A year ago (and a few days...) giving things away

A year ago (plus a day or two) we got a phone call from a friend who had an emergency placement and didn't know where all of her baby stuff was. They were not looking for this to happen and were not in process and though I remember being happy I also remember being very sad. Sad because it seemed for us it was never coming and we were preparing to move on anyway. So I pulled out all of our baby stuff and sent everything I could to them. I was excited for her and the new path we felt called to but at the same time giving away our stuff made it a reality and was hard. As I dug through boxes of stuff we were given and found things I had bought I couldn't help but cry. 

The rest of the weekend was quite eventful with medical emergencies in the family and a three day weekend celebration planned at MC with concerts I wanted to go to. Thus there was no time to dwell on any decisions that were coming. At this point I had no idea life as I knew it was on the brink of changing. 

I also had no clue that another woman somewhere else was making the hardest decision of her life and walking through that. It's amazing how me focused your world can be until something happens that makes you consider others and makes you see in hind sight the bigger picture. 

Today is my last day as mother of an infant and this has weighed heavily on me. For every first I've enjoyed and new thing we experienced, giggle I've heard has come at someone else's loss. That's the hard part of adoption. On one hand it's amazing to have this sweet child of mine. And then on the other hand you realize the huge loss someone else had to experience for you to raise this sweet child. It causes an amazing conflict of feelings and it's hard to explain. I am so thankful for my sweet girl and yet my heart breaks that she can't be with her first family. 

So today I am grateful. Not only for this sweet precious girl of mine but her brave first mommy who chose us to be her parents.