About Me
- Hillary
- My name is Hillary, I'm 24 and have a beautiful daughter who was born June 25, 2010. She was adopted by an amazing family with whom I am now very close. Adoption is an incredible experience but can extremely suck sometimes. I feel called to share my story with other people not only to spread knowledge about adoption (especially open adoptions) but also to help support girls going through unplanned pregnancy/adoption.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Family
As I prepare to move southward for school, I spent nearly all day, three days in a row, visiting Emilia and her family. While it's incredibly hard to say goodbye for now, those three days were some of the happiest I've had. I got to see Emilia walk eight steps by herself. I got to put on a lemonade stand with her big sister. And I got to simply be a part of their family, feel exceptionally loved, and know (as I always have) they were meant to be part of my family forever.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Baby Steps.
19-august-2011
My daughter took her first steps today. It's hard to convey a cohesive explanation for how that feels to a birth-mom. I did not get the overwhelming joy of witnessing these first feeble attempts at bipedal movement, but heard of it second hand via text [let me not minimize the amazingness of hearing about it at all-- I know many birth-moms are not so lucky and I am whole-heartedly grateful for these small windows into my sweet baby girls life]. Some most easily grasp the excitement of the situation. Other may grasp theoretically the idea of the pain and loss incorporated. But no one, aside from another birth-parent, can truly know the confusingly overwhelming swirl of emotions that occur upon hearing big news like this, which Emilia's birth-father aptly described as "disorienting". It hits you like a sucker-punch to the gut and as you lay gasping on the ground all you can think is how badly you ache to see that little person, to whom you gave life and how proud you are that they're growing up, yet simultaneously re-realizing they are not your child.
Over the last few months, things in my world of adoption have miraculously switched from significant stress, sadness, and emotional chasms, to one of free-flowing love, respect, and a happiness I could never dreamed of a year ago-- a transformation I can only attribute to the Lord and the way He works in both my and the adoptive mothers hearts. To be able to watch my little girl develop, smile, laugh, play with her big sister; to see how undeniably loved and happy she is; rates higher than any gift I have or will receive.
If you asked me a week ago how the adoption was going, I would have said something like "great! I love the time I get to spend with Emilia and her family, but I'm also learning to love the time we spend apart and be happy in my own life. The pieces of my heart seem to be repositioning themselves back to their original place in my chest and slowly returning to working order. I'm looking forward to going away to school next month, and even though I know I will miss Emilia, I'll still see her relatively frequently and I think that's enough now". As I'm writing tonight that's all still true, I just didn't realize my heart pieces are still a little bruised and there are still days (like today) where they seem to scatter all over again.
Just like Emilia slowly learning to walk, I'm slowly learning to find my new normal; my new happiness. She and I can stumble our way through this chapter of life-- sometimes falling a little, sometimes a lot; sometimes picking ourselves up, sometimes needing a little help and a hug. Each day our legs will grow stronger beneath us and we'll fall less and less until one day we will run side by side-- smiles on our faces and love in our hearts and know without a doubt, we not only survived, we conquered.
My daughter took her first steps today. It's hard to convey a cohesive explanation for how that feels to a birth-mom. I did not get the overwhelming joy of witnessing these first feeble attempts at bipedal movement, but heard of it second hand via text [let me not minimize the amazingness of hearing about it at all-- I know many birth-moms are not so lucky and I am whole-heartedly grateful for these small windows into my sweet baby girls life]. Some most easily grasp the excitement of the situation. Other may grasp theoretically the idea of the pain and loss incorporated. But no one, aside from another birth-parent, can truly know the confusingly overwhelming swirl of emotions that occur upon hearing big news like this, which Emilia's birth-father aptly described as "disorienting". It hits you like a sucker-punch to the gut and as you lay gasping on the ground all you can think is how badly you ache to see that little person, to whom you gave life and how proud you are that they're growing up, yet simultaneously re-realizing they are not your child.
Over the last few months, things in my world of adoption have miraculously switched from significant stress, sadness, and emotional chasms, to one of free-flowing love, respect, and a happiness I could never dreamed of a year ago-- a transformation I can only attribute to the Lord and the way He works in both my and the adoptive mothers hearts. To be able to watch my little girl develop, smile, laugh, play with her big sister; to see how undeniably loved and happy she is; rates higher than any gift I have or will receive.
If you asked me a week ago how the adoption was going, I would have said something like "great! I love the time I get to spend with Emilia and her family, but I'm also learning to love the time we spend apart and be happy in my own life. The pieces of my heart seem to be repositioning themselves back to their original place in my chest and slowly returning to working order. I'm looking forward to going away to school next month, and even though I know I will miss Emilia, I'll still see her relatively frequently and I think that's enough now". As I'm writing tonight that's all still true, I just didn't realize my heart pieces are still a little bruised and there are still days (like today) where they seem to scatter all over again.
Just like Emilia slowly learning to walk, I'm slowly learning to find my new normal; my new happiness. She and I can stumble our way through this chapter of life-- sometimes falling a little, sometimes a lot; sometimes picking ourselves up, sometimes needing a little help and a hug. Each day our legs will grow stronger beneath us and we'll fall less and less until one day we will run side by side-- smiles on our faces and love in our hearts and know without a doubt, we not only survived, we conquered.
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