind me so much of her baby sister, Margot. Really it's crazy because these 2 girls couldn't be more different, but we see the "sister" in them. Which breaks and re-makes our hearts.
Please, PLEASE, PUH-LEASE, do NOT tell us, "God has a plan" or "Everything happens for a reason" in regards to the timing of Margot's death and our match with Renni. We have space in our hearts for a lot of things, but that isn't one of them. God wouldn't create and then extinguish the life and light of one of His children as a stepping stone for another. That's abhorrent. It is minimizing and devaluing to my beautiful Margot's memory AND insulting in the insinuation that Wren is a second place stand-in for her sister. We won't stand for that; we love both our daughters too much. So please DON'T SAY IT, especially as David and I really shouldn't commit any crimes before this adoption is over.
Here is how we explained things to our adoption agency earlier this year:
From our end, we remain eager to be matched. I know our circumstances
make this a uniquely awful situation, but David and I have never wavered about our commitment to our daughter from India. We have been
“pregnant” through the international adoption process (including
Ethiopia) for 5+ years now, including paperwork, and feel ready to meet
this second daughter of ours. Our grief over Margot doesn’t diminish our
capacity as parents or the affection we have for Elijah and our Indian
princess. During my pregnancy, Elijah called his future sisters “twins,”
as we hoped they would be close in age. We even mentioned our “Indian
princess to be” as a sibling in Margot’s obituary. By no means are we
looking to replace our precious daughter, as parents we will grieve her
loss forever, but having her Indian “twin” sister home will be a
tremendous joy and dream fulfilled.
Capisce?!? Okay, moving on.
The hardest part in all this has been the emotional whiplash. After receiving R's referral, we were over-the-moon, totally in LUUURVE happy. The happiest we've been since Margot's birth. But coming off that initial high, I remembered with a start, "My other daughter is dead. Rennie won't get to meet her sister. Elijah will never be outnumbered by two little girls in the house." I felt I needed to self-flagellate the joy right out of my life; how could I ever possibly be excited again? Then my husband put his social work hat on. David keeps reminding me that we have room in our hearts for many emotions: Gratitude for Elijah, sadness for Margot, anticipation for Wren. (I'd like to point out, at twice my size, his appropriately larger heart physically has more emotional holding space than mine. Hence, his steady ride in stability and my quick trip to crazy town.) So often we forget this, that disparate emotions can co-exist without cancelling each other out. My grief over Margot doesn't negate my love for Elijah or my amazement about being matched with Wren. We have 3 unique and different children, of course we will feel unique and different feelings for each of them. At the base of it all is love though. So much love. Since we've had just E for 11+ years, I get swept away by the overflow of emotions for my 3 children pretty regularly. Waves of BIG FEELS. I handle it by hugging Elijah really tightly for a long time, which he loves. The first time I used this coping mechanism, as he squirmed in my strangle hold, I guilted him with, "I have three kids, but you're the only one at home so you get all the face-to-face Mom affection." His wriggling, exasperated response was, "But it's a lot." Admittedly, it is.
When we got Wren's referral call, David wasn't even in town.
