My baby boy. You are turning 4 years old today.
I still remember sitting in that hot, stuffy office in the pediatrics genetics department in Delhi, India.
They laid you on the desk, pointed out certain parts of you, took pictures, uploaded them to the London data base BC they were so bewildered.
Then they did scans off all your insides.
We got reports nearly every hour “heart normal”, ” brain normal…no signs of abnormalities “, ” kidneys normal”, “liver healthy”… All was normal except every part of your outside was broken.
At the end of the day this is what they left is with ” he will not live past 2 months. Gradually reduce his feeds and he will quietly pass”.
What the H?
What does that even mean?
We will not starve this child.
That we knew.
I knew God gives and God takes away.
And we walked out of that office willing to let you go when needed, but with full assurance that it would not be thru starvation.
Adam, your life defies odds daily.
When I think of a the other babies like you who are not given a chance at life, I get weak in the knees.
Yes, your life is a challenge but it captivates us all and it praises our Father in Heaven.
Issues of public policy and topics that are polarizing tend to make me shudder.
But when I think of babies organs being discussed over arugula salad and when I consider the lives of so many lost…I think of the miracle is your life.
So many with your condition are never even given a chance to take their first breath.
You are evidence to me that a life is far more valuable than healthy vision or a normal brain or a fully formed nose.
Life has value BC God forms it.
You could have been a pile of organs and bones in a lab somewhere.
But instead you are my son and you are a world changer. #chooselife #adoption
Happy birthday bud.
“A child born to another woman calls me mommy. The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege is not lost on me” (landers).
Oh Adam.
Though my blood can boil at the loss of lives and the atrocity that is abortion…my heart breaks when I think of your birth mama and what she may be thinking today.
I thought of her a lot when you were young.
I thought of her a lot when you were young.
When her milk must have come in and she felt engorged…how she must have ached as she leaked and tried to suppress it.
I wonder if she laid on her cot that nightt, under an indian sky and wept?
Did she have to get up the next day, as if nothing happened, and go work a 14 hour day in a tea plantation?
Did she bleed as she worked?
How did her family and friends treat her?
Did they shame her?
Oh, adam, I imagine she aches for you.
I imagine she has dreams about you and that aches my heart.
I hope we can one day take you back to meet her.
So often, the bravery and pain of birth mamas is neglected to be seen in the redemption story of an adopted baby.
So many times the birth parents are only left with the blame and shame of choices they make.
But so often the woman doesn’t want to make that choice…so often she feels as though she has no other choice.
She has been told by her inner self, or her significant other, her family, her church (?!?), her community that she has no choice.
It may not be thru their words to her after a surprise pregnancy but their words she heard all of her life.
Their words and judgements and shaming mechanisms.
Their closed doors and perfect little families and their theology and lifestyles that want to avoid sacrifice and making room.
Jesus came when there was no room so that He could make room.
That doesn’t just go for birth mamas and dads.
That goes for communities.
We are called to make room in our hearts, homes, and closed minds.
We are called to serve and minister.
He came to heal the brokenhearted and bind their wounds.
Let us do likewise.
To those who have chosen to end a pregnancy and to those faced with a tough choice now and to those whose lifestyles right now frustrate us for the consequences we assume they will lead to.
Y’all are inspiration for all to see. When we look at your family and the events and milestones you’ve had to overcome there can never be a question about if there is a God or not. It is by the grace of him y’all had it in your hearts to become the living parents this little guy needed! God bless you and your lo ing, kind family!!!