‘I just have to ask, do you love Sage as much as you love Ira? ’

I just have to ask… do you love Sage as much as you love Ira? I mean, I know you say you do…but I’m just so curious if it’s true.’

We sat on my living room floor when she asked me this. With a world of confidence and pride in my chest I was able to nod and beam and let her know that I absolutely love Sage as much as I love Ira.

I love them each as though I birthed them both…but I also love them as though I adopted them both. To me, it is the same unending mama love.

Our infant adoption journey infiltrated every piece of our attention. Sure, we still worked and focused on what was at hand, but our adoption journey infused every part of our lives and thoughts.

I was constantly day dreaming, praying, wondering, and breaking.

I had no idea if we would be adopting a boy, a girl, twins or triplets or a singleton. I didn’t know if we would become an interracial/transracial/multicultural family. We were licensed to be placed with a baby up to nine months old, so we were unsure if we would be meeting our future child at a hospital or somewhere else.

All we knew was that we loved our future child, whoever he or she would be, and giving birth to him had nothing to do with it.

Selling our possessions, quitting our current job with unhealthy people, moving across the valley, taking out a loan, fundraising like mad, and filling out about thirteen pounds of paperwork… it felt so trivial and small compared to the cost of becoming a family for a baby.

And then 2015 passed into 2016 and through a series of miracles we landed in a hospital room meeting you and your mom. The mom who carried you, who loves you selflessly, whose blood courses through your veins. She sat on that bed holding you, her tears falling onto your perfect self as she fed you one last time.

The room’s air was thick as molasses as I walked to the bed, wading through immense joy and grief, all in one tragically, beautiful moment.

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