Our second adoption was a little out of the ordinary. Okay.
It was completely bizarre, start to finish. We had kind of dipped a toe in the
water in January with a completely new adoption agency as our cute little
non-profit agency had been forced to close their doors. The new agency was
really slick. To the point where they would send regular emails updating us on
what babies would be available. Complete with prices. Kinda like a baby-sale
flyer. It felt really icky compared to what we’d experienced the first time
around (my personal recommendation…if your agency does this, run like hell!). That,
plus the effort, drama and money involved in adoption made it easy to put the slow
brakes on things. Eh, we’d get to it to it one of these days.
And then, I got
an email, out of the blue, from a woman I had worked with for about a minute
years ago. She was fabulous. Reminded me of cute, perky When-Harry-Met-Sally
Meg Ryan with her curly blonde hair, perfect body and impeccable fashion sense.
Not to mention she was really cool and smart. But I hated my job at the time
and only ended up working with her for a few weeks before I left. How she even
tracked down my email address, I still don’t know. But there it was. A
seemingly innocuous email asking for some advice that also contained the pot of
gold:
My niece is pregnant and considering adoption. Do you have
any advice?
Uh, yeah! Give us the baby! (really, tried not to be that
obnoxious but that’s how we felt.) So, we had a meeting with her about a week
later. In the meantime we were scrambling to get all of our paperwork in order,
find an adoption agency we trusted, get a profile book knocked out (the first
one took like 3 months, this one was 3 days), and I had the Surf-City
half-marathon in California the day before the meeting. So no pressure at all. A couple of days before the
meeting, our adoption coordinator called and said she needed our profile
information right away because she had a meeting with a birth mother who was
due the same day as the girl we were already talking to (we’ll call her “the
niece”). So I instantly assumed it, as you would, that it was the same girl and
the agency was confused or something was weird. Once we compared notes, turned
out it was two different birth moms. Two different potential children. One boy,
one girl. Both due within a couple of days of each other. Holy shit.
So we met with the niece on Monday, at Starbucks, with her
mom. We had a great conversation and even though it was a little awkward – what
do you expect from a job interview/meeting the parents for the first time/first
date on steroids?! – But we all got along and had a great chat and she seemed very committed and
solid about her choice with lots of support from her mom, who was also amazing.
It just felt kind of natural and we were all feeling the “fate” moment. The big
thing for her was knowing that she’d be able to be part of her child’s life in
some form or fashion. We were really up front about how open our relationship
was with Tagg’s parents and how we hoped to be in a similar relationship with
our other children’s parents. Our feeling is that you can’t ever have too many
people to love you and families are made in all different ways, but it’s always
the love that bonds you together.
We met with the other birth parents later that week. They
were a cute couple but very, very different. A little more rough and rocker, they
already had 4 children between them and they were both just 21. They were only
parenting one of the children. One had been placed for adoption and the other
two were living with their birth mom out of state. She seemed very sullen and emotional the whole
time we talked and the conversation felt awkward and stunted. Kind of like I
expected every first meeting to feel, but this was the only one that actually
felt that way. I suppose it was only natural, considering her little guy was
right there playing with toys and being adorable and she’s seriously in the
process of placing his future brother for adoption. Their reasons were solid.
They were both unemployed with absolutely no support network and they knew they
just couldn’t give this child the life they wanted him to have. But you could tell
that they were unsure. So we left feeling unsure. Excited but scared.
As the
next few weeks unfolded, we had decisions to make. Niece and her boyfriend were
dragging their heels on a decision. Torturous, of course, but you have to give
them credit for really, really thinking through everything. This is, after all,
perhaps the biggest, most important decision they’ll ever make. At the same time the other couple said,
yep…we want you. So what do you do?! We were less than 8 weeks from due dates
and the clock was ticking. Who do you pick? How do you know they’ll go through
with it? And, if they do, who do you have a solid, long-term positive
relationship with?
When you’re going in to an open adoption, that’s a really,
really important thing to consider. You have to know, 100% (well, as close as
you can get) that your family and style will mesh with theirs because this
journey is nothing but a leap of faith. For both of you. After a few days of
complete insanity — at one point I thought we should take both children, one because it
was so meant to be and one because I felt like that child needed all of the
things we could give him and because we were so ungrateful for turning away a
gift that so many people are desperate to have, like twins. Cute, right? Scott was like hell, no! He really does know some stuff. — we decided Niece was the
right decision for us.
Do I get how lucky we were to be the ones making the
choice? Absolutely. Were we panicked that niece would ultimately choose to
parent and we’d blown our one and only chance to have another child?
Absolutely. But when you embark on your adoption journey, you can really only
bank on a few things. Honesty. Faith. Trust. Hope. And most of all, Love. The
rest of it just sorts itself out. And it may be horrible or wonderful, but it’s
real and it’s yours and you get to decide to shape it into beauty and greatness
no matter what.
