For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. Psalms 139:13

I have read this Bible verse probably over a thousand times and it has always been one of my favorites.

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

In my mother’s womb.

Mother’s womb.

Since becoming a mother, I see this verse in a new light. I wonder what my children will think when they read this verse.

I am their mother but they were not knit together in my womb.

This verse shows God’s original plan did not include adoption. This verse doesn’t say you knit me together in my mother, or birth mother’s, womb.

It simply says God knit us together in our mother’s womb.

Maybe I am over-analyzing, but I wonder what thoughts will run through Little Bug, Sweet Pea and Sarge’s minds when they are old enough to read this verse and really think about it.

I’ve often wondered when my children will realize that their birth mothers could have been their mothers.

Side note: We don’t tell our children they have two mothers. They have one mother and that is me. I know some families, especially families with an open adoption, tend to tell their child that they have two mothers. When Dave and I discussed this topic when Little Bug was just an infant, we decided that we felt telling our children they have two mothers could possibly cause confusion. The role of mother in a child’s life is reserved for one person – their mother. We felt like telling them they have two mothers would open the door for insecurity in their little world. Tracy, Little Bug’s birth mother, made it very clear even before Little Bug was born that I was her mother. She would get mad at the hospital when they were asking her questions that the legal parent had to answer. She wanted me to answer because, after all, I was the mother. (If you have a differing perspective on this, I am not attacking that at all. I am certain there are adoption situations where telling the child they have two mothers has caused absolutely no insecurity issues within the child whatsoever. Each adoption situation is unique.)

One day my children are going to realize that because they were born to their birth mother’s, technically, they should have been their mothers.

And…maybe that verse doesn’t include birth mothers because adoption wasn’t God’s original plan.

If we go back to the beginning of time, when God created the world and everything in it, He created male and female in His image and told them to be fruitful and multiply. That was God’s perfect plan for creation. It’s hard for us to wrap our minds around such a perfect world because we live in such an imperfect world.

A world where circumstances are such that a woman can’t parent her child or she makes the very difficult decision not to parent her child.

It does not scare me to “talk adoption” with my children. I don’t force them to talk about their adoptions and at this point, their adoptions are not talked about frequently at all. When we do talk about their adoptions, it is on their terms, and the conversation is as normal as if we were talking about My Little Ponies or mud pies.

When they are old enough to start thinking about Psalm 139:13 and they ask me why the Bible didn’t say they were knit together in their birth mothers wombs, I will speak the Truth to them, as I always do.

I will say…..Tracy was your mother. You were created and knit together in Tracy’s womb and had she not chosen adoption for you, Tracy would have been your mother. But Tracy knew she couldn’t be your mother – not in the ways that she knew you needed a mother. So she searched for someone who could be your mother – and she found…me!  (And I could tell a very similar story to both Sweet Pea and Sarge.)

I never want to be viewed as rescuing my children. I didn’t rescue them. I was seeking a pregnancy at the same time Little Bug was being knit together in her mother’s womb. Both of our lives – mine and Tracy’s – were a mess and at the root for both of us was sin.

My body wasn’t in perfect working order to be able to do what God created it to do – sustain growing life for nine months – because when sin entered the world, disease entered the world. I didn’t know it at the time but I had endometriosis, a disease of the reproductive system.

Tracy’s life was in a place where, for reasons I won’t go into on here, she couldn’t raise the child God had placed in her womb as her daughter.

Two events that could have ended tragically. If it was left to my body to produce my children, I would still be childless. If Tracy hadn’t had the option of adoption, her child’s life may have ended before it had even begun or her child would be trapped in the same generational sin.

God didn’t give up on His creation when sin entered the world. Instead, He made a way to bridge the gap between us and Himself after sin had separated us from God. That bridge was Jesus Christ as He came to the world to pay for all of mankind’s sin when He, perfect and sinless, gave His life to pay for our sins and make a way for us back to God.

Our God is a God of Redemption. His thread of Redemption can be seen woven into every thing, from the beginning of time. The Bible is filled with story upon story of God’s Redemptive love upon His people.

And it hasn’t stopped Present Day.

God’s redemptive love allowed Tracy and me to find each other. His original plan did not include infertility and what Tracy deals with day-to-day, but God, as only He can do, has made some beauty from ashes.

There is always grief and a sense of loss in adoption. As my children get older, I don’t know what emotions may rise within them as they comprehend their stories, but I always pray they will all be able to see the beauty through the ashes of their stories.

- Elaine