The Vine News

I thought I would lose my mind waiting – the final decision normally takes a year, but this time, it took only months.

Up till then, I had been entirely focused on my own happiness. My life was a series of shopping sprees, exotic trips overseas, and all the vintage jazz I could get my hands on.  Little did I know, the news I was about to hear would change my life forever.

“Miss Rock, a two year old girl is available for adoption.”  I received only a brief summary of the two-year old’s history, and I thought, “What does it matter? I can handle anything.”

To say I was naïve is putting it mildly.

Unlike most others, I had not parented before I adopted, nor was I married.

Although I claimed a relationship with God, I still considered myself the intellectual. I promptly set out to read every parenting book I could find.  I interviewed friends who parented and watched all the TV specials on parenting.

All I knew was I wanted so badly to be a mom. No one tells you it’s almost impossible to know what that means.

Talk about sacrifice! My trips to Italy became trips to the local grocery store. My weeks were filled with countless visits to the children’s library, play dates, walks to the park, medical and dental appointments.

My work hours were now scheduled around the hours of the daycare center. Dinners were made at home instead of at favorite restaurants. No more potluck dinner parties or trips to California for the weekend.  I came face to face with the true meaning of sacrifice and love.

A year and a half later, I adopted a second child. Now I was a single mother of two girls under the age of six. Once accustomed to a life of no accountability, I had to account for how I would accommodate the needs and presence of not just one child in my life, but two.

Despite my college degree, two masters degrees, a career in psychology and crisis intervention, and hours of pre-adoption training, I was not at all prepared when I drove all the way to work, only to find I forgot to drop off my youngest daughter.  Or the time I actually thought I could bake birthday cupcakes for my daughter’s class before heading off to work in the morning.

I wanted everything to be perfect for my daughters.  But perfect, I was not.  It took many mistakes to learn that just having children was what made me a better parent. 

My children understand adoption as a gift for both the child and the parent that was arranged by God.  Yet they still have questions. Like if I plan to marry any time soon.  I jokingly tell them “you first.”

I was raised by my mother alone and so I understand what it feels like to want two parents. However I know that they have different reasons for wanting me to marry.

As my youngest says, I just want to call someone daddy.  While I missed my father, they will never have a father to miss.  I know that my oldest daughter has questions about her birth mother and why she was placed for adoption.  My response has been the truth: not everyone is able to parent and it requires an act of love to surrender your child so that someone else can be the parent.

I wonder if issues like these will go unresolved.  

All I can do is let God’s love come through in my parenting. I can make sure my children know they are a gift from God to me and that He is their Father.

No amount of reading could give me the answers I was seeking.

Only the grace of God could prepare me for the amount of selflessness that is required to be an effective single adoptive parent with no father to speak of. 

I’ve learned that I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t have to.  I’ve learned that I can’t be everything to my children, and I no longer try to be. And today, that will have to be enough.

Now why couldn’t I find that in a book?