The Posse

We spent eighteen months waiting to be chosen.  We wanted to adopt a baby and no one had yet chosen our family. The wait proved to be long, frustrating and challenging. But during those difficult months, we gathered a posse. Early on, I wouldn’t have used that word, but ‘posse’ explains how it works. ‘Posse’ is the Medieval Latin word for manpower of the county; a search party. In our quest to adopt, we had deputized family, friends, friends of friends, acquaintances and strangers. At six o’clock on Monday, February 6, 2012, Missy, our social worker called to say that the birthmother of a baby boy, born just after midnight, had chosen us to be his parents.  At that moment, our posse needed to be saddled up and ready to ride.

Missy also had a list of instructions. Dave and I were each on an extension. I had a pen and took notes on scraps of paper. Dave handed our six year old biological son Sam an IPOD to keep him busy. We squirreled ourselves away in the computer room. We heard a knock. Dave opened the door, Sam asked, “Are we adopting a baby today?”

At that moment, I realized how thoroughly unprepared I was for this adoption. After eighteen months of anticipation, all I saw was several pages of scribble and a series of treacherous steps to climb before we could claim our baby. I knew from listening to adoptive parents that between now and then, minds might change and funds might be unavailable. I wanted to have an answer for my son that would be confident and reassuring but not definite; something along the lines of, “We’re heading in that direction” or “We have a ways to go”. True to my husband’s steady and faithful hand, he bent down, looked Sam straight in the eye and said: “Yes”. He said it as much to himself as he did to Sam. We said, “Yes” to this baby, whatever we had to do. Sam returned to the living room and his IPOD.

After we got off the phone with Missy, Dave made phone calls to our family. I tried to organize the notes into a working agenda. How could we get all this done before tomorrow? I had written down what Missy said and added circles and punctuation in a lame attempt to highlight the important pieces. As I reviewed it, every step along the way seemed hazardous.

                                         

ü  Come up with fees tomorrow!!!!!

ü  Name the baby before 8pm. That name will appear on the adoption papers. The birthmom wants us to use the name Zion. Zion?!?

ü  Buy a birthmom present. Birth mom wants open adoption: 2 visits a year; letters and photos every month. Missy said maybe a picture frame? Photo album?

ü  Get a goodnight’s sleep :(

ü  10:30am tomorrow go to Adoption Star. Bring Cashier’s checks (the amount circled several times in my notes along with the breakdown). Sign the papers.

ü  12:00pm go to the Denny’s near the hospital to meet birthmom. Google Maps?!?

ü  1:00pm meet the baby at the hospital. Meet the baby. Meet the baby.

If we managed to get all this done and no one changed their mind, we would meet our baby boy. How many times had we been on the precipice of getting a baby? There had been seven miscarriages and maybe 20 profiling opportunities? Too many theoretical babies. But, this one was not theoretical. He was lying in a bassinet at the hospital and we had been chosen. We just needed to get all our ducks in a row and get to him by 1pm. I wanted to jump in the car, race to the nursery and scoop him up. Missy had emphatically told me that would jeopardize our chances. He seemed so close only an hour’s drive away but I had to remember, minds might change and funds might be unavailable.

The Zion Conundrum – Name the Baby

Our nieces who live across the street rushed through our front door with their mom, Dave’s sister, trailing behind. They waved scraps of paper. In such a short time, Caeley and Sophie, age thirteen and eleven, had compiled a list of names for their new baby cousin. They yelled out “Trevor” and “Mom likes Parker best”. Dave, who was on the phone with his brother trying to figure out how to get the money, tried to shush them. He was dealing with the inner sanctum of our posse. We had deputized a chosen few first. They had the greatest stake in our mission because the adoption meant a grandchild, nephew or cousin. The girls ignored their uncle Dave. “Christian”, Sophie suggested. Sam excited to finally be included put the kibosh on every one of the names on his cousins’ list. He proposed ZeeZee Zion. Dave tried again to quiet them. He needed to hear his brother’s advice on the money.

We are a working class family and keeping large sums of money available is unrealistic. In most adoptions, the adoptive parents meet the birthmother while she is still pregnant. Dave and I had falsely assumed it would be the same for us. It was our intention to borrow from his 401K and that takes a week to process. A week seemed a mere blip of time in the adoption game. Wrong.

Adoption agencies do not operate on credit.  Unlike Popeye’s Wimpy who will gladly let you pay Tuesday for a hamburger today, adoption agencies want their money before you get the baby. Dave’s brother, who had the funds available, wanted to wire the money but the amount was too large to do via Western Union. He was willing to drive all night to meet Dave halfway between here and Virginia Beach to hand off the cash; we would pay him back when the money from the 401K came through. That strategy was proving impractical given our time constraints.

Dave hung up the phone and joined us. He said, “Henry”. And I said, “Only if we can call him Hank”. This is how it went with Sam’s name. He wanted something traditional and I wanted a nickname, but both of us had to agree on both names. It took 5 months to agree on Samuel/Sam. Now we had no time and the additional complication of fitting whatever name we liked around the name Zion. Because I am a history nut on Western Expansion, the name was intriguing. I suggested, “Utah” for Zion National Park. Dave rolled his eyes. He searched online to find out what Zion meant, “The World to Come”, so fitting. We decided to go with the Western theme and Dave came up with a real cowboy name, Caleb Zion. We’d call him Cal for short. Caeley loved it, “That’s what they call me at school.”

Babies R’ Us aka Space Mountain

It was 8pm and we needed to get to the store before it closed at 9. I had kept a few essentials from when Sam was a baby: car seat, crib, changing table. I kept them in my Mother’s attic. My sister-in-law had a cradle that had been passed from brother to cousin and back again. But, we needed supplies and the birthmother present.

