April 28, 2017, the day we were interviewed to become Henry’s adoptive parents was such a special date in more ways than one.  I remember sitting in that cold, white conference room staring at the box of donuts we had brought to the ladies who would be interviewing us.  I took a deep breath as they slid a giant stack of papers to us – it was there we found out so much about the boy we now call our son.  When we looked at the top we saw his birth name followed by a familiar date, April 28, 2014.  It was his third birthday that day and I felt an instant bond with this boy I had never met.  Then my heart started beating because I realized what else that day had meant for me three years ago, it was the day my life fell apart.

As I sit here in my beautiful home – my husband in the next room watching a football game and my children asleep in their beds – I am eternally grateful for the beautiful life God has gifted me.  I could never have imagined living the life I have now and I truly owe every piece of it to the Lord.  He has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams.  Four and a half years ago, I couldn’t say that though.  On April 28, 2014 my life as I knew it completely crumbled apart.  My 7 year marriage was suddenly over and I was left to pick up the pieces alone.  The day your life falls apart is not a date you forget, well at least it wasn’t for me.

As I sat there in the interview and read that date, my heart felt like it was exploding.  My eyes started welling up with tears, and I grabbed Curt’s hand.  It hit me.  God allowed my son to be born over a thousand miles away the exact day my life fell apart.  The day that I fell to my knees and thought life would never look beautiful again – He was working and my son was born that very day.  You might have thought I was crazy when I knew he would be my son after seeing his picture on a poster board?  That’s nothing compared to the complete peace I felt after seeing that date on that paper.  This was my son and I knew it.

The interview went on for another hour as we talked in depth about the home that Henry and his sisters would need.  At that time all three of them were diagnosed with some sort of speech delay, trauma, or autism.  I truly felt in my heart that we would only be chosen for Henry that day from the conversations we had in that conference room.  There we sat as a newly married couple that had never been parents, can you blame them for thinking we weren’t ready for the instant family we wanted so badly?

Let’s get to the part about Mother’s Day because after all that is the title of this post.  May, 2017, two days before Mothers’ Day around 2:30 pm I was teaching yearbook to my class of high school seniors when I got a call from DSS.  It was the director of the program to let me know we had been chosen as pre-adoptive parents for Henry.  She then went on to let me know we had not been chosen for the girls and that they felt it would be too overwhelming to take on three special needs children.  Tears immediately poured down my face as I stood in the hallway trying to grasp what I had just been told, I was going to be a mom.  There was so much happiness and sadness all at the same time because as happy as I was about being chosen for Henry, I immediately grieved the loss that he would not grow up with his sisters and my perfect idea for our instant family was gone.  As my conversation ended with the director she said, “Mrs. Baker, happy first Happy Mothers’ Day, you are going to make a great mom.”

She ended the conversation by giving me a few dates to choose from to meet our little boy. Without hesitating I agreed to the first one she gave me.  I hung up the phone, closed my eyes, as I realized it was all working out.  I was going to be a mom.