The Yin and Yang of Motherhood

The Yin and Yang of Motherhood: All roads lead to happiness

Once again in my life, I find myself damn lucky. My pre-baby nine months were spent simply waiting. No morning sickness, no poking and prodding by a doctor, no tests, no weight gain, no cravings. Just waiting. It was somewhat ironic that, at the time we adopted our first child, the timeline from when your adoption dossier was submitted in China until you received your match of a child was about nine months. I can’t imagine bearing the five year plus ordeal that people do now waiting for their match to come – that is hard labor. So when my husband occasionally still asks if I want to go back one more time, which is usually prompted by a friend making the now long-awaited journey, my answer is no thank you. I no longer have the luxury of time, the extravagance of just waiting. 

I don’t really know if my experience was different from having a biological child – I have never given birth so I have no true means of comparison – but I can unequivocally say that the moment that tiny little Chinese baby was placed in my arms was the most beautiful moment of my life. Our first daughter was so very delicate and beautiful and helpless, and I was a mom for the first time, her mom. She was healthy, but because her time in this world so far had been spent in an orphanage she was developmentally nowhere near her almost nine months of age. That or perhaps she was merely scared to death having no idea who this strange creature was who looked nothing like her. She hardly moved at all, just blinking as she stared at me with eyes so black I felt like I could see her soul in them. Even then, her eyes seemed to be so full of time and wisdom; I have always said that she was born forty years old. She has proven that to me time and again. And yet that first time she looked at me, she seemed to look up with this simple question in her eyes, “Where have you been all my life?” It moved me like nothing before or since. 

The second time around was very different. That baby wanted nothing to do with me or her dad, but sometime within the first 24 hours she determined that he was in fact the best choice of the two evils that fate had presented her and she spent the next two weeks in China as his personal shadow. If that had been my first experience with motherhood, I'm not sure there would have been another. As it was, I sort of enjoyed the fact that it was him for a change who could not take a shower without someone wailing at the bathroom door. It certainly made that glass of wine somehow sweeter as I just sat back and watched the drama unfold. When we were back at home with her, though, I cried all day the first three days after he went back to work because that was all she did. I don’t really know how we made it through those days or even the coming few years, for that matter, which proved to be quite a challenge. She was the daredevil – the one I would find in the middle of the dining room table or pinning the dog against the floor or eating the 3-day old chicken nugget she had stashed in her carseat. And yet, that child has grown to steal my heart. I foresee her stealing lots of hearts before she is done. She is a charmer, she wears her heart on her sleeve, she knows what she likes, and she goes for it. Perhaps we have more in common than I originally thought. 

Those two girls are quite different, always have been, and yet they are closer than most sisters I know. They compliment, support, and love each other in truly amazing ways; they are clearly soul mates. They are yin and yang. They have grown into remarkable young ladies that I couldn't be more proud of.  I know that the different path to motherhood that I took brought together two people who were meant to be together and it likewise made me exactly what I was meant to be in life - their mom. Thank you Destiny. You nailed this one.