Waiting

     I sit in my chair and pick up the loose scraps of paper. I should have a journal set aside for these notes but when the social worker from Adoption Star called, I scrambled for whatever paper I could find. Dave had just finished reading a story to our five year old son, Sam, and tucked him in. We never have this conversation in front of Sam. He's too young. I wait for Dave to settle on the couch.

       I ask, "Are you ready?"

      He’s ready.

      I shuffle through the papers nervously. I want to begin at the most difficult part: "she's bipolar" or "she smoked crack." I want to begin there because I want to hear Dave say, "That's okay. The baby will be healthy. This birthmother will choose us. We'll meet her. We'll have a baby very soon."

      But my husband will never say those things. His reassurance will never be so unrealistic. We don't know if the baby will be healthy. We don't know if the birthmother will choose us. Based on previous experience, we probably won't meet her. Even though I long for reassurance, I trust him implicitly. I know my husband’s strength and wisdom doesn't derive from false hope for future outcomes. Often, in order to deflect my incessant need to over dramatize and my cravings for reassurance, he'll tease me, "Tomorrow will be colder; we'll have to work harder; And we'll be more miserable." His absolute refusal to bank strength in a rosy future is reassurance in itself. Strength should come from what we have here and now. I know this.

      I begin to tell it to Dave just as the Social Worker told it to me. I'm a stay at home mom so I field all the calls from the agency. Every few weeks, sometimes less/sometimes more, a social worker calls with a "profiling opportunity". A certain order to them reigns. She tells me about a birthmother who has put together an adoption plan. Her plan has to align with our grids which we filled out as part of our homestudy. The grids speak to race, physical needs and circumstances. We have a varied grid so we are open to many situations and in the position to enjoy many “profiling opportunities.” Once we hear the profile and accept, our profile is then shown to the birthmother. Our profile book is a scrapbook of our family life along with information about our health and finances. She looks at our profile along with the profiles of eight or nine other hopeful couples; from these she chooses the couple she wants to raise her baby. We have never been chosen.

      As Tom Petty sings, "The waiting is the hardest part"

      A few months ago, a new social worker called and she bumbled a bit through the "profiling opportunity". At that moment, I realized I had received so many of these phone calls I had absorbed the template.

      And so the phone call begins...

            The birthmother's name is Chelsea, Jasmine, Dominque, Amber; she's 32, 13, 23, 41; she’s due in 2 weeks, next month, in October, April, she's in the delivery room; she’s Caucasian, African American, Hispanic; she lives near Albany, in Florida, Indiana, Niagara Falls; the birthfather is unknown; not the birthmother’s husband, wants nothing to do with the baby, agrees to the adoption plan, incarcerated; the birthmother is in college, has an 8th grade education, received her GED while incarcerated, she works at a pizza parlor; she has three children who do live with her (or don't live with her), she has another child who is 10 months old and twins on the way;...

      At this juncture, the social worker tells me the challenges and difficulties the birthmother is experiencing. Most of these challenges have already been listed as acceptable in our grid but over some of them, I get a twinge of anxiety.

            ...she smoked a joint on New Year's Eve, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, smokes 4 cigarettes a day, smoked crack in her 6 month, drank heavily before she knew she was pregnant; drinks two cans of soda a day; she is on Medicaid; covered by her parents’ insurance, she has just started prenatal care in her sixth month; the baby is a girl, a boy, she doesn't know, she doesn't want to know; she wants a closed adoption (no contact), she wants a semi-open adoption (letters and photos through the agency only), she wants an open adoption (once or twice- a- year visits).

      We have only passed on two profiling opportunities: extreme drug use and pervasive familial mental illness. Nothing about that was easy. One of the social workers reassured me with, "You do not want to look over the shoulder of your child waiting for the worst to happen." 

      As I sit and tell Dave about our latest profiling opportunity, he knows I have already said yes to having our profile sent on to the birthmother. In the past, I have only delayed the process for the two difficult profiles.  We've discussed and considered endlessly so we are on the same page. Our nighttime talk serves to keep him apprised.

      I try not to take the fact that we haven't been chosen personally. But how could it not be personal? The birthmothers must not be choosing us based on our personal history. Every couple months, I arrive at the office of Missy, our primary social worker and I lament: I'm too old; we don't make enough money; we have a biological son; I offended the birthmother social worker (considering we had never actually met, this was a bit of a stretch).

      Missy has propped me up, told me that often families with biological children have to wait longer. She has repeated the Tom Petty lyric, the waiting is the hardest part, so often I think she must tour with him.

      After I finish telling Dave about this profile, he asks a few questions but eventually shrugs and says, "we'll see," and turns on the TV.

      I attempt to watch with him but my imagination has been fired up. I've been given just enough information to have this latest birthmother spring to life like a character in a novel. I have to remind myself that whatever character emerges, she is fiction. Whoever this birthmother turns out to be, I can’t create her from the words of a social worker.

      I hear Sam at the top of the stairs, "I'm scared."

      I bolt up to get him. It’s selfish but I am relieved he’s up, I need comfort too. Sam is my reassurance, my strength in the present. It came as a surprise to me that Sam is a liability in the adoption process. If I were a birthmother, I would want an older brother for my child, especially a Sam. I realize I'm ridiculously partial but it got me thinking, "What if I were the birthmother; who would I choose?"  A couple week ago, I called and asked a social worker to send me the paperwork the birthmothers fill out for their adoption plans. I decided to locate a time in my life when having a baby would have been exceedingly difficult. And then I used those circumstances and I filled out the forms. I wrote a profile just as a social worker might.

