You were different from the start. I saw signs that you were coming. Certain things started to go right; things that had been so unbelievably hard before. I remember going to the grocery store, just with a feeling I would get the call I had been waiting so long for – a baby girl needing a home. And then, my phone rang. Call it mother’s intuition.
My world changed in that instant, like any woman who realizes she is going to become a mother. You know that you can never go back to the way you were before, but you also don’t want to.
When I met you, you didn’t have a name. They called you Baby Girl. You were 6 pounds 10 ounces, but at a month old. You were born in July, yet I met you in August. I told myself a summer baby like that, you’d have the fire of the sun in your little soul. I was right, but I was also wrong because you were beyond what I imagined. You were more than I allowed myself to hope for, more than I could have dreamed. I knew I was your mother in that moment, at that hospital on that August day. And I knew I was going to give you a name as beautiful as you.
Adopting a child is a process that can gut you, and usually does, multiple times over. It can feel impossible to get through. I would open my home and my heart, without hesitation but with secret hope, that this child would become part of my family, permanently. That did not always happen. It was vulnerability. It was an act of love. It was what I did to get you.
I met you on August 5, 2018. I called you mine then, but on July 21, 2019, it became official. I didn’t need that to know you were my daughter. My soul knew that before I knew you.
I planned your first birthday, knowing you were home now. Home. We had done it, together, falling in love as a family – the family we both wanted, needed, and deserved. The way it was always supposed to be.
As your mother, there are so many things I hope to give you in your life. Family. Safety. Love. A sense of belonging. I will live every day trying to give you a world as beautiful as you. I can say, I was able to make good on one promise so far. I gave you a name as beautiful as you.
I love you, Paisley Rose.
Written by: Brittany Renee
Photographed by: NVS Photography