by Loves Editor | Celebs
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I must have felt your tears
When they took me from your arms
I’m sure I must have heard you say goodbye
Young and afraid, had you made a big mistake
Could an ocean even hold the tears you cried
But you had dreams for me
You wanted the best for me
And you made the only choice you could thatnight
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You gave life to me
A brand new world to see
Like playing baseball in the yard with dad at night
Mom reading Goodnight Moon
And praying in my room
So if you worry if your choice was right
When you gave me up
Oh you gave everything to me
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When Mark Schultz wrote these lyrics, he wasn’t talking to an imaginary young woman in a hard situation – he was pouring out his heart to his birth mother.
As a third-grader, Mark was looking through old baby books with his sister and noticed that his baby book didn’t have as much information as hers. He asked his mom about it, and she told little Mark that his brother and sister had just come along. “With you,” his mother told him, “we went to the hospital and decided who we wanted. We chose you because we loved you the most and thought you were the most special child there.”
“That tells a kid right there that he’s got it going on!” Mark said in an interview for Christianity Today. “I felt great about being adopted. When my sister and I would get into a fight, instead of her saying, ‘You’re adopted’ as a way to make me feel bad, I’d say, ‘Mom didn’t have a choice when she got you, but she chose me!'”
Schultz’s adoptive parents cheered him on as he played football, basketball, baseball, ran track, sang and did theater in high school. “I’d score a touchdown or whatever, and my father would yell, ‘That’s my son!’ He loved us all the same. I got the best parents in the world.”
The inspiration for “Everything to Me” came much later in life, through a conversation with an adoption worker after a benefit concert he put on for Bethany Christian Services. She had heard he was adopted and asked him about his birth mother. He replied, half-jokingly, that it didn’t seem like his birth mother wanted him.
“The woman said that if my birth mother had chosen abortion, I wouldn’t even be having this conversation,” Mark said. “She reminded me that my birth mother carried me for nine months and made the hardest decision in her life, giving me to a family who could love me and give me the opportunities she couldn’t. She said my birth mother thought about me and not herself.”
This realization hit Mark “like a ton of bricks.” He told Growthtrac, “I thought about what I would say to my birth mom if I ever had a chance to meet her. Tears started running down my face and the only words I could come up with were, ‘Thank you for this life that you have given me.”
The process of fully comprehending his birth mother’s sacrifice deepened Mark’s love and maturity and prodded him to write the most deeply personal song he has ever recorded. Now Mark says, “I don’t take anything for granted. I wake up in the morning and thank God that I’m alive. Adoption is such a gift.”
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by Loves Editor | Birth Mothers
“A mother is she who can take the place of all others, but whose place no one else can take!” Love, Brian
Above is a quote sent to me by my son. A son I have always loved, from the day he was conceived. He has grown to be such a successful and handsome man. His eyes look up at me with such love from the picture he recently sent me. What beautiful eyes he has, they reflect such love and care. He’s grown to become a promising and talented man. A computer graphic artist – he gets that from his grandfather. I am so proud of him. Who knows what other plans God has in store for him?
I write this letter with tears in my eyes. I have tears of love, of joy, and of pain. As of this day, I have never held him, kissed him, or sung him to sleep. But for me, this is OK.
At 15 I became pregnant with the help of a man – an adult in age only. Oh, what a mistake to be so selfish and not respect my body and my parents’ warnings.
A life was created and there was no turning back. I had to grow up fast. I knew I had to take care of him, but I had no proper means. I knew he deserved a life, a life with a mom and a dad, a life that would be best for him. I had to turn off my selfish thoughts and think only of what was best for him.
Abortion was out of the question. What a tragedy that would have been. God had a plan for this child. I had no clue what it would be, but I had peace of mind knowing God would intervene.
Yes, it was hard. It was very hard. My body changed; my family and I were humiliated; and, yes, my heart broke over and over; but for me, this was OK.
