amazing

Yesterday morning we went to meet the birthmother. As you can imagine, anxiety, nervousness, excitement, anticipation.....so many emotions running HIGH in the Moore house. We have learned so much and our hearts have been changed so much about this person we call a birthmother. What should her role be, she would know her? Will she like us? Will we love and respect her or fear her? After several months of this adoption journey, experiencing God sized things, He is again allowing me to experience things that are from Him, and such a blessing. Thursday night, Eric and I just talked and talked about what we want to know about her, what do we want her to know about us....we debated on not seeming too excited, for her sake, or should we seem excited and not worry about what it looks like. After all, as we have said before, this is a very difficult place to be and thing to have to deal with, and we don't want to make it harder, right??? We finally decided that being ourselves was most important and really focusing on her was important. We ended the evening with a sweet time of prayer together of her, for us and for the baby.

And then, Friday morning came! Of course we got there early and talked with carolyn a while about new info about E (This is what I will refer to her as so I can stop typing 'birthmom.' When E got there, they came in and told us she was "very nervous" but happy to be there. We walked in to find a beautiful African woman sitting in a chair, seeming a little shy and I could feel her nervousness. We introduced ourselves and then a moment of silence.....I asked her how she was feeling, she said very nauseated as she has been the entire time, but all in all pretty good. Leslie (birthmother counselor) asked E to share with us what she liked about our profile and why she chose us. E began to tell us of how important her faith is to her and she loved that it is the number one thing for us, too. She proceeded to tell us of how she came into the situation that she is in, what the circumstances were and why she has chosen adoption. She is from Africa, with the rest of her family still living in Africa. Her English was pretty good, but she had a very thick African accent (is accent the right word to use here??? what i mean is that you could definitely tell she is not american) I am not going to share all the details on this blog about her situation for many reasons, but mainly because I want everyone to know something more about her. This woman is so amazing. Several posts ago, I wrote about what I felt like a birthmother might be going through and how that we want to honor her decision to choose life and to be so selfless that she puts her childs needs and well being before herself. Well, we are getting the opportunity right now to do that for E. She shared with us her belief about abortion and then about what she knows about herself and her limitations. She knows that she cannot possible give this third child (she's a single mom of 2, working full time) the life he/she deserves or will even need. She was just so amazing and beautiful sitting there, with so much humility....really, a ton of humility. It has been a while since I have seen that kind of humility and that amount of it displayed and carried out in a person. While she was humble and seemingly fighting some shame, we still sensed an enormous amount of strength coming out of her. Eric asked her if there was something that she really wanted us to be sure and tell our child about her, here was her response: "first, please teach him/her about God and Jesus and teach how to have relationship with god. But second, please tell him/her that I did not give him/her away because I did not love him/her but because I love him/her so much. I cannot be selfish and want to keep the baby just because it is mine when I know I cannot take care of it and provide for it. Please tell him/her how much I love him/her.....oh, and just love him/her with all you got."
E loves music, she loves to sing and play guitar and she even writes songs! She loves the color purple and lasagna (other than african food) even though it isn't healthy, she says! She comes from large family, she is one of like 9 children, I think. Her father is a pastor in Africa, and her parents have been married for a very long time.

I keep reading over this post, wanting to change things or write different things, because I just am not doing a good job of giving what took place yesterday the justice and weight and beauty that it is deserving of. It was the most amazing, most humbling, most Godly thing I have ever been a part of...ever. She was wonderful and we love her so much. She has been on my mind since we left and I bet this is just the beginning of that.