The Big Reveal

Lately Gracie has been obsessed with all things baby. Some good friends of ours welcomed their first child, a gorgeous baby girl, into their family last month. When Baby M was a week old, Gracie and I went to have our first visit. Now, when S was pregnant, Gracie was full of questions...shocking isn't it? We told her that S had a baby in her tummy and the doctor would take it out when the baby was ready to be born. Well, as you may imagine, this raised some pretty intense questions. Like, when was I in your tummy, Mommy? I told her that she wasn't born in my tummy, she was born in my heart. That worked...for a little while.

This weekend, we decided it was time to wade into waters we hadn't been into before. We have always been open with Gracie about how we became a family. She has seen the pictures of our Gotcha Day in China, she has always known she was 15 months old when we met. We just hadn't taken it any further. It was time. Thanks to some other friends, we had the perfect opportunity. We were given a children's book entitled "I Love You Like Crazy Cakes" when we first got home with her. I tried to read it to her a couple of times and I just couldn't get through it without tears. Still can't. It is written by a woman who also adopted from China.

The book begins talking about babies in an orphanage (although that word is never used) with nannies taking care of them. They have beds and friends...but no mommies. Across the ocean, a woman lives who has friends and everything she could ever want or need...except a baby. This is usually where the tears start, btw. Gracie interrupts at this point to let me know that she is the baby and I am the mommy. So far, so good. The story talks about the lady traveling to China and meeting her baby for the first time. More tears. Then at one point, the Chinese mommy is mentioned. Gracie and I hadn't gone down that road yet. I finished the story, then took her in my lap and explained that the reason she was born in my heart and not my tummy was because there was a lady in China who carried her in her tummy until she was born. I told her that we don't know who she is, and never will, but we know that she loved her baby very much. I then asked if Gracie knew why I knew that the Chinese lady loved her. She, of course, asked how and I said, " Because she gave you to me.", at which point Gracie asked a myriad of questions. Was I born in a hospital? Is she dead? Can I see her? I told her again that we don't know who she is because she didn't tell us her name. That seemed to satisfy her.

We then knelt by the bed to say our prayers, and along with praying for God to bless Grandma and make her well...we asked God to bless Gracie's Chinese mommy and take care of her.

I know that she can't possibly grasp all that we talked about. I know that there will be some HUGE issues later. For now, I'm just glad that we have finally been able to have the conversation. I know I probably should've already talked to her about it...I just couldn't find the words. Thank God for children's books to help you have the hard conversations. And thank You, Lord for giving me the right words to say.