Archive for the ‘Birthparents’ Category

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.

“What does this one say?” Rob asked, standing in the master bathroom near the sink with his back to me.

“It’s positive, like the last two, so can we put an end to the farce – clearly I’m pregnant.” I said as I handed him the third pregnancy test I had taken for him in the last half hour, making my way to go sit down on the bed.

In the bedroom I contemplated the bed, the bed that had been our bed and I decided to make my way to the living room instead. I sat down on the sofa and found that I couldn’t get comfortable, every fiber of my being reminded me that this wasn’t my home anymore, I didn’t want to be there. He had followed me into the living room and sat down in his recliner but was eyeing me warily. The was silence between us, not the companionable silence that comes with intimacy a new uneasy silence.

I could feel tears threatening to fill my eyes. This had been my home, and he had been my love, were we really reduced to this? He distrusted me so much that I had been asked to take not one, but THREE pregnancy tests. We could hardly hold a civilized discussion.

I had called Rob no less than a dozen times before he finally answered, realizing I was not going to stop calling until I got to talk to him. I explained the situation calmly and concisely – I was pregnant and I planned on placing the baby for adoption, I was only calling him because he had to sign paperwork as well. (Frankly, I didn’t really want to have this conversation over the phone but my concern was that I would never get him face to face with a cryptic “we need to talk” message.)

“Emily is going to be very unhappy about this,” he said putting an end to the akward silence.

It was the wrong thing to say, like striking a match to kindling, my sadness flared into anger with that one statement.

“Your new girlfriend’s happiness is really the least of my concerns right now,” I said as I rose to my feet and started for the door.

“Hey wait,” he said as he jumped to his feet and gently grabbed my arm, “I’m sorry it was the first thing that came to my mind.”

“How lucky for me that when I tell you I’m pregnant, her happiness is the first thing that comes to your mind,” I said bitterly, this was not going the way I had planned.

“Look, sit back down, let’s talk about this,” he said.

I sat back down, even less comfortably, on the edge of the sofa. I was ready to bolt for the door in case things took a turn for the worst.

“You know that I won’t be paying you any child support, right?” He blurted out.

The only good thing about Rob’s statement is that I was so shocked, I couldn’t make a break for it. He knocked the wind out of me.

“What?” I asked

“I won’t be paying you any child support if you change your mind and decide to keep the baby.”

I thought I was angry before, when he brought up Emily, but now I was irate.

“First and foremost, IF I decided to keep the baby, you are legally obligated to help support YOUR child, no matter what your intentions are,”

“I will leave the country before I pay you a dime in child support,” he interrupted me.

My eyes narrowed but I continued on as though I had not been interrupted “and secondly, conversations like this are exactly why I think it would be better if we placed the baby for adoption. We can’t hold a civilized conversation, let alone co-parent a child.”

I was on my feet and out the door before he could respond. I made it as far as the front porch when a wave of nausea crashed over me and I bent over and threw up in the bushes and that was where he found me.

Sitting on the front porch in the afternoon sun, after I had thrown up on the zinnas, we had a much calmer discussion. Maybe he had realized I wasn’t the enemy, this wasn’t a ploy to trap him, I had an adoption plan and really and truly if I could’ve not involved him, I wouldn’t have. Maybe seeing me in a weakened state brought out some of the tender feelings that he still had for me, somewhere underneath all the drama. Perhaps it was just that the porch was a safer, more neutral location, but calmly and civilly we discussed “our” adoption plan. (I was a little disgruntled that he was suddenly acting like he had been responsible in making the adoption plan, but as long as it got his signature on the dotted line I wasn’t going to split hairs.)

I calmly and rationally explained my search for an adoption attorney, what Mary had said when she talked to me, and where things would go from here.

“So what do you need from me?” he asked in a tentative voice, and I felt more relaxed.

We discussed and debated and in the end we agreed to three things -

First and foremost, he was not going to discuss the pregnancy at work. We lived in a small town, at the heart of which is a miltary base where Rob worked. Someday, his job would take him out of this town and I didn’t forever want to be known as the girl he got pregnant. I had already learned that gossip spread like wildfire across the base.

Second, Rob did not want to tell his parents. They lived out of State and were all ready out of sorts with him, because earlier this year he had relinquished parental rights to his daughter from his first marriage. His daughter was not quite six months when he and his wife had divorced and now that his ex-wife was getting married and the little girl was two, he felt like it was the right thing to do. (I had noticed that after he relinquished his rights his relationship with his ex-wife improved and even the way he felt about his daughter seemed to change for the better.) He didn’t think that they could survive losing another grandchild. I had only met his Father and liked him alot, but since they were no longer part of my family, I agreed to whatever was best for Rob.

