A daughter's cry heard around the world

They told me that the pain of waiting would disappear when Elora came home.  Although the pain has disappeared the memory of the wait is still very vivid.  It stayed with me and it changed me, or maybe it was the whole process of adoption, what I have seen and learned and the people I have met that changed me.  It is hard to nail it down exactly the only thing I know is that I was meant for this and I was not complete until the moment that she was in my arms.

I have known my baby daughter would be from China from about the age of 11.  Many things changed in my life, my career dreams, my life partners, my self identity, my priorities.  All along the only constant I ever had was a dream about a daughter named Elora.  She was my first child.  The dream of her was so long it simply became a part of me, I was an adoptive mother to be.  Then I became a biological mother, but I was still a mom in waiting.

As it turns out the month she was conceived in her birth mother's womb was the same time she became very real to us as well, it was when we started our adoption journey.  When she was born we started our home study to send to China, our dream was also born, taking form, leading us to her.  When she entered the orphanage I began to wake in the night because I though I could hear her crying.  These wakings continued and intensified until the day she was placed in my arms.  When she cried her very unique yowl I recognized it immediately from my countless sleepless nights.

Her absence was felt by me so strongly.  There was just a hole in me where she was supposed to be.  Nothing could fill that space not even the cutest most lovable little son in the world.  There were times I thought I might be crazy.  I could not understand why I was not like other moms.  I loved him but he just was not her, and I needed her.  I worried that I would never be able to fill the hole, that countless children would still leave me wanting, that I would wait forever for the next only to discover that it was not enough either.  I worried this hole was a sign that I was damaged permanently and I was just confusing it with a need for my daughter.

I feared I would never get to her.  I feared she would be ill or die, that China would reject us, that something in our life would change and prevent us from completing the adoption, that the program would close or that we would never get a match and we would be in the waiting limbo for years.  I lived in constant fear especially after I saw her face for the first time.

Then she was in my arms.  There was instant feeling of relief, it was like I let out a breath I had been holding for years.  Then she cried and I recognized her, my daughter.  Just like that, the hole filled, gone with out a trace, only a memory.  I am an atheist, a skeptic and a realist.  I don't believe in fate and destiny and I certainly don't believe that my child was meant to have so much loss in her life just so that she could be mine.  Adoption has challenged every thing I believe about the universe.  As much as I am a skeptic I can tell you though with out a doubt that I found the only daughter for me, the only one who could fill that hole.  I feel incredibly, astronomically lucky.  Of all the children in all the world I found her, and that alone is enough to change your core.  She has rocked my world.  She has brought me an inner peace I have never before known.  This is the absolute best thing I have ever done.  I am incredibly proud of my self and my determination and confidence along the very long journey.  I would never have reached my full potential as a human with out her.