Two years, 2 weeks, and 2 days ago, we brought home a gorgeous little 5 pounder with light brown skin and soft black curls. She was 10 days old. My husband had already driven home, not knowing how long the ICPC paperwork would take, so I got on a plane, a fat, white, visibly pregnant woman (or recently delivered??) with a newborn child who was obviously biracial. I received 2 kinds of responses as I walked through the Memphis airport changing planes - the kind of cold, quick glances people give to people they disapprove of, and the appropriately drooly melty coos that people give to a teeny, tiny, just hatched human, so new she still smells like God.
She is two now. Her skin is darker, her hair is still soft but coarser and her curls are much tighter. She is possibly a little more clingy, maybe a little more fearful than most of my other children, but not outside the range of normal, and maybe just because we have been slightly more likely to coddle her through strange situations than our others. She is, by my understanding, very well attached.
She sleeps well, better than some of my others. She jumps, talks, climbs out of her crib (Oh joy!), eats, fights, screams, laughs, and does precisely what 2 year olds are supposed to do.
She is big and strong, and will be tall, says the pediatrician. Maybe as tall as her dad, that is, her adopted dad, my husband. Of course, right now, he is all she knows about. But there will be a day, someday, that she will want to know about the other dad. And we won't have much to say. Her birthmom didn't say much about him.
A wonderful young woman at my church who has a heart for adoption asked me recently if there was anything she could do to help. She wanted to support people who were adopting. I said, "You know, at this point, it's just parenting." There is nothing, today, that makes being her mom very different than being anyone else's mom. Well, she needs lotion more than the others. And her hair, well, that's a blog of its own. But really, she is just another of my kids.
She needs to be. She needs to be treated like all of my kids. Even regarding her hair, it is more important right now that she be treated pretty much like the other girls, having her hair done in a way that requires as little holding-still-time as possible. I don't want her to feel singled out.
But someday I know, someday she will ask questions that the others won't. She will question our role in her life, what she has lost, what she has gained. She will wonder what might have been. But I hope that she will, bathed in our love and the Lord's, find peace with what is.
For now, she is just another of my incredibly marvelous and beautiful daughters. She is stunning. Her laughter is contagious, her smile is miraculous, her heart is delightful. She is twice a big sister, and is a great big sister, comforting and scolding her little brothers, sharing with, clobbering, or suffocating them as the situation demands. She is great.
I love when she calls me mom, or holds my hand, or snuggles a big kid when they read to her. I love her version of everyone's name, when mispronunciations become new nicknames. I love that she is here, with us, a part of us, as if grown in me like the others. I know there may be tough days ahead, but that's okay. Bring 'em on.
I'm not afraid.
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