…and the rest is history

A year ago on Mother’s Day, I was bitter. After years of infertility, we had finally chosen adoption over medical intervention six months earlier, and I was feeling a wee bit stressed. Many of you have been in that hell we like to call “the wait” or are there right now, so you know what it feels like to pick up the phone at the half hour to check your home answering machine and feel your heart race each and every time the phone rings.

Luckily, though, six months later determination made me a mom–determination to keep going, no matter what the cost to my personal sanity (and personality). And now that I look back, I amaze myself. Before the process, I never would have thought I’d have the strength to get through all those firsts–the first talk with a birthmother, the first bite of truly bitter disappointment, the first fingerprinting in the booking area of our county jail (and, hopefully, last) and subsequent calls to the FBI, the first flight and rental car, the first wait for ICPC.

I was determined to make it through to the other side, and once I did I found I was doubly blessed. I am a better person for the struggle and I’ve met J, one of the best people that has ever come into my life.

Determination is still important, and I see it in myself as I keep burning up the phone lines in search of better daycare and enduring long minutes of shrieking as we work on J’s tummy time. I read, research and weigh the options of everything from sippy cup use to kindergarten teacher selection with purpose.

And that determination is one quality of many that bonds all mothers together–adoptive and non-adoptive, mothers-in-waiting, mothers-to be and mothers-of-the-heart. We’re all determined to do the best by those special children in our lives and, mostly, we’re successful in spite of all the obstacles.

Happy Mom’s Day, all.

The idea for this post was inspired by Light Iris and Parentbloggers.