Mother to Mother

As Toby's second birthday nears, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what brought Toby into our lives. Everyone has a story and I thought I‘d share ours, mother to mother..... (WARNING: Tissues may be needed)

Three years ago when Greg and I got married it was not a matter of will we have children but when. (we wanted 4 and pretty much had all the names planned already) Within 3 months of being married, we were pregnant. Within one month of finding out about the pregnancy, I lost the baby. When I began to lose the baby, the doctor told me that the fetus was so tiny that I wouldn’t notice. Well I had a complete miscarriage (the fetus and the placenta, a blessing I was told) and it was noticeable. I sat holding my unborn child and grieving. I wept harder than I have ever wept and I cry now just thinking about that day. Now being Catholic, I believe that the baby is a child of god from the moment of conception and as such that baby needed a name. I chose Alex. I had always loved that name and knew I wouldn’t use it and it could be asexual, as we didn’t know what sex the baby was. (I knew it was a boy, call it mother’s instinct) I took me months to “get over it” and I’m still not really. (I could write chapters on this part of my life and the pain and questioning that I went through.)

We tried for 8 more months to get pregnant again and it was incredibly hard on me. Everytime we failed it felt like the miscarriage all over again. I pleaded with God for understanding, a reason, anything! I yelled at him in anger for taking my precious child and for the inability to conceive again. I wept silently to him for months, depressed and mourning so no one could see that I wasn’t okay. I prayed on my situation and God reminded me what I had promised him when I was a young girl, that I would adopt his orphan children. I had always known that I would adopt, God had that talk with my heart when I was a young girl. Now I’m going to pause right here and say that we didn’t adopt because I couldn’t get pregnant, we adopted because that is where God lead us at that time. So with this new plan in mind we signed up for foster to adopt classes. After the classes were over, Greg and I knew we were not ready to foster, but we’re open to other adoption possibilities. I spent 2 months researching different adoption options and then picking an agency. God lead us to BBAS and Guatemala.

Right after we signed, we started to get group emails of children that needed a forever family. After about a month (while we were doing the paper chase) another one of those emails came and this time there was the most beautiful baby boy!, but we were no where near ready. That entire year had been difficult for me, Mother’s Day SUCKED and when school came back in session I had at least 4 parents the were pregnant and one that was due when Alex was suppose to be born. As if it already didn’t hurt enough. Now it was the holiday season, and here I was not only grieving my lost child but also trying to prepare myself and the paperwork for our child to be. Right as we were hitting the year anniversary of the finding out we were pregnant and the loss of that baby, we were paper ready (not a moment too soon cause I needed this, I needed to know that God had a plan for me). We let our director know that we were ready and about a week later she sent me an email saying we really need to know your decision about the baby boy. I responded with what baby boy? The email had never made it to me with our referral. Now Greg and I had decided that we would take the referral as long as the baby was healthy. As we sat at the computer waiting for that email, so many things went through my head, mostly prayers. Then the email came and we opened it up and there HE was, that baby I had fallen in love with 6 weeks before, but we weren’t ready for at that time. How could no one have picked this beautiful baby boy, I asked myself. No one picked him cause he was meant for us. I then looked down at his name (now remember that it had been a year almost to the day that we had shared the pregnancy news with our family), it was Angel. I had prayed that God and Alex would send me a sign and this was it. God sends us Angels when we need them most and to send us a message. And his message to me that day was “this is why”. I knew from that very second that THIS was my son. We went through our list of names, and Tobias popped out. Not cause he necessarily “looked” like a Toby but because of the meaning, a thankful hymn of praise to my Savior. God is Good!

Toby’s road home was long and painful for me. The year was complete torture. (All the delays, the unknowns, the questions from family and friends.) I was crying and pleading for not one child but for two. I was angry with the process to not one child but to two. So as Toby’s second birthday is upon me, I’m thinking of not only how God has used and transformed my life, but also how he used and transformed the life of a young girl thousands of miles away from me, in a strange country that I had never really thought about before. Her name is Angela, the feminine form of angel and she is mine, FOREVER. I will be forever grateful for her sacrifice. And as his second birthday approaches, I am praying that she knows the peace of her decision and God’s plan in her life, but also knows that our son is beautiful and perfect, just the way that God designed him for us.