The day came. He was born in the hospital, and the nurses took him away. Later, Catholic Social Services received him and he traveled away with them. Away from me.
I did not even have a driver’s license. My father picked me up from the hospital. I remember quietly crying the whole way home.
As of this day, Brian is 36 years old. We have not yet held each other. We live 2,000 miles apart. I cry writing this part of the letter. I cry because I know one day I will be able to hold and kiss the sweet cheek of my son. My only son. If I had chosen abortion, I would have destroyed the only son God ever blessed me with. I have been married 28 years now to a man I met from another state. We only have daughters, but for me, this is OK.
I sacrificed my fear and pain for the love of my son. I trusted in God, and He blessed me with the return of my child in my life.
I tell this story because I find every life so precious. God has a plan for each and every one of us. Yes, everyone makes mistakes – this is how we grow. We learn from our errors. We must step aside and let God work His perfect plan. Who knows? The next unplanned child could be a scientist who finds the cure for cancer or a doctor who saves your father’s life. The future is unknown. Pray for strength and guidance in the present. He is listening.
I close with my prayer: “Dear God, please forgive me for being so selfish when I was young.” I hope God answers, “For Me, this was OK!”
A Letter From,
My Loving Heart
by Loves Editor | Adoptive Parents
The Christmas gift arrived unexpectedly in the heat of summer when a woman in rural Washington County picked up the phone and was confronted with a choice that she knew would ultimately alter the course of a life.What if she hadn’t been home? Or had declined, saying the timing wasn’t right? Both haunting questions that get to the core of love, sacrifice and family — concepts people focus on so intently during this time of year. With one little word — “yes” — a journey began.
Though it may have started out of desperation, it ended in joy Friday afternoon (just two days before Christmas) when a family gathered in a courtroom for a simple ceremony that couldn’t begin to do justice to all that had taken transpired during the past five months.
The call came on July 13 when Sandi Brannock’s husband was at work and the couple’s six kids were busy playing in another part of the house. At her desk, she glanced at the caller identification and readCincinnati. Brannock knew only one person there. And, sure enough, when she picked up it was Robin Steele, coordinator for the National Down Syndrome Adoption Network.
Five days earlier, a mother had given birth in Washington state to twin girls. One was healthy. The other had a heart defect and Down syndrome, both a complete surprise. The parents had decided they were going to take one twin home and leave the other behind. Called boarder babies, these children become wards of the state, which places them in foster care. Steele, who 35 years ago adopted such a child, had been searching her organization’s database to find someone who might take this child.
The parents were checking out of the hospital in two days. She needed to find a family who not only had an interest in adopting a special needs child, but who had also completed a detailed home study, the first step in the adoption process. The computer came up with Sandi and Kirk Brannock. Eighteen months earlier, the couple — both 46 and married for 17 years — had adopted Amira, a two-week-old Washington baby girl who had Down syndrome. Steele had an important question for Sandi: Were they interested in adopting again? Brannock asked if any other families had expressed interest…”No”.
The circumstances touched a nerve with Brannock, a registered nurse who had worked in a hospital’s postpartum and neonatal unit before quitting to raise her children. She knew of a single mother who planned to put her unborn child up for adoption, but the adoptive family backed out when the child was born with cerebral palsy. The birth mother also walked away, and the child was institutionalized. The story hit close to home because one of the Brannocks’ sons, Cole, 12, has cerebral palsy. Brannock told Steele she had to talk with her husband, who works in the high tech field. After a quick phone conversation, she got back to Steele and said yes.
That evening, the couple gathered their five sons, ages 6 to 16. Before they had adopted Amira — who now walked around the living room during the discussion — they talked with their boys about what it would mean for their lives. Once again, they wanted their boys to weigh in.One day, when their parents were gone, the responsibility of having sisters with special needs would fall to the boys, they told them. The answer was unanimous. They were gaining another sister, one they would love as much as they loved Amira.
