Unreal

After I had my daughter back in 2000, I couldn’t imagine loving anyone as fiercely or as much as her.  She was amazing (still is, but I’m biased..lol) and I cherished every moment of her babyhood and toddler years, even when the Terrible Two’s hit with a scary vengeance.  Then I became pregnant with my son…and rather than have to make room for him in my heart, I was in awe of the way my heart expanded and multiplied a thousand-fold for this new tiny being.  Having grown up in a household where love was considered a privilege and not something to be given out freely, I didn’t understand the “Love multiplies” phenomenon until I experienced it firsthand.  I don’t love one of my children more than the other.  I just love. 

Perhaps that’s why I get so frustrated when I read adoptive parents getting angry and proclaiming, “WE’RE her parents!  We are raising her..we are the ones who take care of her on a daily basis!  Us!  We!  Me!  Me!  Me!”.

Why is it that as parents, we can say, I don’t love one of my children more than the other…but when it comes to children having more than one set of parents, as do all adoptees, or children whose parents have remarried, or in the case of my children, have a man (my fiancé) who has been in their lives almost forever, suddenly there is a contest for who is the best.  Why can’t we just agree that love is love is love is love and get on with life?

30 Days of Truth ~ Day Six

Day 6: Something you hope you never have to do.

I have already done something I hoped to never do....suffered a miscarriage. I wasn't very far along in the pregnancy, but it was traumatic nonetheless.  I think about that child to this day, he or she would be fourteen years old now. 

But like many of the other participants, my true answer to this one is a simple one. I hope never to bury a child. 

My amother told me the below story in its entirety while I was pregnant with Madelyn.  I wish she hadn't.

Back in the mid 60's, my a-uncle and a-aunt had a baby...their first child.  She was eight months old and was napping in an upstairs bedroom of my grandparents' house while a family barbecue was going on.  My aunt went inside to check on her and moments later started screaming.  From what my amother said, the screams were the worst she'd ever heard.

Both of my uncles rushed into the house to see what was going on and they found my aunt holding my limp cousin out to my uncle.  He performed CPR (or whatever it was called back in the 60's) on the baby but she was already gone.  Not sure if SIDS was recognized back then, but that is most likely what claimed her life. 

We used to drive past her tiny grave on our way to the family plot for the yearly flower planting and I've often wonder how my a-aunt survived the loss of that baby.  Just horrifying.