Adoption makes families.
My daughter and her husband have wanted to be parents for a while now. They decided, about a year ago, that they would like to become parents through adoption.
The process wasn’t easy, and there was fundraising involved. (Adoption isn’t cheap.)
But last week, thanks to a young woman who unselfishly decided that she was not in the best place to raise the child she carried right now, they became parents.
They are besotted, and so are the rest of us – the two sets of grandparents for whom this is the first grandchild, three uncles, one aunt and assorted other loved ones. Friends are ecstatic for them.
And all this because a mother-to-be chose to let our adult children become the parents of the child she bore. I cannot think of a more wonderful thing for that young woman to have done. It can’t have been easy, either the decision or the actual parting with the child, but she did it, and she and some of her family got to hand the baby girl over to my daughter and son-in-law and see the sheer joy and love that this child brought them. I wish they could have seen the rest of us, too. Talk about overwhelming love – I’m surprised the entire state did not glow with it.
I have pictures of my daughter holding her little girl for the first time, and my son-in-law with the same smitten look I remember from my husband’s face when he held our kids for the first time. This little girl is already adored, and will feel the love from all of us as she grows.
Love makes families. Blood, not necessarily – but love always does. Love wins. And the unselfish love of a woman who places her child with others so that they may love her is an amazing thing.
Thank you for that gift you gave our family, birth mother of my little granddaughter. Thank you.
Jane W. Wolfinbarger 