the love that survives

One of the many translations of Baby L’s name is “the love that survives”.

From the moment my friend Jenna sent me the screenshot, I knew her purpose for being in this world was already in motion.  When I met her mother in the sterile lobby of the NICU, I read the loss in her tears and the love in her eyes.  I almost dramatically blurted out “I can’t imagine your pain, but can feel the depth of your love.  It’s going to be okay and know that because you gave her a name that tells me you’ve been through hell but you’re still here and you’ve got this.”

But there were social workers and security guards and the moment was already the worst kind of awkward and soul shattering.  So instead I just trembled a little underneath my mask and quietly told her we were rooting for her. 

I meant it then and mean it more everyday as I find new ways to express my faith in her via text, zoom and in person visitations. While we are open to adoption, the goal of foster care is reunification.  Our role is to care for Baby L like she’s our own but ultimately, to support the process of reunification for as long as the court sees it as the best option or until an eligible biological relative is approved. It’s only been 11 weeks but the road to that end has been rocky.  

While she’s ours to love, she’s not ours to keep. We chose this road knowing that but it doesn’t make it easier. She could leave us at any moment to go live with a relative if one is eligible and willing.  Some days that looks more probable than others.  So when the calls come, we drop everything, try to wrap our heads around the transition process - which is just packing a bag and sending her to an unfamiliar place with someone she doesn’t know.  And then we go about pouring our hearts into the hours or days we have left. I try not to think about her confusion in yet another, new and unknown place. I resist the urge to google things like, “ do infants experience feelings of loss and abandonment”.  Mostly because I already know the answer and it’s masochistic to employ 8,000 blogs to confirm it.  I ask myself a million times, if she will wonder why I was there every waking and sleeping moment but then one day just left her?  And since there is no one to answer, I resort to praying and trusting.  And candles. I light a candle every time I need a reinforcement of faith. Let’s just say- I’ve spent more in candles than diapers.

Some weeks, Baby L’s mom is doing well- reunification looks hopeful and radio silence from relatives.  Those weeks, the compassion comes easily.  I can see a life for the two of them that looks like the sweetest kind of comeback story.  I cast myself in a supporting role and that’s enough.  Worth every bit of emotional exposure.  I even find myself defending her mom from well intentioned loved ones who have strong opinions about her.  

I know how natural it is to hear about the things a mother does or doesn't do to have her baby taken. I’ve heard every dehumanizing assumption in the book about who she is as a person and who she is not capable of being as a mother. It’s easy to go there. Harder to go the distance to compassion and seek the humanity at the heart of her story.  Because sometimes I find myself there too. 

It’s hard on the weeks that things aren’t going well.  When reunification or placement with relatives feel like dangerous destinations for the baby I love with ALL of my heart.  Those are the weeks I remind myself that women like her and women like me aren’t separated by the choices we’ve made as much as we are by the choices we were given. The hand I’ve been dealt looks like resources, healthy coping strategies and a village of support during a massively challenging moment like becoming a mother. Her cards make for very different options and generationally brutal consequences.  It was designed that way.

Most days compassion comes easily- like I’ve been practicing it for years specifically for this moment.  Today is not that day.  Neither was yesterday or the day before. And I’m reminded I have miles more practice to go. 

The practice looks like more grace then I’m used to offering myself, forgiveness for the times I Iose footing and acceptance that there is a plan for Baby L that’s wilder than my wildest dreams for her. 

My brave Baby L, I’ll just be here falling in and out of trust regarding what your future holds.  Either way, I know there is going to be a whole lot of of healing and heartbreak for both the family you were born to and the one that you found.  

I’ll always be rooting for you, your momma and the kind of love that you came to teach us all about.  

Beautiful. 

Viscous. 

Breaking and making us all 

on its mission to survive.

xx