hurt healing epoxy…

After seven heart breakingly unique and horrifying miscarriages, (six pregnancies, once was twins) i found myself very ill and in need of a hysterectomy. I was 24. Almost anyone reading my blog knows this part of the story. Almost everyone also knows that we were supposed to adopt a new born from Arizona, but the adoption fell through. About 6 months later we took in a pair of foster twin girls that we grew very attached to. Their birth mother had consented, after 6 months, to sign the papers when a loophole processed her out of jail and she took them back the day before our tenth month anniversary with them. 

The idea of motherhood, for me, was this crack spreading heartache and I found it impossible to grasp the beauty or joy of it. I had plenty of friends with children of their own, but i just could not quite fathom the amazingness of it. And then, I accepted this job at a group home. I met Lucas and Amanda there. Lucas was 11 and Amanda was 10, and I was so lucky to be there with them, and grow to love them more and more, over the course of the following year. In fact, much to our dismay they remained in that home until they graduated high school. Over that time I (and they) was told that my love was not real, that our bond did not exist and that our being a family was not good for anyone. I learned about how God is bigger than circumstance though, and the love and bond between us grew despite distances and circumstance. It was not ideal, even with visits twice a year and the occasional phone call and letters. In the middle of this distance, God literally dropped Genny into my lap. Everyday we tried to reconcile what our family meant, how real it could possibly be and what actual reality it could ever be- and those reconciliations would come up desperate and empty until my eyes would fall, once again, on the framed photos upon my nightstand. My heart would warm in a way that nothing before- or sense- had ever made it do. Peace would flood my veins and I would remember that the hows and the whys did not matter. All that mattered was truth, and the truth was that we were a family and belonged together.

And we got there.
Eventually it didn’t matter anymore. Eventually we could be honest and open. We could heal hurts and hearts and made family memories.
The three of them are very close, and for that I am beyond grateful. I am very close with each one of my kids, in very different ways. I have their laughter, the rise and falls of their voice and emotion, and a trillion other unique things about them filling what once were the cracks in my heart. Each ounce of loss prepared me to love them, each second of heart break determined me to love them more.

Some women get beautiful and amazing birth stories…
As for me, I got a love story.
A life story… Because first my kids, in essence, saved my life- and then they made my life far more than it could ever have been without them. My heart aches to say that they were meant to be mine, but I don’t believe that they were meant for the horrors they knew before us- so I guess it’s mostly that they are mine and I wouldn’t have it any other way…