The Power of a Mother's Love

~

You held me within you.

I was from you

-of you

-a part of you.

But the day I came into this world,

you gave me to the world.

You left me…

to make me better.

But you left me

to wonder of a mother’s love

…and of my worth.

~

October 21, 1971.  I was born to a woman I wouldn’t meet again until I was 33, because the day I was born she gave me away.

Although I do not remember anything about my biological mother, I am convinced my psyche must have been deeply wounded as a newborn.  After I found her, she revealed to me the social worker let her hold me one time in secret, as any direct contact between the mother and the child being given up was strictly forbidden by the nuns who dually served as the nurses in the hospital maternity ward.  I can feel, in my soul, the gut-wrenching sadness of holding her baby for the first and last time all at once.  I can feel, on my face, her hot tears, anointing me with her pain.  I can hear, in my heart, the animal like sound that must have escaped from her throat at the exact time the social worker took me out of her arms…forever.

I was brought home to my new family on November 16^th, 1971.  I often wonder where I was for those first twenty five days of my life.  Just imagine.  Twenty five entire days lost somewhere… never to be found.  Twenty five days gone, into an abyss of darkness and unknowing.  Did people hold me?  Did I cry?  Who fed me and changed my diapers?  Who gave me my first bath?  Did anyone whisper sweet words into my ear or tenderly kiss my feet?  Did anyone sing me a lullaby?

I have always known I was adopted.  I am not sure how my adopted parents managed to teach this truth to me.  Not only did they teach it to me, but they were able to weave the truth into the very essence of who I knew myself to be.  I considered myself to be special because I was chosen by my adopted parents.  I was raised to believe that my biological mother did the best thing possible by choosing a better life for me.  But one day I became aware of the fact that by choosing a better life for me, she also made the decision not to choose me. 

A consequence of being adopted is the undeniable sense of not belonging, of having no roots.  A subtle irritating feeling of deep aloneness that cannot be satisfied no matter how many people you surround yourself with.  That feeling seemed to intensify once I had given birth to my own child.  Along with a new curiosity of where I came from and who my own mother was, I decided to register with an adoption website.  I listed basic facts about my birth.  It was a very safe, half-hearted attempt to find her because I wasn’t searching for an actual person.  Rather, I was merely giving information about myself in the off-chance that someone was searching for me.  I wasn’t willing to risk rejection from her again.   

Months passed with no second thoughts given to the feelers I put out on the Internet.  I was away on a business trip, waiting to board the plane home and decided to check my voice mail.  I will never forget the message waiting for me.  It was from my husband.  He told me I received an email from a woman who said she found my information on the adoption site.  She thought I was her daughter.  Instantly, tears came to my eyes and a flood of warmth washed into my heart as I thought she really does love me.  I am worth looking for.  I am worth finding.  Never before had I cried for or acknowledged the true longing of my little-girl heart to know my mother.

I called her when I arrived home and by that evening, I was looking in pure amazement at pictures she emailed.  The social worker had breached all protocol out of sympathy for my mother and given her copies of Polaroid pictures.  The original pictures were for my soon-to-be adoptive parents.  They were the exact same pictures I had in my baby book sitting on the shelf in my office of me when I was ten days old.

My biological mother, Sherrie, told me she had begun looking for me when I turned eighteen.  Out of the hundreds of adoption-reuniting-websites, it was nothing less than the work of God that she looked at the one and only site I registered on.

Sherrie sent me a letter after our initial phone call and enclosed was an opal ring, October’s birth stone.  I came to find out all of the females in Sherrie’s family for at least four generations were born in October.  Sherrie later married and had two more children, my half brother and sister.  She wrote that the ring belonged to her grandmother and was passed down each generation.  The next in-line would be a girl born to Sherrie, my half sister.  But instead, Sherrie saved her ring for me… the girl she gave away, the girl she was desperately hoping to someday meet again.       
 

I met Sherrie for the first time three months after I gave birth to my own precious little girl.  One of my most cherished memories is from that day, when I placed my baby girl into Sherrie’s arms.  This time, I watched as tears slid down her cheek and softly landed onto the face of my child. 

This time, they were tears of healing, for her, and for me.  I no longer wondered of her love for me.  I no longer wondered of my worth.  We had come full circle.  I realized I had always been with her.  I had always been a part of her.  That day, I learned the true power of a mother’s love.

God’s Word...
^“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” Psalm 139:13-16 New Living Translation (NLT)

Prayer…

Thank you God for your truth that promises me you have always been with me. You knew that I was going to be adopted before I was even created and yet that did not make you love me any less. It was YOUR plan all along! Help me to believe deep in my being that I am your workmanship and I am wonderfully made. Give my peace and a sense of belonging not because of my birthmother or adopted parents, but because you are my Father and I am yours!
~Carole