Finally, Rob said he was going to cancel Emily’s two week visit. I did not ask him to this concession, but I was relieved when he made the offer. He was adamant that I was going to need a strong support network to get me through my pregnancy and he wanted to make himself available to me at any time of the day or night. He told me stories about the day his ex-wife woke up and couldn’t stand raw chicken and he had been forced to remove all of it from the house while she was sick in the bathroom.

For all the hurt and ugliness that this meeting started with, it ended on a note that I felt was hopeful. Rob and I were united in one thing – we wanted what was best for the baby. I was certain as long as we could keep our focus on the baby everything else would just fall into place.

I am pregnant. I keep saying it to myself trying to get used to the thought because really there are long stretches where I seem to forget! There’s plenty of things going on to distract me – work, dinner with friends, the impending holidays with my family. I go through all of it and pregnancy seems far away, but then a wave of nausea crashes down on me and reminds me, I am pregnant.

The day after my day of reflection, I went about the business of trying to determine how one places a child for adoption. I was not going to call any number on a bulletin board that said something like “Pregnant? Scared? Alone? call 800….” – I was never very clear what organization would be waiting for me on the other end of that line and I didn’t want to risk encountering anyone with negative opinions on how I got in my “delicate state.” (Okay, I’ll just say it – I didn’t want to be judged too harshly for getting pregnant, I know there are people who feel strongly about premarital sex and I wasn’t interested in revisiting the past – I was planning for my baby’s future.) I did the only other thing I could think of – I Googled “Adoption Attorney.”

Just as I had preconceived notions about the 800 numbers on the billboards, I had decided that I didn’t know if there was a Catholic Charities but it seemed like I had read negative things about them in the press, so I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to call any of the numbers on the ads in any magazines either. I wanted to talk to someone who was in the adoption business, someone who knew all the ins and outs so that’s why I decided to try to find an Adoption Attorney.

There wasn’t an Adoption Attorney in my small town, the closest one was three hours away, the next closest was almost six hours away, but I called and left messages with both offices.

The first office to call back was actually the office that was furthest away! The Social Worker asked questions, questions that got more and more intrusive. The questions started with things I expected like – “how far along was I” and they ventured into questions I didn’t expect, questions about my race and the race of the father and how certain I was who the father was. I started to feel a little defensive. When the social worker realized that Rob and I were both Caucasian, college educated – she seemed excited. She wanted to make an appointment to come meet with me in person as soon as possible. I made the appointment for next week, but I felt uneasy.

A little while later, the Social Worker from the second office called me. She asked some of the same questions, but there was something in her mannerism that made me feel more at ease. She did ask questions about my race (and Rob’s) but she didn’t drill me about being sure who the father was. There was something in her gentle probing questions that made me feel like she wanted not just what was best for the baby, but what was best for me too. I liked this woman, I felt like we clicked.

I talked to Mary, the social worker from the second office, for almost half an hour and she answered some of the questions that I had. I found out that I was going to have to tell Rob about the pregnancy, he had to sign papers too* or else he could later come and take the baby away from the adoptive parents claiming some sort of parental rights. (That certainly wasn’t what I wanted.) She explained that I would be provided with a counselor that I would meet with a few times over the course of my pregnancy. She was also very clear that while her office worked for the adoptive parents, they would make sure that I could have my own legal representation if I wanted it or felt uncomfortable with any of the arrangements being made.

Mary and I also talked about what the adoptive parents could help me with. I didn’t have health insurance so they would cover my medical expenses. However, there was also living expenses that could be covered depending on my need. Mary advised that I make a list of my monthly expenses that we would go over later.

We decided that she would send over some adoptive parent profiles for me to review and perhaps select parents for my child from. (Though she was very reassuring that there were more she could send if I didn’t feel like my adoptive parents were in there.) However, she was going to call and check in with me next week and give me some time to talk to Rob.

I called the first office and canceled my appointment next week, stating that I had decided to work with someone closer, in case I needed support. I never told them that they had left me with a slimy “selling my baby to the highest bidder” feeling, maybe I should have.

Then I called and left a message a for Rob and told him that we needed to talk and to please call me back.

*laws about the birthfathers vary from state to state, but I know that in my home state these laws have already changed.

