L is for Love. Love is a blessing that is ever expanding. Sometimes people wonder if adoptive parents feel the same kind of love for an adopted child as they feel for a biological child. In my experience, I do feel the same kind of love and the same intensity of love for my adopted child as I do for my biological child. My husband and I love them both unconditionally, intensely and without end.

When Daisy, our oldest daughter was born, my husband and I fell in love with her, from her sparkly blue eyes down to her slightly blue feet. When Rosy, our youngest was three weeks old, and we met her for the first time, we fell in love with her too, from her thick, curly, dark, hair to the tips of her brown toes. We feel agape, a Latin and Greek word for love, meaning literally “protect greatly”. We regard our children with great affection. This is a biblical use of agape, “to regard with affection, to be fond of, be contented with and to welcome warmly” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agape).

For those of us moms who have adopted children, we love our babies even though we missed out on feeling our little babies growing inside our bellies. For me there is a sense of loss in that. There is joy however, in becoming a mom and not having to recover from giving birth. I am grateful to Rosy’s generous birth mom who persevered through labor and delivery. I am grateful she chose us to be her child’s family. I imagine her great love for Rosy took the form of agape love too, “protect greatly”.

When I held Daisy and Rosy when they were babies, my instinct was to protect them.  Babies are so small and feel fragile. Of course, they are not, they are actually quite resilient. It’s an amazing thing, they are perfect little creatures with teeny little toes and toe nails. Each of us is born complete and looking so different, even identical twins have slight differences. Yet we are all given the same innate power to love. Rosy often tells me, “I love you. You are the best mom ever.” My oldest, Daisy, says she loves me too, every night at bedtime and some times during the day, she writes it in a text message. I am thankful for the love we share for each other.

It is very difficult to put into words the love I feel toward Rosy’s birth mother for allowing me to raise Rosy. It pains me to think that she is without her child, loving her from afar. I get to love Rosy daily and for that I feel so thankful. As a mom, I love our birth mom, whom I have never met. When Rosy and I talk about her, she tells me, “I love her, and when I see her, I want to give her a big kiss.” I trust that this will happen someday. It is a blessing that love is so big and that we all have so much love to share. I thank God for that!