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I have been (kindly) informed by several readers that I have been slacking. And for that, I apologize. I wish I could say that the holidays took over my life and I simply was much too busy contemplating “the reason for the season” to labor over my blog. But the truth is, I haven’t exactly been a little ray of sunshine lately—Hell, I didn’t even bother decorating a tree this year. So, rather than crap all over everyone else’s celebratory seasons, I have been keeping myself to myself. Sometimes you just have to quarantine your own foulness lest you infect the shiny, happy people around you. I’m not channeling perky Pollyanna these days, but wretchedness is supposed to be a writer’s cattle prod. Perhaps that will bode well for my current scribblings.
Part of my current malfunction is that I am stillstillSTILL waiting. In my world, “to wait” is no longer a verb, but a perpetual state of being. I haven’t even spoken to my social worker in months; for all I know, she could have left the adoption agency for a career as a Cirque du Soleil unicycle clown. The interminable delay has created a unique form of boredom that literally is painful to endure.
I try to fill my non-working hours with positive, constructive endeavors, but I can distract myself with only so many practical, productive projects before I am reeled back to reality by my various underlying issues. While I sometimes can wear out my body with endless trips to the gym and various late-night excursions, getting my brain to …stop… appears to be a whole other matter. Unfortunately, when trying to fill a void, bad habits and old patterns of behavior tend to slip back on as easily as the ripped Nirvana T-shirt shoved in the back of the closet that is too far gone to wear in public yet too damn comfortable to give to Goodwill.
Patience has never been a virtue of mine. I’ve tried to cultivate that particular talent, but it continually escapes me. I’ll admit it: If I want something, I want it now. And if someone has the nerve to tell me “no,” I’ll relentlessly pursue my objective until I find the loophole that enables me to obtain whatever it is I apparently feel I can’t live without. In my current predicament, however, there simply is nothing more I can do. No more forms to fill out or phone calls to make. No appointments to keep or classes to attend. I’m like Captain Hook, afraid of the ever-present tick-tick-tick of the clock. Although mine hasn’t been swallowed by a carnivorous crocodile, it constantly reminds me of how many years of my life I have spent pursuing this goal. Simply put, all I see from my shaded window is a gaping black hole, and I find myself running out of things to fill it with.
Because Thanksgiving is drawing near, I would love to be able to give you a list of all of the things for which I am truly thankful. Unfortunately, my head is too full of the real reason we gather around the table together each November: Food. Ruminating on what I’m going to create for Turkey Day and, more importantly, what I’m going to eat, makes my toes curl in slavering anticipation.
When contemplating all of the possible delectable edibles, I tend to reach back to my childhood for inspiration. My family never had a lot of money. Not that we were living out of flimsy cardboard boxes on the street, but expenses like vacations and new clothes were not common purchases in my household. (Although I do remember touring Gettysburg, Pa., at one point. My dad made us stop and read every single historical marker. I wasn’t too broken up about skipping the whole vacation experience after that.) However, food was one of the many areas in which my mother knew how to stretch a dollar. She grew her own vegetables and made almost everything from scratch. There was no way she was going to pay hard-earned cash for something she could grow in her own backyard or produce with her own two hands. I didn’t even have those pricey little jars of pureed baby food—that’s what a blender was for! It wasn’t unusual for Mom to make a giant pot of soup or chili and serve it every night for a week. Leftovers were never, ever, thrown away—they were either eaten or turned into a “new” dish.
But on special occasions, my mother’s cooking turned from simple sustenance to fabulous foodstuffs. Recently, a friend strongly “suggested” that I make banana bread. While I love the subtle sweetness of this dessert-like nosh, I don’t seem to bake it very often. As the fragrant aroma of the banana/sugar/vanilla trifecta wafted out of my oven, I was transported back to my mother’s kitchen, waiting for the buzzer on our 1950s pink hand-me-down monstrosity to alarm so I could be first in line to receive a hot-out-of-the-oven slice of mellow, melt-in-your-mouth scrumptiousness. In that instant, I realized banana bread rarely makes my baking repertoire because that particular provision is, quite simply, my mother’s. I tend to want tweak recipes as I develop my concoctions, but it’s rather hard to improve on Mom’s perfection.
