Bless this Little Heart...

After one month of wondering... i was rewarded today with new pictures of my little boy. My little boy Dylan. 4 pictures, a jackpot. 4 pictures to savor, print, share. How lucky can I get. This morning I was very hyper, I went for an intese long run to chill myself out, but still felt disconnected. The next hurdle was work. As my blog reveils. I work as a nurse in a peds emergency room. I tried to focus, but I think I knew inside today was the day. My coworkers Chris and the famous Dr Woodness (don't ask) even commented on my ADHD. Between, putting an IV in a 2 yearold, and pumping the stomach of a teenage OD, I just had to click on my email, and get these awesome pictures! Now do you understand my inability to focus.

So I call DH, he is taking a break (smoking!), and tell the receptionist about the pictures. Call my friend who watches my girls to click on the pictures I sent her so they can see their brother. Then go to another room, start another IV, and continue to give really foul tasting antidotes to the overdose. Trying to get to the computer was my goal. Thank God no one coded, no sedations, or angry parents.

Why do I only show a part of him? There is an unwritten rule in the adoptive comunity about post pictures on the web before the adoption is complete. He is still not home, but I feel he is mine, as much as a child can ever really BE yours. Something hit me tonight, he looks lost. Maybe I am over-romanticizing, projecting. But in the other pictures he looked so small, about to cry, just lost. He has a part of me.

In our emergency room we have these safe haven cradles. They are for mothers, as a safe place to leave their babies that they cannot care for. No questions asked. Just put the baby somewhere safe, and the mother will not be charged with adandonment. An infant boy was left last night, and an infant girl, a few months ago. These are happy endings for the infants involved. So may children around here do not fare as well. I tried to imagine the anxiety these woman face, leading up to and following the relinquishing of a child. I think of it as a blind panic, feeling around in the dark, terrified not knowing where you are, and not knowing what you will see when you open your eyes...a life with the child...a life without. As they always wonder, so do adoptive parents. Feeling about in the dark we are.

I belong to a yahoo group for Vietnam and my agency World Child. There have been several posting lately about abandoned babies, and the sheer amount of them, and the process to find them homes. We are not that separated by this issue. Babies abandond in the US face similar issues. Looking for birthparents, time to be legally adopted, adoptive families on a waiting list. So many of my wonderful coworkers told about this little boy who needed a home, like maybe since I was so far along in the adoption abyss, I could just slip my homestudy in this baby's crib, and become his mother. This baby belong to another. Maybe even as we speak a family is being formed. We have rules on paper to adhere to as well.

My family is formed. Emily my oldest, sensible, motivated daughter, Claire my whymsical, fidget mirror image, and Dylan my sweet little baby. Half of me is here, the other with you, until you come home, and make our family whole.

"Bless this little heart, This white soul that has
won the kiss of heaven for our earth.
He loves the light of the sun, he loves the sight
of his mothers face.
He has not yet learned to despise the dust, and to
hanker after gold.
Clasp him to your heart and bless him.
He has come into the land of a hundred cross-roads,
I know not how he choose you from the crowd, came to
your door, and grasped your hand to ask his way.
He will follow you, laughing and talking, and not
a doubt in his heart.
Keep his trust, lead him straight and bless him.
Forget him not in your hurry, let him come to your
heart and bless him."
Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1941
Calcutta, India
from Collected Works

I don't know how these children come into our lives, how they grasp our hands and never look back. But I know the honor of being a parent, of loving someone more than you think you can. Of having these sweeties become a apart of who you are. For those of us about to beome mothers, for those of of yearning to be mothers, for all our our moms, and birth moms, and everyone inbetween...bless our chldren and always keep them in our hearts.