Reflections

The other day I had one of those rare Mommy moments where I was able to eat some lunch, watch a little television and enjoy the quiet in the house. While doing so, I looked up on our living room wall and took a look at the first professional photo we had made of Pumpkin, taken shortly after we brought her home. My first observations were simply how much she's changed. As she prepares for her second birthday, she is clearly becoming more of a Toddler and losing so much of her infant features. She no longer has such a round face, but thankfully still has her chubby little cheeks. Our little "Choo-Choo" (Little Piggy) as she was affectionately called at FuLing SWI is growing taller and thinner with each passing day.

As I continued to look at the photo of Pumpkin, my heart was also taken aback to think of what a precious and lovely child she has been and how I still cannot get my heart or thoughts around her birth mother and how, why or when she knew she would give her away. More over, I think what a wonderful child she is missing out on!

While I'm certain that all adoptive parents wrestle with this issue and how to address it with their respective children, I am at once equally humbled and grateful and understanding of the decision to give this child away to the orphanage, but at the same time my heart is often heavy at the thought of just what a special child this woman gave away.

Even at her worst, most tyrannical moments, we are completely enthralled with our daughter and I find myself thinking this is what I was meant to do. Motherhood has thus far turned out exactly as I'd imagined it to be all these many years as I waited for my dreams to come to fruition. How then, do I address my sadness for a woman I'll never know anything about who has lost an opportunity to know this child she created? For all I know she may have never had a connection to her child, was an unwed mother, already had her one son or was trying until she could get one. Only God knows the answers to these questions.

In all the uncertainties of adoption, there is one thing that I know for sure and that is that no matter her reasons, a stranger on the other side of the world made it possible for me to be a Mother. Her reasons for doing so are irrelevant and that she did it for me specifically may be a romanticized notion on my part. No matter, I will carry her forever in my prayers with gratitude for a gift that I can never repay.