Meeting Her Mom

The day we found out we were matched with our daughter we were contacted by the social worker who had been working with her mother through the adoption process. The social worker was lovely and shared with us the news that the expectant mom wanted to meet us in two days. She told us the place and time and two days later we found ourselves driving out of town to meet her and our social worker for dinner.

It’s hard to truly describe what it feels like to meet your potential future child’s mother. Our friend Jacob summed up my feelings well by saying “it’s so rare that you know ahead of time when you are going to meet a person who will absolutely change your life as an adult.” It is true, when I first met James I had no idea he would be my future husband, or when I got each positive pregnancy test I was not able to have dinner with each of my boys and get to know who they were before they were born.

We arrived at the restaurant a bit early and so we waited. Anxiously. During the waiting time my mind just cycled through all of these questions and thoughts; what would she think about us, will this go well or will it go terribly. I can honestly say I’m not sure if I’ve ever cared more about somebody liking me than I did that night, and that’s saying a lot, because I am a person who has a bad habit of liking to be liked. We walked into the restaurant and found the table first. As we sat there, chatting with the waiter, ordering drinks, they brought out rolls. James and I picked at them while we made furtive glances towards the doors every few seconds. Before I even realized it, I had eaten half the plate of rolls and they hadn’t even arrived yet. I literally remember thinking, “What is she going to think about me that I already ate half of the rolls? Is she not going to want to give me her baby because I’m a glutton?” Those are just a taste of the insane thoughts that were pinging inside my head that night.

After sitting there for what felt like hours, but was actually minutes with my sweaty palms, racing heart and fidgeting hands, they arrived. She walked up to us and the first thing she did was shake our hands. I remember thinking she was the most adorable pregnant person and that she was easily just as nervous as we were. We sat down and within minutes of meeting her it was as clear as day. This woman loved this baby with all of her being. That revelation just about knocked me over right then and there in the little booth we were squished into. She rubbed her belly and told us everything she had discovered about her baby in the 9 months of carrying her. She had nicknames for the baby, told us each of her cravings, how much she moved, when she was up during the night. It was all said with the greatest reverence and love. Like she was talking about her favorite person in the whole wide world. It made my heart soar and break all at the same time. Soar for my baby, who had been loved from the moment she existed and would continue to be loved for the rest of time. Break for this woman, because she was so in love with this baby that she was about to make the most heroic sacrifice to give her to another family to raise. She told us that she believed our family could give her the life that she had dreamed about for her daughter.

There were tears, so many tears during this meeting. There was also a lot of laughter. We talked about everything from seemingly minute details about our lives like our mutual appreciation of chick-fil-a for dinner once a week, to talking about what we did for work, to her asking me all the things about labor and post-partum recovery. Since I had had birthed two sons and worked as a child life specialist in the hospital setting I answered honestly with a helpful dose of encouragement knowing she was about to go through the hardest physical feat of her life to meet her baby for the first time. At the end of the night we took a picture together and hugged her. She told us “this may be the coolest meeting I’ve ever been a part of.” I told her I felt exactly the same way.

My dearest June, your Dad and I left that night after meeting your mom with this knowledge tattooed onto our hearts. We loved your mom with everything in us, she had easily over the course of a 2 hour dinner become one of our absolute favorite people on earth. We left overwhelmed that we out of all of the people on earth were chosen to get to intersect our lives with the two of you. To create this family from another family while at the same time still remaining connected to each other felt like the greatest, most sacred honor of my life. It still does, every day since, and I suspect it will for the rest of our lives together.