Archive for the ‘Adoptive Parents’ Category

I know that I’ve gone back and forth on this, but my situation with Russ is no longer just a hypothetical situation – he asked me out (for Valentine’s Day no less) and I said yes. It didn’t happen completely out of the blue, he called me a few times and we talked on the phone like high schoolers! We talked about everything, our families, our hopes and dreams for the future, everything but the one thing I’m wondering if I should’ve brought up – the baby. I love talking to him and the more I talk to him the more I like him.

I’ve been full of doubt and concerns about this situation. Sometimes it seems unfair that while I am pregnant and my life is all about the baby, Rob has moved on with his love life, shouldn’t I get the same opportunity? Should the baby really keep me from going out on a date with this man that is funny, kind and caring – he’s educated, gainfully employed, and seems to have so many of the traits that I’m looking for in a life partner.

Ever my own worst enemy, I can’t help but look down the road and play “what if” which makes everything seem to take on new importance. What if we really hit it off, when do I tell him about the baby? What if we fall in love and he wants to keep BOTH of us, would I let that affect my adoption plan? What if I tell him about the baby and he runs screaming in the other direction – am I really ready to deal with that? I keep telling myself that all of this playing “what if” is really borrowing trouble from tomorrow, especially since those were all things that might never come to pass, but then in the back of my mind “what if” would whisper again. I know I’m being silly, I know that a new and handsome man is not really going to change anything in my life, let alone my adoption plan, but still my brain shifts through all the options. It’s my greatest strength and weakness all at the same time.

Beth and John have purchased plane tickets to come visit in a month! Her email bringing this news to me also brought about a minor panic attack on my part, what if they reject me? What if they meet me (and presumably Rob) and decide that they wouldn’t want any child that came from the two of us. My panic attack lead me to sit down and with tear filled eyes write a big email to Beth laying out any and all potential problems that this baby could’ve inherited from Rob and me. I started with the normal things like our cat allergies, but I delved into the more serious problems. My struggles with school which lead to being diagnosed with Dyslexia and Rob “allegedly” having ADD, the alcoholism that Rob’s family brings to the table. I shook every genetic skeleton I could think of out of the closet and laid them out on the table for Beth’s inspection.

The email I got back brought even more tears. Beth treated each of my confessions seriously, she did not just send me back a dismissive letter assuring me that they just wanted a baby and would love it. She told me that John doesn’t drink because alcoholism is prominent in his family and that they would make sure that the baby grew up as John did, knowing the dangers of alcohol. She treated each concern seriously and laid out a plan of attack for how she thought she would handle that situation if it happened, and after each fear had been addressed then she assured me that they already loved the baby and that nothing so trite as dyslexia or ADD would make them not love the baby.

Her email brought tears to my eyes but it also brought me peace of mind. My fears had been addressed and assuaged. Beth and John would love the baby, if it wasn’t pink and perfect forever – it was theirs and for them, that was more than enough.

I have loved having Beth’s email address, we email back and forth several times a day. Through the emails I’ve been getting to know Beth better and the more I get to know her, the more I like her. Some of our emails are about the baby, my pregnancy and their plans for the future, but some of them are just emails about our lives. She’s working right now in retail, but she’ll be quitting to be a stay at home Mom when the baby comes. She asked about my job, what I like to do on my days off, if I go to the beach since I am so close. I feel like she’s interested in me, as a person, not just me as a human incubator for her future child. I can tell that we are still feeling each other out, trying not to say things that will upset the apple cart, but I feel like a solid foundation is being built. Beth and John are planning a visit to come down and meet us sometime in the next month or two.

I’ve always liked my quite, independent life, but lately I’m thinking that it might be time to let someone else in – I’ve been thinking about getting a dog. When I grew up, we always had dogs, and I think there’s a certain magic to the relationship between people and their four legged companions. One thing that has got in the way is that I prefer bigger dogs, and it seems like apartment dwelling dogs are always of the small variety. However, I took an online dog compatibility test and Greyhound came out at the top of the list. I had never really thought about getting a Greyhound, they are runners and I am not, but I emailed my local rescue group to get more information.