I have come to the conclusion that 90 percent of my positive childhood memories somehow revolve around food. I remember spending hours sitting on an old-fashioned hand-crank ice-cream maker so the lid wouldn’t come off while the adults pumped the handle, hoping-hoping-hoping I’d be the first to get a taste whenever the mixture inside was deemed frozen. I remember picking red-ripe strawberries on hot summer afternoons, putting only the very smallest in my bucket because I knew they were the sweetest. I remember being just the tiniest bit happy when I was sick enough to stay home from school because my mother would make cinnamon toast for breakfast and chicken and biscuits for lunch, just to coax me to eat. My birthday was my favorite holiday, not because of the gifts, but for the sheer fact that I got to choose the menu for the entire day! If I wanted pancakes for breakfast, homemade mac and cheese for lunch, and pizza for dinner, all I had to do was say so, and no one (aka my big brother) was allowed to influence my decision. Now that was a big deal.
To this day, much of my life is spent thinking about food. I plan a dinner menu for the week, saving my baking for the weekends. I like to get up early on Saturdays to shop at a local open-air market, even if that means I’ll have to make a separate trip to the grocery store later. I look forward to social occasions because they give me an excuse to get out all of my pots and pans and make a giant mess.
With such a focus on gastric pleasure, I sometimes wonder if my future adopted child will love the kitchen as much as I do. Will he/she pick up a spatula or shun the stove? Will I be creating my child’s memories with the help of a food processor? Will my grown-up child stand in his/her own kitchen some day, smiling over recollections of food experiences gone past?
I hope so.
I am an undercover nerd. If you have been following my blog since its inception, you may have stumbled across a few clues to my incognito geekdom (see my previous post, “It’s Not Easy Being Green“). I am not obvious about it: I do not wear a Steve Urkel pocket protector and regulation highwaters or play D&D while drinking Faygo in my basement, but I will admit to a near-OCD need for correct spelling and proficient organization.
My obligation to order, however, does not seem to infect every area of my life. For example, if you saw the uncontrollable chaos that is my guest room, you might wonder if a pack of wild gnomes devised a midnight home invasion simply to empty the contents of my closet onto the bed, desk, and floor. (Those little guys may look cute in their pointy red hats, but they’re sneaky.) On the other hand, my book collection is arranged alphabetically by author, and I can put my hands on my copy of “The Count of Monte Cristo” in approximately 2.4 seconds. I think the source of this segregation comes from my personal perception of worth. In all honesty, if those wiley gnomes ate a hole through my knee-high black leather boots, I could find substitutes if I was willing to shell out the dough. But, although almost none of my books are expensive or rare, each has sentimental value that cannot be replaced with a simple trip to Barnes & Nobles.
The original member of my collection.
While my basement bookshelves hold the usual mix of modern fiction, biographies, and classics, the top two hold the best part of my collection: my children’s books. The original member of this medley is “The F-U-N Book” by Mabel Guinnip LaRue. With such riveting short stories as “Goose-Goose and Pig-Pig” and “Woody Woodchuck,” I’m sure you’ve never heard of it. Set in electrotype in the ’20s, it was my grandmother’s first reader. She gave it to me when I was six years old, and while I didn’t appreciate it then, now I’m quite happy I was able to hang on to it for a couple of decades.
My favorite piece of this varied assortment is a picture book by Berkeley Breathed (illustrator of the “Bloom County” comics) titled “Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big.” The book is about Edwurd, a boy who plays baseball in his house, breaks his mother’s ceramic pig, and tells a ginormous whopper to cover up his crime. Just when Edwurd is about to get in terrible trouble, his sister, Fannie, fibs and says she broke the pig. (She’d learned to lie from the best, of course.) Edwurd won’t let his little sister take the rap by herself and, so, confesses.
My favorite collection piece.
“…But we sat in Time Out to pay for our crimes.
Then Ed looked at me with a smile that was new
And said, ‘It is nice to have one like you.’
