I cannot get over it that they are turning 4!?! These pictures are from May 8, 2005 — their first birthday.
On their first birthday the boys had been home just over three months. In those short three months they had gained many pounds, gotten many teeth, and grown many inches. They had become healthy and were well on their way to a full physical recovery. They were also making huge strides developmentally, emotionally, and psychologically. They still weren’t ready for a houseful of people and/or any kind of ‘real’ birthday party… they were just barely starting to come out of their shells and blossom. But we knew in our hearts that they were going to thrive. The signs were all there already. We felt so lucky that their first birthday was their first birthday home. We were so grateful to have been able to bring them home so young. We also felt lots of deep emotions about that day they turned one. I cried often — deep mournful crying — around that time. I mourned for what they hadn’t had on the day of their birth. I mourned for what that day must have been like for them, as tiny newborn infants. I mourned for all that was lost, never to be able to be regained. And I mourned for their birthmother… the thoughts would flood my mind… what must it have been like to give birth on that day in Cite Soleil, Haiti? The blazing hot sun and the dirty dusty smokey filthy hazy painfulness of it all? They were born at a missionary clinic in Cite Soleil — how did she get there? she had never had medical care, so what a surprise it must have been to birth twins? and what was it like then — to know in her heart that they were not to be hers to raise? We can’t assume anything about her emotions or thoughts; we know enough about the situation in Haiti to know not to assume. But I can’t help but wonder. And I wonder most about my babies… what happens when that happens to an infant? A precious newborn soul. I give thanks they were twins, they had each other. But to start your life that way — to have your birth day be that day. What does it all mean? That year they turned one I agonized over all this. And I was so deeply grateful, too, that they had been born. That they had survived. That they were mine. By the time their actual birthday came I was emotionally drained from churning and churning over these sorts of things (and what I’ve written here is just the very tip of the iceberg). But I was also in the midst of an intense phase with Kyle and Owen. As their mother my goal was to ‘go back’ and ‘re-do’ as much of their infancy as I possibly could with them. Knowing that I could never truly go back, nor truly re-do, I was driven to do the best I could nonetheless. I insisted that they be held as much as humanly possible and that the house be as soothing as we could possibly make it. We’d rock them for hours, we’d hold their hands down so that we could bottle feed them (in the orphanage they had been taught to feed themselves and had been doing so since around age 4 months… so they’d fight us in the beginning not wanting to rely on us for feedings), we’d coo to them like they were newborns, we’d force them to have eye-contact despite their many attempts to not, we’d run to them at every tiny whimper 24×7, we’d protect them as if they were just hours old. We felt fortunate — around May 8, 2005 we knew in our hearts that it was working. Our boys had sparkles in their eyes. They were engaged in the world. They were enjoying life. They were alive. Their first birthday was on a Sunday. We had them baptized that day. The ceremony was special and beautiful for us. It was also Mother’s Day. I felt that it was a profound thing: to have their first birthday, their baptisms, and my first Mother’s Day all on the exact same day. It felt charmed somehow. It felt like the weights were being lifted, that we were coming into the light. It felt like an incredible miracle — a fresh new start in life for two precious and beautiful and fragile souls. Like many adoptive mom’s, I continue to have mixed emotions around Kyle and Owen’s birthday. It brings to the surface many thoughts and feelings that seem to forever be somewhat raw. I don’t fight it because I think it is good for those things to always remain a little bit at the surface and a little bit raw. It doesn’t dominate me, but it is part of me. It is part of being mother to Kyle and Owen. It just means that we are real. The history is real. The present is real. And the future — whatever it may hold — is real. Three years ago, when they turned one, I could not have imagined the boys that they would be today. I feel blessed beyond belief for what they were and what they have become. And I anticipate with open arms what the future has in store.