In other news, I’ve run into Russ a couple of times, and he always seems very happy to see me. We chat while we wait in line and when we part ways he always tells me to have a great day. He has this amazing bright smile and I have to admit that I’m developing quite a crush on him, but still I’m pregnant…am I allowed to have crushes? or go out on dates? I’m still not sure but right now I’m just enjoying that this handsome man seems to be interested in me.

I still have weirdness at work with Cathy, and I’m really sad about it. She seems to be keeping her distance from me, and she’s someone that was not just my boss but my mentor and my friend. I can’t imagine why she would be so disappointed or upset with me, but she certainly seems to be. I normally tend to confront problems straight on so I would normally confront her, but there is something about this pregnancy that makes me feel so vulnerable. I think there’s part of me that is genuinely afraid to find out what she might say if I pushed the issue.

The man who bought me my hot chocolate, his name was Russ and he is a flight student in the Navy. I know this now because I saw him in Circle K, and I smiled and said hello and thanked him for his generous gift. We talked for a few minutes and then we both had to head off to our perspective jobs. Russ makes me feel conflicted. He is handsome and generous, someone that in another time and a place I would love to go on a date with and I would be hopeful that a relationship would form, but can you date while you’re pregnant? I’m not sure, but as he hasn’t asked me out yet, I suppose that’s putting the cart before the horse.

With Rob back in town, Mary and I setup a phone call between us and Beth and John. I wanted to do it while he was still out of town, but he surprised me and said that he would like to be there. In an effort to show that I was willing to be accommodating I drove out to his house on the day of the call and they called us there.

It was a strange feeling, that feeling that this house that had been OUR house, was not mine anymore. It seemed a little surreal to be there as a visitor, but I was excited to talk to Beth and John so when the phone rang on schedule at 6:00 I could hardly keep myself from answering the phone like a breathless teenager.

“Hello?” I said, and for a split second I was filled with terror, what if this was Emily?

“Hello, is this Joy?” a woman’s voice said from the other end.

“Yes, yes it is!” I said excitedly.

“This is Beth,” the voice said.

“And John,” a male voice chimed in.

“This is Rob, the birthfather, I’m here too.” Rob said from the phone in the bedroom.

It is very hard for me to explain the connection that I felt to Beth and John from that very first phone call, but I felt an immediate connection. I felt a current of excitement between the three of us immediately. Beth and John started to ask questions about how I was feeling, what my likes and dislikes were now that I was pregnant. I told them about my recent cravings for Crab Rangoon, how during the really ferocious bouts of “morning” sickness my coworkers were bringing me french fries since they seemed to stay down better. I got a sense that Beth and John were happy that I had people in my corner. I told them about feeling the baby, and I could tell they were as excited as I was! I asked about what they do for a living, what preparations they had made, and without me asking they told me about the journey that brought them to adoption.

Rob stayed quiet during the first excited exchanges and then he cleared his throat and said “I have some questions I would like to ask.”

Hmmm, this was news to me.

“What religion are you people?” Rob said.

“We’re Catholic,” John said.

“I guess that’s okay, I wouldn’t want to give my baby to a Satanist or anything” He said.

Nervous laughter erupted from me, and I could tell it sounded off, but frankly, this was as unexpected to me as it probably was to Beth and John.

“I’m Mormon, so Religion is very important to me.” Rob announced.

In truth, Rob was raised Seventh Day Adventist and in college became LDS when he met his wife, well now ex-wife. He was a non-practicing LDS, early on in our relationship I had helped him burn his garments and other things that he was not allowed to wear because of his current Church status. I was a Christian Mutt, raised Episcopal, went to a Catholic School, and attending a Methodist Church – never during the course of our relationship was religion ever an issue – I was shocked to hear it was an issue today.

Rob asked more questions about their educational backgrounds, their relationship, and their family medical history. At this point the Rob was asking questions and John was answering them and I felt like a tub of cold water had been thrown on me. I knew about their education backgrounds and their relationship, all of the questions that Rob asked were in their profile. I also though asking about their medical histories was kind of funny because that was really something we brought to the table more than the adoptive parents.

Finally, Rob seemed out of questions and there was a pause.

