Love

I've been wondering today... How can one heart feel so incomplete, yet also swell with love for a future child? I feel both things, simultaneously. How is that even possible? It must be what happens for those of us who lose children and go on to have more children. When you lose a child, the hole in your heart, the immensely deep hole, takes its place, and it resides there forever. It's indescribable to anyone who does not know that hole. It is with you every day, with every beat of your heart. And I wouldn't want it any other way. Both of my babies have left their mark, and as their mommy, it is my job to carry their spirit with me, forever. I don't care how briefly they were here, they were loved with the relentless love of their mother. And when you love someone so deeply, and you lose them, your heart never is whole again. Never.

And then we made the decision to adopt, and I feel the change within me, within us. I never went into adoption thinking it would fill those holes. I need that ache in my heart, because it is all I have left of my precious angels. But, my heart aches for something else, too. My heart is desperate to be a mom. And that feeling is also indescribable to anyone who hasn't intimately known that ache. We carry it everywhere. Imagine every time you see a pregnant woman, a newborn baby, a car seat, a daddy enjoying his child, a stroller, a playground, an ultrasound picture, the baby aisle at target, a picture of a smiling family, the extra room down the hall in your home...imagine every time you see one of those things, a weight presses down on your chest and the pressure hurts so badly, you cry. It's not easy living with that urgent ache, that desire.

Adopting our child will never fill the holes in my heart that the loss of my sweet babies created. That is too big a job for one little baby! What adoption has brought to me, is hope. It's allowed my heart to begin to heal. It has allowed me to feel the filling of your heart that every mom feels when she is expecting. The knowledge of good things to come. And that is a gift. I am not going in blind, but I am going in with a heart dripping with love, literally oozing with it. My heart is full! I know Jason's is, too. Now, Lord, we are ready. Bring it on!