More Than A Choice

I just hugged my nine year old daughter for the last time.
Tomorrow I will hug her again, but for the first time as a ten year old.

Tomorrow we will celebrate her birthday with an Angry Bird themed family party. We'll eat cake, she'll open gifts, and we'll spend some time marking the fact that our daughter's age is in the double digits.

Tomorrow, a woman far away will be remembering that ten years ago she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl to whom she would say good-bye shortly after saying hello. She made a choice to allow her little girl to be born. Born to leave her arms, and to enter the arms of strangers. Our daughter's Birth Mother knew that the choice wasn't truly hers, it was God's. I don't surmise this, wish this, hope this. I know this. I know this because we were blessed to be told this from our daughter's First Mommy's own heart, through her own words.

Tomorrow, as we laugh and clap, and sing and play, a part of our hearts will cry for the pain another is knowing. And yet, together we with her, rejoice in knowing that our little girl is much more than a choice.