Adoption

My caseworker sits down beside me on the couch and I never know where in the world the meeting is going to go.  Today's agenda is Pip and longterm plans - but I never know this until she pulls her haphazard binder from her overstuffed bag.

It seems that everyone who matters is fairly certain that Pip will not be going back to her parents.  And given the last year, that seems reasonable to assume.  Reasonable, at least, to a reasonable outsider.  Slightly less reasonable to me who has seen who wonky and illogical and mysterious and messed-up the system is.  But in any case, that is what we are supposed to be planning and preparing for.

So she hands me a phone number and says I am supposed to call the adoption intake worker.  I will have to ask for adoption paperwork which we need to fill out as soon as possible.  Then we will be put on a list to attend adoption classes and eventually have our home study completed.  Ya know, again.  Because that makes a lot of sense.

But the thing is, my caseworker can't answer the important questions.  What if the case doesn't go the way everyone thinks it will?  What if Pip goes back to mom and dad?  What if she goes to another family?  How do I fill out stacks of paperwork, attend training, prepare for her to be mine forever and still protect my heart in case it all takes a different direction?  How do I trust in the face of so much uncertainty?  How do I love and not lose my mind?

She screams and thrashes in her sleep at the obnoxious time of just-as-I’m-slipping-blissfully-out-of-consciousness-myself.  Eyes closed, she kicks the side of the crib, tormented.  My words do nothing to soothe her, my gentle touch just makes her writhe that much more.  So I pull her out of bed, change the scenery, distract her with a cup of milk.  She studies my face while seems to wonder what we are doing awake in the dark of night - as do I.  Minutes later her head burrows into my chest and her weight sinks into me with trust and sleepiness.  I would breathe in the smell of her, if her frizzy curls weren’t already tickling my nose.  And I am honoured to be the one holding her in as many of these moments as she needs.

Two Daughters

The cry that gets me up of the couch turns out to just be a whimper in her sleep.  I've gotten off the couch an hour into the coveted quiet of evening and tiptoed into the girls' room for nothing.  But it must be one of the very best nothings I have ever been privileged to take in.  One sleeps on her back, arms above her head and lips still parted from where the soother was released in slumber.  I smile at her peaceful perfection in the center of the white crib before turning around.  My gaze searches for the other, pushed up into the corner of her matching crib, bum in the air, blankets gathered and clutched beneath her, curls splayed in the halo of sleep.  I have two daughters.  The words still seems surreal.  I have been entrusted with these two precious, beautiful, valuable, delightful, inherently lovable souls.  May His grace fill me with wisdom and patience and strength.  May His grace overflow to them, for I know I will not ever be enough.