That Show

Oh my! I'm still sniffling from crying and it has been almost half an hour since it ended. Whew! I can tell that this show will become something we watch every week and it will becomw my weekly tear-fest. And it is so worth it ya'll.

Okay, Wendy, what's the show? I hear ya...I'm getting there, stick with me for a minute.

This ad popped up on the side of the new and "improved" Facebook the other day. (the improvement is a subject for a rant, not a blog so we'll skip that for now) Anyway, the ad was for this show The Locator. Hmm...I thought...haven't heard of it, probably not anything I'd be interested in.

Then that afternoon the ad come on whatever random channel I had on. (it said something like: Ma'am I'm here to try and reunite you with your son you placed for adoption x years ago.)

My birthmother ears perked up. Reunite. Adoption. I'm listening. I filed it in my brain...Saturday night. Watch it. Well, first, try and remember it...then watch it! LOL!

Today we had a lovely lazy Saturday around the house. I slept in (thank you to a cutie pie hubby who got up with the kiddos and the muttly). Then we watched movies, hung out, played, napped, etc. Oh I did get some seeds planted to start them indoors, but besides bathing the kids that was my sum total of productivity today. I LOVED IT! But, I digress.

At lunch time I was searching for something family friendly to watch on the kabillon channels we have -- most of which seem to play things none of us should be watching let alone the kids! And I ran across this show...there it was! The Locator.

It is a reality show that follows an investigator and his company who reunite people. The episode was about a man looking for his half-brother that his mother had placed for adoption. Hmmm...I love moments when God gives me a glimpse into the realities of adoption, other birthmothers and especially reunions! And this was no exception. While I won't share the details of the show (watch it!), I will tell you there was this moment that was silly and fun and was a gift to the reunited brothers. The "found" brother said something about their ears. The "searching" brother said, yeah I used to fold them in (kind of sticking it inside itself). The "found" brother said, "like this" and did it. There something silly that they share, that links their pasts and presents. I cried, harder. I loved it.

We watched two or three more episodes. William (my hubby) eventually sat on the couch with his arm around me, knowing my tears were going to flow freely and this show was touching me in places few things can. If you can find it on your cable (it is on the We channel) I would recommend it...can you tell?

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I am a birthmother. Thank the God Lord I don't have to worry about reuniting or opening records or all the hoops others do. I chose open adoption for my girls. Yep, girls. Two of them. Fifteen months apart, same biological father. God delivered them into the hands and hearts of two wonderful families...exactly where He created them to be. And I am blessed to know and love the families.

Some other time I'll write about my adoption experiences. The surreal world of choosing a family for the child I was carrying in my belly...that's a weird one. Or the feeling of holding a child today and knowing that tomorrow she would be someone else's daughter and I would just be a faint whisper of memory. Or the million other movie-of-the-week moments that made up my adoption/placement experiences and the road I have walked from there.

But for today, let me share something else with you. I have several reasons for already loving this show (some of which my friends I hope someday to share) but the main one is this...

I have pictures of my girls. I have letters from their mothers. I even have some phone calls that still echo little voices into the recesses of my heart. But I look forward to that day...being that woman...the one they choose to seek out. What I know of my girls and what they know of me, right now, comes from other people. Our relationships are defined by the love, insecurity, protection, etc. of other people. And while it eases the aches of my heart it does not fill the holes that those young women, I hope, someday will.

You see when a child (at whatever age) chooses to seek out their birthparents they are ready not only to define the relationship but create it, live it. Whether it be mother, friend, aunt, some lady I know, whatever she chooses to know me. She chooses to hear my voice or to receive my hug or to know that we have the same nose or all of these things.

Oh how I long for that day.

To be that woman.

Even as I write now I am crying. I don't often let myself dwell on what I don't have with the girls. Since I chose adoption for them, I chose separation for all of us. And while I will never, not for one moment, regret that decision, I do carry the weight of it. My heart has two self-punched holes -- the holes that will hopefully be filled that day. But watching The Locator this evening I let myself for a moment open that door...that one that looks into a time that never was.

The time where I knew what it was to nurse them. When my arm knew the curve of rocking them to sleep. The chicken pox, Halloweens, Christmases, playing in the back yard, baking cookies, skinned knees, riding bikes and the million other moments that their mothers have with them. The ones that didn't understand I was giving up, because I had never had them. (something I only began to fathom after God blessed us with Isabel and Paxton)

And now we'll shut that door again. There's no use living in a past that didn't happen. It keeps you from living in the present you have and denying the past you were blessed with. The door to the past I lived stays forever swung open, and some of the things you can see back there:

God's hand touched my belly as I got to join Him the most creative thing He ever does -- He knit together our daughters

My family expanded exponentially as I met and fell in love with the girls' families.

I got to hold my oldeest daughter when she was 15 months old during a visit while I was pregnant with her little sister. She touched my face and nestled into my arms (that is a story my friends, I will most definitely share with you!!).

I listened to my second daughter make the connection that I was her birthmom, her "tummy mom" on the phone and then tell me she was going to play outside. And cried with her mother over the amazing moment we had just shared.

God blessed me with the words to tell my second daughter how she and her sister are so loved and that being adopted is not a "problem". I got to explain to her that they had twice as many people to love and people who had worked so hard to make sure she could be right where God wanted her to be.

Being invited to speak at presentations, workshops, breakfasts and trainings, I've been blessed to share my story and meet other women who carry the same scars and conflicted sense of pride, love and embarrassment.

Oh there's so many things down that road behind me and I will forever leave the door open to it!

God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3,4

And how I look forward to the future. To being that woman. To that day. Until then, this week I'll look forward to the next episode of that show.