“Your child will find you.”
The first time I heard that was when I attended an Adoption Support Group. The meeting leader, an adoptive mother, spoke these words to give the attendees hope. I had just experienced a miscarriage after three years of infertility treatments. I really didn’t have any hope that my child was going to “find” me at that point.
I was the one who had to choose adoption, fill out paperwork, complete a home study, create a profile, work with potential Birthparents and foot the adoption bill. What work was my child doing in finding me? Wasn’t I doing all of the work?
I really felt like telling the meeting leader, “Well, of course YOU can say that because you are already a mother. But you don’t know anything about me.” About four months later, as I held my newborn Son through adoption in my arms, I ate my words. I knew that he had found me to be his forever mother. Him finding me provided answers to many of my questions.
Answers
Now I knew why Paul and I had to face all the trials of infertility. Now I knew why my body wouldn’t allow a baby to successfully grow within it. Now I knew why I didn’t have the desire to carry on with treatments after our miscarriage. Now I knew why we ended selecting an agency states away from our own. The answer was that my Son was needing us to come be his parents.
The years of struggling to conceive a biological baby consisted of me being frustrated every day. I didn’t understand why I, a good person, had to be put through the ups and downs that infertility brings. The emotional strain it placed on my relationships with loved ones, especially with Paul, was unimaginable. I questioned what possible reason we had to experience this.
As I cursed my body for not working never did I think that it was doing so to delay time. During our infertility journey I now know we are waiting for two strangers to have unprotected sex to conceive our Son.
A Higher Power
Some adoptive parents, such as myself, believe that some Higher Power led our children to us. Whether it was God or Fate or something else shouldn’t matter. What matters is that for many years this Higher Power led me down the path for my child to find me. I just didn’t know it at the time. But once I become an adoptive parent you can look back and see how this Higher Power constantly intervened in my life.
I now understand that I didn’t find my children. They really did find me, possibly with the help of this Higher Power. My children brought with them the ability to bring me peace and understanding about why I had to face the challenges of the infertility and adoption processes.
A Special Gift
Them finding me also gave me a gift I had been looking for. The gift of Motherhood was one that I was unable to find no matter how much work I put into it. I could fill out tons of paperwork and create the perfect adoption profile but it didn’t matter. My children were the ones who had to do the final step by finding my arms to wrap around them.
Passing on Hope
Now as I lead the same Adoption Support Meetings I used to attend, I try to give hope to those who are upset because they are not yet parents. I say, “Your child will find you.“ I see some attendees do eye rolls as they think the same as I did many years before. I continue with, “I know since I’m an adoptive parent you don’t trust me on this. But take my word that once you hold the child that was always meant to be yours in your arms you will believe me.”
Danielle I. Pennel
Three Yellow Roses
www.threeyellowroses.com
Great post! I too never understood those words but find them to be the absolute truth now.
My mantra to potential parents is the right child will come at the right time. Right child, right time. I tell them the same thing, I know you don’t believe me but it will happen because you will not stop until it does.