Today is a difficult day. It is filled with bittersweet emotions of being sad, angry, thankful, and the reality of adoption. It was a a year ago today that the little baby girl that was supposed to be my daughter was born.
I didn’t know she was born and only found out when she was a day old. I was matched with her mom in June and from hours after our match, things became complicated and confusing. We matched, we unmatched, we matched again. I was confused, I was hopeful, and I didn’t know better. It was my first match.
Because of hurricane Irma which hit Jacksonville, Florida this week last year I was not able to fly out to Florida for her birth. I canceled my flight and my mom‘s flight because of the weather. Little did I know that this was a blessing, this was a sign, this was a good thing. I had been talking to the birthmom the week before the little one was born which would’ve been this week last year. Her mom was giving me lots of information about when she was due, when she had doctor appointments, how she was feeling about the entire adoption process. Then she went silent. First it became 12 hours of silence which was unusual. Then it was 16 hours of silence. Then it was 24 hours of silence. Then it was 48 hours of silence.
I had received an email from the adoption agency on Saturday night saying that she had been born and the hospital would not release her to her birth mom. I shouldn’t worry about it because there is no way she was going home with her birthmom. On Sunday I hadn’t heard anything from the adoption agency or the birth mom and so I checked Facebook. And there it was…a picture of the birthmom and the baby and a caption saying it was her beautiful princess baby. She was in fact a beautiful baby girl. Filled with hopeful eyes, a big smile, bright cheeks and unfortunately a future that wasn’t going to get her far.
To this day I still think about that little girl and how her life would have been so vastly different if she would have ended up my daughter.
A year later I could still be very angry and pissed off about the situation. But I’m not. A few weekends ago I heard someone talk about how everything in life is neutral. It is neutral and you decide if you want it to be a positive experience or negative experience. Although I had many tears and was upset about the outcome of this adoption, a year later I can now say that this was definitely more than a neutral experience. It was a positive experience. Knowing that I wouldn’t be looking over my shoulder afraid and scared of who was watching me is a relief. (When you adopt, you also get the birthparents in your life. It’s safe to say that these birthparents weren’t or will never be part of the school’s PTA.) Although I still have a place in my heart for this little girl and probably always will, I know that things worked out for the best.
Happy 1st birthday little one!
Journey 2 Childhood 
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