A letter from your mom about your mom

My dear Allie,

I want to tell you about your biological mom.  I want you to know how much she loved you.  I want to share with you the moments I was able to glimpse:

• Once I saw her hold you up - way up - over her head as she looked up at you and smiled, oh she smiled!  No doubt you were smiling too, maybe cackling your two-toothed grin.  So happy to fly like an airplane above your mom's head.

I can say that she too is your mom.  I said "mom," referring to Sara, one day as I handed you over to her at the visitation center.  "You can go to your mom," I said.  She is your first mom, or your birth or biological mom, but like all mothers - and like me, she loves you.  How wonderful to have so much love.  Let me tell you more about her.  

• Around 10 months old, you weren't crawling yet.  You could reach through your waist and stretch out your arms and, by golly, you got most anything you set your sights upon...but it wasn't through crawling.  I told Sara this one day before Christmas.  She said she could get you crawling, and she did!  She set you on the ground, gave you an incentive - a block, I think - and with her behind and me out in front, you moved on all fours!  We moved the block further, changed directions, and stayed on the ground to cheer you.  I remember thinking, "Here we are, two women who love this little girl so much."  It was as if the noise of the world quieted, or outside movement froze, and there were just two women in a room who both loved this little girl, so much.    

• You would crawl near her feet and over her well-worn shoes.  Your mom was a fashion diva in a lot of ways.  Once she came to the visitation center with bright blue, sparkly eye shadow on.  It was shocking but in a really beautiful way.  She had half her hair pulled back in a pony tail and she reminded me of a cute rockin' girl from the 80s.  She was very pretty.  High cheekbones (she says there was some Native American in her), slender, deep, moody eyes.  Pretty smooth, alabaster skin.  
• She really did know tricks with babies.  Like, she gave me the greatest tip to try to make anything a game and the kids will go along with it.  When you didn't want to change your diaper, I tried to make it a game.  

A child born to another woman

"A child born to another woman calls me mom. The depth of the tragedy and the magnitude of the privilege are not lost on me." - Jody Landers.

The Depth of the Tragedy

I didn't know how to cut a baby's nails.  I was afraid I would snip her finger tips off.  Sara knew exactly how to cut them and could even do it in the light of day (I had read that it was best to sneak into the nursery at night when the baby couldn't protest).  On the floor, in the visitation center, in the light of a late afternoon, Sara showed me how to start cutting at one side of the nail, and then peel off the rest of it.  When I did it later, I realized she was right: it was as easy as ripping a page of wet paper.  Allie squirmed but didn't cry.  After Sara finished, she told me, "You're going to have to learn to do this yourself now."  She was relinquishing the mundane, ordinary, everyday details of being a mother.  She was giving them to me, teaching me how, by example, to do the things she wouldn't be able to do in the future, but that she knew would need to be done.  

To know the minutiae of motherhood but to not be able to practice what you've learned is to have suffered a tremendous tragedy.  I sometimes wonder to myself and others, "What would Sara have been like if she hadn't been abused, beaten, and taken advantage of?"  These are things that happened to her - and are tragedies enough - but they have prevented her from mothering her children too.  I will never understand that pain.  

The Magnitude of the Privilege

Allie took her first independent steps today!  I was cheering from behind.  I like to think those cheers - my high-pitched, sing-songy, familiar peeps of approval - were motivation and energy and excitement to her.  Maybe she thought, "My mom thinks I can do this!"  Of course I did and I squealed as she lurched toward the iron-wrought gate with those first tentative, shaky steps.  We were in the vegetable garden.  I had just lured her to my side with a small, red strawberry - picked right off the vine!  She soon had a strawberry in each hand and was still grabbing at more.  To be able to share garden strawberries, it felt like I was literally introducing her to the delightfulness of life.  Soft light, private garden (it's a secret one too, given that the nest of rabbits haven't yet found it), giggles, laughter, and heart-bursting love.  She calls me Mommy.  It is a privilege that knows no end.   

I am mom.  I feel like mom. I say "mommy" with ease now - well, at least with more ease than I used to.  But I am still *foster* mom and yesterday the judge ruled that "research shows that moms should have more time with their children."  So, the way everyone else heard it was that Sara - the biological mom - should have more with Allie.  The way I heard it and the way it felt was that Sara was taking Allie away from her mom.  Her mom mom.  Me.  One more hour where I hand my daughter over to Sara.

And let's talk about Sara, shall we?  Some days my heart cries in heartache for her.  The system failed her long before I got involved, long before any of her kids were born or even ended up in care.  Sara was a foster child herself.  Whenever she talks about her childhood, she is emphatic that is was horrifying and I believe her.  At our family case meeting, she collapsed into tears when we brought up the option of consent-to-adopt.  "It's hard" is always what she says.  Yes, yes yes, it IS hard.  Unspeakably, undeniably, crushingly hard.  But we were almost whispering fervently because we care, "Sara, it's your only good option."  If she proceeds with termination, the case is closed and she would not see her children again.  If she consents to adopt, we can negotiate an open adoption.  I thought she was convinced at the family case meeting of consenting to adopt.  Wanda would pay for a trip each year