Earthquake Reflections

Yesterday, I worked my usual twelve hour shift in the ER. I got off at 2:00am and as I drove home amidst the snow falling my mind began to wander. I was thinking that Grace and Alex had never seen snow. Being the practical mom I am, I began to run through the list of things my babies would need for winter. Through the thoughts of mittens and snow boots, my mind wandered somewhere else. I was reminded that yesterday was the two year anniversary of the 7.0 earthquake that shook Haiti killing 300,000. Grace was two months old. I developed visions of what it must have been like for her mother, holding her newborn for dear life, wondering when the shaking would stop. I thought about Alex's birth mom too, how frightening it all must have been. Little did she know at that time, not only would she live, she would be pregnant with Alex a few months later, and after giving birth would make that heart wrenching decision to give him away. A lot to go through in just a small period of time.

As for me, how did I respond to the earthquake? For some reason, although we were not involved with Haiti then, I watched ever ounce of news coverage I could find. I searched the Internet for the orphans. Who was taking care of the babies? I watched as some tried to mobilize the children to another country without authorization. I read the articles that made Haitian adoption seem impossible, yet had such needy children. I felt the call to adopt then, yet it all seemed so out of reach. A year later, little by little, adoption found us through an unlikely place. An innocent email from a friend of a friend who wondered if we wanted one of these babies. Looking back, there are so many things that fell into place, so many impossibilities, so crazy. Tonight I looked at Tim and just shared my utter disbelief in it all. The beautiful babies. The magical adoption reimbursement that appeared out of nowhere from my company, the offering of a new position with a better choice of shifts to work with my new baby schedule. Just thing after thing, unreal. I asked him how this happened? How did we get so lucky? He smiled and just said,"God." I hope one day I can share with my babies the way the earthquake moved us to find them.