Falling in Love

I may have mentioned before that I've fallen in love several times in my life...some of those times were purely and obviously "puppy love". Then, somewhere between Michael accepting a kiss from me being silly when we first met to him taking me by the shoulders and saying, "It's ME, marry ME, I'm the one" I definitely fell in love with him. But I have fallen in love four more times since then....each time they put that little squalling newborn in my arms I fell head over heals. That love is just as indescribable as trying to express the beauty of a rainbow to a person who has never had sight. I have tried to tell my kids how it feels but they don't "get it" until they have their own children...one daughter has a baby girl, she understands what I'm saying, our other daughter is expecting her own in the spring and she will surely "get it" too. If Michael is a gauge by which I can measure how the boys will be as dads they will surely be right there with their wives falling for their infants when they are born.
I have just recently discovered I have fallen again. First with my little Aidie, grandchild extraordinaire, who was born in March of '08. Then, somewhere in the last year something miraculous happened...I discovered the fierce mother bear love for my three little additions. It had to happen slowly, we foster mothers have to be guarded or the system will devour us. We aren't advised to love them too much...a judge will reprimand and warn. We are reduced to no more than glorified babysitters and most of the time there is no glory at all. Glory is not what we are after...it's the opportunity to do what we are called to do that we want...to love them as they grow up. So, until we are reasonably sure they are "ours to keep" it is excruciating to give too much of our hearts to these little ones...but sometimes, even before we appear before the judge praying he or she has the wisdom of Solomon we crack. We give in to this emotion to be their "real" mothers and we are thrown into the abyss of black, gut wrenching fear. Most of the foster mothers I know are praying women, it's the only way we survive .
This all came to settle in my brain this morning. I woke up drenched in sweat. I remembered my dream vividly. We had gone to another city to meet some people and eat dinner...we were to be away from home for several hours. I was meeting my family who were all coming in groups in different cars. When we all got to the meeting place I looked around and couldn't find Lissy or Cheyenne. I asked everybody where they were. I started to cry. We had left them at home. In my dream I was trying to find phone numbers for neighbors, friends, anyone close to my house who would go get my babies....yep, you heard me I said "MY BABIES". I could find no one at home or who'd answer their cell phones....I started running. I was getting to those girls or I was going to die trying. It was unthinkable to leave them. I knew they would be afraid, I heard them crying, it was horrible. Then I woke up.That's when I knew.
They are mine.
Someone else gave birth to them. I don't know if she loved them from the minute she saw them or not. She could not or would not protect them and take care of them the way a "real" mother does...they had to be removed and I am truly sorry that it happens that way sometimes...but they never have to worry about the mother they have now. I won't let them be abandoned. I will be here.
This reminds me of a beautiful needlework piece that I first saw hanging above a friend's adopted baby's bed...it said
Neither bone of my bone,
Nor flesh of my flesh,
But mine, just the same.

You did not grow beneath my heart,
Instead, you grew within it.

That pretty much sums it up for me too.