Indigo jones

My husband felt the tug years before I did. That burning desire to have a child, and become a father. When I was finally ready for such a life-changing occurrence, we found ourselves unable to conceive.

It is a frustrating time when you realize that the uneducated, the poverty-stricken, and the unfit seem to be having babies left right and center, and you, a loving, married and highly successful couple with the means to give a child a wonderful and rich life are coming up empty.

After doctor’s appointments, and exploring the options in modern fertility treatments, the realization hit me: I didn’t care about procreating, I just wanted to be a parent.

Almost 2 years later, we adopted a beautiful baby girl from China.

I can’t imagine loving a child more. Bailey has been the light in our lives from the moment we laid eyes on her. During the long and heart-wrenching wait to meet our daughter, I fell deeply in love with the image in my mind of this wonderful little girl who would bring great joy to our lives. The magical moment when they brought her to us from the orphanage was one I will never forget: the moment that I became a parent.

We have always spoken openly about Bailey’s adoption, and how the person who carried her could not keep her, so she went to the orphanage and they cared for her until we could come for her.

Somehow, children seem to grasp both the simplicity and complexity of situations with a wisdom and clarity that is way greater than their years.

One day, when she was about 5, I heard her talking to a young friend about where she came from. Bailey very matter of factly summed up her situation by saying: “ My Mommy didn’t carry me in her tummy, she carried me in her heart.”

Families are made in many different ways. Giving birth and motherhood are not mutually exclusive. Bonds exist when love is unconditional, and sometimes we find that LOVE, not blood, is thicker than water.

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Tags: adoption, China, family, international adoption, love, motherhood, parenting

This entry was posted on August 1, 2009 at 1:12 am and is filed under family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.