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From the New York Times and WBUR Boston, this is Modern Love.

Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption. I'm your host, Megna Chakrabardi.

Becoming a parent can be one of life's most rewarding experiences, but also one of the most

challenging, full of curveballs and some very tough decisions. For Elizabeth Fitzsimons,

the challenges began before she even brought her daughter home. Here's Connie Britton,

best known for playing Tammy Taylor in NBC's Friday Night Lights and Raina James in ABC's Nashville,

reading Elizabeth's essay, My First Lesson in Motherhood.

I saw the scar the first time I changed Natalie's diaper. Just an hour after the orphanage

director handed her to me in a hotel banquet room in Nanchang, a provincial capital and

southeastern China. Despite the high heat and humidity, her caretakers had dressed her in two

layers, and when I peeled back her sweaty clothes, I found the worst diaper rash I'd ever seen,

and a two-inch scar at the base of her spine, cutting through the red bumps and peeling skin.

The next day, when the Chinese government would complete the adoption,

was also Natalie's first birthday. We had a party for her that night,

attended by families we'd met and representatives of the adoption agency,

...