1. When you have three kids three and under, people assume you are super fertile.
Oh, the comments we get. They started back when Luke was a newborn and Clara was just one. "Better you than me!" was one of my favorites. No, seriously. I loved it. You have no idea how glad I am that it's me, I wanted to say. But I'd just smile, slightly offended that they were basically saying that they don't value my children, but whatever. It is better me than them, in that case.
Now, with three little ones, people think we're super crazy. And crazy fertile. "You know there's a way to stop that from happening," is another favorite comment we hear. It always takes me a second to realize just exactly what they are saying. Ohhhhhh, birth control. My thoughts move from yuck, to wait a second! Why would I want to prevent these beautiful babies? They are here, after all! You are talking about my living, breathing babies!
But then I just have to stop and laugh because there's something funny about a long-suffering infertile girl like me hearing those types of comments. To think that I, one day, would have attracted looks from others because of all my little ones. Their words are music to my ears.
2. When you have three kids three and under, people think they can say super personal, skeevy things to you.
This one could be included in #1, but it deserves its own number. Someone asked Ryan a couple months ago why he doesn't just dismount.
I can't believe I just typed that. I also can't believe someone actually said that to him.
3. I am an adult.
Okay, so I should know this by the age of 36. Yes, 36. But there are just those moments when I stop and look at my two beautiful girls, and think, We adopted them. That's like.. really adult.
Most people can easily wind up pregnant, but adoption is hard. You have to actually go get finger-printing done and stuff. Take yourself and everyone in your household to get physicals. Lay your entire life out in front of a stranger. Collect every piece of paperwork you have accumulated (in all different parts of the country, no less) since you were born and every address of where you have ever lived. Thank goodness Ryan has a crazy memory for that last one. That alone might have stopped me from becoming home study approved.
And I'm not patting myself on the back for this, just observing that I am, in fact, an adult. I probably should have realized that 18 years ago.
4. The time when I'm feeding or rocking the baby is my down time.
This one is really random, but it changed my whole mindset when I realized it a few weeks ago. I used to pine for time to just sit and veg. Watch TV. Do nothing. I needed it. I craved it. The day would end and I'd feel unfulfilled because I never got it. Then it dawned upon me - I'm sitting with the baby all day long. What if I just acknowledge to myself that that's when I'm officially relaxing? Instead of thinking of it as time when I could be doing something else, wanting the bottle to drain quicker so I can get to that laundry so I can eventually relax, I now just sit and breath and do nothing (except feed or rock the baby). What's more relaxing than sitting with a baby?
But it really took me telling myself that it was official relaxation time for it to become official relaxation time. I think that's an important lesson I needed to learn - look for the hidden pockets of time in my day when I can de-stress. With three little ones, I need all that I can get.
5. Kids are all different (at least when it comes to sleeping).
I'm not to blame for the child with bad sleeping habits, just as I cannot take credit for the ones who love to sleep.I have both good sleepers and bad sleepers, yet I do nothing different for any of them. In our house it's been evident right from day one (or day 37, in Clara's case) if they were going to be good sleepers. Essie is a dream. She's been sleeping through the night since seven weeks old. And I simply cannot take credit for that.
I might be inclined to take credit had I not previously had a terrible sleeper (and still do), but Luke has taught me humility. And that maybe it's our genes.
6. Formula is not the devil.
This is something that adoption has taught me because, to be completely honest, I could see myself being a breast milk snob if I only had biological babies. But that is assuming I would have no trouble nursing any of my hypothetical biological babies. And as everyone who's ever had a problem nursing knows, you learn quickly not to be a breast milk snob when stuff is going down.
Don't get me wrong, I love nursing. In fact, I'm still nursing my nearly two-and-a-half-year-old son (once a day, but it'd be more if he had his way). But I'm just thankful for this perspective that adoption has given me. No one wants to be a snob.
7. All children are precious gifts from God.
(And I don't mean this in a I'm-so-deserving-of-gifts-from-Jesus-that-others-had-to-go-through-trials-in-order-for-me-to-get-my-babies sort of way. Rather, in an all-children-are-gifts-from-God-even-when-I-birthed-them sort of way. You'll see what I mean...)
Sometimes I think of Clara's and Essie's birth moms and how they entrusted us with this huge task of raising their babies (Essie's was in a real, tangible way, while Clara's was more abstract, since she didn't actually choose us, but knew someone would be raising her baby and entrusted her to those unknown individuals) and it stops me in my tracks. What a gift. What an absolutely enormous responsibility. It's like I have a higher authority to answer to, even though their birth moms won't ever have input in how we raise them. They're still in my heart and on my mind. For better or worse, I can't help but think of them when I'm contemplating doing the best I can for my girls.
And then I think... higher authority. Hmmm... that sounds familiar.
And then I think about Luke, and how I can cut corners with that kid (isn't that terrible? I'm only half kidding). But then I think about how even though he wasn't gently placed in our arms by a loving birth mom, he's still a gift. A gift from God. They all are. God has placed them in our care and asked us to do our best by them, for Him. I have to answer to God when it comes to all of our sweet babies.
Yes, this may be obvious to all of you, but it's just one of those quirky things about having both biological and adopted children. At least it is for me. It's sort of like how I forget Ryan is Luke's biological father.
8. God grows my family according to His will.
If I haven't learned this by now, then something is wrong with me. Through all those painful years of infertility, all those long, dark days of begging God for a child, I could never have predicted the way He would choose to answer that prayer. Never. And I equally could not have predicted how my heart would feel about adoption and about our unique circumstances.
I love adoption so much. I love that I get to raise these two blessings that I normally would have never even met. I'm so utterly thankful that I get to. I can't even begin to think about them not being in my life, about what if I never had endometriosis and whatever other myriad problems caused me to be infertile and which led us to adoption.
And every time I look at Clara and Luke together, at the absolutely inseparable best friends that they are, I thank God that he has placed adoption in our lives.
Because I can't even begin to imagine one of these two without the other.
I am also so, so, so thankful that I have been able to experience the actual process of adoption. To know the rush of finding out you are getting a baby, that excitement of driving to a different part of the country to pick her up, of meeting her for the first time, of bonding with this tiny creature that you did not birth. I can't imagine my life without it. I am equally thankful that I got to experience pregnancy and birth and all that comes with having a child that shares your DNA. But most people get to experience that, it's the norm. Adoption is the load less traveled. And I will forever be grateful to God that He has placed that path in my life.
I don't know how, or if, God will continue to grow my family, but I am ecstatic about how he has chosen to form it thus far. And I know He is definitely full of surprises.
9. I love all my children equally.
Okay, so I never really had to learn this. But it's an honest worry a lot of people have about adoption. "Will I be able to love my adopted kids as if they are my own?" It's something I hear a lot. First of all, they are all my own, but I know where people are coming from with this. I know what they are trying to say - will there be some bond missing since I did not carry them in my womb? Will I be capable of loving them enough? I get it. I think most of us who have contemplated adoption have had to ask ourselves that question, even if it just crossed our minds for a millisecond before we moved on.
And now, as someone on the other side of this question, I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I do love all my children equally. And I don't think it's necessary to say that I love them all "like I birthed them", because that is not the bar to which I'd like to hold my love. I love them as if they are all my children. Which they are. And I know one thing will always be true - no one will ever love them more than me.
10. God is good.
I'm ashamed I had to learn this. I knew it, then I forgot it, then I realized it once again. I wish I had known it all along, but I'm just grateful I know it now.
