It Has a Heart

This summer has flown by.

Monday was A’s Happy Adoption Day.  We hung our ‘Celebrate Adoption’ banner on the fireplace mantle.  In the morning, I gave my daughter a huge hug and wished her a happy adoption day.  We went out to the living room and she looked at the mantle.  A great big grin was on her her face.

“It has a heart!”  She raced over to finger the banner.  “And there is an up, down, across (the method we have been using to teach her how to write the letter A)…and another one there (pointing)….There are 2 A’s on it, just for me!”

I love you sweetheart.  After 2 1/2 years, you still make my heart smile every day.

French + Irish + Scottish + English = Adopted

To understand my husband is to understand his family.  His parents came up during the Great Depression.  His mom spent all year saving and siphoning groceries for the family vacation down the shore.  My parents would have taken the family out for over-priced Chinese food.

 

My husband was adopted.  He was adopted at 5 days old, by 2 loving parents, a bit older than the rest of the crowd in the neighborhood.  His brother, two years older, was also adopted.  Except for the occasional “Gee, I have no medical history,” inkling, he has no tangible curiosity about his birth parents.  Born before the Benetton explosion of multi-multi-culturalism in America, he was given an assignment in first grade, regarding Nationalities and Folk Ways.  “Irish people believe in Leprechauns,” the assignment began, “This is a folk way, or tradition.  Go home, find out a folk way from your family and heritage.”  So he went asking.

 

“Mom, what Nationality are you?”

“French, Irish, and English.”

“And what Nationality is Dad?”

“Scottish, Irish, and English.”

“And what Nationality is Craig?”

“Polish.”

“And what Nationality am I?”
”You’re Armenian.”

 

Fractions and subsets were not yet on the curriculum for first graders, but somehow he had his doubts about his next question, “So, French plus Irish plus Scottish plus English equals Polish and Armenian?”

“No, honey, you’re adopted,” she answered.

 

Then they explained what it meant, and that they had chosen him, and loved him very much.   His first grade self took it in stride, knowing these parents, the only ones he’d ever known, were the ones who loved and supported him, listened to his weird jokes, and drew sketches of Spider-Man for him, because that’s what he was interested in.  Some “birth” parent had no idea of what went on in his budding mind, or how he liked his pork chop gravy.  His mom and dad were his mom and dad.  What passed from them to him in a glance or a guiding hand or a decade of rides to the mall is what formed who he is.  Oh, and shortbread and bagpipes are Scottish folkways.  Armenia – that’s near Greece, right?

 

You are Going to Do What?!

We have a pretty open adoption with our oldest daughter’s birthmother – E.

She got married this past weekend and we have been thinking about her quite a bit these days. Especially how her life has changed in the past 3 years. She is now married and is expecting a baby in the fall.

While I never went into this process asking for, or really expecting such an open arrangement, I have come to terms (on most days) with my extended family. As time passes, I expect our relationship will only deepen and I hope as she grows her family – first husband and soon another child that she will parent – we will become even closer. Relating to each other as only two mothers can do.

Today on my way to work I was thinking about our first visit with E. In October 2005, we went to meet our prospective birthmother in person (as I would think any adoptive parent would want to right?) and yet, at every turn I asked by family and friends alike, “you are going to do what?!”

10/2005
We sat at the hostess’s station, waiting to meet E. The place was dark, with Christmas lights in the rafters. There were lots of funky pictures and paintings on the walls. We were so nervous.

She had said to watch for ‘a pregnant woman wearing a red shirt with very short hair.’ And then in an instant, in she came. I hugged her and said hello. Jokingly commenting on the short, shaved hair. She smiled.

We sat down and the conversation started. It flowed really well much to our suprise. She had pale skin, several small earrings, and a shiny tongue ring that rattled when she laughed. She had a nice smile. Every once in a while, I caught her rubbing her belly. She was tiny, except for that belly.

When the waitress came, she ordered chicken tenders and fries and a Sprite. I wanted her to order something more ‘sensible’ something that would prove to me that she watched what she ate, that she was taking care of our possible child-to-be. No such luck. She proceeded to dip and roll each and every fry into sugar. So much for wanting. Eating habit, like everything else on this ride wasn’t up to me. She invited us to try her pregnancy craving creation and we did. She also liked peppermint ice cream.

To that point, we had semi-open match. Meaning that no last names had been exchanged. Well, she didn’t know our last name. Then my dorky husband takes out his little blue photo / scapbook albumn that his mother had lovingly put together for our wedding. The book had pictures of trips to the shore, first day of school, and various 80’s mullet haircuts. The cover had 3-inch high gold letters – including our last name. Welcome openess!

