Ivy, we’re eleven days into the new year. It’s 2025, and when the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve, I couldn’t help but think about how we are beginning our first year ever with four children, with you, the daughter who is as much ours as if I had birthed you myself. Of course, you have been ours for several years, precious, but it became official, legal, and final in June, so I couldn’t let 2024 become too distant before I stopped to write about the journey that led us here, to a new year, to a life stretching before us as a family of six.
You won’t remember the uncertainties of the past several years, of the hundreds of prayers that have been prayed for our family and for you. You won’t remember the stress of living through the foster care system, whose motto seems to be “You never know what will happen.” You came to us wrapped in a fuzzy pink blanket when you were eleven weeks old, and all you have ever really known is carefree living in an evironment where your older parents try very hard not to dampen your vibrant spirit. You are a whirlwind of activity, and always have been. It’s exciting to see your enthusiasm for everything. You make us laugh. You bring us joy. And when the stress of the foster care unknowns finally came to an end, I think it took your dad and me awhile to learn how to really breathe again, to focus on more than fear that you would somehow not be ours anymore.
Knowing you and your biological parents and siblings has helped us to rely on God more, to trust in His plans for the future, to give up our grip on trying to sort out the complications of life. Meeting you taught me in a way I never knew before that my plans and schemes are the tiniest threads in the fabric that God is weaving in this world. The strong fiber of His will covers over what I had planned, and He creates something new that I could have never imagined. The shock of becoming parents again at our ages has caused us to chuckle more than once, but what a beautiful tapestry our good God weaves as we try in all of our feeble ways to develop a plan. He must smile when He sees how hard we struggle, knowing that He has it all worked out already.
As you grow I see fascinatingly unfamiliar parts of your personality begin to form, and I know that I’m seeing glimpses of what you have inherited from the mother who carried you in her womb. You recently saw pictures of me with one of the other children when they were born, and you asked to see pictures of you and me. We talked about how I wasn’t there when you were born, but I do know a lot about that day because I have read all of the doctor’s notes. I know that you had a little cut on your head. I know that you were tiny. I know that you didn’t cry much–even then you were a happy little baby. I know that you were born with very little hair, and in fact didn’t really grow much in until we had loved you for quite some time.
Every once in awhile I wonder what we were doing on the day you were born. Just down the street from where you sleep now, you came into this world, into the arms of a mother who loves you, and we weren’t even aware that you existed. This birth that would change all of our lives was a mystery to us then. We couldn’t have known that just a few weeks down the road, you would arrive at our doorstep, and a whole new phase of life would begin. It hasn’t been an easy road, Ivy, but loving a baby is never an easy road. Babies are demanding in ways that will challenge parents’ sanity at times, and they require sacrifice and patience and care. When babies enter the world, everything changes, and when a baby enters the world and then can’t stay with the mother who sheltered her inside for nine months, well, there is a type of grief there that will likely come to you someday. And, if the Lord wills, I will be here to help you through it.
Life is complicated. That’s one major lesson that I’ve taken from the experience of meeting you, loving you, and adopting you. All of the black and white that you think you understand and have accepted becomes interestingly muddy when life gets messy. But the truth is that most everyday parts of life are also refreshingly simple: breakfast and cartoons, washable paint, diapers with your favorite characters on them, dance parties, giggles over your latest original song, beginning to learn the joy of Jesus, afternoon baths just for fun, love, love, love, love. In truth, the most complicated yet simple thing that has happened over the past three years is that all of our hearts have grown to tuck you neatly inside there with the rest of our family. You are a perfect fit.
Everyone tells your dad and me that loving you will keep us young. We’re counting on that. I’ve laughed when I look down at the whited out knees of my jeans–I’m back in the phase of living life on the floor with a toddler. And then I stop and think about how blessed I am, just how truly and wildly blessed, to be your mother. You, so neon in a world that gets rather dull sometimes. You, so excited about things that I had forgotten my enthusiasm for. And now I wear holes in the knees of my jeans and I try to rein you in when I need to and I try to let you run free when I can because you are teaching me anew what love means, sometimes in the most chaotic ways, but always so sweetly, with words of love, with the best, tightest hugs, with pulsing energy all the time. It’s exciting to be your mother.
We named you Ivy Joy, and we already knew when we chose the name that Joy fits you rather perfectly. You are lighting up our lives, baby. We love you and can’t wait to see where God takes us next, together. Happy New Year to the littlest of the littles. We are so glad you’re ours.
