Meeting our Birth Mother

I say "our" birth mother because that's what she is.

She's ours.
She gave birth to Isaiah, but she belongs to all of us.
I don't want to give the indication that Isaiah is the only one who has a relationship with her.

I'll call her L-Mama to protect her identity, but that's her arm up there cradling Isaiah. That picture is the first one in Isaiah's baby book and I put it there when I realized who those arms belonged to.It's been several months since we met her for the first time, but there's hardly a day that goes by that I don't think about her.

We've gotten lots of questions about her:
"So have you met the birth mom?"
"Was that weird?"
"So like, do yall have one of those open adoptions where she can see Isaiah and stuff?"
"So was she real young?"
"Do you think she'll ever try and get him back?"
"Why didn't she want him?"

We've also gotten several unprompted comments about her...mostly along the lines of:
"I could never do that."
"I just can't imagine."

It's hard to really talk about all this, or at least organize it succinctly because there are so many mixed emotions when dealing with adoption and especially with someone so pivotal in the process like L-Mama. So I'll just start with our standard answer to people who don't really care to know the answer, but who were just wanting to make a judgmental comment or question about birthmothers in general.

"We love L-Mama. We are so proud of her and her decision to place Isaiah in our home. And so grateful to her."- is what we say.

But there is TONS more that accompanies all that.
Much more that I hope when you read this blog you come away with knowing...especially about birth mothers and their very significant and continuing role in adoption.
Mostly it was the journey the Lord took us on months before Isaiah was ever conceived or born. He began teaching us that a woman who ends up making an adoption plan for her child is a woman who is hurting and in many ways oppressed by her situation and who, MOST importantly, is precious to God.
He taught us the thing she needs most is love and support.

Think about it.

If you are a family who adopted, people around you applaud you for your generous heart and open arms.If you are an adopted child, there's no stigma in that (at least in our modern American culture).

But if you are a birthmom, especially as you are debating whether or not you're going to make an adoption plan, where is the applause?

You know what birthmom's usually hear from the people around them who see the big belly and who would be the Aunts, Uncles, Grandma's, Grandpa's, Fathers, and Cousins?

"You need to suck it up and care for your own child."
"What? We're not a good enough family for her? We raised YOU didn't we?!"
"I'll take care of it. We all will." (most birthmoms hear this and know the people who are saying it don't really intend to follow-up)
"You don't love your baby?"
"You're abandoning your baby."
"You'll regret it."

Can you imagine?
Feeling so desperate, being able to see the future and know the situation you're in wouldn't be healthy for your baby, yet getting nothing but guilt and criticism?
With that in mind, about a year before Isaiah was born we began praying for our birth mom regularly. We knew that if God was calling us to adopt then it meant some woman out there was hurting.
* We prayed for her protection.(many birthmoms are in dangerous relationships)
* We prayed for the Lord to comfort her the day she found out she was pregnant.
* We prayed that she'd be welcomed warmly when she met the adoption agency staff.
* We prayed the Holy Spirit would comfort her in her loneliest moments.
* We prayed for her salvation if she didn't already know the Lord.
* We prayed our baby would be safe in her womb and that the Lord would protect him/her from anything the birthmother chose to put in her body.
* We prayed our birth mother wouldn't put anything in her body that could harm the baby.
* We prayed she would be strong if people close to her criticized her.
* We prayed someone in her life would love her and support her until the day we met her.
* We prayed she'd have peace when she decided to make an adoption plan.
* We prayed she'd accept it when we reached out to her.

It was amazing how our prayers really centered around our birthmom and not our baby. We trusted our baby would be safe, because we trusted that the Lord was bringing him/her to our home. But our birthmom wasn't in our home. She was out there. Somewhere.

Now that we've met L Mama, we see that the Lord answered many of those prayers, that some of our concerns were unfounded (like, from everything she told us, she didn't drink or do any drugs while pregnant) and some we are still praying for her.

So can you see the situation now?

L Mama isn't "that girl" who we try to avoid at all costs because she's dangerous or may "try something" or feel like we are in some sort of competition with her for importance in Isaiah's life. Those kinds of suspicions are rooted in fear and don't lead to any sort of redeeming love.

Sure.

There are women out there who do have such messed up lives that an open relationship isn't wise at first. But most birth mothers who choose adoption are very much in a place in life to receive love and support and are NOT scary intrusive crazy ladies. The adoptive parents of the child they love so much are many times exactly the people who can love her without judgement and encourage her best.

I can't remember if I've said this on this blog or not, but I say it often in reference to L Mama...

"The way we see it, if she was willing to leave the hospital without her baby in her arms, then the LEAST we can do is keep her up-to-date on Isaiah."

Her sacrifice was just so great. Isaiah was a BEAUTIFUL newborn baby.
See? (this is a photo along with the one above that the adoption agency forwarded to us before we headed to Orlando to go pick up Isaiah.) I was in love. Look at those eyes and those cheeks!"

For any woman to have the courage to walk away from something so precious and entrust him into someone else's care is astonishing. I've never seen or been a part of an act so selfless in my life after Jesus dying in my place. Seeing Isaiah everyday and knowing how much L Mama loved him from the start and how much she loves him today, makes my heart so grateful.