After eating dessert, E asked us if we wanted to stop by her apartment to meet her dog for a few moments. We said yes, taking our time to pay the bill and slowly drive there. We knew she had to talk to her dad first to process everything with him. She lived in an apartment complex and had a tennis court in her back yard. The apartment was small, a mess of blankets where a couch would be. The t.v. and computer monitor sat side by side. Her kitchen was a mix of bottles, beer and soda. I prayed there was food in the fridge (here I go again – but one could hope right?) A small hallway of three closed doors. She shared some paintings, her own work, with us.

We took some pictures together, and with the dog. We all agreed that what had transpired in the last 3 hours actually felt more normal than not. It felt good to be so honest with each other.
We left, with a hug and a promise to talk this weekend. Maybe even a visit soon. She invited us to come anytime.

And then we were off, driving back to our other lives.

Happy Adoption Day

Yesterday was our younger daughter’s “Happy Adoption Day,” another special milestone for our family. 

 Our celebration went off without a hitch, expect for the bomb scare that cleared out the new 3 story couthouse minutes before we were supposed to meet with the judge.  Once inside, things went as planned.  Photos were snapped.  Happy tears wiped from the eyes of friends and family.

It seems like just yesterday we were initiating paperwork, scheduling homestudy appointments, and waiting for a match.  In hindsight, we were very lucky and had learned much from the adoption of our first daughter.  Our match came very quickly and it turned out to be our daughter waiting on the other end.  Even as ‘experienced’ as we were with the adoption process, every time is different and while we were waiting we were nervous wrecks, convinced tht we couldn’t find perfection the second time around. 

Juggling an open relationship with one birthmother already seemed like all I/we could handle.

Somehow we survived the ups and downs and will be forever grateful to W, J’s birthmother.

Great Things Happen to Great People

Among the 5 of us we now have 8 children.  All of them miracle babies complete with their very own miraculous story.  All of them special and all of them deeply and completely loved.

In March 2005 I started a peer support group for RESOLVE in my local area.  My husband and I couldn’t believe there was no support for people struggling with infertility and family growing options in our area.  And we were sick of driving.  Oh, so sick of driving to appointments and meetings and clinic visits.  You name it, we had to drive there and it just seemed impossible to fit one more location into our already over scheduled infertile lives.

I choose a location near my home so that if no one showed up for a meeting I could easily return in minutes.  I hung up flyers at doctors offices, yoga studios, beauty salons and therapist offices.

J and J were my first ‘couple’ and in fact they were the only people who attended a meeting for a good 3 months, maybe longer.  It is hard to remember now.  The peer support group does not require any long term committment, but J and J hung on.  We (along with my husband) became fast friends.

At first J and J struggled with male factor infertilty issues.  Then the other shoe dropped.  Everytime Girl J went to to the doctor she received some bad news of her own.  But they hung on.  The stress of work, the insensitive comments from family, the many hours spent in front of the computer searching for THE ANSWER. 

The rest of us – our circle of friends had now grown to 5 (more if you include the husbands) - began to slowly (and I don’t use the term lightly) resolve our family building struggles.  Girl J tried a new diet and Boy J hit the gym.  A vacation was taken.  Time off was considered after the devestating death of twin nephews.  Their path seems built upon loss after loss.

J and J decided to pursue domestic infant adoption and held the yard sale of all yard sales to help fund the cost.  Friends and relatives happily donated trash and treasure for the cause.   After interviewing agencies and setting up meetings things seemed to be progressing.  And yet, after much debate J and J changed course and began a parent training program through DSS.  Maybe it was their bad experience with a particular agency that led to this, maybe it was wrong information along the way or lack of guidance from a knowing adoption professional.  But things happen and they went down this new path toward parenthood.

Their request, an infant 0 -12 months.  J and J knew their chances and decided that the finanancial future of their family couldn’t withstand the cost of a ‘typical’ infant adoption.  Boy J wanted to give up his second job someday…

They waited.

They decorated a coordinated nursery, suitable for a boy or a girl.

They waited.

On April 14 a baby boy was born and 2 days later J and J got a call.  The baby was legally free for adoption.  He was healthy, he was perfect, and he was now their son.  That Saturday, to the joy and happiness of all who have waited with them, J and J brought home Baby J.

Great things do happen to great people.

And She Wore Purple Pants

My husband and I recently attend the annual ACONE Conference.  We attended several workshops, caught up with frineds from support groups, purchased books in the well stocked bookstore (hard to believe there are some books on adoption that I haven’t read yet!), and just enjoyed being around others who were just like us – touched by adoption.

I had to smile when I saw our agency’s booth.  Not only did our social worker have the standard ’social worker hair’ (my husband was amusing himself conducting an informal poll of the social workers at the confernece,) there was a small crowd of people at the table.  All looking longlingly at the photos of children that had been placed, talking earnestly to the director – ‘oh, we will take twins’ – and sneaking chocloate from the candy dish.

