I never saw her living with her birth mom, but the story from the social worker painted a picture I can’t forget: She sat in a playpen because the rest of the house was filled with hundreds of dirty diapers, bugs, and filth. She was old enough to walk, but could hardly crawl. Old enough to talk, but cried without making a sound. Old enough to feed herself, but choked on anything other than the bottle stuck in her mouth to quiet her cries. Old enough to notice, but ignored by her mother, taken by a stranger, and brought to me.
I shook with nervous excitement as I opened the door to this little girl who would now be my maybe-temporary, maybe-forever daughter. She sat in the middle of my living room, too scared to move. She looked at us with watery eyes and a tight-lipped “I’m trying to be brave” smile, too frightened to even cry. Like she was made for it, she saw me as “mom” right away and clung to me like her life depended on it, as if she feared someone would take her away again. My head and back ached each night from carrying her weight and the stress of trying to understand a child I didn’t even know.
But that was in August. Things aren’t like that anymore. Now she’s just one of my kids. I change her diapers and feed her, hug her and comfort her, worry about her and pray for her, get impatient with her and even fail her at times. In every way that matters, she is my daughter. Biologically? Legally? She isn’t mine at all. And chances are, one day the same worker who brought this broken little girl to my home will return to take her away—just a little more healed—and I’ll have to let her go. That will be the hardest sacrifice of my life.
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