The Anastasia Effect

The cat is out of the bag. 

I'm adopting a baby girl.  I say adopting very loosely, because there are lots of legal stuff that need to go on until someone can actually "belong" to you.  So, I use the word "adopting" with the following meaning:  I will be the one loving, providing and caring for this child as if she were my own.  She will reside in my house and will call me mommy.  I will educate her, teach her and watch her grow into her own person.  Whether or not a piece of paper says she's "mine"... It doesn't matter.  She's already engraved in my heart. 

The story about Anastasia is long, a bit sad, but thankfully with a very happy ending for both she and I.  Her dad is an amazing person and I will share "custody" with him.  What a lucky little lady she is!  She was born on August 18, 2010.  The details of her birth are unknown to me.  I have some pictures of her.  Two from when she was first introduced to our world, and the rest came just before she turned two months. 

For nearly five years, I have lived my life to the best of my ability trying to integrate all that I was, all that I am and all that I hope to be into every cell of my being.  I have tried to make the best of every situation I have come across and see the silver lining behind every cloud.  I have tried to justify some things and learned a whole lot during this process.  I've become anything and everything, except a "victim of fate", I choose to see myself as a "surrenderer of fate."  I still can't assure anyone of all my attributes because I'm an unfolding experience, each and every moment.  And, each moment, I'm a bit more confident than the last one, sometimes, I'm a bit less, but this cycle moves a lot more forward than it does backwards... While in Brazil, last month, a beautiful soul told me, "There will come a time when there will be a lot less pain in your life and a lot more laughter."  Well, my friends, the time has come. 

I'm a mother.  I'm a mother, now, along with the infinite other things that I am.  I love it.  It's not the label of it that has changed something inside my heart.  It's the feeling I get when I think of it.  I don't care if the whole world doesn't see me as a mother, because inside of me, even if I didn't  carry my daughter for 9 months, her face is imprinted on every nucleus of my cells.  I, no longer, care who I was, what I did or what has happened to me.  All that matters now is who I will be to this little human.  Evey single one of my actions will impact her life, thus causing a reaction accordingly.  I'm more aware of me.  I'm more aware of my experiences.  I'm a lioness on the prowl watching over her precious, defenseless cub.  I am focused and I feel alive.  Because, this precious little human was born and I was lucky to have been chosen to help raise her, I feel more alive.  I feel as if I had been waiting for her all my life. 

All these feelings, and I haven't even met her yet...