MY FIRST MOTHER’S DAY

I didn’t become a mother in the way I imagined I would have.  I didn’t get to buy maternity clothes, I didn’t get to watch her move in my belly on a screen in a doctor’s office. I have no printed out scans of a baby I carried for 9 months.  I have no birth story, no memories to share with my daughter about the day she was born, or what it was like. 

I didn’t get to buy newborn outfits or any of that stuff they tell you to pack into your hospital bag.  

I didn’t hear her first cry.  I wasn’t the first face my child saw when she was brought into this world.  I wasn’t the first one to hold her.  I wasn’t the first one to feed her. I wasn’t the first one to kiss her and rock her to sleep on the first night of her life. 

But, these things are not what make a mother a mother. 

These are all the things adoption forces you to face.  But these things, although important, don’t change the way I love my child, or how much of a mother I am to her. 

It’s funny how the things you don‘t have are the very things you long for, until you realize that what you were given is what was always meant for you. Just right, just for you.  What I did get to do was see my child‘s face before I held her.  I got to prepare her room, fold her clothes, pray for her with the image of her wonderful face clear as day in my mind. What I do have are the memories of how we prayed for her, how I dreamed of her.  I get to tell Nova how our family was made, how we went on a journey to fetch her to start our family.  How she was made just for us, always a part of God’s plan for us.  I get to be the last face she sees before she falls asleep each night. I get to pray with her, sing over her, I get to love her in a way only I can.    I get to tell her she is brave, remind her to be kind, to say please and thank you and sorry when she needs to.  I get to hold her when she’s teething or under the weather.  I get to go to her however many times a night if she needs me, and I would do it more than that if I had to.   I get to watch her scrunch her nose in delight when we dance in our living room together.   I get to figure out which food she likes and dislikes. I get to teach her nursery rhymes and her abc’s .

I get to pack her bag for school, choose her snack for the day.  I get to sing with her on the way to school every day.  I get to do that.  How blessed am I?  I get to be the one she runs to with open arms while she says mamma.  I’m the one she’s given that title to - the most cherished title I’ve ever carried.   I’m the one she trusts to always be there.   I get to be her mother.  I find myself phoning my own mother to ask her how she dealt with my feisty character when I was Nova’s age, only to stop myself and laugh at how I forget we don’t share the same DNA.  Somehow, she’s just like I was when I was her age.  And when I look at her I see myself.  How is that even possible?  It’s no coincidence, I have to remind myself that God is not surprised by this story of ours, how could he be, he wrote it.  This is not our plan B, this has always been our plan.  This was always how I was supposed to become a mother.  

And so, Mother’s Day isn’t just another day, not to me.  The past 7 Mother’s Days have not been easy, they’ve been reminders of the one thing I thought I couldn’t have.  

I pray for the heart of the woman reading this who is aching to celebrate Mother’s Day.  I pray you know that joy will come, that one day you will have a beautifully messy scribbled piece of paper given to you as a Mother’s Day gift, and I pray that you know that in whatever way motherhood comes to you, that is a miracle.

Love makes a family, not DNA.  Pure, uninhibited, boundless love...that’s what makes us what we are. 

I love you my homegirl, my Nova. Thank you for making me a mamma.