A prayer answered and a song of love for a P.E.I. mom

Mother's Day is a day of mixed emotions for Nicole Bellefleur. She became a mother in February 2014 when she travelled to Ethiopia to bring home her nine-month-old daughter, Ayanna.

She remembers vividly her first Mother's Day, after going through an adoption process that took six years.

"It was so joyful, it's hard to describe," said Bellefleur.

"At the same time, I have to acknowledge that there is her birth mother, her first mother, who made the biggest sacrifice so that I could be her mother."

Bellefleur won't say what happened to Ayanna's mother, but that she is very mindful of her loss and grief.

"As much as I am joyful, I am very aware that a lot of my joy came at the expense of someone else's joy as well."

'Not a mother'

Mother's Day used to be a painful day for Nicole Bellefleur.

"I never wanted my feelings of emptiness to overshadow celebrating my mom on Mother's Day," she recalled.

"But when you're waiting for a child and everything you've tried to do to become a mother has led to a dead end or has not worked out, it's really hard sometimes to be happy to other people on Mother's Day.

She recalls one Sunday morning at church when there was a special acknowledgement to all the moms.

"I felt like there was a big neon arrow pointing down at me saying 'not a mother' when all the other women would stand up and be acknowledged," she said.

She struggled to get through Mother's Day, putting on her "happy face".

"It magnifies the sense of loss and emptiness for all the women who are waiting and trying and not succeeding and just feeling so frustrated."

Never give up

Bellefleur started to pursue her dream of adoption in the summer of 2008, moving back to P.E.I. and buying a house.

But by the fall of 2009, her adoption agency had gone bankrupt.

"I had put so much of myself into that process and I felt that I had to just keep going and see it through to the end, however long that took," she said.

"I just knew not to let go of that dream."

A Mother's Day rose

She was in Mexico on a business trip in 2013, where Mother's Day is celebrated on May 10 no matter what day of the week it is.

She went to the hotel restaurant not knowing everyone there would be celebrating Mother's Day.

"To walk into that, I was hit again with 'it's Mother's Day' and I'm surrounded by all these happy mothers," said Bellefleur.

"I'm just sitting here in my business suit, eating my soup, just wanting to be done."

As she was leaving the restaurant, the maitre D chased after her and handed her a rose and wished her a happy Mother's Day.

She grabbed the rose, ran to the elevator, went up to her room and cried.

But Bellefleur also believed in the story of Saint Therese, that receiving an unexpected rose meant that a prayer had been heard.

She didn't find that out until four months later, to the day, when the provincial adoption coordinator contacted her to say a match had been found for her in Ethiopia.

As she went back over her child's records, she discovered another connection: the day that she received the rose and, the baby girl went into care in Ethiopia.

It even happened in the evening in Ethiopia, which would have been around lunch time in Mexico.

'Beautiful blossom'

The story is reflected in the name she chose for her daughter: Ayanna Ferida Maryam-Therese.

Ayanna is an east African name that means "beautiful blossom," similar to the meaning of her new last name, Bellefleur.

Her middle names are Ferida, the name given to her in Ethiopia, and Maryam, the Ethiopian version of her grandmother Mary's name.

Therese is for the story of the rose and a prayer answered.

A song finds you

The story of the rose also inspired a song by singer-songwriter Maxine MacLennan. The two met a couple of years before Nicole went to Ethiopia to meet her daughter.

"It was pretty inspiring, I felt such compassion for Nicole," said MacLennan.

"The way she talked about it and the grace she had going through it, it just seemed fitting that it should be written about."

MacLennan started with some poems Bellefleur had written about the adoption and the story of the rose.

The song has been shared on many adoption sites around the world since she first performed it for Nicole and Ayanna.

"Sometimes you can't ask songs to come to you, they just do."

Special spot

Nicole and her daughter will spend Mother's Day, along with her mother, the way they usually do — at a place with special significance to the family.

"A big part of this story is how I was able to, as a single parent, pull together the resources to be able to adopt a child, so in addition to my full-time job, worked part-time at Lobster on the Wharf," said Bellefleur.

"So the Larkin family is a big part of this story, I don't know if they know it, how much it meant to me."

"Because if not for that part time job, I don't know how I would have been able to save the money to pay the adoption fees."

'Hold onto your dreams'

Bellefleur wrote in 2011 that if she became a mother, she would never take it for granted and she reminds herself of that constantly.

"Even when sometimes parenting can be hard, especially as a single parent, I'm still grateful for every moment," said Bellefleur.

"And every Mother's Day as much as I'm celebrating, I know that there are others who are hurting just like I used to be hurting, waiting for my turn."

As she wrote last year on Mother's Day: To those of you still waiting, hold on to your dreams.

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