It’s funny how after a break up I always feel like I’m building a whole new life, not just rebuilding my broken heart. My new apartment is five miles from work, a quarter of the commute I was making before. Since I’m fairly familiar with this part of town, it isn’t that hard to find a new grocery store or learn my new neighborhood. The initial burst of girl friend support has come and gone (where my wonderful friends have tried very hard to make sure that I’m not left to my own devices too much to contemplate my return to single status) so I’m left to settle into a new routine.

I still seem to find myself waking up on Saturday mornings feeling that little tug that I should be doing something. Normal Saturdays when Rob was in town we would go for a long walk or find some other trouble to get into. Like climbing on his motorcycle and going for a ride. Now I wake up and realize that I don’t really have anything pressing to do or anywhere to be and I am trying to enjoy the luxury of all this free time, but I have to admit that sometimes I miss him. To have someone go from being such a big part of your life and your plans from the future to being someone that you aren’t speaking to at all is hard. (I’m afraid I’ve never been very good at the post break up “let’s be friends.”)

In all of the excitement of spending time with friends, the heart ache of not talking to Rob, and the settling into a new routine I find myself looking at my calendar thinking that something is missing. I’ve never been the greatest at keeping track of my cycle but it seems like it’s been a while, longer than it should be. I don’t think it’s been long enough for me to run out and buy a pregnancy test but it’s been long enough that a nagging voice in the back of my head says that if something doesn’t happen soon that day is just around the corner.

When I was a teenager if you had asked me where I would be in my mid-twenties, I would’ve told you that I expected to have my college degree and perhaps I would be pursuing a law degree.  I expected that I would be dating a fabulous supportive man and we would probably be well on our way to white picket fence and 2.5 children.

I did not think I would be a college drop out, having fled my home and my last relationship like a refugee leaving my homeland. I didn’t expect that I would be living in an apartment with a sofa, TV, and little else in the way of furniture, but that’s exactly where I am, sitting here in the mostly empty apartment. How did I get here?

My relationship with Rob had moved fast, shortly after meeting we were living together, and our life settled down into a fun and easy schedule. We lived a little way outside of town and so in the evenings we enjoyed long walks on the quiet on the street and on the weekend we picked our way through trails that lead to an area that might grow up to be a subdivision some day, but for now it was wooded with winding trails. We went to the movies, dinners with friends, had long sleepy Sundays watching movies and lazing around the house.

Things changed slowly, I could feel Rob pulling away from me and at first I wasn’t sure why. I thought he was wrestling with his own demons, and I just tried to gently be there so when he was ready to let me in, he’d know I was there. His job took him out of town for one weekend a month, and when he came back I lapped up all of the stories that he shared and asked questions but it never occurred to me to dig too deeply.

Emily, I heard him talk about her a few times, she was a friend of a friend so she seemed to be around when he was on these weekend trips away but I didn’t think much of it, well not in the beginning. It was when her name started popping up on the caller id on a regular basis that I realized that she must be more than merely “a friend of a friend.” I also noticed that when Rob was on the phone with her and I walked into the room, he would stop talking.

It was the day that Rob met me in town for dinner and so we were both driving home in separate cars that I was forced to confront the ugly truth. I called to check messages on the answering machine from my cell phone, and Emily left a message telling Rob how she couldn’t wait to see him that weekend and she hoped that soon he would be “free” and my face burned when I realized that she meant free from me.

I didn’t angrily confront him, in fact I continued to pretend that I was still the same trusting and loving woman I had always been but I was moved out in less than a week. My Mom helped me find an apartment and with two friends with large trucks, I was moved out on a Saturday afternoon. Rob came back to town from a weekend with Emily, and I was gone, I didn’t live there anymore.

When Rob got home and saw that I was gone he called me and then we had the angry confrontation. He denied that he had cheated on me because he and Emily had never “crossed the line” in their friendship, I argued that the minute he was confiding in her about our problems instead of working on them with me he was cheating. He felt guilty but he also seemed relieved that the whole mess was over. I don’t remember how the call ended, but it ended, just as I thought our story ended.

I’m here, sleeping in the living room on the sofa because I don’t have a bed nor any kind of savings to furnish my new apartment. Still sorting through all of my belongings which I had packed in garbage bags and bundles so they were rather chaotic. In my mess I’m quite the contradiction – happy and hopeful one minute, sad or angry the next. I don’t know what the future holds but I cheer myself that the possibilities are endless.

I didn’t know it when I moved out but I was already pregnant with my son. I had a light period and just assumed that it was because of all the stress I was going through with Rob. I still remember sitting in that apartment trying to focus on all the possibilities of the future.