A Unrepresented Love Story

I bring to you a post full of thoughts inspired by my friend Monica, who shares her life and passions on her blog, “My Treasures Found.”

Something that I love about my life is my experience with adoption, and how it changed my family. It is something I feel strongly about, and if given the chance, you won’t hear the end of it. It is a gift that has always made my life feel incredibly special and blessed. Today, I feel inspired to share with the few that might read this post, an unrepresented love story.

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In younger grades, it was always my fun fact.

“I have two adopted siblings.”

I was so proud. It is an early memory I have of feeling like I had something special to offer the world – an experience that not everyone could have an inside look at. And I had a perspective to share. The inside look.

I honestly love correcting people when they ask, “So, are they siblings?”, referencing my two siblings that are adopted. I joyfully respond with, “Well, yes of course, we all are.”

My family has a little litany of people we remember when we say prayers together before bed. Among the many are “birth mothers and birth families.”

I have two siblings that are a part of my family thanks to adoption. Two souls, two lives that I am able to know and love as my siblings because of two women that I share no blood with.

Two women. Two different stories. Two different reasons for choosing adoption for their child.

I remember being around ten years old, sitting in Red Robin with my little brother’s birth mother and some of her other children. One thing I recall was how I always felt like I had to prove that I was worthy to be a big sister to my adopted siblings, so their birth mothers would feel at peace with their decision. It is one of my earliest memories of wanting to take care of my younger siblings.

Young, little me sat and ate her mac n cheese and fries at a table with a woman who had given it all. Her child. A unique part of her that could never be repeated. She had her struggles and things burdening her. I felt like I could see it in her eyes when she looked at me. From a young age, I was being inspired by my siblings’ birth mothers. I was given a new context for sacrificial love. Their gift to me was immeasurable and irreplaceable. I saw them as women with a special type of strength. I could not imagine a world where their decision was easy. Where their path was smooth. I knew, even in my childish innocence, that they were special women.

I now connect my ten-year-old memories with my twenty-year-old knowledge. With every thought of my siblings’ birth mothers, their life experiences, and how they could have been treated in their circumstance, I grow in respect for them. When I remember my mom driving all around bringing meals and Christmas gifts to the mothers who gave my siblings life, I can see that I was given the most perfect example of how to live pro-life. When I can picture a memory of my dad being emotional about how the adoption process made him a better father, I see a model of authentic masculinity in his vulnerability.

The single thing that has had the most impact on my life has been something that I was not the main player in.

I myself was not adopted. I have not adopted a child. I myself have not placed a child for adoption. Yet, all these memories, points of growth, perspective that shapes how I treat others, all came from my experience with adoption. Something I simply received, and to this day, still receive more and more. I give glory to this experience and all that it has given me, and overall, the Lord’s hand in it.

To me, this is a love story. One that is not always represented. That is, the love story of me growing in love over the years for the women who chose life for my siblings. The love story of Jesus hand-picking every little detail of my life, down to every sibling I have on this earth.

In a world that is sometimes better at enabling women to choose abortion instead of enabling women to give their child life through adoption, I will always see birth mothers as warriors and heroes against the evil of this world.

If I could choose one thing that I wish more people believed, it would be that mothers facing unplanned pregnancies are just as worthy of love and support as any mother in a more predictable situation.

The mother that chose adoption is worthy of love and support. The mother that chose abortion is worthy of love and support. The mother who has lost one or many children to miscarriage is worthy of love and support. Love and support that may look different, but is equally deserved.

This is what I have gained from my life experiences, and we all have our own. But our stories are worth sharing. And worth being received.