So many friends have reached out to tell me they’re thinking about me today. Mother’s Day. My first Mother’s Day without Jonas.
The fact is, Jonas made me a mother. He gave me the greatest gift I’ve ever received!
June 1, 2005. I was in San Diego at a conference when I got a call from Mary Pat from Crossroads Adoption Agency. She told us about a one-year-old boy who needed a family. She wouldn’t show us his picture until we made the decision to adopt him. One minute later – because that’s how long it took us to decide – we saw a picture of a beautiful, kind of hesitant baby. I started laughing, and I started loving. His photo was better than any ultrasound I’d ever seen!
I can’t even describe the next several months trying to get him home with us, unless I publish hundreds and hundreds of pages from my journals. Yes, journals. Plural. Every word I wrote during those months was about Jonas. While we waited, I learned some swear words in Spanish, just for fun. I hurled them at the strangers in Guatemala who were processing the dreaded paperwork at a snail’s pace. A really, really slow snail.
Jump forward to February 2006 when I could finally breathe. Jonas was home. Anna was home. It worked! We became a family of four. Just. Like. That. Of course it wasn’t. Just. Like. That. It was the hardest months I faced, just waiting for the baby who became mine with a phone call. Maybe it’s a bit like labor pains: moms need to blur their memories of being in labor so they can continue to have babies. Not complaining – I’ll take paperwork over labor pains any day!