New Global Family:

Cheryl and Zoe’s Stories

Counting My Blessings…

his was the best Mother's Day ever.  A scratchy little morning voice whispered, "Mommy, get up... I made you something."  And then she was gone, trotting out of the bedroom to retrieve “the gift":  a “#1 Mom” keychain", a jewelry box made of popsicle sticks and decorated with tissue paper flowers and an oversized M O M card with a "roses are red, violets are blue" poem inside.  All for me.  Today I count my blessings. 

I count my blessings because we have come a long way.  While I could wax poetic for hours and hours about the joys, the bliss of motherhood, how amazing my child is, the miracle of adoption, I wish I could say the same for single parenthood.  And even still, I count my blessings.  We have learned to "navigate," Zoe and I.  We navigate through the parts we like and the parts we don't.  I can't speak about the stresses of traditional, 2 parent parenthood and how all the things I don't love about single parenthood would not be all that different if I was co-parenting.  Perhaps it is true, but I really don't know.  And I can’t write about how great single parenthood is, because it's just not.  It is hard.  But parenthood?  That’s a different story.  Parenthood is a blessing and a great gift.  It is "worth it."  And for all of that, today I count my blessings.

My daughter has had bouts of "mystery illness" lately.  A stomach ache that isn't really a stomach ache.  A sniffle that's not really a cold, but still, strong enough to throw our household into momentary panic mode.  Deeper than a tummy ache, it is a pain too confusing to identify, and too sad to admit.  After about a week of tantrums and symptoms finally one morning there were sniffles, then full on sobs.  "I'm sad, mommy, I’m so sad" she said.  "Why, honey, what is it?"  "Nothing."  "Are you sure?"   Pause.  And then "the moment."  The moment I was prepared for early on by a wisened and experienced adoption counselor.  Some time between the ages of  7 and 8 an internal, developmental, spiritual awareness takes place and the identity crisis of the adopted child begins to take hold.  "I'm sad that I'm different” she sniffled.  “I wanted to come out of your body, mommy.  Why couldn't I come out of your belly?" 

One might ask how this, too, could be a blessing, but it is.  Anyone who has ever adopted or taken over primary care of a child can tell you why.  Her grieving is inescapable but the fact that her grieving is taking the form of a desire to come out of me, out of my body, is probably the most important gift I could get.  My greatest Mother's Day present.  Even while my heart broke for her I knew this.  And still, I wanted to do something, say something, "fix it".  But I can't scare this off, like the boogey man.  I can't make it all go away because it is part of who she is.  It is part of the story of her life, and the story of our life together.  I can only love her through it and let her have this.  She must come to terms with it, and I must allow that.  And one day we will go to her birth country and if she needs to find the woman who gave her life, I will help her do that too.  But for now, I celebrate the form this milestone has taken, just as I celebrate the keychain and the card and the "roses are red" poem.

I will never know, nor will she, if either or both of us would have been happier if she did come out of my belly.  I will never know if we would love each other more or less.  But we have and will always have each other, through birthdays and Mother’s Days and skinned knees and tummy aches.  And today, I celebrate all of that.  I count my blessings…

cpaley