Two former fibsters, that Edwurd and me
But brother and sister we finally be.”
My big brother gave me this very special book for Christmas several years ago, and if those pesky gnomes so much as scratch the dust jacket, they will find themselves utilized as statues in my weed-riddled flower beds.
After visiting Borders (again) this weekend, I have added another component to the assemblage: “Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born.” By Jamie Lee Curtis (who adopted two children of her own), this picture book is about a little girl who begs her mother to tell her the story of her birth:
My latest addition.
“Tell me again about the night I was born.
Tell me again how you and Daddy were curled up like spoons and Daddy was snoring.
Tell me again how the phone rang in the middle of the night and they told you I was born.
Tell me again how you screamed.”
Because stories about adoption seem like a pretty niche market for the under-5 crowd, I was slightly (although pleasantly) surprised when I came across this gem. Intrigued, I began searching the children’s section of the store. An hour later, I was a bit more astonished when I figured out that “Tell Me Again” was the only adoption-centric kids’ book I was going to find. (Online outlets, such as Tapestry Books, are your best bet.) I was not at all amazed, however, when I returned home and unwrapped my purchase, only to realize that this book is the first possession I have bought for my future child. No annoying rattles or designer baby booties for my kid! I sure hope the love of reading is one of those nurture vs. nature things, because I apparently have been unwittingly amassing my little one’s book collection for years.
Looks like I might have to teach my munchkin how keep his/her nerd status classified, too. It’s all right, kid, Mom has had a lot of practice.
Kids ain’t cheap. If you already have ‘em, you probably are beginning to wonder if your local grocery chain and shoe store have started accepting Monopoly money. If you are trying to fund an adoption plan or invitro-fertilization (IVF) cycle, you may be a little more desperate. But before you take a second mortgage out on your home (risky) or ask Grandpa if you can, um, perhaps have some of that inheritance money a little early (tacky), do your research. Several charitable organizations fund grants and loans to help prospective parents afford their future bundles of joy.
After my husband and I shelled out approximately $13,000 for our first failed IVF cycle, I knew we would be hard-pressed to come up with that kind of cash again any time soon. (And when I say cash, I mean cash. Most fertility clinics don’t exactly accept American Express.) We had borrowed part of the funds from our parents, and I was reluctant to drain anyone’s retirement for another round of medical procedures that already had proved to be as big a gamble as a day at the track. As I began searching for alternative ways to scrape together enough money to start a second cycle, I realized I didn’t have to look very far: The doctors at my fertility clinic recently had set up a philanthropic organization that endowed their services to childless couples that had attempted at least one unsuccessful IVF cycle. With nothing to lose, I applied for and, a few months later, received $11,000 worth of clinical visits, medications, tests, and procedures. When my second IVF cycle failed as well, I was particularly glad I never made that drive out to Little Italy to pay Vinny the Shark a visit.
Now that we are getting closer to writing some hefty checks to our adoption agency, I once again am hunting for the proverbial money tree. Because of the effects the recessive economy has had on my income (my company has decreased employee salaries by 10 percent), it’s becoming harder and harder to pad our savings account. Making small concessions, such as utilizing our local public-transportation system, can only get us so far. Don’t get me wrong, every little bit counts and slow and steady wins the race, but fast and speedy pleases the needy and a nice fat check in my pocket surely would help me sleep at night.
To that end, I’ve applied for a grant to (hopefully) subsidize our $14,000 adoption plan. I would love to say that I flexed my journalistic muscle, reached out to a couple of contacts, and called in a few favors to find a bunch of underground, super-duper-secret organizations that hand out the dough like fun-size Milky Ways on Halloween, but the truth is I simply availed myself of the gift of Google and various reading materials to amass a collection of adoption-specific funding programs. And while the application process is not what I would describe as a wicked good time (be prepared to—at minimum—write a “personal statement,” find your W2s, and squeeze a copy of your completed home study out of your social worker), some of these organizations have the capacity to set you up with big bucks if you’re lucky enough to be awarded a piece of the pie. The following list is just a small sample of some of the better-known adoption-funding institutions; I whole-heartedly encourage you to check these out and then do a little research of your own. While you may not meet the requirements of every grant you discover, applying for just one could keep you from paying your adoption agency with couch-cushion change. Even the tiniest bit of effort can help you reap substantial rewards.
