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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.)
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