Two years ago today, my daughter was left outside a medical clinic. Try as I might, I can't pretend to know what transpired in my daughter's first eleven days of life. Sometimes late at night, I think about those first eleven days and then try to think about what that next day must have been like for my little girl. Did they leave in the wee small hours of the morning? Had they traveled all night to get there? That's about as far as I get because then the weepy floodgates open so I have to shove it to the back of my brain. I have heard the way my little girl cries when she is hurt or scared or sad. My heart breaks every time I think about her birth mother (in my mind, it's always her birth mom who took her to the clinic) walking away from those cries. While I can't comprehend the decisions that were made that day, I am grateful to her birth mother because it led my daughter and I to each other.
I know very little about her first year and I know that one day soon, she will start to ask questions. Unfortunately, there aren't very many answers. I can make lots of guesses, but I have nothing concrete for her. I will tell her the facts as I believe them to be. I will show her the earliest picture I have of her.
The text beside her picture is her birthdate, the date and the location that she was found and that she has a small face and single eyelids.In a way, it almost seems like a cruel irony that the picture is grainy. Maybe that's why I try so hard to document all the little happenings in her life, no matter how mundane they may seem. I want as much of her past to be clear and in focus as possible. My baby book is still encased in plastic, preserved for all eternity with nary a milestone in it. And as the youngest of three kids, there aren't very many baby pictures of me. But, my family can fill in the gaps for me. I just want to make sure that she doesn't have anymore gaps.
