Unwavering

The feelings of this past week while we have welcomed our daughter have been intricately tied to the feelings we have for our dear birth mother. We first received an email from her when she was 6 weeks pregnant, and her decision to place her baby in our family has been absolutely unwavering. We see this very closely tied to her testimony of the gospel--especially the eternal perspective she has kept through it all.

LW created a birth plan which included decisions she had made surrounding the birth as it unfolded in the hospital. She wanted us present. She wanted me to be the first to hold Alina. She planned that we would have the primary care of Alina while she was still in the hospital--taking care of all the diapering, feeding, etc during those first 48 hours. And she planned that we would take Alina "home" with us from the hospital--even though placement didn't legally happen until 72 hours after birth.

Someone recently asked me how I could keep the relationship open--if I ever wanted to just move on with life, and not have to share my baby with anyone. My answer was immediate, and heartfelt when I heard myself say, "I have watched both of our birth mothers give birth to our children. It's easy to have an open adoption and share the life of my baby because it's hard to forget who shared first." The extent of sacrifice of our birth mothers is not lost on me.

During the pregnancy, LW once wrote in an email, "Although I feel her movements and see my body changing I have had a hard time accepting and believing that I'm actually pregnant. I realized that I have assumed the connection with Alina's spirit would be as her birth mother, but I have been looking at it wrong. I finally felt the connection with her yesterday, but as a friend. I felt so strongly that we had known each other and been good friends in the pre-exsistance. I joked with my mom that she must have been a very good friend if I agreed to go through the pain of delivering her."

I cannot adequately express how I feel about our dear birth mothers, who have taken such good care of our children while they carried them. It is so rare for an adoptive mother to say that her babies were not exposed to anything in utero that she would not choose for her own pregnancy. I consider my interaction with our birth mothers, as well as the tender feelings I have towards both of them, to be one of the most unexpected blessings of my life.

LW has stayed so unwavering because she has kept the eternal perspective--the view of what our relationship may have been like in the pre-earth life, as well as what our relationship with each other will continue to be in the future eternities. Her testimony is built upon the rock of Our Savior, Jesus Chirst. From the first time we received an email from LW, I felt deeply that this girl was a valiant soul. Her commitment to that testimony is deep, and I feel privileged to mother the baby she has carried.

More than words can ever, ever say--We love you, LW!