Don’t forget to breathe

Mother’s Day.   This day is at the top of my list for days to love and hate.

How can I hate it?  It took almost eight years to arrive home with my first child.  One year of trying the old fashioned way.  One year of trying the old fashioned way plus Clomid.  Two and a half years of IVF during which I had 3 major surgeries and only one complete cycle.  Two years of attempting domestic adoption including a night in hotel with a newborn I believed to be my forever child only to have to return the child to the birth mother the next morning.  And then finally international adoption.  This whole time was peppered with the other stories you have heard about insensitive family members, rude doctors, manipulative birth mothers, insurance companies who won’t cover infertility treatment for women, and the complete inability to make it the whole way through a Mother’s Day church service.  I still have a tough time with the last issue.

I know that there are some folks out there who have written that they do not like Mother’s Day.  And, I do understand why.  But here is what I think.  I should enjoy and celebrate Mother’s Day. To be a mother is one of life’s most treasured experiences and certainly one of God’s greatest gifts to us.  However, like other valuable things I might have I should not flaunt my gifts before others.  So dear reader, if my joy will cause you pain, please do not read any farther.  If my experience may give you hope, please let me share my joy with you.

Why I love it?  I have a son!  He is beautiful and kind and funny.  God found him for me and he (and He) has healed my heart.   The first time I held my son was on 11/15/01.  Here is what I wrote in my journal that day.

11/15/01  1:50AM  Ho Chi Minh City

AT LAST! I’M HERE!

Sandy gave us the referral pictures on the bus from the airport. You are so BEAUTIFUL.  I wish that J could’ve been there, we both would’ve cried together.  It was so exciting, everyone was crying and showing pictures of MY baby, MY son or MY daughter.  I would’ve come all this way just for that moment.  The bad news is that I will only get to see you for two hours tomorrow.  The I have to apply your paperwork.  Tomorrow another group will go to meet their children, too many of us to go together.

I need to sleep.  I have to get up in a little more than 4 hours.  But I will hold you TODAY!

6:11 AM

The hotel is very nice.  I’m sure we can be comfortable here pretty much indefinitely.  There is even a small washer/dryer inside the kitchen.  I’d go into detail, but that is what photos are for.  The traffic and the street noise are everything promised.  Anyway, get dressed, get breakfast, get to see you.  That’s the plan.  

Today you were:

61cm long, 38.5 Head Cir., 5Kg

9:40 PM

What a day this has been.  I’m not sure I can remember it all, but here I go.

I went down to breakfast and tried the chicken Pho. Very nice, simple, good.  Paul asked for a few volunteers to take the paperwork to the Justice Dept.  This would be the first experience with HCM traffic.  UNBELIEVABLE!  Made up of mostly motor bikes & mopeds it is like a river except each molecule has it’s own destination.  The flow of traffic is unstoppable.  Later in the day we went by an accident where 1 of 2 lanes were blocked.  All the traffic simply shifted onto the side walk.

We dropped off the paperwork so it could be reviewed while we went to the orphanage. Apparently he needed a few people to pad the group so no one would really know who dropped off what.  It sounds weird, but it worked.  We got approval very quickly when we went back later.

Back to the hotel to get the rest of the group, and then to see you.

We were ushered into a reception area and asked to sit around a large table.  We were served a sweet warm tea and a bottle of water.  Then the caregivers began to bring out the babies one at a time.  You were second.  How can I explain to you how I felt then.  When you were handed to me you were smiling and my heart melted without resistance.  For a long time I honestly don’t know what else was going on in that room.  It was just you and me, nothing else.  I kind of felt like I might black out, but the thought that they might not let me keep you if I dropped you kept me standing. After I came to my senses I went back to sit at the table with you.  All the parents helped each other take pictures and measure.  I got to feed you, and help you produce some healthy burps.  I checked you all over to make sure you were O.K.  It was clear that you and all the babies were well cared for.  Some of the other parents were reprimanded for not putting the clothes back on their baby after they had checked them out.

Before I knew it our time was up.  1 hr, 10 min. That’s all.  We all gave gifts to the orphanage staff and piled back into the vans to go back to the hotel to get some other parents’ passports.  But the traffic was heavy and some parents did not come back to the van right away and their was an accident on the same street as the Justice Dept.  So when we arrived they had closed for lunch break.  So back in the van, back to the hotel for lunch (sautéed vermicelli and crab) and back tot he Justice Dept.  This time things went very quick.  It took about 30 seconds to file the paperwork.

I’m sorry but I’m starting to feel very tired. (6 hrs. sleep in 36 hrs. I wonder why?)  I’ll pick up here in the morning.

I love you already and I can’t wait to come back for you. 

It was about 6 weeks until I could return for our adoption day.  It was a beautiful, wonderful experience.  My husband and my Mom were both on the trip, all the people I cared about most.  

Our wait this time, although frustrating, is still so much shorter and far less dramatic.  It is so hard to remember to enjoy the blessings I have at this moment, and they are considerable.  I keep wanting to freeze up and live in way that feels like holding your breath.  Deciding to have our anniversary  party was actually difficult.  Practically, we couldn’t move forward until less than two months before the date just in case  . . .   Emotionally, I had to choose to be happy.  I made a decision to celebrate what I have instead of mourning what I do not.  I look forward to the future and what it may bring.  But for now I will just keep trying to find joy in each day and remember to breathe.