My girls did not come to me the way I had expected, but they came to me in God’s perfect time. God blessed me with two beautiful daughters and now I have a granddaughter who is the light of my life.
My husband and I were foster parents and our girls came to our home from a developmentally delayed mother who just didn’t know how to take care of them. They are biological sisters who came to us when they were 2 ½ and almost 4 years old. They needed us just as much as we needed them.
Before God blessed us with our beautiful daughters, we went through a heart wrenching roller coaster ride of ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages.
I felt defeated. My family members and my friends were all having normal, healthy pregnancies and normal, healthy babies and I started to get really angry. What had I done to deserve this curse? Had I been that bad of a person that God was punishing me?
Going through the excitement of a positive pregnancy test, to the deep sorrow of feeling this little life inside of me starting to fade, time and time again, was very difficult to survive. And yes, survive is what I had to do! I will never be the same person after having gone through that but I came out of it stronger, more grateful and wiser. You will too!
I wanted to be a mother so bad that I could taste it. I craved it. I yearned for it!
Well meaning people would say things to try to console me. Sometimes, the things they said were hurtful, but they meant well and were just at a loss for words. I remember one time while at church, I was visiting with fellow worshipers before the service, after suffering yet another ectopic pregnancy, and a woman approached me. She had a young son and was pregnant with another child. As she approached me, she was smiling and rubbing her growing belly. She told me she was sorry for my loss as her eyes darted around the room, focusing more on what was going on around her than on me. Her condolences seemed to be more of something she “should” say rather than something she really meant.
It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the gesture, but it just seemed so shallow and without true empathy. I started resenting her. I started having some “not very nice” thoughts about her and the baby growing inside of her. Most people probably wouldn’t share those feelings, but I can’t believe that I am the only one who has felt like that.
I felt guilty for having those thoughts. I thought I must’ve been a bad person to think those things. Over the years, I have learned that I am not the only woman who has struggled with infertility who has had those kinds of thoughts and that I wasn’t a bad person. I was just a woman who wanted to be a mother and who was in excruciating pain trying to navigate through it the best I could.
My daughters are now 27 and 29 years old and I can look back and see why everything happened the way it did. I can honestly tell you that I wouldn’t change a thing.
Even if God came to me and told me that I could go back and have those four babies but I couldn’t have my two daughters and my granddaughter, I wouldn’t even think of it! These children are mine in every sense of the word!
If you are wondering whether or not you can love a child that is not biologically yours, I am here to tell you that you can. I forget that my girls were adopted and I couldn’t love them more. I have had people ask me if I felt that I loved them the same way as I would a biological child. Well, firstly, I don’t have biological children for a comparison. Secondly, I love my husband and I didn’t give birth to him. I love my mother and I didn’t give birth to her. I don’t feel like there are different degrees of love. Love is love!
If God gave you the desire to be a mommy, you will be a mommy. It may not happen in the way that you had planned or in the time frame that you had hoped, but it will happen. God is working behind the scenes and He hears your prayers. He has a plan and it’s even bigger and better than you could ever imagine. Be patient and trust Him. Never give up!
You see, it’s not your genetics that makes you love your children; it’s your mother’s heart.
God gave you that heart for someone special and He is just waiting to place that special person in your arms; in His time; the right time.
By: Adoption Coordinator, Roxanne Robertson
