Today, I'm just a mom

What an incredible weekend/end of the week last week. I watched our community through blogs and through sites like thenest.com blow up in response to the Tyra show. People sent emails, letters, posted on other sites - it was amazing to see. I'm always, always floored by our ability to unite. It's so rare to find a group of women willing to go to bat for each other without question. We're all joined by this horrible thing, but through it, I've found so many great friends and have been so inspired by each one of you.

In the beginning of our struggle with infertility, our issues really came to define me. I wasn't a wife or a teacher or a daughter or sister, I was a woman battling infertility. Then, I became a prospective adoptive parent. I was searching for an agency, trying to choose ethically, wading through the paperwork and asking questions of myself and of my marriage as to what we could take on as far as health concerns, birth mother drug use, etc. It became all consuming. After Lily, I became an adoptive parent. I read everything I could get my hands on about transracial adoption, parenting adopted children - I worried, I'll be honest with you, about bonding with her at first. I thought all the time about her birth family (and still do), and there was a great deal of guilt that I felt while parenting her. I hoped I'd make the right decisions, and I worried ceaselessly over every minute detail. Don't get me wrong, I was over the moon for her immediately, but so many feelings came along with it.

I have days now where it never even crosses my mind that Lily was adopted. It, in fact, startles me sometimes because I feel like she did come from me. She was a labor of love - though not in the traditional sense. Most days now, I'm just a mom. I'm Lily's mom. I'm not defined by my infertility, even though it's something that will shape how our family is created. I'm not defined by my status as an adoptive parent, though it is something of which I am intensely proud. I'm finding that I have lost the timidity and nervousness with which I parented early on. Maybe all new moms go through this - maybe it has nothing at all to do with adoption. All I know is that I feel finally secure and confident in being Lily's mom. And I love that.

Of course, ask me tomorrow and it could be a whole new ball game. That's how this parenting thing works, isn't? The second you're confident, they throw something new at ya! :)