It’s Easter again–six Easters after I broke one of my rules. The rule I broke? “No hassling doctors or social workers at home unless someone is dying.”
But I needed to know! We were supposed to be having a medical consultation, via conference call, on whether the grim prognosis we’d initially gotten about our daughter’s sister was valid. Would she have needs that we would be unable to meet, given family health issues and our two other children?
Somehow we had gotten the wires crossed. And I just couldn’t observe Easter without knowing: was I celebrating a new life that would soon come into our family, or was I seeking healing and peace about letting go?
(Part of this story is told in my blogs Misdiagnosis and A Near Thing.)
Easter was to be the end of our Two Months of Hell. In addition to anguishing over this potential adoption with so many unknowns, and renewed concern about our other daughter, I had a list of things going on that would be worthy of a spot on the comedy channel someday: my husband was going to India (and during the kids’ spring break from school to boot—I would be with them 24/7). Moreover, part of his preparation for travel was a type of oral immunization that he had to take a dose of once a week for several weeks. This meant that we had live typhoid virus in our refrigerator for a month—a fact which I tried to be constantly aware of yet not think about too much. (I have a lot of facts like that in my life, come to think of it.)
It wasn’t funny at all at the time, however. (Comedian Will Rogers once said, “Everything is funny as long as it’s happening to someone else.”)
The doctor was sympathetic and willing to do the consult right then. New and better photographs of our daughter had ruled out severe damage from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. (Learning disabilities and other effects were still possibilities, but the full-blown Syndrome was ruled out.)
I emailed the caseworker at the adoption agency that day, although I knew she wouldn’t see the message until the Monday or Tuesday after Easter: WE WANT HER!
That second set of pictures is in my daughter’s scrapbook. Mounted with pastels and spring flowers, they have only two captions: “Easter Joy” and “YES”.
Please see these related blogs:
My Thoughts on Mothering Special Kids
For a reflection I wrote two years ago about our “Easter Children”, see here. .