Miracle Babies Throw Tantrums Too

I came home late from a work meeting the other night. I snuck into the rooms of my sleeping children and kissed their sweet cheeks. As I tiptoed into the room of my six-year-old it struck me how big he’s getting. He murmured something unintelligible in his sleep when I rubbed his hair and whispered that I loved him. There’s just no sweeter moment than starring at your sleeping children. It took my breath away as I studied his face and remembered what a miracle his life is. Multiple doctors told us this child could never be created or carried to term. He was an impossibility. And yet, here he is. As I felt that deep gratitude in my heart, I also felt certain of something else:

Miracle Babies throw tantrums too.

Rebecca Tredway Photography

This kid is so extremely precious to me. He can also be selfish and annoying and whiney and he can pitch grumpy fits like you wouldn’t believe. He is an entirely normal six-year-old with an anything but normal beginning. I find so much beauty in that contrast, although it has taken some adjustment for me.

A baby who comes after a loss is still just a baby. A baby who comes after a long wait is still just a baby. A child who joins your family after a complicated or lengthy or expensive adoption process is still just a child. And the mom who receives them is still just a regular mom, as much as she might wish she were something else– something more special.

There are ways in which pregnancy loss, adoption and infertility have fundamentally changed the kind of parent I am. I do appreciate my kids in ways that may be unique. I’m thankful every day that I get to be their mother. I’ve learned things through this process that have changed and influenced me in ways that can’t be undone. And I’m thankful for that. I don’t want to go back to being the mom I would have been if I wouldn’t have experienced these hard times. My perspective is different because of what I’ve experienced prior to parenthood, but my mothering journey is mostly the same. 

My kids need the freedom to just be regular kids. They don’t need to be my reward for working through a hard process. They don’t need to make it all seem worth it by being extraordinary people. They don’t need to try and be my happy ending. They don’t need to prove me right.

I’m okay with them being kids who are annoying and high-strung and overly dramatic and whiney. I want to know them and love them as they are, not as I may have dreamed they would be. Their miracle beginnings don’t need to set them up for a life of unreasonable expectations. They don’t need to carry the weight of my emotional struggle to become a mother.

Miracle Babies grow up. They are more than just their conception or adoption story. They have all the same (and maybe more) struggles and joys as the kids next to them in school who weren’t conceived through infertility procedures or found through an intense adoption process or magically conceived against all the medical predictions.

I feel thankful for the normality my kids experience. It’s a reality I may not have been able to picture as I dreamed of them, but it’s just as it should be. When they throw those tantrums and I get the honor of mothering them through it, I’m doing exactly what I was created to do. I wasn’t called to raise perfect children, but normal, actual, real children. There’s something about the mundane nature of motherhood that grounds us all, but also makes these miracle beginnings seem all the more special.

I was created for this— for the struggle of motherhood in the past, present and future tense. I was made to love these children of mine, however they came to me. Praying for them for years, longing for them, yearning for the gift of motherhood however it would come to me doesn’t make my kids behave better or keep their rooms cleaner or not roll their eyes. It may have changed me, but it didn’t change them or the trials of raising children. Motherhood is the great equalizer, no matter how it comes to you.

So I will continue to be thankful for these miracle children of mine. And I’ll pray for the grace to mother them well, tantrums and all.