A Mother’s Love

Like many moms reading this, my journey to motherhood was not the smooth path I had envisioned.  My pregnancy with my oldest son was high risk and shortly after delivery I learned a second biological child was not to be in my future.   As I feel more in love each day with my son, I always in the back of mind had the bittersweet knowledge that completing my family would be a challenge.

God is gracious and loving.  He had a perfect plan for our family.  As He completely removed the desire for pregnancy from my heart; He replaced it with the overwhelming ache to adopt a child into our lives. At first this was a relief, walking in the peace of God’s will for your life. However, 3 years and 3 failed adoptions later, I wasn’t so sure.

Early November 2009, my world changed forever.  God supernaturally brought our second son into our world.  As he joined our family, I was surprised at how quickly and deeply I loved him.  I was expecting it to take more time to bond, since I didn’t feel him kick inside me for months, but he was immediately our son.  Like other second moms I wondered how I could love him as much as my first born, but my heart grew exponentially the day he became a part of our family.

Despite the peace I felt over the decision to adopt, I was worried bonding would be different since I couldn’t breast feed.  Bonding was perfect.  I could hold him as much as I wanted without worrying over sore nipples. There was no formula guilt.  As a bonus I could get a little sleep by rotating feeding, since I wasn’t his sole source of food at night.

No. I wasn’t there for his first breath. But when the nurse placed him in my arms for the first time, he took my breath away and he has a million times since.

 

{This is an excerpt from a piece I wrote on bonding with your adoptive child for the new book.  Jess asked me to write this the same weekend I was blessed with this beautiful picture. }

 

For those of you with more than one child, how did your bonding experiences differ between the two?