“Would you like to exchange email addresses?” Beth asked softly.

“No thanks, have a good evening,” Rob said and hung up.

“I would!” I said at the same time, and then repeated it after Rob hung up, “I would really like that Beth.”

So we exchanged email addresses and said our good-byes. I hung up the phone feeling happy and hopeful.

I left Rob’s house that night a few minutes later. I had nothing to say about his interrogation, because I tried to remind myself that what we needed to feel confident in our decision was different and as long as he felt comfortable and at ease with our decision, it should ultimately make the whole process easier on all parties involved and who was I to say what should be important to him in this process?

I’ve always been something of an early bird, my eyes popping open shortly after the sun comes up, even on Saturday. Pregnancy didn’t change that, but now I found myself nodding off on a lazy day, hanging around the house. I was having a lovely lazy Saturday when I decided to wander out to the mailbox and that changed everything.

In my mailbox was a package from the Attorney’s office and inside were five profiles of prospective parents for my baby. I practically ran back to my apartment where I could lay them out and look at them in peace. My heart was racing and my palms were sweating, I was so nervous!

I sat down cross legged on the floor and took a deep breath before I pulled them out of the box to look at them. I was trying to think logically, what was I looking for? How would I know my baby’s parents when I saw them? I was going back and forth between trying to apply logic and telling myself I was going to have to trust my gut, two very different instincts at war within me.

I had five profiles with five happy couples smiling up at me. I picked up each one and with tears rolling down my face as I read the stories they held and looked at the pictures. In some ways they were the same, there were letters of introduction and most of them had shared their adoption journeys with me. Those journeys were full of longing, heartache, and medical procedures that sounded expensive and painful. Some of the profiles had endorsements from friends and family and some of them held promises that I would never be forgotten from my baby’s life, or from theirs. By the time I finished the last profile I was bawling.

I took a deep breath and stepped away from the semicircle of profiles that I had made. I went in the kitchen and rifled through the fridge looking for nothing in particular and settling on a glass of milk.

Were my baby’s parents in that stack? Would I know them if I saw them? Was one of those couples anymore deserving than the others? Questions were swimming in my head, questions that no one could answer for me. Rob was the only person who knew my secret and he was out of town visiting Emily.

I could do this, I had to do this, I thought as I sat down back in the middle of the semicircle of profiles.

I applied the lens of logic first as I picked up each profile and looked at it again. Two of the five profiles showed cats, Rob and I were both very allergic to cats. (I had actually almost been hospitalized over my cat allergy before.) I took the cat owners and put them in a separate pile. I was 100% positive that those parents would give up their cats for a baby, but I also knew that cat dander was hard to get rid of and I didn’t want my baby to start his new life wheezing and his parents saying goodbye to furry babies.

Trying to maintain my logical view there was a third couple that I ruled out because their profile talked alot about “love at first sight” and how they had only recently become a couple. They were confident that their love was strengthened by their struggles with infertility but I had just been burned by my own love at first sight experience. I wanted a more stable couple, one that was more established. I put them in the pile with the couples who had cats.

This last decision felt a little less logical and a little more from my gut, and it made me a little uneasy. Was I judging these people? It seemed wrong, but I was trying to chose the best parents possible for my baby. I knew that any couple could fall out of love and end up getting divorced, but I just didn’t like the odds for a newer couple. I comforted myself that something in that profile would resonate with another birthmother, it wasn’t like a game show where if I didn’t pick them they would never get picked.

I was left with two profiles and from a logical standpoint they looked similar and I knew it was time to fully go with my gut. I picked them up and read them, evaluated them over and over again. I read the profiles so many times that I still remember the names of that second couple, the couple that would not become the adoptive parents for my baby. Of the two profiles there was one that spoke to me more than the other, there was something comforting in their letters, something welcoming in the pictures of their home.

Even though I found myself leaning more towards that one couple over the other, I was overwhelmed again by the decision that I had to make. This was forever, could I really make this decision by myself?

I picked up the five profiles and put them in a back pack, and I called my parents to ask if they had some time for me to stop by, they said they did. With shaky hands I grabbed my car keys and headed to my parents house, to tell them news that I suspected would change our relationship forever.