The next morning, the family climbed into their 10-seat bus and set out to bring another little girl home. On the way, the adoption caseworker called on a cellphone and told the Brannocks to go to the hospital where paperwork giving them legal permission to see the baby would be waiting.
They arrived at the hospital early in the evening. The boys and their sister stayed in the neonatal waiting room. Their parents were each given a wristband that read “Baby A.” On the band was the date the unnamed girl was born. Brannock studied the band, trying to remember what she’d been doing the day the girl she now considered her daughter was born. A nurse led the way to a room with a sliding glass door. She passed a crib where a healthy baby girl slept and stopped in front of a crib near the back of the room. She picked up a bundle and placed it in Sandi Brannock’s arms. Brannock scooted over so her husband could sit next to her. She pulled back the blanket to look at the little face. The baby was small and pale, more fragile than Brannock had expected, and she said a silent prayer asking for strength.
Kirk Brannock took pictures of baby on his cellphone, then went to show the kids her image. Nurses told Sandi Brannock the baby had heart problems and had undergone blood transfusions, which was why she was so pale. Brannock handed the baby back to a nurse. She said she and her husband would return Friday, and the family checked in to a nearby motel. Sandi Brannock didn’t want this newborn girl to leave the hospital without a name. She researched names online, studyingthe meaning of each one. None felt right.
Then she found Elyana — God has answers.
The next morning, the Brannocks drove to the adoption agency to complete the paperwork and to meet the parents who decided to give up one of their daughters. At 11:30 a.m., the parents walked into the room with Elyana’s sister in a baby carrier. Sandi Brannock expected a drug-addicted mother, or maybe a young girl. Instead, she found an attractive couple who appeared to be at least middle class. The parents were too nervous to sit, and they stood in the middle of the room. At one point, Brannock studied Elyana’s sister. She saw the clear resemblance between the two girls, save for the distinctive facial features that indicated Down syndrome. The couple told the Brannocks they had a 3-year-old son who knew his mother had given birth to twins. The parents said they planned to tell him one of his sisters had gone to live with a family who would care for her.
As gently as possible, Kirk Brannock asked why they’d decided to give up one daughter. When the Brannocks had decided to adopt Amira, some people couldn’t understand why. Even though it felt right to them, they approached it analytically, listing the pros and cons. The only “con” was fear. And that was not enough to stop them from going ahead.
Fighting tears, the woman said she and her husband were their parents’ only children. They had no family in the area to help them raise a special-needs child. They both had demanding careers. They said they wanted the baby girl to live with a family who could do a better job than they could. The birth mother, clearly hurting, began crying. She said she loved the little girl.
The Brannocks would never judge this woman and her husband, a couple so full of fear and doubt. Better than anyone else, they knew what they were going through and would never want them to feel guilty. A little baby — made the way Sandi believes God intended her — would soon be joining a family eagerly awaitng her arrival. But it was impossible to say it just then. All the Brannocks could do was wrap their arms around this couple and hug them tightly.
When the meeting ended,the Brannocks returned to the hospital, where they filled out more paperwork and scheduled appointments in Portland with a pediatrician and a heart specialist. Then they carried Elyana Brannock to meet her brothers and sister. Elyana was so small and fragile that doctors had to wait three months before she’d gained enough weight to fix the hole in her heart. She was eventually released from the hospital and sent home, but the recovery took more than a month. It wasn’t until late November that their little girl was clearly healing.
A date — what the family called “the day” — was set to make the adoption official.
Two days before Christmas they all gathered in the Washington County Courthouse, waiting to be brought in to a courtroom where Circuit Court Judge Rita Batz Cobb would sign the adoption papers. All the Brannock kids, their parents, grandparents and family friends packed the hallway, waiting for the signal that it was time. He reached for his cellphone, tapped the picture icon up popped a photo of Elyana. “The rough patch in her life is over,” Brannock said. “She smiled for the first time two days ago. We got it on film.”
Original story can be found here
