Our stories, they both started with brokenness.
Mine looked like month after month, year after year of negative pregnancy tests. It’s all I ever wanted to be, a mama. So when doctors and my flat belly told me it wouldn’t happen, it was a deep pain, probably the deepest of my life. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. My body is designed to conceive and carry babies.
I don’t like to think of your story as painful. It tears my heart in half to think of you being in pain. But the truth is, in a perfect world, before the fall, God intended mommies to carry their babies. Your birth mama, she loved you so deep, she knew she couldn’t give you what you needed. So she made a brave choice, and chose life for you, a life she couldn’t give.
The days you both came home to us, were both the hardest and most beautiful days of our life. We walked out of the hospital room those days and felt the gravity of her love as the lawyers passed us in the hall. The heaviness of that day, I can feel it even now in the pit of my stomach. But then just a few hours later, we got a call, telling us to come bring you home. Because you were ours. Forever.
And it was the absolute happiest day of my life.
All of those prayers, all of those years, aching, longing, dreaming to be a mama, in one moment all came true. Being your mama is one of my greatest gifts. Some days when you color on the wall, or pitch a fit in Target, or refuse to take a nap, I remember what it was like to wish for you. In the middle of the night when all I want is sleep, but you need me more, I remember what it was like to dream of someone calling me “Mommy.” The normal, mundane moments to me, even seem magical. Because loving you, being yours and you mine is my favorite story and my dream come true.
I want you to know, you really have to know, you were never second. Adoption wasn’t our Plan B. Believe Mama, when I tell you, how desperately you were wanted. How we’d wait for you all over again if you, sweet ones, get to be ours.
It’s what I want you to know about Papa. If the story doesn’t end in beauty, it’s not over. Because, my precious ones, He brings beauty out of ashes. Every single time, He does. It’s what He did for us. It’s written on every page throughout our story.
Both of our stories started with brokenness. But look at us now. Look at the beauty that has been birthed out of so much pain. All of the ways the enemy tried to steal from us, Papa, He’s returning it. Bringing back to us what was stolen, and He does it with interest. Every time He does. Because we’re His children. And it’s in His very nature to restore and redeem, to give His children good things.
Our family will grow and change, but you, you’ll always hold my heart in a special way. One day, Mama will have babies that grow in her belly, because Jesus paid a very high price for my physical healing, and we know from your stories, He’s a God of miracles. But you, you two grew in my heart, and I carried you in a way I’ll never carry them. My pregnancies with you were way longer than nine months. And the labor, it lasted years. There might not be marks on my body left by you, but you marked my heart in a way no one else ever could.
Infertility isn’t what I thought I wanted, but it gave me you.
And you, my sweet babies, are more than I could have ever dreamed.
I’ll love you forever,
Mama
ALL PHOTOS BY SOPHIE BRENDLE PHOTOGRAPHY