Gift of Adoption Fund. With an average award of $3,500, Gift of Adoption will consider any U.S. citizen who has an approved and current home study from a licensed and accredited adoption agency. The grants support domestic adoptions as well as those from Hague-member countries. A one-time fee of $40 is required to process an application.
HelpUsAdopt.org. Available to U.S. citizens living in the United States, HelpUsAdopt.org provides qualified couples and individuals (regardless of race, religion, marital status, or sexual preference) with grants of up to $15,000. Applicants must not be undergoing infertility treatments while pursuing adoption.
National Adoption Foundation. The National Adoption Foundation’s grant program is open to all legal adoptions, including public- or private-agency, international, special-needs, or attorney-facilitated adoptions. Grant amounts range from $500 to $2,500.
Show Hope. A Christian organization founded by Stephen Curtis Chapman, Show Hope’s eligibility requirements include a reference letter from the applicants’ minister. Grants from $2,000 to $7,000 are awarded for domestic and international adoptions.
I was in a wedding last weekend that, all things considered, should have been a train wreck. The bride, Jenn, and I have been BFFs since we swapped friendship bracelets at summer camp in the seventh grade. On the surface, we don’t have much in common. Jenn has a bubbly, bouncy personality and listens to country and the Top 40 countdown. I, on the other hand, don’t do perky and would rather set my hair on fire and stab my inner thigh with a fork than suffer through a single verse of anything American Idol-related. However, Jenn is the one person who tells me when I’m full of crap and yet celebrates my particular brand of crazy. The ability to recognize the functionality of someone else’s dysfunction often is all that is necessary for a well-founded friendship.
Because our relationship is so solid, I felt perfectly comfortable flashing Jenn my patented are-you-effing-crazy eyebrow arch when she originally announced she was scheduling her outdoor wedding for the middle of October. (Here in the Midwest, the chances that she was going to be blessed with weather anywhere close to suitable were slim-to-none.) A bastion of optimism, however, Jenn fought the good fight and stuck with her precarious plans. Unfortunately, the power of her positive thinking wasn’t quite strong enough to warm the Northern Hemisphere, and the bridal party shivered its way through a couple of hours of picture-taking before the ceremony finally was moved indoors. (Trust me when I say that no amount of love and affection can make up for having to wear a strapless dress on a day when the high was 48 degrees. However, in Jenn’s defense, the getup I originally had my eye on was about 8 in. shorter. I probably should just be grateful that none of the other bridesmaids share my penchant for inappropriately short skirts.)
The fire department arrives on scene.
Alas, the weather was the least of Jenn’s wedding-day disasters. Of course, a few of the usual minor mishaps occurred—glasses were broken, boutineers were misplaced, and tantrums were thrown—but this wouldn’t be much of a story if that was the worst I had to offer. Next up in the catastrophe catalog: The best man neglected to make an appearance, and there apparently was some question as to whether he was on the run from the law. (Wait, it gets better.) The pièce de résistance was that the venue’s fire alarm was pulled. Not once. Twice. Sirens squealing, lights flashing, firemen storming through the door… It was every bride’s wet dream.
The firemen save the day.
(I must pause for a moment to note that if I ever meet the facility designer who decided it was a good idea to install a fire alarm at 4-year-old eye level, the jackass better be able to run.)
By this point, any other bride would have been reduced to tears. Personally, I would have ripped off somebody’s head and aimed for a strike at the nearest bowling alley. Instead, Jenn turned every tragedy into an opportunity for laughter. As I sat stuffing my face with wedding cake, I marveled at how my friend could simply let her predicaments fade into the background and focus on sharing what was left of her special day with her new husband. Rather than worry about the complications she had no control over, Jenn joined her family on the dance floor and attempted to perform the Chicken Dance in a floor-length bridal gown.
