My friend just got a baby. As in, someone knew someone who knew my friend wanted to grow her family through adoption, and happened to know a birth mother looking to place her baby. Fourteen days later the baby was born and relinquishment papers were signed. And now my friend has a baby. A darling, perfect, fabulous, gonna-change-the-world-baby.

And at first I was a little jealous. I’m going to go ahead and just admit that right here. I mean, it took us almost two years and a Maserati in legal fees to finally call Sugar Biscuit ours. But someone literally just called my friend and she just goes and picks up her son and everything goes smoothly with no hiccups at all. No hours in a courthouse, desperately trying to dry out her armpits from the stress sweat of trial, no professionals who thought they knew best playing with her future. Just a baby in blue, swaddled in his new daddy’s arms, coming home to a posterboard sign made by his sister.

Since jealousy feels to me like a new wound of oral surgery, I took some time to prod my tongue around my discomfort and see if I could unearth where my feelings were coming from, and get a handle on them. No one likes a jealous woman, least of all me.

And what I found was this.

Families are formed EXACTLY how families need to be formed.

My friend got her miracle in a short period of time and we are both still breathless with joy over what was gifted to her. It took me a whole lot longer to get over that rainbow, and my baby boy is a pot of gold worth waiting for. I needed, for my soul’s purpose, all the things I learned on my journey. And maybe my friend needed a huge dose of wonderful, all at once, and in great supply.

This is how families are formed. This is how our children are brought to us. Sometimes with great struggle and sacrifice, and sometimes with ease. Our children bring to us exactly what we need to know, so that we may parent them, and so that we may learn our own lessons for this world.

I know there are women and men who have struggled and longed for a child. I too have lost children. Each of those babies wizened me, helped me realize the preciousness of life. For those of you who long to hold a child in your arms, I say to you, TRUST. Your children will come to you in their own time, and they will be perfect in their own way, and the wait will have been worthwhile.

Whether you become a mother by accident, by adoption, by marriage, or perhaps are a mother in name only, know that each child whose star aligns with yours needs you. And you need them. Two halves will become a whole, the road you walk will someday converge with the babies of your heart. You will hold these children, each precious, to the sky and claim them as your own.

And no matter how long you walked to get there, how painful your path, you will both be Home.

-Sarah