Gotcha Day Eve

When I was pregnant with Gibson I measured time by the expiration date on the milk jug.

Each week, as I would do my grocery shopping, I would check the gallon of milk I was buying relieved that the expiration date was well before my January 8th due date.

Then, as life always does, time marched on and one day the milk jug read, Jan 08 '05.

I remember looking around the store that day, saying to myself,

 It's okay Theresa.  Look around, everyone here has a mother, they were all born.  It is going to be okay.  You can do this.  You have to do this.

I was terrified.

I had never given birth before.  I had no idea how to be a mom.

And, before January 8th ever made it's appearance, I had done it.

I had given birth.

I was a mom.

It was not how I had planned it, but it happened, and my life had more depth and meaning than it had ever had before.

Now, eight and a half years later, on the eve of Finley's gotcha day, I sit with those same feelings I felt in the grocery store so many years ago.

My heart is heavy. I am scared, nervous about what tomorrow is going to bring.

I spent most of dinner crying, unable to eat.

You see, tomorrow isn't like the childbirth I experienced for the first time so many years ago.

Tomorrow won't just be about me and Steve and our new baby.

Tomorrow is about me and Steve and Gibson and Elliott.  It's about Finley.  It's about her foster mom and her foster dad and her entire foster family.  It's about her birth mother.  It's about life and loss, brokenness and redemption.

It is about a room full of people who have loved Finley with their whole hearts and will all have experienced great loss.

Tomorrow, instead of being a day of pure joy and celebration, will be a day of immense grief.

Tonight, Finley's foster mom is tucking her in for the last time.

I would rather endure seventeen hours of labor with pitocin and no epidural, than have her experience that heartache.

But, the thing about living in this broken world is that I can't.  I can't take away the pain, the hurt.

The only thing I can do is step into it.

And, that is exactly what I will do.  I will step into the grief and the heartache of tomorrow knowing that in order for healing to begin, the deep sadness must be felt, wrestled with and sat in.

I will hold my daughter tightly, praying that one day when I tell her this part of her story, she will know she was chosen and loved.... by each and every person in that room.