I will always be jealous of Jenn’s ability to drop-kick her baggage at the door. The capacity to shrug off anxiety is a talent I really could have utilized during the past few years. I’m not sure I can face my birth-mother search with a cheery, positive attitude; my brain just isn’t hardwired for blind hopefulness. But I can borrow Jenn’s approach to adversity: So many friends and family members have chosen to groove the Adoption Hokey Pokey with me, the least I can do is strive for cautious optimism.
I feel like I just got dumped by a guy I wasn’t particularly interested in. The social worker called this week to inform us that Birth Mother #1 chose another set of adoptive parents for her child. Because the mom in question had been imbibing a few too many alcoholic beverages for the first six months of her pregnancy, my husband and I weren’t entirely sure this was the right situation for us. Therefore, while I am not exactly on my knees sobbing “Why me?!” to the heavens, I am a tad bit put out—I am disappointed, but for all the wrong reasons.
(Ahh, rejection … Ain’t it a blast?)
This situation takes me back (waaaaay back) to high school, reminding me of football games, homecoming dances, and really, really bad boyfriend selections. Freshman year, I dated a guy best described as a complete tool for a few torturous months. Like most teenage girls, I was young and dumb, basing my significant-other preferences on a complex algorithm of … hotness. With an ego the size of the Hindenburg, I was surprised every time he was able to fit his head through a doorway.
Eventually, instead of just telling the guy I didn’t want to see him anymore, I began a process that has since been nicknamed “The Fade.” The Fade is a very basic strategy that consists of slowly phasing yourself out of another person’s life by “forgetting” to return phone calls, becoming incredibly “busy” with extracurricular activities, and finding alternate routes to and from all of your usual haunts. If applied correctly, the unwanted partner simply wakes up one day realizing he/she hasn’t been in contact with you for days (or weeks, if you’re seriously subtle about it). The Fade was popular because it made the transition from breakup to single life (or to that other hottie you had your eye on) almost seamless.
In this case, The Fade worked so well that the boy-of-the-moment left a note in my locker saying that I’d been terrific, but, well, he was looking for a girlfriend who was actually, you know, present. I have it on good authority that after slipping the note into my algebra book, he posted a friend around the corner to gauge my reaction. Apparently, I opened my locker, found the note, laughed, and immediately trashed his supposedly heartfelt words. While I don’t specifically remember being that bitchy, it sounds like something Teenage Me would do, so I can’t categorically deny it.
The funny thing was, even though I had jumped through all of those hoops to worm my way out of the relationship, I actually felt jilted: How could he dump me? Forget the fact that I had been screening his calls for two weeks and had told his best friend that I was tired of dealing with what’s-his-name’s over-inflated sense of self—I was totally awesome and deserved someone willing to try a little harder! (I did mention the part about being young and dumb, right?)
No matter the status of the relationship in question, getting the ultimate brush-off can sting. Even when you are expecting (or hoping) to be ditched like last week’s pair of rotten gym socks, relief often is mixed with a touch of regret.
Extricating yourself from a sticky situation can be difficult, but attempting to force a perfect match can reap consequences that are just as problematic. While I wasn’t completely sold on accepting a baby who had been pickling in her mother’s womb for six months and I didn’t seem to make that fabled magical connection with the birth mother, a part of me must have felt I could channel Tim Gunn and “make it work.” Although I’m sure I would have tried to construct a Valentino knockoff out of 3 yards of powder-blue felt and a handful of sequins, I probably would have ended up with a hot mess on my hands.
I must be an exceptionally slow learner: I think God/Allah/Yahweh/karma/fate/the omniscient Powers That Be have been trying to teach me patience for the past decade or so. Apparently, this has not been an easy lesson for me to grasp.
I subscribe to the philosophy that everything happens for a reason. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, no accidents. When something bad occurs, I choose to believe I can learn from the experience. The problem is, even though the Powers That Be have left me several messages, I don’t always check my voicemail. Therefore, I continue to be educated on the subject of patience until I want to punch someone in the face.
