My Monday’s Many Thanksgivings topic: Birth mothers! Of all things I am grateful for on this journey, our children’s birth mothers are the ones I think of daily. It is incredibly humbling to know that they choose us to parent the children they carried in their wombs. Without their decisions, the miracle of our family would not exist.

I know that their decisions came from a deep love of their children. They could not provide the circumstances that they had in mind for how they wanted their child to be raised. I also know that it grieved them to have to make this choice. When our son’s birth mother, Mama A, handed him to me, I will never forget the sensation that passed between us when we touched. I could physically feel the amount of pain she was in, as she passed her son into my arms. It was an intense feeling of immense, overwhelming joy at finally being a mother mixed with a powerful realization of the cost of the joy which I was experiencing. Even now, when I watch the bio-families say goodbye after a visit, sadness washes over me because I cannot imagine having to say goodbye to our children. I cannot imagine kissing them, not knowing when is the next time I will have that opportunity.

To say that I am grateful for them is an understatement, but the English language does not have adequate words to describe the sense of appreciation I have for the opportunity that they have given us to get the privilege of experiencing parenthood. Each day, I am greeted with smiles, hugs and kisses. My heart is fulfilled in ways that I could never have imagined. My life is a series of lessons, both the ones learned and those that are in need of teaching. My world has been expanded immeasurably.

Every day, I get to hear these little beings call me “Mama.”

All of this, because two woman made a choice that I am not sure I would have had the courage to make. They choose to become birth mothers.