If you have ever been in a delivery room, or birthed a child, you know what the moment is like when a baby makes their grand entrance. Absolutely breath taking. It's like time stops. The only "natural birth" I've witnessed was my nephew Kyle's. My sister-in-law graciously allowed me to be in the room when she gave birth to him. Isaac's c-section birth was just as incredible, but there's something of a climax involved when everyone in the room is yelling "PUSH! PUSH!" To think L-Mama experienced that with Isaiah... the love and amazement that occurs with childbirth and witnessing that first breath... and then she chose to say, "I love you and want the best for you, even if that's not me." Who could be afraid of someone like that? How could we NOT love her!?

It gets me worked up when people ask, "Why didn't she want him?"

NOT WANT HIM?!?!

Oh. She wanted him alright. She's a woman. A mother. She carried him. She labored. She saw those chubby cheeks and heard that cry. Of COURSE she wanted him!!!
And that's the whole point I guess. L Mama loves Isaiah. And she made the wisest and most selfless choice she could for him out of that love. She hasn't forgotten about him. She'll think of him and love him until the day she dies. We know she'll be just as proud of the man he becomes as we will be. And she'll know about the man he becomes because we'll make sure she knows.

So to answer the "openess" question. Ours is a "semi-open" relationship as our adoption agency encourages all adoptions to begin that way. How much more either party opens it up is dependent on them.

For us, L Mama seems like a very normal, hard-working, intelligent young woman. She trusted us (without ever even meeting us, might I add) to raise HER CHILD. Do you know how HUGE that is to put yourself out there like that? To just be wide open and hope for the best?
That's why when we heard that the FIRST family she chose didn't take the placement, our hearts broke for her.

Can you imagine?
Leaving the hospital, hopeful that you've made the right decision, praying that the people you chose from a book of pictures is good for your son, only to hear, they didn't want him?!!! Holy cow. I can only imagine in that moment when L Mama was already miles and miles away from her baby that her arms ached to hold him when she heard that news. Imagine the doubt that flooded her mind when the adoption agents called and (lovingly and carefully I'm sure) said, "We're sorry to tell you this L-Mama, but the family you chose yesterday decided not to take your baby. Is there another family you can remember from the books who you would like to choose?"What a hard phone call! She didn't even have our profile in front of her when she chose us. Another injury in an already painful process, and probably an even harder step of faith with dwindling hope and confidence that this was what she should have done. The doubt probably ran rampant in her heart.

So, if she could trust us like that, we can trust her. Granted, we're not at the "invite her to family reunions" point or anything, but she does have our email and we have hers and we send her pictures through our adoption agency. She's not intrusive, nor do we try and push ourselves on her.

So... what you probably wanted to hear all along...

We met her on a Wednesday morning when Isaiah was about 10 days old. We met at the Bethany Office in Orlando. She was there waiting.

I'm sure I probably freaked her out and blew up her personal-space bubble when I hugged her. I couldn't help myself. I loved her. I wanted to hug her for hours and just say, "Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you..." and on and on.

We sat on the couch and I asked her if she wanted to hold Isaiah.
"Um. I guess. I don't have to though." was her quiet reply. Her body language and the way her eyes were locked on him, I knew she really wanted to hold him.

(with a smile) "I know you want to hold him. Here." I took him out of the carrier and handed him to her. And I was proven correct...
She didn't let him go for the next hour or so until it was time for us to leave.

Her eyes watered a bit when she first held him and it was clearly an emotional moment for her.
For me, it was like the context of everything happening zoomed in on L-Mama and the baby, her son, my son, in her arms. THIS was the woman we had been praying for. It was like a big heap of answered prayers sitting there in plain daylight on the couch beside me.

As incredible as it was to hear Isaac cry for the first time and to touch his warm face just after birth, seeing L-Mama holding Isaiah was an equally indescribable moment. Different of course. But just as life-changing. It was like several key pieces of the puzzle in getting to know my newest son were put in place in that moment.

The rest of the time we spent talking and asking each other questions. By the end of our visit I think we were all much more comfortable around each other. L-Mama said she was glad she got to meet us and see us with Isaiah. She also said she loved his name. We asked her if there was a name she would like us to include in his name, but she said no, that she liked the one we had given him.

We took a bunch of pictures, then it was time to leave.

I have friends who were there the first time their birthmoms handed them their babies and said goodbye. Since we weren't there in the hospital, I found it so hard to say goodbye to her and take Isaiah again. She struggled too. I can't even remember who it was that said, "Alright. It's time to go. Time to load him up." I think it was our adoption worker who said it... no matter. It had to be said and we had to leave.

We said goodbye, but honestly I was ok with leaving because this adoption wasn't closed. It wasn't the last time L-Mama would ever see Isaiah. She wasn't saying goodbye for forever. In fact, we love that whenever it is that Isaiah starts asking some of the tough questions about his adoption, we get to go straight to the source to get him answers. As much as I want to be able to provide enough of an explanation for him as his Mom, there are just some things he will probably want to know from L-Mama directly. She'll get to tell him she loves him. And we feel, especially for Isaiah, that that's huge.

I think that's all for now. I know it was a long post, but birth mothers are so important and we wanted to share some of the great many thoughts we have on birth mothers and ours in particular!