She Has My Heart

At bedtime last night, I laid down next to Bean. I put my hand on her side, over her aqua-striped zebra pajamas, and let it rise and fall with her little breaths. Holding a sleeping child is one of my favorite mommy moments, but all I could think about last night was what is going to happen today. As I snuggled with my baby, and her heart beat under my hand, my thoughts kept coming back to the fact that there will be a time this morning when the surgeon has to stop that precious beating. I lay there wondering how other moms have managed to get through days like today.

When we read Bean's file and decided to say yes to adopting her, it was easy. Truly. We knew she had a pretty complicated unrepaired heart defect. We knew there were unknowns. Of course open heart surgery sounded scary, but it just made sense to make Bean part of our family. We earnestly desired another little one. (Li'l Miss and Daddy were both crossing their fingers for another girl.) Bean was waiting. She needed medical care we were fully capable of providing, and she wasn't getting the care she needed in her orphanage. See? Completely logical.

But all that was before. 

Before this girl let me see her smile.

Before I ever brushed her hair into tiny pigtails.

Before I heard her sparkly, oh-so-contagious giggle.

Before she broke Daddy's hard-and-fast No-Kids-In-Our-Bed rule. 

("Broke" is a definite understatement here. "Shattered", "destroyed", or "obliterated" would be a much more accurate verb choice. Like he often suggests we "just let her sleep with us tonight". People, who is this guy?)

Before I knew that this sweet face was hiding a whole lot of spunk with a big dash of ornery.

Before she was ours.

Before I never stopped to think, what if this is the last trip to the zoo or the last picture of all four of my kids or the last chance to hold my baby? What if this is the last kiss? I never squeezed family pictures into our crazy schedule because the idea of not taking one was just unthinkable. I never held onto every. single. day. with quite the same desperation because what if 51 days had to be enough?

It was easy before, but I'd be lying if I said it was easy now. Open heart surgery sounds like a thing. A surgeon cutting open my baby's chest and trying to fix her broken little heart sounds like something completely different. Cardiac care sounds necessary. Letting a nurse carry my tiny girl away from me, knowing she's about to be so scared and so in pain and so close to the line between life and death sounds impossible.

What Have I Done?

I have let myself fall recklessly, dangerously, and completely in love with Bean. I have let her blue little lips kiss mine and her blue little fingers wrap around my heart until there's no letting go. There's no more before. And even if there were, there's no undoing my crazy mama love for this tiny girl.

A long time ago, in what seems a bit like a dream, I used to believe that the good life was easy. I used to wish for the smooth road and the calm sea. But then God brought me peace beyond measure in the valleys. Then He gave blessings I could never have imagined while my heart was shattered. Then He taught me that the greatest beauty and the deepest love do not come without risk. And they are not easy.

And so I sit here in the Family Surgical Waiting Room while a doctor opens up my baby's chest and puts stitches into her itty-bitty heart. And I am thankful. Thankful that I've had the chance to fall over-the-moon, wreck-my-heart, crazy in love with Bean. Thankful for little arms that have squeezed my neck and a little voice that has wished me "nigh-nigh" and little fingers that have wrapped around mine.  Falling in love with this girl hasn't been easy or smooth or painless, but it has been beautiful. And it has blessed my heart beyond measure.

And here, right in the middle of crush-my-heart hard, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would do it all over again. Without a moment's hesitation, I'd say yes again. I'd choose to love this girl again. And whether I have one more day, or one more month, or one hundred more years to hold my Bean, she has my heart - totally, unabashedly, without a second's thought of before.