Our Most Special Valentine

Tomorrow is my baby's birthday.  I call him my baby, but he'll be a whopping 3 years old so that's not a baby anymore.  But when you know he is most likely your last baby, it's hard not to want to keep him a baby.

And tonight, on the eve of his birthday, there is a full moon.   My husband reminded me tonight that three years ago, I had mentioned the full moon to my baby's birthmother after meeting her.  Her due date had been February 23, but a full moon was before that.  "Have your bag ready on the full moon" I jokingly had told her.   And sure enough, she went into labor just a few days before the full moon, which was also Valentine's Day.  So, a full moon on Valentine's Day brings back that memory.   And I wonder if she is thinking about that too, as she looks up at the full moon on this Valentine's Day.   I hope her heart is filled with the peace and love she deserves. How humbled I am at her incredible love for the baby that she placed in my arms.  I pray that God blesses her a hundred-fold for the gift she gave me by letting her baby become my baby.

There's a lot of negative publicity in the mainstream these days about adoption.   I just read another one today.  And it always make me sad.  Because instead of focusing on what the child needs, what is best for the child, the stories usually focus on the parents and what they want.   

It is hard to focus on what is best for someone, especially when you know, deep in your gut, that choosing what is best is going to rip your own heart out.   But that's what real love is.  Real love sometimes requires doing the hardest things imaginable at great cost to ourselves. One glance at the crucifix shows us that.  How often do we really ever receive that kind of love in our own lives?  How often do we ever give it?

That is why my baby's birthmother is the bravest, strongest, and most loving person I have ever met.   Her heart was completely broken by the fact that she was giving the baby she'd come to know over the past nine months to me and my husband.  But she knew that watching him grow up without the kind of family she'd known...one with a mom and a dad who loved each other, and a sibling to play with and share life with, and a home full of faith and commitment and respect...she knew that watching him grow up without that would break her heart even more.   She loved him that much.

And so, on Valentine's Day, my husband and I eat chocolate and trade cards and small gifts.  And then we ask God to look down upon the two people out there who gave us the greatest and most precious Valentine we have ever received.   May God bless them with love in abundance, as they blessed us.
Happy Valentine's Day.