Just over 3 years ago my husband and I went to meet with the director of a small adoption agency in Waltham, MA.  She came to the door talking on her cordless phone, and wearing purple jammies – kind of.  Maybe more like balloon pants – remember those?  It was definitely a home office, or a home she works out of anyway; a Waltham townhome jammed up against another, but with plenty of parking in the back.  Snow-clotted walkway, and an invitation to take our wet shoes “there,” please.  So we did.

She anticipated our questions.  She acknowlodged a vibe she had about me from a call over a year ago.  The same vibe carried through to our meeting.  Domestic infant adoption was for us!  She laid out some fees, and general timelines and couched all of her comments with ’but anything can happen.’  Oh those inevitable exceptions!  She showed us the “Birthmother” books from the couple in the Caribbean, the Graphic Designer couple, the scrapbook queen.  She told us that adoptions are generally too expensive, and she has structured her agency to combat that; we would work with a team.  Us.  Her.  A Social Worker.  A facilitator (mostly on the west coast), and the Birthmother they find for us.  That they get to like us from our book.  A book highlighting our hobbies.  Hobbies?  Holy crap, we don’t have any hobbies.  At this point in our life, our hobbies included crying, driving back and forth to the clinic and other various doctor visits, eating out in restaurants, and petting our dog.

That’s ok, she said, because there are 3 things Birthmothers tend to shy away from.  Older couples.  Ugly people.  And sometimes homosexuals.  (her words, not mine)  So young hot straights have it made – hobbies or not?   She kept telling us we would have NO PROBLEM getting picked.  It’s a guarantee; and it would be under or about a year.  And cost only slightly more than 2 cars.  Or half of a luxury car.  Or a garage addition.  Or ten plasma TVs.  But worth every penny.

Thinking about wanting/getting/having a baby/child was so abstract in those days for us.  A fucking week has gone by, and the feeling sinking in then was of purpose and forward momentum and building.  Now behind the salt-rimmed headache of too much crying there is just mist.  Hard to focus.  Are we moving forward?  A GUARANTEE.   We will be parents?  We were so ready to hear those words, just then and from her.  The home study itself costs just about a years’ worth of car payments.  Or 1 and a half plasma TVs.  But it is entirely worth it.

She laid out a scenario where we could get the home study, while working on Donor Egg cycles.  If a cycle works well, we can put the adoption on hold.  Having to “update” our home study once a year, for about the cost of a storm door.  Or half a snow blower per year.  Happy donor cycle works, child comes along.  We can adopt for #2.  More happiness.  Who wouldn’t want that?

The costs have our heads spinning, and my uncle generally somewhat distant, has made a very generous offer to help us with some costs, through my father.  Wouldn’t it be better to allow a family member to extend a generous offer, helping provide for your family, than to bankrupt yourself in the process going it alone?  At the risk of sounding totally obnoxius, I stronly felt at that point that I was due for someone or someting to make this whole process of growing my family a bit easier.

The lady in the purple pants said things were going to be ok.  And I had to belive her.

THE CALL

See all those people driving along and chatting on their cell phones?  Wonder if any of them are in the middle of THE CALL.

I was thinking today about the role of THE CALL in the adoption process.

THE CALL can come from a social worker telling you that your paperwork has finally been approved and you are now free to come home after weeks away in another state where you have been eating a steady diet of peanut M&Ms.

Or maybe it is your facilitator or lawyer who makes THE CALL.  This conversation is the one that has real potential to change your life forever.   In heart pounding silence and open mouthed awe, you are informed that a potential birthmother has ‘expressed interest’ in you.

The real test for most adoptive parents is when THE CALL from a potential birthmother.  THE CALL from a potential birthmother brings you crashing  back to your high school all of your insecurities.  Your dating days memories come flooding to the surface.  The “special” time when you start to question who you are at the moment and who you will become in the future.  No pressure, but this is the call when it is most important for your true self to shine through.  No pressure.  Ha ha!

I found it was helpful to talk to as many people as possible in preparation for this moment - THE CALL from a potential birthmother, whenever it happened.  Just to hear advice from other waiting parents calmed my frayed nerves, and gave me hope that I would soon be in the very awkward situation of basically dating the mother of what I hoped would be my future child.  Somehow you make it though and honestly the key is to be yourself.

When we got THE CALL I was at a meeting.  Around 9pm my cell phone beeped indicating that I had received a message.  I heard my husband asking me when I was coming home.  My first thought was that something had happened to our dog (who had been sick that week).  When I called my husband he was acting weird.  My next thought was that someone had dropped by the house and I tried to think who it would be.  Maybe it was a surprise for me.  I asked him if I should come home now, before the meeting was over and he agreed.  I asked him if we had received a phone call and he said yes.  Then I got it.  I grabbed my purse, my half eaten sandwich and my water bottled, said my goodbyes and left. 

