Dear Tavia,
The day we’ve waited for is here and I can’t wait to get you all dressed up in your yellow lace dress and take you to court so we can make it official. I spent hours and hours looking for just the right dress– fixating on a detail I could control as we navigated delays in the process that we couldn’t control. You have felt settled in our family since we brought you home from the hospital, but today is the day we get to stop holding our breath and can just rest in the beauty of you as a much-cherished daughter.
I remember the day you were born. Just hours after you entered the world, we got a phone call asking if we were open to taking placement of a sibling of our girls’. I was totally caught off-guard, right in the middle of helping with homework and trying to figure out outfits for school picture day the following day. I yelled in surprise. I asked for details. The caseworker had none. Not a gender or name or birth weight or any health information. But I said yes. Because you were family to us. The sister of my daughter is part of my family.
I can so vividly remember taking Joel and Teddy to get haircuts and obsessively staring at my phone, waiting for more information. Waiting to hear we had permission to come visit you. I saw a message come through and just as I read “It’s a girl”, my phone died. I couldn’t see the rest of the details and had an agonizing wait until it was charged enough for me to see that you were healthy and we could come visit you. I called Grandma and texted my best friends and let our families know to be praying. A new person to love had entered the world.
I knew I would fight for your needs to be met, but I didn’t know it would start that first day. The security guard at the hospital didn’t want to let me go see you. He said a baby didn’t need visitors. He said you wouldn’t recognize me and couldn’t I just come back when it was time for you to be discharged? I wouldn’t leave. I knew I had to see you that day. The gift of seeing you on the day you were born was something I wasn’t going to give up. So phone calls were made. Conversations were had and eventually he let me go up and meet you because I convinced him that it was important to your sense of safety that you become familiar with me before I took you home. I talked to him about scent and for some reason that’s what connected the dots for him. I got to go up and meet you because a security guard realized you might need to smell me so you’d recognize my scent when it was time to go home.
When I saw you I instinctively said something I have said just two times before. I looked at you and without thinking said, “I know you!” I knew you because you looked like your big sisters and like your birth mom. I told your big brother Josh, “I know you!” when he was placed in my arms because I recognized him from the photos we’d been receiving for the months prior to his adoption. And when your brother Joel was pulled from my body and placed in my arms I said, “I know you!” because for the first time I was being handed a familiar face. I never planned those words, but in a long and beautiful line of knowing, I felt that in my soul I knew you the day I met you.
You were tiny and quiet and strong. You had a head full of hair and giant eyes. You stole my heart.
I video chatted with the kids so they could all see you and the whole family was smitten. I drove home late at night and barely slept. I was excited. . . and I was scared.
Eight is a lot of kids. I have cared for eight kids before while we were at the group home, but that was with support staff and all the kids were potty-trained and sleeping through the night. Even then, I felt stretched caring for eight kids. Could I do this? Was it fair to everybody? I remember seeing myself as a pie chart that just couldn’t keep getting subdivided without leaving someone without a slice. I was worried there wouldn’t be enough mom to go around.
But all of these worries were about a hypothetical reality where our family all depends on me doing everything. And it was a hypothetical reality where you were reduced to the logistics of your care. The true reality was something different entirely.
You were not just something that needed care, you were someone we loved. You were precious and perfect and we took such delight in you right from the start. Your daddy was nervous about saying yes again, but I knew when he could hold you, he would love you. I was right. What seemed scary now felt right. It felt natural. It felt easy.
And your siblings would have literal arguments about who could hold you and help with your needs. They still do. Daily. I rarely have to ask for help and never have to make someone help. You are so deeply loved and you have big brothers and sisters that wanted you. They wanted you so much, they were up for the challenge of helping this large family run smoothly for you.
Tavia, I love your story. You were a surprise, but a welcome one. We met you the day you were born. Your first mom expressed her desire that you be raised with us and with your sisters. Your siblings have welcomed you with love and want nothing but your comfort, even when that means you see no value in crawling because you always have a big brother or sister to take you where you need to go. You have had great advocates on your team who have wanted the best for you and worked hard on your behalf.
Three years ago your big sister Carrie started praying for a baby. A baby sister. Your big sister Gloria was an answer to that prayer. I have come to believe that while the rest of us might have thought that story was over, Gloria was praying in her own way for a baby sister too. A friend to grow up with, to be close to, to share the joys and struggles of being adopted into this family. I believe you were an answer to her prayer. I’m incredibly grateful we get to raise you with your biological sisters and with the rest of these kids who today are becoming your big brothers and sisters and will be your protectors, defenders, cheerleaders, and coconspirators.
And what a gift that I get to be your mom. I love you deeply– your gentle spirit, your dimple, your laugh, your observant nature, the way you burry your head in my shoulder. And just when we thought you couldn’t get any cuter, you started sucking that thumb. You bring us so much joy and I’m so glad we can get the paperwork signed and get on with our family life, making official what has been true in our hearts from the day we met you: You are our family.
I remember hearing this song when I was young and for some reason (after a 30+ year absence from my brain), it has become my go-to lullaby for you. I think something about it reminds me of the simplicity of loving you. We worried about if we could care for another child, but our worries were irrelevant. You existed and so we loved you. There was nothing else to do.
Tell Me Why The Stars Do Shine
Tell me why the stars do shine
Tell me why the ivy twines
Tell me why the skies are blue
And I will tell you just why I love you
Because God made the stars to shine
Because God made the ivy twine
Because God made the sky so blue
Because God made you, that’s why I love you