I have to admit that I enjoy a little violence. That I thirst for a bit of mayhem. And that I take pleasure in watching grown men beat the ever-living crap out of each other. (sly grin) Enter my love of ultimate fighting. Earlier this week, I was watching an interview of Kimbo Slice, a mixed-martial-arts fighter best known for street brawling. He described how, in his former life, he was so full of rage that he fought any challenger, no matter the circumstances. He saw every opponent as a serious adversary. He then began to realize, “The Enemy is the Enemy. The Enemy is the Ene-Me. The Enemy is the Inner Me.” Oooo, snap! Sage advice from Kimbo Slice.
Although my man Kimbo isn’t the first person to come up with the whole I-am-my-own-worst-enemy concept (see: Lit), his words happened to come at a time when I needed the reminder. As I mentioned in my previous post (“Decisions, Decisions”), my husband and I met with a birth mother last week. Our social worker had told us that Birth Mother #1 expected to make her decision over the weekend. But instead of calling to report a verdict, the social worker rang to inform us that Birth Mother #1 has opted to wait until after the baby is born to choose her adoptive parents.
(grrr…)
Internally, I threw a mini temper tantrum. There may have been some minor pouting involved. While I didn’t ground-and-pound anybody, I did let the not-so-optimal turn of events affect me. Obviously, Birth Mother #1 has every right to take her time. I even understand why she wants to wait: There is a chance the baby might be biracial, and, if she is, Birth Mom wants to give her to non-white parents. I get that. I comprehend the situation. In fact, I’ll actually be OK if we’re not chosen—I just don’t want to be left dangling on the edge. I want to know either way. Now. Now, now, NOW!
(Deep breath… Inhale, exhale…)
That kind of reaction from my Inner Me is exactly why I continue to be instructed on the subject of patience over and over. And over. And over. And over.
So, when I saw my social worker’s number show up on my phone Friday afternoon, I took a moment to center myself before answering. Lo and behold, the social worker had more bad news: Birth Mother #3—the mom who canceled our meeting last week—is having second thoughts about putting her 11-month-old daughter up for adoption. (Shocker.) It seems that an aunt is considering taking care of the little girl full-time.
Before I started gnashing my teeth and stomping my feet Veruca Salt-style, good ol’ Kimbo’s words echoed in my head. If I continue to let my Inner Me act as my Enemy, my fury will consume like fire, ruining this whole experience not only for me, but my family as well. I might have to fight to stay in control at times, but that could be a struggle worth winning.
My very first birth-mother meeting started out like a low-budget horror flick. On Friday, John and I drove to one of our adoption agency’s offices, which is in a pretty—for lack of a better term—shitty part of town. Streets deserted. Storefronts boarded. A pervading feeling that its citizens have run out of options and given up.
We parked and walked toward the building, which looks like it once was a mom-and-pop grocery store but now is a catch-all for the community’s outcasts. We passed an angry young woman who was shoving her fists in her coat pockets and scowling at the building’s facade, muttering, “He’s staring at me. I can see him. He’s staring at me. He’s staring at me. Why is he staring? He’s staring at me.” As we pushed through the door, I realized a skinny black man in baggy jeans and a dingy hooded sweatshirt was sitting in the front windows with his face to the glass.
We walked up to an employee seated behind a sliding-glass panel and asked for our social worker. She wasn’t there yet, the woman said, so we could either wait inside, or … her voice drifted off and she rolled her eyes and shrugged. I took this to mean, “You can either have a seat in here with the crazies, or you can go wait in your car.” I found “the crazies” much more interesting than the inside of my windshield, so I chose a folding table and sat down. As we waited, I checked out the peeling linoleum and the anti-smoking poster that featured a photo of a screaming baby’s giant head. The fluorescents kept flickering, making the zzzt-zzzt-zzzt-zzzt sound of an electric bug zapper, and I found myself waiting for a ski-masked ax murderer to make his appearance.
