The Giving of Life

I have struggled over the last few weeks with much on my mind and heart. It is the strangest sensation knowing that somewhere on this earth our child is growing, changing and becoming the baby that we will bring home.

I've never been pregnant before. I have never known the miracle of life within my own body, and I have only begun to imagine myself as a mother, as a guide, as a woman capable of loving someone else more than myself. As I begin to see my heart change and grow I am in awe of what my child's biological mother must be going through. I wonder what brought her to this point in her life, how she is surviving and what her needs might be.

God is full of surprises and never ceases to amaze me. I believe with all my heart that he has chosen this woman to give birth to this child, with his or her personality for our home. God is growing this child for us with the eyes, ears, nose, smile, laugh, heart.... that he wants him/her to have. Some times I am overwhelmed at the miracle of it all. To know our child was set aside by God, specifically for our family, without us ever being a part of that child's prenatal development of newborn infancy, is beyond my own comprehension.

She has been on my mind for weeks now, our child's mother. I have dreamt of her, where she is, her hopes, her fears, if she is o.k., all the needs she may have. Although I feel my heart very close to her own, I have struggled with what to call her. Tonight I have found a name for her, not to put a label on her, but to give the the respect and reverence that she deserves.

Regardless of her circumstances or reason for giving her child up, she has provided a safe place for my child to grow, a haven for the greatest miracle my life will ever know. She deserves a name and it feels wrong to not give her that.

So tonight, to a woman I may never know, but dream of, pray for and hope with, I will call you Anaqaqa, or "Ana". In Amharic, the Ethiopian language, this word means "to give life", and for the life you will share with our family, you have my undying thanks.