Insomnia and Insecurity

It is roughly 4 am and I am awake. Why, you wonder? I have had insomnia since I was a child. No cure, really. Sometimes I take Melatonin to fall asleep but on nights like this when I wake too late to take medication, I just have to fight through the wakefulness that makes me toss and turn. I also have been struggling with headaches again. Daily. And it is painful.

Tonight what woke me up was a dream I had about Keishun. More of a nightmare really. In the dream, he told me he was hanging out at a friend's house...but I stumbled upon him in some sort of a mall or something hanging out with a bunch of members of his biological family. They were laughing and joking in a familiar way that made me sad. I texted him that I could hear what he was saying and he looked over and saw me and walked over to say, "just leave." In that moment...in the dream...I felt like I wasn't his mother. Or family at all. They were. I woke up feeling left out, hurt...sad. I laid there for awhile and talked myself down...telling myself it was only a dream. No biggie. It didn't really happen. But then I got to wondering what about our relationship makes me insecure? Is it cause he pushes back with me a lot? Is it because I didn't raise him from birth? Is it the natural angst between a teenager and their mother? 

I love this child...who isn't really a child at all...so fiercely. When I am at his basketball games, I watch his every move. When he is playful with me, my heart soars. When he says, "thanks Mom"...it makes all of my fears about his future vanish. When he is moody and rude and distant and argumentative, it crushes me. I don't know why this child of all of them has such an effect on me. I suppose it is the nature of older child adoption. I didn't change his diapers, or wipe his baby face. I didn't get to cuddle him and sing to him and read to him. To some extent, I don't have any claim over him except for a paper that says I am his legal mother. Or maybe it is just what happens when our kids are grown and become independent from us. Our sense of control over their lives...that was never really true anyway...begins to vanish.

When I am insecure about the love between us that I know is real, I cling to the times when things just seem right. At night, when the little kids are all in bed and he climbs into our King right smack between Billy and I and settles in joking, "I hope ya'll didn't have any plans tonight." The time we were folding clothes together and he referred to his birthmother as "my first mom" instead of just "my mom" as he had always done before. When he talks about going out to eat and wanting both Dad and I there because "it wouldn't feel right without you". When he sings Rascal Flatts, "The Broken Road" at the top of his lungs from his ipod and I joke, "does that song make you think of me?" In all seriousness he replies, "yeah".

These are the moments I cherish. My boy. My precious son given to me not by birth, but as a gift from God. All grown up already in many ways, but in so many others still needing a Mom. And wanting it to be me.

My thoughts tonight led me to thinking of my boys' birthmothers. Today is Jayden's 5th birthday. FIVE years he has been on this earth. For over two of them, mine. And in the hearts and minds of his first family he will always be two and a half. The age he was when he was taken. When he was theirs.
 
But now he is ours. And we are all he knows in this life as family. I get the joy of waking him up and seeing the sly smile on his face when I exclaim. "Happy Birthday, Baby!" We get the pleasure of watching him blow out birthday candles and the excitement on his face as his friends roll in for his party this weekend. His first family will just get the pictures. I hope that in them, they can find some comfort in knowing that their boys are doing well.  Better than well, they have a hope now and a future.

If I could say this to my boys' first moms I would: "Please know that the deep ache you feel in losing your boys is a similar ache I have felt all these years in not conceiving them. I know these two losses are not the same thing. But what is, is the bond we will always have as their beloved mothers. You began their lives as the primary figure, and I will finish it. I did not replace you. Love does not take over where one is gone...it adds. Despite all of our shortcomings mine and yours, I know God had a plan for them before He created them and I know that He will see it through to completion. You are never far from our thoughts."

You see, I do not see Keishun's family as competition. They held a place in his life and in some ways still do. But we actually get to experience his life as it happens. When he comes home on break from college, this will be the place he comes. When anything big happens in his life, Dad and I will be the first ones he calls. It is the natural order of things.

So tonight, I will try not to toss and turn any longer. I will send up a prayer for my babies' families...for their safe keeping...for their hearts to heal. And for mine to heal too. I will thank my Jesus for His provision in the life of Billy and I and our children. I will rest knowing that when the sun rises, my baby boy will be another year older. Another year for me to experience the immense joy of being his mother.