As a teacher, Valentine’s Day is always special since I am around kids.  I have to remind myself that love is not just romantic love, it is also appreciation and telling someone that behind all the strictness and meanness lies a person that really does care.  However, I have had those Valentine’s days that I wanted to throw up on someone or just wish the day away.  I remember a day in college where I was single with no hope of love and yet my dorm mate and I celebrated happily in the cafeteria.  I remember the year I sent myself flowers that I proudly carried them around to brag.  I had two years where I was married, but separated so this day was just awkward and I had a few where I was loved by my husband, but still longed for a child.  In the middle of not wanting to over-celebrate the love of our baby boy…we are still peacefully reminded that this may be our only child so live it up big.  Your friends will understand that this child was a dream for many years and continues to be a “pinch me please” experience. 

The road is not perfect in adoption.  You still feel reminders of infertility and pangs of jealousy when you see someone experience a pregnancy, but you are also reminded how good it feels to be a child’s mom and know this new feeling of a different kind of love.  We gave our birthparents a Valentine Day collage of pics of their boy telling them how much we love this gift.  To each other, we both celebrated this new love of staying up late, getting spit up on all the time and experiencing a new selflessness.  In the midst of this joy, I also look back and celebrate the years that we longed for this but never knew how or when we would get it.  I remember those years fondly too of going out, sleeping in late and just indulging in the lack of bills which gave us more money for each other.

Whatever stage of life you are in then embrace where you are.  It was not easy for us during those years of infertile pain and yet we made it.  In fact, we made it and thrived. 

The good news is: God is the greatest love of all and it never gets old.  I am thankful on this day to have a two month old to love and a healthy husband to hold.  I know it all goes by so quickly so I will embrace it.