"I am the first daughter that grew in Momma's heart"

Izzy is trying to find her place lately. Her place in our family. I'm not sure if it's an adoption thing. Probably is. Or maybe if she was one of four bio children she would be doing the same thing. I'm not sure. It's something she is struggling with lately. She's not our first born. Not our first daughter. Not sure why it's so important to be the first, but it seems to be to her. We love all of our children so much. It makes me sad to see her apparently longing for a "special" place in the family. For the longest time she was special in her eyes because she was the only child that came into our family through adoption. Then Mei Mei came home and that changed. So, a couple weeks ago we were in bed talking about China Mommy. The conversation goes there a lot these days. It's painful. It makes me very sad to know that she's trying to figure this all out. I'm very honest with her but in a delicate way. The talk quickly became somber because she asked if we had China Mommy's address so that she could send her a card. When I told her that I didn't know China Mommy and had no way of getting in touch with her she seemed shocked by that. I've never told her that we did know her but maybe she just assumed that we had met when we were in China. She said "well, that's ok. I'll see her in heaven one day and I'll give her the cards I made." Uhhhh....gut wrenching. She said it so sweet and matter of fact. Like that was a given. This is the part I can't stand about adoption. Even though the Lord takes something so broken and awful and makes it beautiful by creating a family from it, it still is hard. Very hard. I want so badly to be able to let Izzy know that she was special to her birth mother. I think that she was. She wasn't abandoned till she was 10 months old and very ill, so I believe that her parents loved her very much. I don't know that for fact and I never will. I choose to believe that for Izzy. For me. I treasure this little one and I believe that her birth parents did too. Mari that was abandoned the day she was born I also choose to believe that her parents loved her too. It's too hard to think of it any differently. So, in the midst of this heavy conversation Izzy looks right at me at says "Momma, Jessi was your first daughter right?"....."Yes, Jessi is our first daughter" ...."And Rymo is your first son, right?"......"Yep, that's right." ..... "and Mari and I grew in your heart right?" ......"Right baby, you and Mei Mei grew right here in my heart"........then she sits up in the bed with a huge smile on her face "Wait a minute......but I am the FIRST daughter that grew in your heart, RIGHT?" she yells. Knowing Mari is in the bed next to us and is almost sleeping I quietly say "yes, honey you both grew in my heart but you grew there first." She was so excited and she yells to Mari, " Mari, I am the first daughter that grew in Momma's heart. Can you believe that ?" Oh, man. I'm thinking here we go. Now I'll be in Mari's bed next trying to make her not feel bad about not being the first. Not to mention that Izzy has completely woken her up now. My sweet Mari. The things that rattle Izzy just roll off of her. I'm so grateful she's like that. Two drama queens in the house would be a bit much. She just smiled over at Izzy and says " Yeah, Iz that means I am the next born in Momma's heart...Yeah. Momma, I'm the next born in your heart. That's great news Iz" and she rolled back over and went to sleep. Whew....I love that sweet pea so much. Thank you Mari for being so easy going.

And thank you Lord for the first daughter born in my heart. I just love her over the moon.