He was attending a 2 day work conference outside of Baltimore. So there were A LOT of back and forth texts and calls and squeals between us, when he should have been in sessions and I should have been checking library books out to the Smithsburg peoples. We were smitten immediately with Renni. She is amazing. David kept sending me screenshots of the information sent by the orphanage with his comments interspersed. A brief mention of her enjoyment of independent play was circled in red followed by his excited aside, "She's an introvert like her Dad!" But, still wounded (FOREVER wounded) over losing Margot, I wanted deeper confirmation. At the end of February when we decided to open our family back up for being matched, we were hardly on speaking terms with God. Prayer is such a sensitive subject; we've eliminated the word from our vocabulary for the moment. We say things to Jesus, nothing fancy. I told Him, "If we get matched, I need it to be obvious -beyond obvious- this is our daughter. I can't bear for something to fall through and we lose another girl. It will kill me." And with that statement fresh in your mind, I'm going to backtrack and share one of the most inexplicable experiences of my life:
Friday, January 18th, 2019. David and I were leaving the next day for a secluded weekend at a bed and breakfast before Margot's should-have-been due date on the 21st. Coming off many brutal and busy weeks, I'd scheduled a last minute massage to help me start to unwind for the trip. But, of course, once I checked in for my appointment, sadness caught up with me and I sat -quietly sobbing- in the serene waiting area. My girl came out to get me and, obviously, noticed I was distraught. She led me back to her room and sat down beside me. After asking a few leading questions, which I answered with a shake of the head yes or no, she learned the basics about Margot. Since I have been going to this same professional for years now, we'd already established that we were both Jesus people. So, with that knowledge in place, she asked if she could pray with me before my massage. I nodded in affirmation. When she finished praying she said, "If you are interested, sometimes I feel the Holy Spirit nudging me to say certain things to the person I am working on. The phrases don't always make sense to me, but they usually have meaning to the individual. If that happens, if He speaks to me, is it okay to share what He says?" My quick (and very spiritual) response was, "Yeah, okay. Because He sure isn't talking to me." Then it got weird. Weird weird. Like maybe holy weirdness? Over the course of 30 minutes, she spoke 5 incredibly relevant messages to me. Which is so foreign to my religious practice that it's potentially something I'd make fun of under different circumstances. (Akin to a psychic standing in front of an audience saying, "I'm sensing the letter 'M'. Does anyone connect with the letter 'M'?") But her meaningful words silenced even MY inner critic, which is no small feat. I'll share the final statement with you today, first giving a bit of context. Since Margot passed, David has fixated on the invisibility of grief. How we carry it with us, but no one -especially the public at large- can see the pain we are in. How it would be easier if there was an external way to show this sadness, like the black armbands worn over clothing in ages past. Then people could temper conversations with marked mourners by using increased kindness and solemnity. Concerning this, D says, "I feel like we should be black and white people in this vibrant world. Graytones indicating grief, no hues or meaning; we've been stripped of color. Then people will be aware of our loss." We now use this analogy often in description of our days or interactions. So you can imagine my shock when the masseuse (or Holy Spirit?) said, "The color and meaning will come. It's gray right now, but the color will come again." Even after the treatment was over and I was ready to leave, she repeated to me, "Laura, the color will come. I keep hearing that for you." In the moment, it was enough to make my dead heart nearly beat outside of my chest.
Fast forward several months to Wren's referral. After a flurry of ecstatic correspondence all day, D sent a final text out later that evening. It said, "Honey, for the first time since December, today I cried out of happiness. R-- (Wren's given Indian name) means color."
Um, yeah. Cue the Holy Spirit mic drop.
How appropriate that "rainbow baby" is the title given to a child who comes after loss. The bright spot following a storm. Or, in our case, a promise made when we were too devastated to hope. Awhile ago, before the pregnancy, I told Elijah that someday he'll have a hard time remembering life before his sister. And he said the most profound thing, "Mama, I think memory is like a mountain. When a big event happens, it blocks some of the little ones like a mountain would." Margot's passing has been the Everest of our lives these last months; we couldn't see past it. Huge and imposing and so close that it threw off our perspective on everything else. I see Renni's referral as a bridge. Not a means to travel beyond Margot and never look back, but a permission to release some overshadowing hurt in order to hold the precious parts of her memory even closer. A way to get from here to there. To gather up our pride for Elijah, our passion for Margot, and our thrill over Wren and move forward into becoming the beautifully broken family of 5 we were always meant to be.
The hardest part in all this has been the emotional whiplash. After receiving R's referral, we were over-the-moon, totally in LUUURVE happy. The happiest we've been since Margot's birth. But coming off that initial high, I remembered with a start, "My other daughter is dead. Rennie won't get to meet her sister. Elijah will never be outnumbered by two little girls in the house." I felt I needed to self-flagellate the joy right out of my life; how could I ever possibly be excited again? Then my husband put his social work hat on. David keeps reminding me that we have room in our hearts for many emotions: Gratitude for Elijah, sadness for Margot, anticipation for Wren. (I'd like to point out, at twice my size, his appropriately larger heart physically has more emotional holding space than mine. Hence, his steady ride in stability and my quick trip to crazy town.) So often we forget this, that disparate emotions can co-exist without cancelling each other out. My grief over Margot doesn't negate my love for Elijah or my amazement about being matched with Wren. We have 3 unique and different children, of course we will feel unique and different feelings for each of them. At the base of it all is love though. So much love. Since we've had just E for 11+ years, I get swept away by the overflow of emotions for my 3 children pretty regularly. Waves of BIG FEELS. I handle it by hugging Elijah really tightly for a long time, which he loves. The first time I used this coping mechanism, as he squirmed in my strangle hold, I guilted him with, "I have three kids, but you're the only one at home so you get all the face-to-face Mom affection." His wriggling, exasperated response was, "But it's a lot." Admittedly, it is.
