A Bundle of Myrrh

Last November (which is National Adoption Month) I asked my dear friend, Eugénie, to take some time to write the story of how she and her husband Jud were blessed with a baby girl through adoption. The Lord graciously gives His gift of children in different ways and by different means and in His time. I wept with joy when I saw how He had blessed Eugénie and made her the mother she always wanted to be. I’m so happy to finally be able to share her story here with you all.

Heavy eyelids, a healthy, sleeping daughter, a husband hard at work.  Warmth, a full belly, a beautiful church family, and a family in my home.

At our Advent service this evening, as the usher dimmed the lights, Jud felt the weight of our baby’s big pumpkin head lean back against him as she listened to our Pastor’s voice from her Papa’s lap.  Jud offered me his hand saying, “This is nice.”

“This”, a simple, peaceful moment as a family.  In that very sanctuary, our Pastor delivered our wedding sermon, “Awake to the Ordinary!”  His explanation of the surprising normalcy of life, love, and marriage has been a stabilizer in our everyday.  Since becoming Anabelle’s mama, I’ve been blessed with many “ordinary” moments with my husband and my daughter.  Moments that I prayed, begged, demanded the Lord to allow me during our wait for a child.

“Awake to the Ordinary” my little family.  I am so thankful for you.

I am often asked for the beginning of our journey to adopting Anabelle.  I became a mother in May 2006, when we conceived our first child, lost to miscarriage later that summer.  Each time I am asked if Anabelle is my first child, I hesitate, ask for forgiveness, and say, “Yes.”  Jud and I have a baby in heaven.  My first child is being cared for by Jesus until I get there.  I know that people in the grocery store aren’t ready for that truth, so I lie, and I feel terrible about it.  My sweet husband recognizes my motherhood each year on Mother’s day.  He is the only one.  That is our true beginning to “the wait” for a family.  My first child is the beginning of Anabelle’s adoption story.

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I’ve left the previous words in this account, although I wrote them almost seven months ago.  I suppose that is what happens when you are busy being a mama…

After years chasing fertility miracles, we took time to heal, rest, and allow God to bring the miracle of children into our lives in the way He chose.  After watching our dear friends adopt two beautiful children through the foster system, we became “licensed foster to adopt parents” ourselves.  We chose Arrow Child and Family Ministries and have had a beautiful experience with all of the angels that work there everyday to find “forever families” for children in need.

I am a teacher who has always wanted to teach her own children.  As soon as we turned in all of our paperwork, I resigned my teaching position and Jud and I headed out on a Mexican vacation to wave “adios” to our days without children.  We were both certain that when we returned home on August 12th it would be a matter of days before we would share our home with footed pajamas and giggles.

We returned home on August 12, but due to a technical glitch, our home wasn’t offically open to foster until August 17th.

The waiting was agonizing.  I grieved openly, Jud grew impatient and irritable.  We struggled to accept that we grieved in different ways.  We were rejected by CPS (Child Protective Services) for dozens of children.  I was offered multiple teaching positions to go back to work, but no children. I couldn’t decipher what God wanted me to do.  I lost my faith that God spoke to me through His Word and Sacrament.  I looked for guidance in coincidences, people, caseworkers…

I prayed for each picture of a little face as I wondered if these were my children.  I didn’t know how to wait months for a caseworker to decide if we were chosen to parent waiting children.  How do you see a picture of a child that you aren’t allowed to contact, or hold or talk to, and wait and wait to find out if you are chosen to be their parents?  I yelled at God for the waiting.  I grew desperate and certain that we wouldn’t ever have a family.  I prayed the Lord’s prayer like a good former Catholic, every moment my heart ached, every moment I felt I couldn’t breathe. I visited my Pastor, I went to confession, and I cried.  So many tears.  I cried for all of the children without homes, I cried for my empty arms, and I cried for my children who may being abused right then and I could do nothing to help them.

I held tight to my phone waiting for a call.  I was afraid to travel, afraid to volunteer, afraid to commit to anything, .

I never liked the adage about things coming to you when you aren’t waiting and watching.  As I let down my guard and tried to enjoy each day of waiting, we bought a new house, I began substituting at a wonderful school, and I learned things I’d always wanted.  May 13th I got four phone calls and two text messages.  Jud had seven missed calls that day.  A baby needed a home and we were being considered.  I ignored this possibility as best as I could.  Three weeks earlier we’d been told to pack our car and drive to a hospital to meet our baby.  The next day, that child went home with her abusive biological mother due to a judges’ last minute decision.

May 14th Jud called me away from a substituting job to join him to meet our daughter.  We’d been chosen to be parents to “Girl Baby.”  Due to the nature of my daughter’s case, from the moment we met Anabelle, we were called her mom and dad, we were considered a family.  It is a miracle that we were her first placement. From two days old, my daughter knew our scent, our voices, our tears, and our love.

For all of my desperate cries, my demands of God to make me a mother, my aching for each child to be my family – God gave me a newborn baby that my husband and I baptized in our church.  God gave me a beautiful and unharmed baby.

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The months that followed are a bit of a blur.  I’m thankful that I was required to submit daily notes about our child while she was in foster care.  We were visited by caseworkers from the state, the county, and our agency. We had a lawyer and the baby had her own lawyer.  Those monthly or bimonthly visits from each person added up to a lot of people checking up on us.  The state requires that your home and foster children are accessible to caseworkers 24 hours a day.  Although foster parents typically do not have many rights in court, we were given the grace of attending closed hearings and allowed to make statements for the record.  The assistant D.A. even waived the 6 month foster requirement before a child is eligible for adoption.  We only had to wait for the appeal window after parental rights were terminated.

Nine months from the day were to be licensed, our daughter was born.  Nine months from the day we were actually licensed, we took her home.  On October 14th, we officially became a family in front of a judge that cried as she read the adoption decree.  Our daughter finally had a name.  A year after I met my little Anabelle, I held my daughter in my lap at her first birhtday party and helped her blow out the candle on her very first birthday cake that I made myself.

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“A man and a woman had a little baby, yeah they did and there were three in the family and that’s a magic number.” School House Rock

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Jud and I have begun submitting our case study for more children.  Our little miracle makes the waiting easier. I pray that God will renew my faith each day. I pray that He will point me to His Word and Sacrament for patience and peace. And as He teaches us, I pray “Thy Will Be Done.”

Amen.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 25th, 2011 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Fertility in a Fallen World Series, Guest Posts, Motherhood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.