How Orphans Made Me A Better Mother.

I feel like I have been a mom forever. 

Maybe because I grew up number 4 of 7 children and at one point in my life I was sharing a room with a brand new baby and my responsibility as a, oh... 5 year old, was to go to the baby's crib when she was crying and stick the soother back in her mouth. 

yup, I was a professional, "soother"

I didn't always like babies. as a pre-teen and teenager, it is terrifying to hold something so small, even more terrifying when it starts to cry.

When I graduated at 18, I was encouraged by my father to go "do some good in the world"

I reluctantly flew to Cuenca, Ecuador to work with orphans. I say reluctantly because, at that time in my life, I would have rather built houses, or made food for someone or... anything but take care of babies. they scared me. 

When I arrived, I found out I wouldn't be working with the newborn babies. 

Thank goodness

But my heart sunk when I found out that I would be working with handicapped children. Handicapped Orphans. That probably scared me more than babies. 

I spent the first day in the little house near downtown Cuenca, watching children I didn't understand. A girl with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and a cleft palate on the top of her mouth so large that it was irreparable and everything she ate came out of her nose. A little boy with cerebral Palsy, whose arm we had to put a "cast" made out of toilet paper rolls and tape on so that he couldn't eat his hands. an 18 year old boy... who's diaper I would have to change. 

There were many other children with horrifying reason's for being there, abandoned and taken to an orphanage. some were born handicapped, others have longer, more complicated stories... stories that still make me cry. 

I left thats first day feeling terrible, but not for the reason you might think. 

I went to my group leader, at the house I was staying in and told her I needed to work somewhere else. 

I wasn't sure if I could love these children as much as I needed to. They scared me. 

I was encouraged to go back and give it another day. 

Long story short. I fell in love deeper than I ever thought I could. 

I worked my three months, went home, and immediately returned to work another three months. 

A few years later, I returned to see my babies on my own accord as a backpacker.

Some were all grown up

  

and some had passed away. 

But all of them changed me in amazing ways. I am a better mother to my baby because of these children. because of that place. 

*to support this Organization, sponsor a child, or look into volunteering your time and heart to this organization click HERE*

To check out a song a wrote for the volunteers that were with me in Ecuador, click HERE (keep in mind that I recorded this song in an attic in Ecuador on a mini keyboard) :)

I am a mother. 

Not a great mother. But a better mother than I would have been if I had not experienced the things I did in my life.

Some people are born great mothers. I know so many women who are amazing mothers and I always knew they would be.

I have a great mother. And I have every opportunity to be just like her. 

“My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.”
― Jodi Picoult

xx - r

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