cebii

could we love them more?

I just read Rosie's blog talking about the birth of their youngest. How amazing is childbirth! Part of me feels badly, because we didn't birth any of our kids. Would we feel closer to them? Could we love them more? I can't really imagine loving them more, but then, how do you measure love?

Holly and I get tons of praise because we chose kids that were "difficult to place" to foster. It means more to me when my kids call me mom and are comfortable and happy. They weren't always. I have it in my heart to love kids, and loved my teens from the day I met them. But getting our family to become one in the true sense of the word took so much work. Talking and getting to know each other. Dealing with anxiety and abuse and neglect. Making space in our lives for kids who seemed to need all we had and more. And, always, the fear. They feared that we would send them back, that we would start behaving as their abusers had, or that we wouldn't love them. We feared that we weren't parenting right, that we missed things and didn't follow the rules, that we lost our tempers too often and that we were doing everything wrong.

It really took two years to form the ironclad bonds. I think that all of that work probably makes up for some of the pregnancy and labor, partly because the kids had to work just as hard, and they remember it.

posted by cebii @ 11:58 AM