Hi friends! Today I am going to share our open adoption story!
My story starts with a healthy first pregnancy, a perfect baby Millie, a hard time getting pregnant again, two angel babies, and the decision to adopt. When we started our process you could have told Tim and I that we would be in a healthy open adoption with our sons birth mom and we probably would have laughed at you. When we chose this path of adoption, some of the first things we said were “we are for sure having a closed adoption! She will not be able to come steal my baby!” Then we went to a seminar or two. We saw real birth moms, we saw real grief. We saw healthy women who had chosen this incredible thing for their babies. Our hearts immediately grew a million times over. We decided we wanted an open adoption!
I want to start by saying that every adoption is different! Just because our adoption looks like this doesn’t in any way diminish the way another adoption looks. Our life now feels so normal to us. Nicole has been at all of the big moments, we text her every day, we call, we FaceTime. We do all the things that we would do with any other family member. The first moment I met her I knew that we were made to walk this road of motherhood next to one another. In that little cafe, our lives were suddenly intertwined through this choice that we had both made. And we haven’t stopped walking side by side since. In the hospital, holding her hand as our Moses was born. Crying and screaming at God when she handed him over to us. Rejoicing over how perfect he was. Some of his first steps on FaceTime. Convincing her to rock him to sleep and watching her walk out of his room crying. Laughing about how he hates tomatoes just like her, and how they both have a dairy allergy. His first thanksgiving. Rolling our eyes as he throws himself on the ground in a tantrum. Crying about how big he is getting. I could go on and on. The coolest thing to me is how rare this is. For a kid to have two mamas that love him with their entire being. There is no one else in the world that understands the love I have for Moses more than Nicole. I always tell people that its like I gained a sister, but its more than that. Motherhood has wrecked us and also brought us to life. We get to arm in arm walk this together.
One day I will stand in the hospital room and hold her hand again. We will obsess over the perfection of her new baby. We will point out how alike the baby and Mo look. There will be only tears of joy. Only rejoicing. And our journey into motherhood will start all over again. I wish I could go back to pre-motherhood Ashley, I wish I could show her a peek into our everyday life now. I wish I could show just pregnant Nicole our everyday life. I wish I could tell that mama that doesn’t understand why she is pregnant now, that its going to be okay. I wish I could tell the mama that just lost another baby to keep going and be strong. If only we could just peek. See what motherhood will be. But that would take away those moments that completely and utterly take your breath away. You might not fight like you are now if you already knew. Keep fighting mama! Your road might be less traveled, but its your road!
millieandmoses.com 