Replacing Emily - a birthmom's journey
Skye Hardwick, birthmother articles, dealing with pregnancy, grief, placing baby...Biography .borders { BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: red; BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: double; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: red; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: double; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: red; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: double; BORDER-TOP-COLOR: red; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: double } Site Index | Site Search | What's New | Adoption in the News | Adoption Assist |Agencies | Waiting Kids | Waiting Parents | FREE Search Registry | Birth Family Search | Birthfamily | Adoptees | Shop | Experts | Library | Chat | Calendar: Events | Giant Directory of Adoption Resources Adopt: Assistance Information Support Replacing Emilya birthmom's journey...
post adoptionSkye Hardwick
December 11, 2000
I sit alone in my bed thinking about the events of the day. Thinking about the events of the past two years. Today we celebrated Emily's second Birthday.
Can you ever replace a child with another?
I think of my friend who miscarried and her hatred of the comment, "Oh, you can just try again." Try for what? To replace a lost soul?
My friend and women who have made an adoption plan for their children share these two things. People will not allow us grieve and people will not allow us to save a place in our hearts for an absent child.
Whether here on earth or on the other side of Heaven, will we find our hearts, our children.
I roll over in bed and look at the bassinet next to my bed. My sleeping son occupies it. I can hear his soft breathing quicken as he stirs.
Emily was so full of life today. Just like a two year old should be. The light of the party. She is the light of my life, but she does not know this.
She is held as a treasure from God by her family. I see the love for her in their eyes, in their smiles. Each good thing about them has Emily's name etched upon it. She is the author of their happiness. Emily is where she is supposed to be!
I was afraid when I had my new son I wouldn't bond with him. I was afraid I had broken that part of myself - that mothering part of my heart.
People told me he was a replacement child. Replacing what? My first born daughter? Do you think because she is not here in my arms, but in the arms of another that she needs replacing?
These thoughts run through my head. I am relieved by my tears, for they are a sign I am being emotionally resurrected. One tear at a time....
All at once, it comes back to me. Father God, it all comes back to me! Those last moments with my daughter in the hospital room.
Why do my arms ache? I hold them across my chest trying to stifle my tears. I just need to hold her, my baby, please God, I need to hold her.
Just then I remember my son sleeping next to me. The thought occurs to me to pick him up and hold him so my arms will feel content. To put him in her place, just this once.
No, I will not. She cannot be replaced by him. I will not dishonor my daughter nor my son with the idea that one can take the place of the other.
So I lay alone, in my mourning, in remembrance to my daughter, my Emily.
Emily, no one can replace you. I now know this to be true....
No matter how many babies you take out of the hospital with you, you never forget the one you did not....
Irreplaceable Emily.
Skye Hardwick (c)2000
Come visit Skye in Chat on Tuesdays at 9:30 Eastern time
Are you a birth mother whose relinquishment is 10 years or younger? Do youhave a hard time finding common grounds with other birth mother's whoserelinquishments are 10 years or older? Our generation of birth mother's isvastly different than that before us, and of that now coming. We were at the brink of open adoptions, the testing ground per say! The generation before:adoptions that were kept secret and non-identifying. The generation nowcoming: new birth mothers who are sitting down to dinner with theirbirth children! Where do we fit in all of this? Birthmom's boardsBirthmom Expert boards Back to Adopt Main Index
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