As I sat in the hospital room, waiting for my 4th grand-love to make her early, but grand entrance into our hearts, I could feel the anticipation rising. Anticipation of meeting her for the first time. The deep longing and constant dripping from my emotional well for the past 26 years, has been to be a grand mother. Someone once asked me what my biggest dream was. There was not on bit of hesitancy in my response. ” Why, to be a grand mother, of course!” You s
ee, all of my children and grand-loves are my dream come true.
I will be honest though. When my son asked me to be in the delivery room with them, hiding the look of terror that I felt crawling from my chest onto my face was difficult. I was not sure that I could handle being in the room. It was not because I didn’t want to be in the room with them. On the contrary. Being present meant experiencing first hand one of my dreams coming true. The problem was that I wasn’t sure I could keep my act together while my daughter-in-love was in pain. So, I did what any normal person would do. I sent my sisters a text message, convincing myself that I could infact do it. One of my sisters encouraged me to look at the birth of my grand-love as an opportunity to bring healing to my heart. What I had not realized was that 32 years ago, on May 25th, I allowed a goofy, compassionate and skinny 5 year old boy to capture my heart and be my first dream come true. John Mark became a Stafford on that day. Since I did not actually give physical birth to John, my sister encouraged me to allow this to be my birth experience with him… Those words rang true. All of a sudden I knew that I could do it. We were going to experience a birth together. A birth that would change our hearts and lives, just as his adoption changed my heart forever.
All Things Maddie 