About 15 min later, our social worker walked in with an extremely pregnant girl in tow. I was a little surprised because our social worker had said the baby might be biracial, and for some reason I had assumed the baby mama was black. John, who had assumed that she was white, won the round as Birth Mother #1 was a 5-ft-2-in. blue-eyed blonde. (Funny how two people can interpret the exact same information in completely different ways.)
Once we were all settled in a back office and Birth Mother #1 started chattering, I kept expecting to hear the resounding bang of a gavel hitting a podium: Birth Mother #1 spoke as fast as an old-school auctioneer searching for the highest bidder. (“I hope you were able to follow that,” John said after we left. “Because half the time I had no freakin’ idea what she was talking about.”) I basically tried to nod and smile at what I thought were the appropriate moments, thinking I could sift through all the detritus later. Because I doubt anyone wants to read about how much fatter she was when she had her first child or how she went to the hospital for a skin infection only to be sent home with antibiotics and a positive pregnancy test, I’ll just feature the highlights:
The Good
After we got past the ADD, Birth Mother #1 seemed pretty cool. She was in and out of the foster-care system before being adopted herself, and she doesn’t want her baby girl to have the same turbulent experience. But at 24 years old with a 7-year-old son and no job prospects or high-school diploma, she simply isn’t prepared to start over with a newborn. Although she is literally ready to pop any day now, she seems firm in her decision.
My favorite thing about Birth Mother #1 is her sense of humor. Our social worker was trying to keep her focused by suggesting topics she should ask us about, such as our style of discipline. Birth Mother #1 grinned and said, “It’s not like they’re going to tell me if they’re psycho child-beaters, Deb!”
The Bad
Unfortunately, Birth Mother #1 doesn’t know who her baby daddy is. She thought she had it narrowed down to two possibilities, but both “men” have completely disavowed any culpability. (One guy said the kid couldn’t possibly be his because he had gotten a vasectomy, while the other blamed a case of the mumps for rendering him sterile. Although the whole situation is truly sad, I had to laugh because I could just see these guys looking for the nearest neon-red exit sign. “She’s pregnant?! Aww, hell, no! Quick! Think of any half-baked excuse that will get me out of this!”)
The problem is, state law protects baby daddies by making sure adoption agencies exhaust every resource to find biological fathers before terminating their parental rights. Soooo, once the baby is born, she will have to go into foster care for a state-mandated period of time while the adoption agency searches for the biological father. (This “search” basically amounts to an ad in the local newspaper.) Therefore, while we would be able to arrange visits through the foster family, we wouldn’t be able to bring our child home until about six weeks after her birth.
The Ugly
The biggest issue is the fact that Birth Mother #1 did not realize she was pregnant for the first six (yes, six) months, and because she was working in a bar/club at the time, she was drinking steadily about four nights a week. This leaves the proverbial door wide open to a whole slew of problems, including the possibility of fetal alcohol syndrome. While her doctor thinks the baby looks OK thus far, there really is no way to know if the child will suffer physical effects until after she is born, and any mental disabilities might not be apparent until she is of school-age.
It’s hard to consider adopting a child knowing there is a better-than-average chance that severe issues could eventually pop up. After all, one of the benefits of adopting is getting to actually pick out your kid. I have a feeling it would be incredibly hard to say “thanks, but no thanks” if Birth Mother #1 chose us as parents for her child (Um, hello, I’ve been waiting to hear the pitter-patter of little feet for more than four years now—do I want to risk taking a pass only to get stuck waiting another year?), so a part of me kind of hopes it won’t be our decision to make. If Birth Mother #1 picks another couple, I’ll be escaping what would have been an agonizing judgment call.
(In other related news: Birth Mother #3 canceled our Thursday meeting because she was sick but said she hopes to reschedule for later this week. Also, Birth Mother #2 did not request a meeting with us.)
I am the quintessential “grass-is-always-greener” person, always checking out what’s on the other side of that white-picket fence. I typically want that which I can’t or shouldn’t have, isn’t possible, or isn’t readily available to me. I am unsure if this is a personal flaw or simply a characteristic of the collective human consciousness. (I’m hoping it’s the latter, because then I don’t have to accept responsibility for this unattractive attitude.)