The car ride home was the strangest 43 minutes of my life.  I started laughing aloud and thought this was so exciting.  Then I compared this moment to how I felt after getting the call from Dr. W saying we were pregnant.  It wasn’t the same, to be honest, but it was a good feeling and I want to run with it.  I had a vision of my husband saying that we had to fly somewhere tonight and tried to guess where that would be.   

Suddenly a strange sense of calm kicked in.  Maybe my defense mode was up and I was trying not to attach too much importance to this call.  It was only a call after all. I tried to think about other things and then just before turning on the radio to hear the President speak I realized that somewhere out in the world was a possible son or daughter of mine (a bit ahead of myself, but I was hoping for the best possible outcome!)

When I got home my husband had me look at the computer where he had typed some notes from his conversation with the facilitator.

“9/15/2005 tonight at 8 pm I was sitting on the sofa watching “Extra” TV, and eating a peanut butter sandwich on Texas Toast. The dog had just found his missing Clifford Toothbrush – it was behind the sofa.  I suspect the nieces. At eight, I received a phone call that I answered with my mouth half full of peanut butter. The call was from C. She told me a birth mother had called her this morning, and wanted to speak with us…”

My 95 year old grandmother had recently written me a letter with the advice to relax.  Anyone else would have gotten an earful.  As anyone who has ever been through infertility treatments know, the ‘just relax’ sentiment is about all you can stomach before socking the other person in the jaw or running over their cat.   Seeing as the letter came from Grandma, I let it go.

But she was right.  I needed to listen mostly;  to find out all I could without probing.  I like to think that I spoke and listened with compassion that night.  Almost as if a co-worker or a friend was coming to me with this situation (I have a baby I cannot care for).

So I took a deep breath and my husband took a picture.  I called E. 

And OUR CALL lasted for 1 1/2 hours.

Top 5

As an adoptive parent I tend to find myself in the position of being on the receiving end of some really ‘interesting’ comments about my choice to build my family through adoption.  Nothing is off limits and questions come from close friends and strangers alike.

Here are the Top 5 winning questions (in no particular order) to date.

1.  Didn’t your husband want any children of his own?

This question was posed to me by a co-worker.  It was a slow shift and we were talking when I shared with him that I may not be around the office much during the summer since we were hoping travel out of state to bring home our second child.  This co-worker and I aren’t particularly close and to be fair he doesn’t know all the intimate details of my life.  However, the fact he assumed that the ‘problem’ was mine and that my husband (who was very much invested in the adoption process) would prefer ‘his own children’ totally rubbed me the wrong way.

2.  Do you have to give them back when they turn 18?

We have open adoptions with both of our daughter’s birthmoms.  A close friend of mine, upon hearing the news of our first daughter’s birth told me that she was overjoyed for us, that she had shared the news with her mother (I am close to the entire family) and that she had just one question for me.  What a winner it was!  She was concerned about the ‘open’ part of our adoption and wondered if we had to give our daughter back when she turned 18.  Somehow I can’t get my head around the fact that in her world I was going to do the raising of the chlid (hard part) and that someone else would reap the reawards.  Although given the cost of a college education these days, this arrangement may seem like a good idea to some people.

3.  How much did they cost?

Ahhh….the money question.  A rough poll I conducted of other adoptive moms in a play group I attend with my girls, proves the money question is a favorite of the the well meaning friend, as well as random supermarket patrons.  Got to watch out for the little old ladies who shop between 10am – 2pm.  As for me, it was a neighbor who first wanted to know. 

4.  Are you going to tell them that they were adopted?

Both of my daughters were adopted at birth.  We are the parents they know and love.  Of all the questions that I am asked about adoption and my family, this one really takes the cake.  I have been asked this question many times, by all sort of people, and it always amazes me.  Of course we are going to tell the girls that they were adopted.  In fact, they already know.

5.  Now that you have adopted, are you going to have some children of your own?

This last question was asked, oddly enough, by a couple who attended the monthly infertility support group that I run.  For the record, after almost 2 1/2 years of being a parent I have no doubts that these children are mine.  The love I feel for them is very real and they make my heart smile everday.

A is 2

Our house is a case study for Nature vs. Nurture.

This fall, my daughter A turned 2.  Where has the time has gone?

She is so much like me – always wanting to put things ‘back’ (phone to the cradle, covers on the tupperware, socks back her her drawer.)  I love watching her play with her dolls, imitating the way I talk to and care for her baby sister.  She loves to laugh, loves to cuddle, and loves to learn.

I laugh when people tell me she ‘looks just like me’ – as an adoptive mom, I know that looks aren’t what matter and have learned the hard way.

(Read secretly pleased that she shares my curly hair)…just another sign we were meant to be together.

Maybe she is just exhibiting the quinessential toddler behavior that thrives on order and routine.  Demanding to read the same bedtime story over and over and over.

Or maybe not.