I don't know if it is the fact that the holidays are QUICKLY approaching, but I have been thinking a lot about the fact that our daughter is already living in an orphanage and her birth mother has already had to endure the agonizing decision to place her daughter for adoption. I had not thought that we would be spending another Christmas without our daughter, let alone that we still would not even have a picture of her. That is the hand that we have been given, so be it...we will continue to wait for her ever so patiently ( sort of patiently, as patient as I can be as those of you who know me can attest to).
My heart aches for her China Mother. We have the pain in our hearts of waiting for our child to enter our lives, she has the pain in her heart of loss, knowing she will never see her sweet child again, yet, she will suffer quietly and stoically, knowing that she is doing what she feels is best for her child and her future. This, to me, other that laying down your life for someone, is the ultimate selfless act.
As some of you may know, Jim is also adopted and grew up in a wonderful, loving family. Just before Ainsley was born, he had the opportunity to connect with his birth mother. It has been a fantastic, wonderful experience and probably not how most reunions progress. We have been very lucky to get to know both her and her family and we will probably always remain close to all of them.
She once visited us for a weekend with her daughter and grand daughter. Something she said just resonated with me and I have always remembered her words. In a conversation we were all having she made the statement that there wasn't a day that went by that she didn't think of him, her child. She always believed that she had made the right decision for him, but, she always thought of him. As a mother, I can't imagine how difficult that must have been. I feel fortunate that our lives have come full circle and that we have all been able to get to know each other.
I am also well aware that our daughter will probably never get to experience that, it rarely happens in Chinese adoptions. There is little and, most frequently, no information available regarding the children's lives prior to the orphanage. Finding birth families is more often that not an impossible task. There just simply are not any records available and you are usually not given any information other than how they were found. We will probably never be able to tell her birth mother that her daughter is happy and doing great and our daughter will never have the chance to ask why her mother made the decision of adoption.
Our daughter's birth mother will always have a special place in my heart, one mother to another. I will always feel honored that she gave us the opportunity to be parents to her child and I will never take that responsibility lightly just as I know that she did not make her decision lightly.
There is a book that I read to Ainsley and I would like to share a quote from it with you. The book is about a little girl adopted from China and the three names that she has been given.
"My first name was whispered to me by my first mother when I was born. It's someplace in my heart" "I make a beautiful star for the name I only heard once, the name before my remembering."
"My second name is from the land I was born in and said good-bye to." "At the orphanage I was given my second name."
"My third name is my ni hao, my hello, full of love. I am love arrived in this place, this family."- the name my family gave me.
-"Three Names Of Me" by Mary Cummings
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