      Sam and I stand at the threshold of his bedroom, "I think there is a monster under my bed. Look at the shadow."

      I peer in the darkness and a shadow emerges from under his bed. I turn on the light,

      "Poof, it's gone," I say.  

       I pick him up.

      "Are monsters pretend life or real life?” I ask.

      "Pretend life, but the shadow is real life."

      I have created two bins for him to sort the world: real life and pretend life. I'm happy to play Frankenstein with him but I don't want him to think we'll find Frankenstein under the bed.  "Shadows can be scary because we don't know what is making them. But mostly it is just a trick of the light."

      We look under the bed: only dust bunnies. I flip off the light. We snuggle into bed and I wait to hear the easy rhythm of his breathing. I am glad for the dark room and the chance to visit the shadows that lurk in my head. I let my imagination go back to my past.

      There was a time when I was 26 that I believed I was pregnant. I was in what I thought was a long term, committed relationship. I went to school; he was in a band. We lived in an apartment that befit our circumstances. The pregnancy scare changed us. As we factored in a baby and all that goes with it, the lights went out on my relationship. My once fun, affectionate, loving boyfriend began to ignore and mistrust me as if I were trying to tug his dreams out from under him. I reacted to him poorly with moodiness and resentment. This was my profile: 

            

     Her name is Lesa; she's 26, Caucasian; due at the end of October; she's 5'5, brown hair,    brown eyes; she's a waitress; she attends college and studies writing and theater; she's not married; she and the birth father recently broke up; he questions paternity; she lists no other possible fathers; he agrees to adoption; he is Caucasian; she drinks one latte a day; she drank three beers before she knew she was pregnant and three or four times afterward but no more than two drinks at a time; She has been experiencing depression and anxiety and has so in the past but, has never been medicated for it; she has been receiving prenatal care since May; her parents are divorced; she has a younger brother with allergies and eczema; each of her grandfathers had heart attacks, her paternal grandmother had breast cancer, all of her grandparents are still alive; she is interested in a semi open adoption (photos, updates, emails through the agency); she is willing to meet the adoptive family one time.

           

            The social worker's impressions are that this birthmother is very emotional at this time but committed to the plan since she has no means of supporting the child on her own.

      I felt my life was unraveling. We were no longer the young couple committed to their artistic pursuits, believing in each other and putting aside our dreams of a family until a more realistic time.  The scare made me realize how much I wanted to have a family; it made him realize he was no where near ready.

     As parents for my baby, I know I would have resented any supposedly well adjusted, happy, stable, hetero couple who would have at their disposal the raw details of my unhappy, troubled life while all I got to see of them were their vacation and wedding photos. I would have felt competitive with any woman my child would call "Mommy". I don't know if I could have sat through a meeting with her.  I probably would have picked a gay male couple because I wouldn't feel so threatened and their beneficence would be easier to receive. I picture myself looking through profile books and focusing on backgrounds to see where these couples lived. It would calm me to envision my child growing up in a clean, well-lit, tolerant place. This mattered to me because my apartment since the pregnancy scare had begun to look shabby, lonely and ill-fitting the needs of a baby.

      I also know that once my family found out about my situation, if one person had come forward with financial help, I would have given up the adoption plan without a look back. I would not have considered who might be hurt by my decision—sometimes life presses so hard on you that it's difficult to think of others.

      When the pregnancy scare was over, my relationship was over. I moved out and in with my mother, started therapy to figure out was next.  And then I waited for a man who couldn't be scared away by a pregnancy. And I found one who couldn't even be scared away by fertility issues. Oh, how I've learned to wait.

      I did consider using other times in my life where a pregnancy would have been difficult. If I had been 16 and pregnant, I might have chosen someone like me and Dave ~ people who like bright colors, wear hats, and play in the snow. At age 32, I might have chosen a happy suburban couple to give my child the supposed ideal. At any age, given the option, I would have chosen a couple with a kid. I would want my child to have a sibling. I want my son to have a sibling now.

    What did I learn from doing this exercise? The choices birthmothers make are probably circumstantial just as it would have been for me. I was surprised to discover that a painful episode that happened (and ironically didn't happen) so long ago could come so quickly to the surface. Real and sometimes even imagined babies can rock worlds. I can try to sympathize with a birthmother but I'd have to live in the midst of her circumstances: in her home, inside her dreams, with whomever it was that impregnated her to truly understand. At least now after doing this exercise, I see more clearly my part. All those laments to Missy about my age, our income, and the offended social worker represent the mental and emotional tax on an expectant-adoptive mother in waiting mode which is what I truly am.

     All I can say to a birthmother is, "Dave and I are a devoted couple. We'll provide a loving home for your baby. We don't judge because we've led imperfect lives. Please choose us." And then we wait for one birthmother whose circumstances meet ours: Maybe she'll choose us for the hats, or our son, but more than likely she'll choose us for something I can't possibly foretell.

     I kiss my sleeping son's cheek. I waited such a long time for him to arrive and I hate waiting. But by now, I am a pro. I know about the shadows that creep out from under the bed, the tricks of light and dark, the way my imagination takes off into the unknown, scary territory regardless of whether it's fiction, fact, or recreation. Such are the challenges of waiting. But after many, long, difficult years of waiting, I gave birth to my boy. And if Sam has taught me anything, it is that nothing in pretend life measures up to real life. The years of despair and worry pale with the reality of my little family. Life with Sam has surpassed our imagination and life with our next child will do the same.

      I steal out of Sam’s room and tiptoe down the stairs. My husband has fallen asleep on the couch. I take my notes and stick them into a journal I have tucked away in the sideboard. Next time the social worker calls, I hope I remember to use it.