Dear Maralee,
Today you will become a mother. I know they told you you would meet your baby son tomorrow, but the orphanage administrator decided it will be today. She will not tell you this until she walks into the office where you’re sitting and hands you a child. You will not be prepared for that moment. AT ALL. No diapers, no formula, and you’re not wearing the outfit you planned for all the pictures you wanted to take of this special day. This may be the best possible way to become a parent.
Because there is no “preparing” that can prepare you for what’s ahead. You’ve worried and you’ve wondered. You’ve read and you’ve listened. You’ve set the expectation low. Maybe he’ll scream when he sees your white face, so different from the nannies who have been loving him. Maybe he’ll be inconsolable today. Tonight. Tomorrow. Forever. You’ve decided to love him no matter what. Even if he never loves you back. You can’t be prepared for what’s truly ahead, but that decision to choose love will serve you well.
This child is going to teach you how to be a mother as much as any book ever could. He is not a blank slate. He’s a soul who has already experienced greater losses than you can imagine. You will be the tool God uses to heal his heart and help teach him how to trust. I know that seems overwhelming, but it starts small. I promise.
It starts with feeding him. Feed him with love. Use that rare moment of stillness to sing to him, to rub your finger against his cheek, to look deeply into his eyes. Let the whole world go on without you while you rock your baby, who is just barely still a baby. Start telling him his story. Start right now when you get all the words wrong and you cry while you tell it. Tell him about how much you’ve loved him through pictures and scattered updates while you waited to see his actual face and kiss his sweet cheeks. Tell him about a mother and a culture and a country and a nanny who loved him before you ever could. Make mistakes. Make them now so by the time he can remember, he only knows the version of the story you’ve perfected through hours of whispering it over him. Let him never know a time when he didn’t know you loved him, and you would tell him the truth.
And when you feed him, fight him for the privilege of holding the bottle. I know it seems great that he’s so “independent” but that independence came at a price. He doesn’t know he can trust you. You have to teach him. You be The Bringer Of The Food. There is no quicker way to teach him you can meet his needs. You hold the bottle. You hold him. Feed him solid food while he sits on your lap. Don’t let anybody else feed him until he knows you are the mom. Make the sacrifices you have to right now so you can be that person with 100% consistency. It will pay off in the long run.
Let go of your desire to be productive. The tidy house, the work accomplishments, the church volunteering, ALL of it can wait. The fleeting moment of pride when you show the world you can “do it all” is not worth what it could cost your longterm relationship with your child. These are the days to do nothing but read board books, stack blocks together, sing to each other and learn how to be mother and son. Nothing else matters. Nothing in the whole wide world matters. You can never get this time back and if you spend it spread too thin, you will regret it. You’ll have years for climbing whatever ladder you desire or organizing that hall closet or running the church nursery. This is not that year. The goal for this year is that your son knows he’s loved. That is all.
What you can’t dream of knowing right now as you hold that fragile human in your arms and whisper, “Can we keep him?” is that so many of your middle-of-the-night worryings will be for nothing. This son will make you so proud. He will be a good friend, a hard worker, spiritually sensitive, and hilarious. He will charm people wherever he goes and no one will be more charmed than you. You are going to mess up as a mother, but God will forgive you and this child will give you grace upon grace as you learn together what it means to be a family. Worry less. Snuggle more. When he tells you he loves you, believe him. When he calls you “Mama” feel it in your heart and know that it’s true. Don’t doubt or second guess that connection you feel. It’s not biological. It’s something you two built together. And it’s beautiful.
And when the day comes that there’s tension between you, know that the relationship you’ve built is strong enough to handle it. A slammed door can be opened again. Words spoken in anger can be forgiven. Whatever the world sees when they look at you together, you are his mother. He may push against you, but he also needs to know he can always come back to you for grace. In this way, you are no different from any other mother and son on the planet, no matter how that family was formed.
Today, as you weep over this precious child in your arms, don’t be afraid. You two will figure this thing out. Parenting wisdom does not come through pregnancy or childbirth. It comes from a heart of love and humility. You didn’t birth this child, but you have exactly what it takes to be the mother he needs, even when you doubt it. So don’t waste time doubting it. Choose love. Choose honesty even when the truth is uncomfortable. Choose forgiveness for him and for yourself. Choose laughter whenever possible (even when he writes his name on the wall and tries to blame his baby brother). Choose him. Over and over again. Every day. Just like you did when they first told you his name and the few lines of information they knew about him.
The greatest joy of becoming a mother through adoption is that one day he will choose you. He’ll choose you by crying the moment you put him down and you’ll learn to do most of your life tasks one-handed. He’ll choose you when you come to the toddler Sunday School classroom to pick him up, and he runs to you, screaming with joy, “MAMA! MAMA!” He’ll choose you when he writes you a Mother’s Day card in school and you cry because there were so many hard Mother’s Days before this child came into your life. He’ll choose you when he has friend problems and needs to talk, or spiritual questions he wants answered, or a hug, or someone to help him with his hair, or advice about girls, or when he needs someone to launder his jersey. He’ll choose you, because no matter what the world says about who belongs together, he knows what you’ve known from the first day you saw his face. You are family. You belong to each other.
I know this day is scary. This moment is a mix of the greatest joy you could possibly feel, right along with total terror. It will be okay. And you’ll be thankful every single day that all the pain, all the heartbreak, all the fear and all the paperwork lead you to this exact moment and this exact son. You don’t know it now, but the decision to be his mother? It was a good one.
Sincerely,
Maralee (12 years later)