Newborns

A wise adoptive momma friend told me a couple years ago that the pain of infertility didn't end for her until her 2 little Ethiopian princesses came home. I didn't believer her, but it was TOTALLY true!

Even since our kids have come home, I've still experienced motherhood grief. The most recent sting was like a punch to the gut. A dear friend had her baby girl 7 weeks ago. The "Diaz 4" were among the first at the hospital to welcome sweet baby Harper into the world.

Several weeks later I saw Liz and Harper at our staff meeting. The scene was classic newborn: Harper got cranky. Liz instinctively scooped up her infant and snuggled her into her chest where her itty-bitty baby cuddled for the next 30 minutes.

As I watched this beautiful scene out of the corner of my eye, my heart and eyes unexpectedly welled. I instantly felt this intense loss of not being able to do that for Judah and Addise. I wondered if their biological mothers had nurtured them like that. I longed to have known them from those teensy-tiny days where they weighed less than 10 pounds. I felt the pang of not being able to bond with them from those first days of life. The first picture I have of Judah is 1 month after his 2nd birthday. I simply wished that I have been a part of their story from Day 1.

This is one of the odd things of adoption. Judah and Addise are 100% my children, and yet there is so much a part of their story that I do not know. It feels like I've birthed them, but there's a gap in knowing them. Adoption is the encapsulation of everything as it should be [redemption, love, reconciliation, healing] and everything as it wasn't meant to be [loss, poverty, death].

So while there is already tremendous healing through becoming J&A's momma, it's not yet complete. Such is the Kingdom on Earth...

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April L. Diaz

April has been a visionary activist her entire life. She has made it her mission to lead high performing teams and develop leaders in the margins of society while caring for our bodies, mind, and spirit. Secretly, she’s a mix of a total girly girl and a tomboy, and is still crazy about her high school sweetheart, Brian. Together, they co-parent 3 fabulous kiddos and live in Orange County, CA.

Working Mom :: Our Own Worst Enemy

Myself. Other Women.
We are each others worst enemy when it comes to our choices - and even theology - of being a working mom.

MYSELF :: I am my worst critic when I...

  • Compare myself to other moms and their choices. It's so easy to judge myself when I look at moms who stay at home and intentionally nurture their kids all day every day. It's also a lie I believe that their undivided attention is on their child's holistic development every day. I know that moms juggle a lot regardless of their "working" status. Comparison never works and always makes a villain and hero out of those being compared.
  • Believe the lie that I can do it all and be the best at everything. It's impossible for me to be an amazing wife, mother, friend, pastor, student, daughter, sister...every day. The days when I place that expectation on myself are the days I feel the worst about myself. That's not the easy yoke Christ came to give me [Matthew 11]. Ultimately, I'm called to be a radical disciple of Jesus Christ!
    I've realized that I need to extend a LOT of grace to myself in this season of life. And I'm pretty passionate about surrounding myself with people who will do the same for me. I didn't realize how entirely demanding and [often] draining parenting 2 toddlers can be, even without the other responsibilities in my life. I've found the people that I'm most drawn to these days are also those who are foolishly graceful. I want to be near these people because they will point me toward redemption and growth.

OTHER WOMEN :: This sly enemy is most interesting to me. I find that women are brutally judgmental about each other's choices when it comes to raising children and working outside the home. We are quick to judge another's circumstances:

she is greedy [prestige, money, appreciation...].
she doesn't love her children as much as I love mine.
she doesn't have much to offer outside the home.
her husband is controlling.
she cares more about her career than her own children.
she misinterprets Scripture and a woman's role.
she's only thinking about the short-term [or long-term] affects of her decision.
she has to work because her husband doesn't make enough money.

It's jaw-dropping to her insinuations about a mother's choices. And I've heard all of these!

Over the years I've discovered that it's far more mature and wise to not judge another mom's choices about work. More often than not, I don't know the whole story that's led to their decision. And those times when I have judged - and I sure have! - then learned the whole story, repentance is in order.

I've learned that "to work or not to work" is a highly personal and emotional decision. And the women I respect who love Jesus fully make their decisions from a surrendered soul. They seek the voice of God for what their family needs.

My hope is the MORE women would pursue this all-too-important decision with the same prayerful and courageous spirit. I'm grateful for dear friends like Jeanne, Erin, Christina, Rebecca, Kara, Julie, Cassidy, Emily, and others who've gone before me. They've all chosen very different expressions of motherhood and work, but they've done so with thoughtfulness, prayer, and ultimately obediently.

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April L. Diaz

April has been a visionary activist her entire life. She has made it her mission to lead high performing teams and develop leaders in the margins of society while caring for our bodies, mind, and spirit. Secretly, she’s a mix of a total girly girl and a tomboy, and is still crazy about her high school sweetheart, Brian. Together, they co-parent 3 fabulous kiddos and live in Orange County, CA.

Injera

Since we've been home, yummy meals been delivered most days of the week. Friends have dropped off bags of groceries - food we need and food they hope J&A will like, too. "Helpful" doesn't sum up how I feel about these meals and groceries. Without argument cannot imagine making food for our family right now. It feels like too much just to brush my teeth more than once a day, much less make 3 meals a day for 4 people.

On Sunday our friends, the Baran's, brought us Ethiopian food from a local Ethiopian owned restaurant. We thought that especially Judah might really need a taste from home after nearly 3 weeks of not having any familiar food. A couple necessary Target bags in stow, the Baran family showed up with Doro Wat, Beef Tibs, and Injera for our family dinner.

What happened next surprised this exhausted and overwhelmed momma to tears [my first tears since getting J&A]...



The entire time Judah was consumed with his food. He couldn't take his eyes off it. He ate more than we'd ever seen. He literally tasted home that night for the first time in a long time. My heart exploded when I became emotionally connection [again!] to how much transition this little 2 1/2 year old has been through in the past month. New language. New caregivers. New food. New bed to sleep in. New clothes to wear. New environment to explore. New boundaries. New weather. NEW NAME! New, New, New! So much to grieve and learn.

People say kids are resilient. And they are. But grieving is still necessary. Saying "goodbye" to everything that you knew is still hard. Learning a completely new way of life is still enormously challenging, especially when communicating is so difficult.

Parenting Judah these past few weeks has been extraordinarily difficult. Parenting an infant like Addise is a piece of cake compared to a toddler. But their are moments like eating injera and taking baths that solidify that we are supposed to be Judah's parents.

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April L. Diaz

April has been a visionary activist her entire life. She has made it her mission to lead high performing teams and develop leaders in the margins of society while caring for our bodies, mind, and spirit. Secretly, she’s a mix of a total girly girl and a tomboy, and is still crazy about her high school sweetheart, Brian. Together, they co-parent 3 fabulous kiddos and live in Orange County, CA.