For example, I currently am sitting in a Nashville hotel lobby, bored beyond belief and irritated at myself for choosing to return home from a business trip a day early. So, instead of enjoying a nice meal and evening out with my friends and coworkers in what I’ve realized is a pretty sweet-ass town, I am stuck endlessly waitingwaitingwaiting for my trip home to begin. At least my lovely lobby has free Internet, cushy seats, and quite a lot of people-watching fodder.
I originally decided not to stay in Nashville an extra night because I tend not to socialize with my coworkers, and I thought I’d much rather spend the night at home in my own bed, even if that meant wasting an entire afternoon waiting for a plane. If you’ve been reading my blog since its inception, you already know I’m not a chit-chat-how-was-your-weekend-water-cooler-gossip kind of sista. But last night, I was obligated to attend a business function that was one part networking opportunity and two parts shakin’ shindig. The music was blarin’, the alcohol was flowin’, and I was feelin‘ it, man. So when my neighborly cube-dwellers suggested keeping the party going elsewhere, I said, “Sure, why not?” If I had chosen to say nay, as was my usual M.O., I would have missed:
• chair-dancing next to a CEO;
• talking to a guy who actually watches more TV than I do and has turned me on to a couple of reality shows I had never even heard of;
• watching the extremely intoxicated man behind me fall face-first down a flight of stairs without dousing me with his beer;
• seeing a chick who went way too far with the Western wear put ice down her sleeping boss’s shirt;
• cheering on my broad-shouldered 6-ft male and petite 5-ft female colleagues who were bravely trolling through a hoarse rendition of “Born to Run” at a karaoke bar;
• rolling my eyes at my fabulous cube-mate’s creepy stalker;
• accidentally but hilariously dropping my purse on and then touching a lady coworker’s butt (which I’m still apologizing for);
• being envied of my ability to wear 3-in. heels for almost 20 hours straight (“I’m a professional,” I told my stalker-inflicted cube-mate before realizing that could be taken horribly wrong in a completely different context);
and so on and so forth.
It’s not that these kinds of nights are outside the realm of my experience—this would have been a relatively tame Wednesday evening prior to 2004—it’s just that I’ve never chosen to stop and actually enjoy my current colleagues. By keeping myself to myself, I’ve played it safe (which, I recently found out, apparently hasn’t succeeded in keeping me out of the office rumor mill), but I’ve also sucked the fun out of going to work. Showing my associates another side of myself may have made me look like a moron—I laughed too loud, sang too many wrong words to too many over-played “rock” songs, and shook my ass too much when I danced—but I sure as hell am looking forward to work on Monday, something I haven’t felt for months.
(Bear with me here, I’m rounding third and sliding straight into my point.)
The thing is, for the past couple of weeks, my social worker has been talking to me about adopting an 11-month-old little girl whose mother just isn’t sure she can care for her anymore. Of course, my first reaction (as Nancy Reagan once instructed a generation already addicted to addiction) was to “Just Say No:” Attempting to bond with a child who already is attached to her birth mother just isn’t part of my plan. And once again, that lawn appears to be so much greener on the other side of the fence. Although I might have an opportunity to adopt sooner rather than later by bending my brain waves and making a seemingly less-attractive choice, wouldn’t my life be easier if I waited for a “better baby” to come along, one that will be, perhaps, “less damaged”? Almost everyone I’ve told about her has looked at me askance, and I’ve started to look over my shoulder for One-Eyed Willie because it can’t possibly be my words creating that horrified look in my listeners’ eyes.
However, a lot of the truly awesome, if thoroughly complicated, periods of my life have occurred when I shrugged my shoulders and uttered those same words: “Sure, why not?” So when the social worker called to find out if we wanted to meet the new birth mom (#3 if you’re counting), I said yes. Taking advantage of a situation that at first glance might seem like a huge gamble doesn’t make me a fool—it simply makes me open to what could turn out to be a very cool opportunity.
(Side note: For those of you keeping track of these things, the initial meeting with Birth Mom #3 is on Thursday afternoon/meeting with Birth Mom #1 is on Friday.)
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