By Tara Fisher Dukart 
Adoption was not my first choice. I imagine it wasn’t hers either. It wasn’t until the path of her choices met the path of mine, that I realized God had been orchestrating an intersection.
“Is it okay that I’m not sad? Because I know I made the right decision.” They were her words, not mine. It’s been 13 years, and I can still feel this moment. Every raw second.
She’s sitting semi-upright in a hospital bed, all five-foot-two of her, wearing a bubblegum pink T-shirt. One day after her C-section.
It’s a crisp December afternoon. At least we assume. My husband and I haven’t stepped outside since we rolled into that dimly lit hospital parking lot 36 hours earlier, weary and white-knuckled from driving 10 straight hours through a howling midwest blizzard.
Here’s the truth. My whole body feels white-knuckled. It’s felt this way for years. Ever since the disappointment and confusion of that first negative pregnancy test. The sadness at the beginning was mild because we’d only started trying. But month after month, year after year, every lonely, single pink line felt like death. I craved motherhood. How could my own body betray me?
Standing in this hospital room, I am tense with lingering heartache, uncertainty, and fear of false hope. I shudder to loosen my muscles. I remind my subconscious to breathe.
What if she changes her mind? She has every right to do so. Everyone in this room knows it. My eyes escape to the window. I watch as the white winter chaos begins to calm.
And I think to myself, how fitting . . . Some snowflakes drop from the sky and gently flutter into their landing space while others must first endure a storm. Some fall when they’re not expected and we aren’t ready while others arrive after long, dry, lonely periods of wishing and waiting—when we’ve almost given up, and we’ve prayed, and we’ve prayed, and we’ve prayed. But no matter how, or when, or where the snowflakes land, each one is entirely unique; each one has a purpose.
I turn my face back to hers as she asks her question. “Is it okay that I’m not sad? Because I know I made the right decision.”
I pause because I do not know who she is asking. My eyes glance toward her family standing around her. Is she asking them? They quickly shift to my husband. Is she asking us?
I look down at the 6-pound, 15-ounce bundle we’ve just clicked into a car seat carrier. Maybe she is asking her. Her daughter. Our daughter. Her daughter. Our daughter. Which is it?
Remember to inhale. Remember to exhale. I am realizing . . . the question isn’t for her family. It isn’t for us. And it isn’t for her—our daughter.
The question is for herself. This woman has had choices to make and storms to face. I try to imagine how it all feels. I’ll never truly know.
She did not have to choose life, but she did. She does not have to choose us, but she is. Out of all the people in the world, she is choosing us. Us. She is picking us to be her daughter’s parents. She is selecting us to be the ones who will get to raise the daughter she has carried for 41 weeks. This perfectly unique little snowflake who was created for a purpose.
She is choosing me, out of all the women in the world, to be the one her daughter will call “Mom.” And in doing so, she knows full well she is losing her title. Not of “birthmother,” but of “parent.”
My fear will not fully dissipate until we are able to legally finalize our adoption, eight months from the day we are in this hospital room.
I want to believe the conviction in her voice as she says these words because in a few minutes, my husband and I will be stepping down the hallway, carrying her—our precious daughter snuggled in this car seat—into the shivery air. But my heart is too fragile.
Now, 13 years later, I look at the girl who calls me mom. The girl we get to raise because of her. Our family celebrates the honor of her courage and her conviction every. single. day. Just as we do every single birthmother. We celebrate the choices of women—past, present, and future—who define courage by giving literal life to someone else’s motherhood dream.
I know I will never know the storms a birthmother faces. But no matter what, I do know this: She too is created by a God who loves her unconditionally. She is the worthiest of worthies to carry her child, and her choices are what make families like mine possible. She carries the answer to our prayers. And God is paving the intersection.
by Adrian Collins 
by Leah Outten 
