Pieces of morning light stream in through the window and\nfill up the room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The glider goes back and forth, back and forth as I stare\ninto his small, perfect face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His heavy eyelids begin to close as I brush my fingertips\nover his hairline. My mom used to do this to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can remember distinctly being a young girl lying between\nmy parents in their bed, after a nightmare or during a thunderstorm. Their bed,\nbetween them, was the safest place in the world. She would run her fingers over\nmy hair and that would always help me fall asleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Isn\u2019t it interesting, how the way we remember being loved\nthe most is often the way we choose to project love onto others, particularly\nour children?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was in this moment that I had a flashback to a few months\nago. In Mississippi, on the day that we were finally united with Jayden at Ms.\nCarol\u2019s home on the lake, I held him on my chest, in a gliding chair in her\nliving room. I began to stroke his hair from the tip of his forehead back\ntowards his ears. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what I do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was quiet. I could only think about what relief I felt that\nwe could always tell him how loved he was in his first month of life. I thought\nabout how hard it was going to be for Carol to say goodbye to him. And then my\nthoughts turned to Jayden\u2019s birth mother. The one that we had gotten to meet a\ncouple months before. If it was hard for Carol to say goodbye, I could only\nimagine the turmoil that occurred in his birth mom\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carol told me that God somehow grants her the ability to say\ngoodbye each time she parts with a child she took care of in the interim. He\ngives her the love for each of them that allows her to fully take care of them\nas their mother would. And then He gives her the strength she needs to send\nthem on their way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wonder if Jayden\u2019s birth mother felt God\u2019s strength on the\nday she had to say goodbye. There are lots of things I wonder about that day,\nand about the days leading up to it. But there are things that I know with\nabsolute certainty. She loved him, and still does, with her whole heart. She wanted\nto protect him, to keep him close. In a perfect world, she would have never had\nto say goodbye at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You see, that\u2019s the thing about adoption. Whether the child\nwas left on a doorstep, abandoned in a third world country, or left with a meticulously\nchosen adoptive family, there is loss. Even if the loss isn\u2019t witnessed first-hand\nby the ones taking the child in, it is there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it doesn\u2019t just go away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can only imagine that this type of loss is accompanied by\na unique brand of grief. Not easier or more difficult than the loss of a loved\none per se, but different. You\u2019re placing an entire life, a whole human that\nyou have created, into the hands of a person that you believe will love them\nthe way you would love them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The grief is not only for the loss of a child that would\notherwise be yours, in your future family, but it encompasses all of the things\nthat make up a life together. The birth mother places it all in your hands: the\ngood days and the bad, the special occasions, traditions, the big moments and\nthe small ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This privilege, of being the one on the receiving end of\nthat kind of sacrifice, is one that I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever fully wrap my mind around\nor \u201cget over.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, the process of adopting is difficult. In hindsight; however,\nevery \u2018rejection,\u2019 every period of waiting, and every difficult \u2018no\u2019 that we\nfaced along the way makes us appreciate the ultimate intersection of our lives\nwith Jayden\u2019s even more. Though the process was long and involved, emotionally\nand otherwise, I hope that we will never let our striving or our actions in any\nof this outweigh the sacrifice of Jayden\u2019s birth mother in our minds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She is the hero in this story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the record, for any who do not know about our specific\nadoption journey, Jayden\u2019s birth mom is beautiful. Her spirit is one of\nstrength and determination to advocate for the ones she loves, particularly\nthis baby who we now hold dear to our both of our hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She is strong. But I know that the days surrounding his birth,\nand every day since, have not been easy for her. One of the reasons I know this\nis from our conversation about his name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
—-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDo you want to talk about names?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pregnancy counselor looked at Jayden\u2019s birth mother and\nasked this question. She was facilitating our meeting, as all of the hearts in\nthe room beat at a hundred miles an hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, I\u2019ve been calling him Jayden,\u201d she said in a very undemanding,\nkind way. I knew she wanted to be respectful of us, and of any names we had\nalready planned out in our minds. \u201cBut please name him whatever you would like.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tucker and I looked at each other, and just smiled at her. I\nmight have nodded my head. We hadn\u2019t planned a name yet. We didn\u2019t have a\nspirit-filled \u201caha\u201d moment. But we saw his birth mom\u2019s spirit toward us. She\nwanted to give her baby boy the best life. She loved him enough to want to call\nhim by name, and she wasn\u2019t afraid of forming a connection with the child she\nwas carrying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This struck me as a great service toward our future son. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Previously we had talked about how much we\u2019d like to honor\nthe birth mom\u2019s decision about a name, if it worked out that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we got in the car after our meeting, we talked about the\nname Jayden. It was oddly similar to one of the names we had almost landed on earlier\nthat day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, I googled it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It means \u201cthankful.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His birth mom was thankful for him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We couldn\u2019t think of a better meaning to represent how we\nfelt about him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jayden Michael Burke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His middle name carries significance in representing his\ngrandfather on his dad\u2019s side, David Michael. He will carry on the legacy of\nstrong men on both sides of his adoptive family, and we know that his birth\nfamily is made up of a strong legacy to begin with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is one special kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I rock him, stroke his hair, and look at his beautiful\nfeatures, I am in awe of the fact that I get to be his mom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I just want everyone that knows him, and everyone that knows\nour family to understand what led to that privilege being placed in our hands.\nIt was wrought with a sacrifice greater than any of us can imagine. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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