Adoption Day!

Today is Kiahna’s Adoption Day.  This has not been an event that our family has been in the practice of celebrating.  I am not really sure why. (okay, maybe because our lives went to pieces at 1 and 2 years old)  But, as the kids get older, our lives begin to go back together again, and they begin to understand adoption better… we are going to talk about this day.

Kiahna became a part of our family through adoption at 12 days old, 4 years ago today.  We drove to Arkansas on a Thursday afternoon.  Drove to the cradle care home and picked her up, drove to the court house and the adoption was finalized that day.

HSSH and I out side the court house in Little Rock with our new baby girl!

Kiahna and I… the wonderful foster mom who took care of her during those first 12 days had her all dressed up.  They took such good care of her and still send her cards and ask about her!  Thanks again!

Leah meets her new sister… finally…

And today… I tell my girl the story of her adoption as I know it… it isn’t much.  I tell her that one day we got a call from an agency that they had a baby girl for us.  And today was the day that we went to Arkansas and picked you up and brought you home with us.  See, there is a picture of mommy and daddy picking you up.

Her reply to me today was, “are we going to Arkansas today, mommy?”

I don’t tell her the heartache of the journey it took us to get there.  I don’t tell her of the babies we thought we were getting who’s mom’s decided to keep them.  Or who DFS came in and took because their moms couldn’t make up their minds.

I don’t tell her of the costs involved.  Or the tears of disappointment.  Or the waiting.  Or the wondering.  Or the frustrations.  Or the doubts or the fears.

I can’t even tell her the real story yet.  I can’t show her anything from her birth mom, except that one snap shot I took of her outside the restaurant we met her in for lunch one day before Kiahna was born.

This is the letter I wrote to Kiahna that day…

Tonight we are stopped for the night to sleep after meeting with your birth mom, named A, for lunch.  She is a beautiful African American young woman.  Right now she is 19 years old.  She wore her hair in long braids.  She says she is 5’4” tall, the same as me.  When she is not pregnant she says she weighs 125 pounds.  I would have guessed her even smaller.  She seems so petite.  She is soft spoken.  Sometimes it was hard to hear her because she didn’t speak very loudly.  She didn’t talk a lot.  Basically only politely answering our questions.  She seemed pretty nervous and uncomfortable.  Spent quite a bit of time, especially after we were done eating, in a daze.  Kind of staring off.  I would have loved to know what she was thinking.

A showed emotion only once.  When I asked about your birth father.  She said his name was B, and he is 5’9”.  That is all she said about him.  We could tell by the pain on her face how he broke her heart.  She was fighting off the tears.  According to A, he ran from the responsibility of the pregnancy.  He is 27 years old now.

A has another child older than you.  Right now she is 20 months old.  Her name is C.  She said that she is friendly, active, and cute.  She weighed 7 lbs at birth.

A lives with her mom.  She told us that she has one brother who is older than her.  No names were given.  No father mentioned.  She told us her mom works a lot.

At this time A has no job.  On Tuesday the adoption worker said she is taking her to try to get a job.  She is going to help her get a job that will allow her to work while she goes to school.  A told us she dropped out of high school during her first pregnancy.  She plans to get her GED, enroll in college, and become an RN.  She seems to have done her research on the job and feels she would enjoy it.

She feels that by keeping you she would…

pause…. I can’t give this letter to Kiahna how it is written now.  How can I tell her these things?  How can I tell my little girl the truth?  My heart aches with the hard truth that is Kiahna’s life.  How can I tell her why she was given away?  It sounds so lame when I read it now. 

Here is that baby today… (making an absolute disastrous mess out of her lunch while I was not paying attention) she has had another hard day of adjusting to preschool (not as bad as the first day, but it wasn’t as good as Monday)  There has been so much hurt in her young life.

For SOME reason FATHER GOD, YOU chose me to be the mother of this child.  Knowing all the pain that would come, I was Your choice of parent for her.  I confess I don’t understand why.  But, then again, I confess to not understanding much about what You do.

This was given to us by Kiahna’s Adoption Agency 4 years ago today.  It hangs above my kitchen sink…

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I pray for this child, for all my children, for our family, to live out the plans God has for us.  That hope, that future, that prosperity…

I wrote a letter to Kiahna's birth-mom on her birthday, last month.  I will send a revised version of that with some pictures soon to the agency.  For Kiahna’s sake I hope that she picks it up and responds one day.

Pam