May

Somewhere in this world is a little girl named May. At least, that was her name when I met her. She’s at least two years old now, maybe three. When I first held her two summers ago in a Chinese orphanage, she was the only infant in the room without a cleft palate. Maybe that’s why I picked her up first- I had never seen cleft palates before and it was scary. I couldn’t even look at the little boy on the mat on the floor, his whole body twisted uncomfortably, his knees pointing left and his chin facing right. But May was smiling in her little chair and looking straight at me. One of the nurses motioned that it would be okay for me to pick her up, and she was so tiny and perfect. I wondered how anyone could have left her alone on a street or in the market with her name and birth date pinned to her clothes. The woman who brought us to the orphanage saw me holding her and smiled ruefully. “This is May,” she said, “our little crack baby. We didn’t think she was going to make it.”

I didn’t want to put her down, but the nurses needed to feed her and there were four squawking baby boys who wanted to be held too. I sat on the other side of the room holding four babies at once, thinking about how to trick the Chinese government into letting me take them home. It was charity, but it was also love. I would have taken any of those babies home with me without a second thought. Phillip, my rational, clear-thinking, responsible husband fell in love with two other babies, angry and suspicious little girls who resisted him until the very end. My little May was cheerful and all smiles, but Phillip wanted to keep Emily and Renee, the most bitter and angry two-year-olds I’d ever seen.

We know Renee was referred to adoptive parents, and the orphanage staff asked that we pay special attention to her, to get her used to strangers. Several of the other babies were in the final stages of the process as well, but did anyone go to Xi’an to take Emily home? Or May? Even as I write this I’m fervently wishing I could go pick up a baby I held for barely fifteen minutes one afternoon a year and a half ago.

I have always been mildly interested in adoption. I remember wanting to adopt Chinese baby girls when I was in high school, probably because I must have read some horrible story about all the unwanted girl babies. I’ve always thought it would be an amazing way to build your family, but I don’t think I ever felt certain that I would adopt until I held May.

So my heart practically dropped out of my chest on Sunday when I saw a couple at our church carry a little Asian baby down the aisle as they went up for communion. I dug my fingernails into Phillip’s arm and whispered, “Do you think she’s Chinese?” It was a good thing Mass was nearly over, because I couldn't concentrate on anything else. I stood there watching that family across the pews, wondering if it would be okay to randomly walk by and offer my congratulations. (This is how weird I get about New People. Of COURSE people want congratulations on their new babies! From anyone! But no, my brain has to fuss and fret and stress. I'm terrible.)

I kind of sort of knew the couple. They were guest speakers at our marriage class a few years before. Then one Sunday the priest asked the soon-to-be and new mothers to come forward for a special blessing, and she was part of the group. I remember congratulating her then, or maybe I said something insensitive, like, “When’s the baby due?” She told me she was adopting and I really meant every bit of my overly enthusiastic, “That’s so exciting!” A few months later they showed up at Mass with a little girl with tight black curls and bright black eyes. And this past Sunday they had another girl, an Asian baby this time, and I was dying to know. Did they take her home from China?

Eventually I got up the courage to join their little group of well-wishers and give my own congratulations. She was a big chubby baby, the best kind, and Phillip, bless him, asked if she was Chinese. No, they said, she’s from another country. And I realized she was too young to be one of my babies, and how crazy would that have been anyway! But now I’m trying to figure out how to get this woman to be my friend, so I can take her out for coffee and ask my millions of adoption questions. Two adoptions, two different countries, two beautiful little girls.

I haven’t written about this much (if at all), but it’s no secret I want a baby. Like, yesterday. It’s a frequent topic of discussion in my house, but we’re going to wait a while. I know I won’t have to wait forever, but it's been really hard.

When I saw that new baby in church, I remembered May. My eyes watered when I remembered her; I caught myself wishing she was mine. I’m not sure how, but I felt God reassure me that one day I would have my own little May. She would be a long wait, but one day she would be here. There was, I felt him tell me, a lot that needed to happen before she came home. Naturally! I thought of all the things one must do to adopt a baby- it certainly isn't something I can sit down and do tomorrow. It's definitely not something I can control myself, with all the mailing off of paperwork and depending on so many strangers to make it happen. I'm up to date on my adoption blogs!

I'm up to date on my infertility blogs too, and I know some women wait forever. I feel awful for feeling sad, knowing what they go through. But I know a lot of people just have their first baby and I thought I would be one of them. It never occurred to me that settling all the details would be so difficult. I did not count on this extended time in the waiting room and I certainly had no idea how sad it would make me. As I was missing May on Sunday, though, I felt okay about waiting, for the first time in months. I reluctantly decided that the wait for my first baby probably isn't any different. It's not the same kind of wait, as we're imposing it on ourselves, but I've been wasting it. I think God probably meant there was a lot that needed to happen in me. (And Phillip and our lives together and any multitude of future things that haven't happened yet.)  I should offer up this time to God and ask that he use it to make me a better mother and a better person. What am I doing here, mourning these plans that didn't work out? Why did I think that I shouldn't have to wait or plan or hope for this first baby, just like I've been doing for May? I can wait purposefully for both of them.
 

 

Comments

[jackie]

Beautiful sentiments, Maggie. In our quest to maybe have a baby, I also need to remember that God may have other plans for us as well. And no matter how bad we want it, and how much we pray for it, I might need some growing before it'll work out.

Strange how in trying to become parents we try to plan for everything and really give it thought? I feel like that God designed it that way. That we would *want* to be parents and to be the best parents that we can be, not just as an afterthought or an accident.