Back Story

My wife reminded me today to take some “before” pictures of the baby room. It’ll be a good comparison, no matter what the “after” ends up looking like, since the “before” is a bit of a mess: random belongings strewn over a folding table, walls chipped free of old wallpaper and paint, and a raggedy shade covering the window. But soon it will be fit for a princess.

One of the reasons Amy was urging me to document all of this was so that we could tell our little Jada about these days of preparation. It got me thinking about what I will tell her about the part about her parents giving her up for adoption. In my heart, I want to believe that it went down something like this:

“Your parents loved you very much, but they were simply too poor to take care of you. So shortly after you were born, they wrapped you up real tight to protect you from the cold winter air, and left you at the gates, where they knew you would be found and taken care of. And lo and behold, God worked it out so that just at that moment, we were asking China for permission to have just one of such precious babies. He knew we were meant to be together! And while it took a long time for all the papers and plans to get in order, God knew all along that it was just a matter of time before He put us all together. And here we are today, one happy family.”

I’m not so sure that it didn’t just go down exactly like that. If so, how fortunate are we, that our daughter was loved by her birth parents from the day she was conceived, and that even as they were saying goodbye to her, they were demonstrating tenderness and compassion in leaving her bundled up at the gates, so that several months later we might be able to take home a happy and healthy and beautiful little baby girl.

I know that it might not have gone down like that. The reasons Jada was abandoned, and the conditions in which she was abandoned, might not have been nearly as cheery. Either way, it kind of breaks my heart.