In 2006, my husband and I were presented with a possibility to adopt a baby. We already had the twins and thought we were done with the kid thing. Apparently that made God laugh and He then showed me the road He had planned for me.
Now, this brings up a question for you. At what point do you start to love your children? Do you wait to love them until they take their first breath, when you find out you are pregnant, or do you start to love them when you begin to try to conceive? Well, for adoptive parents...we have loved them from the moment we were told we could never have children of our own. The difference here is that someone has to decide for us if we are worthy of ever being parents...not try until it works.
I fell in love with my children after I got married and decided I wanted to be a mother. I fell in love with the idea that someone was going to call me mom and that I would be able to play a role in their life. I fell in love with my future children the day I met with the social worker. I did not know what kind or how many children I was going to be blessed with...but I fell in love.
What makes the child yours? As an adoptive parent, I would be the first to tell you that it is not blood, dna, or legal status. Did you know that for the first six months after an adoption you are only the childs legal guardian? So what do you do? Tell them to not call you mom or dad until the time is up, not get attached to them until the papers are signed? We had Tyra and Tyrece in our home for five days before their biological mother agreed to sign papers.
Let's fast forward to 2006, I get the phone call, I was hooked. Wether or not we ever were actually going to do the adoption did not matter. I thought I was done with having children and this showed me that I really was not done. I did want more! Made some phone calls, got some things in order, and in less than a week, my dream was swept away. Any chance of me having a "normal" adoption or life, gone.
I received a phone call a little after 7 on June 28, 2006. I was told that the baby, a boy, was here. I instantly was confused. I was under the impression that the baby wasn't supposed to be here until October. I was not prepared for this. And then the second bomb went off...he was fighting for his life. The birth mother was only 23 weeks along. Weighing in a little over a pound and maybe a foot long, he was at the local hospital...my son, or what I thought was going to be my son, and here I was at work with no clue.
Ever have one of those fears that someone you love is sick and there is nothing you can do to help. Well, I had that, and then I had to convince my administration that I needed to go to the hospital right then because a baby that I was going to adopt may die before I get a chance to see him. Your average person does not understand this. I didn't understand it much either. I was in such a state of shock, helplessness, hurt, fear...and a million other things all rolled up into one.
Now, I will not bore you with the whole 17 days of his short but powerful life. Tyson Andrew came in a fighter and left in peace. He passed away July 15th after suffering a collapsed lung. I remember the phone call like it was yesterday, no, more like it was five minutes ago. The birth mothers mom (yes that is confusing) called me at home to tell me the news. We had made the decision the night before about what to do if something went wrong, but I had two children at home that needed their mom and I could not sit up in the hospital and wait for the inevitible. The words "he's gone" still ring in my ears everyday. The sinking feeling that went through my body still comes when I least expect it.
The next night as I lay in bed, numb, crushed, and again a million other words to describe it, and probably only fell asleep from exhaustion, I shot up about two in the morning and felt like I was dying. My chest felt heavy, I couldn't breathe, I was sweating, I heard my heart pounding in my ears, the world was going in slow motion around me. I tried to scream, I tried to talk, I tried to wake my husband up who was laying right beside me, but I couldn't do anything but lay back down and pray for this to go away quickly.
The next morning I told a friend what happened and she said I most likely had an anxiety attack. I had never had one before. I never wanted to have one again. But later that day, while sitting on the couch, it happened again. And then when I would try to get in the car to go to the grocery store, I started to shake. I would get in the grocery store and I thought everyone was looking at me. They KNEW that I had a baby die. A baby that some people would like to say "Was never really yours to begin with, you never completed the adoption".
From that day on, I only went to the grocery store in the middle of the night. I pretty much secluded myself to work and home. I even tried to go to a family function....family...the people that love you and mean you no harm....I couldn't do it. I sat in the bathroom for a bit trying to compose myself, but I couldn't do it. I had to run. I HAD to get out of there. Everyone knew. Everyone was looking. Everyone was judging me.
Now, I will stop at this point and tell you flat out that things like this NEVER had happened to me before. I NEVER had these crazy rationalizations of life or grocery shopping or anything!! I did not know what was going on with me.
Well, let's fast forward again past the doctor visits and the realization that I needed counseling. I was told that I had an anxiety condition that would require me to be on medication for the rest of my life. Take a long pause here.....THE REST OF MY LIFE!!! For something that happened to me, that took 23 days of my life, I was forever changed and now had a mental condition. Boy, doesn't that just make you feel like a winner.
Let me introduce you to Angi...the mental patient!! Since that day, I now question myself a lot more. Is it my mental condition or is that really me? I hate it. I hate this. I hate that my life has come to this. But, there is no diet, no exercise, no superfood that can cure this. There are only medications out there to help me control the attacks. To go from a happy, healthy person to this, crushing. I hate that I just cannot accept things as they are sometimes, there ALWAYS has to be a reason behind something.
What you may not realize is how many "mental patients" there really are out there. We hide. We don't like to talk about it a lot for fear of what others may say. Most of us do not want to shoot up schools, malls, have random outbursts in public. We just would give anything to have normal back. I would give ANYTHING to not have to take a pill. Looking at the bottle makes me feel weak. The look in the eyes of the people at the pharmacy when I pick up my medications bother me.
My relationship with God has helped me a lot in the last couple of years to clear up some of those thoughts. I have been given some of the best "advice" in the form of scriptures that have ALWAYS been there, even before I was born. I get daily reminders of how He is there to help me. Just when I think that I am crazy to think that God talks to me, my devotional book gives me the scripture I have held on to for moments like these!
Matthew 6:25-27 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
So, I leave you with this thought...look around you. There are "mental patients" everywhere, scared to come forward. Love us. Help us. Don't judge us. Just be there for us. Tragedy is one of the biggest causes of mental issues in people with no medical history of it. Be nice to the person in line next to you, you have NO IDEA what they may have gone through before they got there.
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