Posts Tagged ‘Adoptive Parents’

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 don’t think that there’s ever a good time or a good way to tell your parents that you’re pregnant, but I have to tell you before you read any further – the way I handled it was probably the worst way to go about it. It’s not any easier when you are in your 20′s than I imagine it would be when you are in your teens. The only comforting thought was that I could retreat to my own apartment when it was over instead of us all being in the same house, having to face each other over and over again every day.

It was a 20 minute drive from my apartment to my parents’ house and the whole way there I ran through different scenarios. I tried to picture what I would say and how they would react. The reactions I imagined ranged from tears to outrage. My heart was fluttering wildly and that “morning sickness” (that for me was all day sickness) seemed closer to the surface that usual. I blame my nervousness entirely on what happened next.

As soon as my Mom let me in the house, I followed her to the living room, plopped down on the sofa and in one breath I made my announcement, “I am pregnant, I’m placing my baby for adoption and while I don’t need your financial support, I would appreciate your emotional support.”

I cringed at the awkward way I had made my announcement and I was further upset when I saw the dazed expressions on their faces. I had done this all wrong, I knew it. I was griping the backpack with the profiles in it like I was ready to run screaming from the house at any moment. It was my Dad who recovered first, he blinked his green eyes rapidly and began asking questions.

“Have you seen a doctor yet?” he asked.

“No,” I admitted, and smiled despite myself. My Dad was a hospital administrator, health care was, of course, his first concern.

“Are you taking prenatal vitamins?”

“I drink a glass of orange juice and a glass of milk every day,” I responded.

My Dad gave me a stern look, and I almost laughed despite myself. This is the response I should’ve expected, this was pretty typical of my Dad. This is where the deeply logical part of me comes from.

“We could adopt the baby and raise it,” my Mom said in a quite voice, and despite the fact that my parents raising my child was the last thing I wanted, my heart swelled and I loved her so much for being willing to do that.

“Jane, we would be in our 70′s when this baby graduates high school,” My Dad said very gently.

My Mom frowned and her hazel eyes welled up with tears as she looked at me. “I’m just worried that no one else will know how to raise your baby, just as I haven’t always known how to raise you.” She said.

Tears sprung to my eyes. My Mom and I have always been very different, I tended to take more after my Dad, but I never dreamed that she attributed those differences to some fault with her or how she was raising me. It was like the Earth shifted under my feet as I looked at my Mom with new eyes. I wondered how many bratty teenage fits she blamed herself for, thinking it was some short coming on her part, and it broke my heart.

“Mom,” I choked out between sobs, “you’ve been the best Mom I could ask for.” I said as I hugged her and together we cried. We cried for things that had apparently gone unspoken between us for too long, for the baby that we would welcome into the world and then have to say goodbye to. We cried for each other, both of us imagining the heartbreak that laid ahead, not for ourselves but for the other one. Even my Dad’s eyes welled with tears. When we were all cried out, we discussed things calmly and rationally.

My Dad was adamant that I needed to call and make a Doctor’s appointment first thing on Monday, and I promised I would. When I told them about the meeting with Mary from the Attorney’s office, my Mom said she would be there to offer her guidance and support. These were the easy things to sort out, more complicated was who else would we tell?

On both sides of my family I had cousins who were currently involved in the adoption process, trying to adopt, so we decided not to tell our family, beyond our family immediate circle. I wasn’t comfortable having my baby go somewhere so close to home, where I would be involved in the baby’s life but expected not to be overly involved. I didn’t want them to feel rejected that I wasn’t considering them but I didn’t want to be pressured by them either, keeping the pregnancy quiet was probably safer.

I carefully fanned out the profiles and let my parents review them. I didn’t say a word, as I didn’t want my feelings or thoughts to shade theirs. After reading all of them my Mom looked up at me very seriously.

“You are 100% sure, that you want to place this child for adoption,” she asked and after I nodded at her she continued, “because I can’t imagine any greater heartbreak than to tell someone you’re giving them a child and then to take that away from them.”

“I’m sure Mom, I want something more for my baby then what I can give it right now.” I said and she sensed the sincerity in what I was saying.

My Mom and I put our heads together to go over the profiles again. My Dad restlessly excused himself, he said he was going to get the names of some doctors. I sensed what he couldn’t say, that putting this baby up for adoption was going to be harder on him than he was was going to be able to say.

My Mom narrowed the profiles down to three, my top two were in her three. I explained my concerns about the cat allergy to her and so we eliminated one of her three. Like me, once we were down to the same two she felt a pull towards one couple over the other. There are really no words to say why, but I felt more confident in my decision with my Mom and I on the same page.

When I left, I had the other profiles in my bag but I kept out Beth and John to look at over and over again, they were the parents I told myself as I flipped through the profile, MY adoptive parents. I looked at the house and I imagined my baby (sometimes a little boy, sometimes a little girl) sitting at the table and playing in the living room.

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.