Empty Joy - REVISION

We are devastated. Our beautiful baby girl, sleeping peacefully in her crib, means everything to us. And we may lose her. She is ours. The adoption is almost final. How can this be happening? We don’t deserve this. Neither does she.

We have been together five years. Five years of loving each other. Five years of fighting for that love. We have endured more in those five years than most couples endure throughout their life. People can be hurtful when they don’t understand the kind of love we have. But that hurt is nothing compared to the pain a parent can cause. Ours caused plenty. They turned their backs on us. Said we were sinners and no longer a part of their families. When we moved in together we lost our parents for good. They wouldn’t take our calls. Our mail was returned unopened. The only family we had was each other.

Until the baby. We had talked about a baby before. Fought about it. We could never agree. People already thought we were doing the wrong thing by loving each other. How could we expose a baby to that kind of criticism? That kind of hurt and pain? But we did love each other. We were committed to each other for life. A baby is what makes a couple whole. How could we not want one? How could we live our life and never know the love of a child? Our own child?

The pregnancy of one of our closet friends forced us to settle the issue. She came to us upset. Her boyfriend wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. He wanted her to have an abortion. She didn’t want the baby. But she didn’t want an abortion either. She didn’t want strangers raising her baby. She couldn’t live with that thought. We were her only hope. She asked us, begged us, to raise her baby. It was the only way she could let go and still be able to live with herself. Now we had to make a decision. How could we say no? How often does an opportunity like this come along? How could we possibly pass up such an opportunity?

We knew we made the right decision when the baby was placed in our arms. We fell in love with her the moment she looked into our eyes. She was tiny. She was soft. She was beautiful. She was ours. We were complete. We were a family. The days after we brought her home from the hospital were some of our happiest. Time passed by. One blissful day after another. And with each day our love for her, and for each other, grew stronger. The only thing that would have made it perfect would be to have shared it with our parents. But even with a baby, their grandbaby, they shunned us. But their disapproval didn’t hurt as much. We had our own child to think about. She made up for all the pain we had been through. Nothing could take away our happiness now.

Then one day the phone rang. It shattered our hard earned peace. The baby’s father had filed for custody. When his parents found out about the baby, found out that we were raising the baby, they were very upset. No grandchild of theirs was going to be raised in a home like ours. They were going to fight the adoption. They had the money. And they had the child’s father. What did we have? What kind of chance did we have against that?

We are devastated. We love our little girl more than anything in this world. She is ours. The thought of losing her is more than we can bear. As we watch her sleeping peacefully in her crib we hold each other tight. We don’t deserve this. Neither does she.