Two years ago I went through some of the hardest months in my life emotionally. Harder then years of fertility issues and the disappointment that came with that. Harder than waiting to be chosen to be a parent through the miracle of adoption. Though both of those contributed to this trial. See my doctor told me I needed to have a hysterectomy.
Here is an excerpt from a post I did about it back in Dec. 2008
"I cried like a baby the day I sign the consent papers at the doctors office. It was like signing divorce papers with my uterus. I have known for months that this was needed as my uterus has betrayed me once again and started a little family of it's own with pre-cancer cells. SO to make a long story short, the doctor said it was time to use it or loose it. Since we have tried to use it, unsuccessfully for 11 years, there wasn't much of an option unless I wanted a ticking time bomb inside me.
As hard as the last few months have been I have learned a lot about myself , God, and grief. See, I thought that I had grieved many years ago the fact that I would never feel a child grow inside of me. I had moved on and was happy with my new path in life. I love adoption and the miracle it is in my life. In fact here we are starting the process all over again, and this happens. All I could think was why am I freaking out about getting ride of my uterus. After months of beating myself up about this I finally talked to our caseworker (Best case worker ever- LOVE YOU Dan!!). He helped me to realize that grief isn't something that you go through and you are done (bumber) but something that you continue to feel and soon it becomes an old friend that visits every once in a while. It was ok for me to be sad now.
I did a lot of soul searching and I found that it wasn't the uterus so much as I was upset about loosing Hope. As long as I had a uterus I had hope that a miracle could happen and we to could be one of those very rare couples that after adopting and years of infertility get pregnant. Not that I believed it would happen but it was just something I held on to that made me feel better. I felt that God was taking away my hope and boy was that hard.
So here I am two weeks out and a funny thing has happened, I still have hope. Funny how when that last glimmer of Hope that you have been concentration on for so long goes out, you notice a new glimmer emerge and take it's place. I have hope in life, the life of my children. I also have a greater clarity of how I want to help change the way people look at adoption. I have peace that this is the path that God wants for me. I have been chosen to be a mother through the miracle of adoption. I may not be able to feel my child grow withing my uterus, But I have felt the love for our next child start to grow inside me, inside my heart. A miracle how a trial can become a great blessing because of Hope."
Fast forward to present day, two years later. I took that hope and acted upon it. I went to work to make a difference in how adoptions were handled at my hospital. I made a presentation to the managers over Labor and Delivery, NICU, and Post-postpartum on how much adoption has changed in the last 5 years (open adoptions) and how we gave good care to potential birthmothers and adoptive families but not World Class care as this is our hospitals goal. I was very lucky to have some adoptive moms who work in those areas come and tell their experiences and then shared mine. I wanted every birthmom to be treated with the love and respect she deserved. I wanted every adoptive family and birth family to be treated as part of the experience not just a visitor. I wanted to empower the nursing staff to care for these families and not say the wrong things. We needed to educate staff and there were great opportunities to do so. There is a hospital in Denver that has done this and I had the person over it come and speak about how wonderful it was.
It wasn't easy and well it took a year and a half to get everything done. At first they didn't really see much that needed to be changed but the more we got into it the more on board they all got. I was sad as I knew I wouldn't get everything I wanted, there just wasn't money for this, but by the end I got a good amount of it.
The end of July things were almost ready to go. I pushed forward as the feeling of needing to get this done by the end of summer hit me hard. Little did I know that a few weeks after getting the go live date we would be chosen by a birthmom.
Once again I opened my mouth and talked to one Nursing director about it. He wanted to announce it in the quarterly health magazine. This was something we had talked about and I had hoped to do but they weren't really interested. Funny how when you get one of the big men on campus behind you, you get what you want. We went Live in September 2010. We set up a photo shoot for the the latest we could, the first week of October, hoping that Max would be able to be in it. Little stinker came a week later. I had the two of the other adoptive moms that work with me come with their kids. Then I was told we would be on the cover. COVER GIRLS!!! My first (probably my last) cover photo. The best thing of all was that it came out in November which is National Adoption Month!! How cool was that!
The photo shoot was crazy!! Try to get four kids 4 and under happy and smiles at the same time. Well it didn't happen and though Maggie doesn't look the happiest in both photos I am So excited it is done!
I made a difference. I am an Adoption Advocate!
Side note. I was told we had a record amount of adoptions in November and December.
I think it was all about that cover.
2 comments:
You are awesome, Mary Anne! I am inspired by wht you do.
That is so neat! Way to make such an impact in the lives of so many people. You are amazing!
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