When we got Wren's referral call, David wasn't even in town.
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| D getting "THE CALL!" |
Friday, January 18th, 2019. David and I were leaving the next day for a secluded weekend at a bed and breakfast before Margot's should-have-been due date on the 21st. Coming off many brutal and busy weeks, I'd scheduled a last minute massage to help me start to unwind for the trip. But, of course, once I checked in for my appointment, sadness caught up with me and I sat -quietly sobbing- in the serene waiting area. My girl came out to get me and, obviously, noticed I was distraught. She led me back to her room and sat down beside me. After asking a few leading questions, which I answered with a shake of the head yes or no, she learned the basics about Margot. Since I have been going to this same professional for years now, we'd already established that we were both Jesus people. So, with that knowledge in place, she asked if she could pray with me before my massage. I nodded in affirmation. When she finished praying she said, "If you are interested, sometimes I feel the Holy Spirit nudging me to say certain things to the person I am working on. The phrases don't always make sense to me, but they usually have meaning to the individual. If that happens, if He speaks to me, is it okay to share what He says?" My quick (and very spiritual) response was, "Yeah, okay. Because He sure isn't talking to me." Then it got weird. Weird weird. Like maybe holy weirdness? Over the course of 30 minutes, she spoke 5 incredibly relevant messages to me. Which is so foreign to my religious practice that it's potentially something I'd make fun of under different circumstances. (Akin to a psychic standing in front of an audience saying, "I'm sensing the letter 'M'. Does anyone connect with the letter 'M'?") But her meaningful words silenced even MY inner critic, which is no small feat. I'll share the final statement with you today, first giving a bit of context. Since Margot passed, David has fixated on the invisibility of grief. How we carry it with us, but no one -especially the public at large- can see the pain we are in. How it would be easier if there was an external way to show this sadness, like the black armbands worn over clothing in ages past. Then people could temper conversations with marked mourners by using increased kindness and solemnity. Concerning this, D says, "I feel like we should be black and white people in this vibrant world. Graytones indicating grief, no hues or meaning; we've been stripped of color. Then people will be aware of our loss." We now use this analogy often in description of our days or interactions. So you can imagine my shock when the masseuse (or Holy Spirit?) said, "The color and meaning will come. It's gray right now, but the color will come again." Even after the treatment was over and I was ready to leave, she repeated to me, "Laura, the color will come. I keep hearing that for you." In the moment, it was enough to make my dead heart nearly beat outside of my chest.
Fast forward several months to Wren's referral. After a flurry of ecstatic correspondence all day, D sent a final text out later that evening. It said, "Honey, for the first time since December, today I cried out of happiness. R-- (Wren's given Indian name) means color."
Um, yeah. Cue the Holy Spirit mic drop.
How appropriate that "rainbow baby" is the title given to a child who comes after loss. The bright spot following a storm. Or, in our case, a promise made when we were too devastated to hope. Awhile ago, before the pregnancy, I told Elijah that someday he'll have a hard time remembering life before his sister. And he said the most profound thing, "Mama, I think memory is like a mountain. When a big event happens, it blocks some of the little ones like a mountain would." Margot's passing has been the Everest of our lives these last months; we couldn't see past it. Huge and imposing and so close that it threw off our perspective on everything else. I see Renni's referral as a bridge. Not a means to travel beyond Margot and never look back, but a permission to release some overshadowing hurt in order to hold the precious parts of her memory even closer. A way to get from here to there. To gather up our pride for Elijah, our passion for Margot, and our thrill over Wren and move forward into becoming the beautifully broken family of 5 we were always meant to be.
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| Big thanks to the talented Julie at Beautiful Beginnings for capturing these announcement pictures. Link to the site above ^ to see more of her amazing work! |
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