Babies R’ Us seemed a shop of horrors to me. I had avoided stores like this for years. After 10 years trying to make babies appear, I learned to fear baby stuff. My aunt sent me a silver baby rattle. After the first miscarriage, I pulled a blanket over my head, held that rattle in my fist, cried and didn’t stop, for a long time. I didn’t buy a single item for my son Sam until I was seven months pregnant. I bought him a hat and leather baby shoes. Now, I keep them in a shadow box as a remembrance.  We spent so many hours and days and months waiting on pregnancies and then later profiling opportunities. Birthmothers never chose us but that didn’t mean we hadn’t chosen them—our profile was always out and about. All those theoretical babies and I never got to push their wee arms through a sleeve or diaper their bottoms or shake a rattle as their hands reached for it. Baby things were the stuff that kept my grief going. That’s why I was so unprepared.  And now we had been chosen but this baby could just as easily pass from real to another one of my theoretical babies. Minds might change; funds might be unavailable.

So I did what I always do when faced with anxiety, grief, and uncertainty. I detach from my thoughts and emotions. I space out. And then when I can, I rely on other people, my posse in this case.

Dave, who usually has enough focus to sustain us during these times, was on the cellphone still trying to figure out the money with our mothers, his brother, sisters and brother-in-law. He had one hand pressed to his ear and the other pulled packages of onesies into our cart.

I looked at the basketful of stuff. So haphazard: a changing table pad but no cover; cradle sheets, no mattress; 24 onesies but only one outfit. It was February in Buffalo. My mother had rescued some of Sam’s clothes’ from my many trips to donation centers. I hoped she was in her attic pulling together baby stuff.

I wandered away and found the aisle with the frames and photo albums. I turned one over and over in my hand. Picture frames and albums usually hold treasured memories. Would the birthmother want to display his picture? How could I know?

I texted Megan, a person in our posse with a lot of know-how.  I met her on Facebook through a friend of a friend. She had adopted her second baby a few months prior. She helped me consider the complicated issues of biracial adoption and trans-racial families (meaning a family comprised of more than one race). Through discussions with Megan and others, we had opened up our adoption possibilities to include biracial children. Not any one adoption story would be the same as ours, but through them I would learn how to navigate.

The baby awaiting us in the hospital was African American and Latino; we are Caucasian. The gulf between discussing biracial adoption and becoming a trans-racial family seemed to widen with each step we took toward the baby. In keeping with my coping strategy, I detached from the thought. I did not want to lose my footing now. My cellphone beeped with an email. Megan wrote, “WHAT!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!! … Okay, People sometimes get a necklace with the baby's birthstone. And those necklaces are very modest, beautiful, and run around $125. I thought it would be a special gift but I left a gift receipt in there in case she wanted to exchange it for cash. Will you please call me tonight if you have ANY questions about birth mom protocol or anything like that? So so so happy for the soon to be 4 of you!!!!!”

The birthstone and receipt seemed right: practical, commemorative, and less complicated than the frames and albums. The jewelry store had already closed. Buying the present would have to wait until our already over-booked morning. Our goal – 1pm Meet the Baby seemed to be getting farther and farther away.

A Good Night’s Sleep L

I tossed; Dave turned. I wandered down to the computer to seek comfort from my Facebook friends (many of whom live in other time zones or are insomniacs). Much of the posse was formed there. When I create our profile, I had appealed to my FB friends to edit it and then they helped with several revisions. Initially, I put in numerous pictures of Sam because I thought that would say to prospective birthmothers, “Proven Parents”. My online community disagreed. They said a birthmother would read, “You already have a kid to love.” I changed our profile based on their suggestions.

I knew I couldn’t yet broadcast our news (minds might change; funds might be unavailable). I longed to hint. I felt like they deserved to know. Many of them were there from the beginning. Maybe if I talked in code…

The next round of people we gathered into our posse guided us through the homestudy. They had enough of a past with us to vouch for our future. The posse expanded when I had to fill out a background check that asked for every place I had lived for the past 25 years. On Facebook, an ex-boyfriend and ex- roommate volunteered to drive around Seattle to help acquire 16 years’ worth of addresses.

Later, the posse grew larger when we tried the “private tract” adoption process. Private tract is the “six-degrees of separation” form of adoption. We tried on our own to locate a possible birthmother. The people on our Christmas card list received our personal adoption materials to give to OB/GYN doctors, school guidance counselors, priests, whoever might know someone who might know someone who might be putting a baby up for adoption. I rallied my cousins’ friends on Facebook. They peppered their college campus health centers with our flyers. No leads came from this effort, but unwittingly we had told our story so often that we widened and deepened our associations and connections.

Even though I tend to over share, I didn’t that night on Facebook.

In the Car and on Our Way

The next morning, my mother and sister/brother-in-law drained their respective liquid accounts. They rushed to our house to give us two cashier’s checks. It was a loan. When the 401K came through, we paid them back. Their quick action and generosity overwhelmed me. Minds might still change but the funds were available.

We were in the car on our way to the mall before our meeting at Adoption Star. As we approached the exit to the mall, we did a quick time check. Too late. Shopping would wait until after our meeting at Adoption Star and before we met the birthmom at Denny’s. I knew her name now. Missy had faxed the complete Birthmother Profile. Rachel the birthmom had been honest, very honest and yet I still didn’t have a sense of her. I tried not to project into the future. If I was going to get through this day, I had to take it one minute at a time.

10:30am Meet Missy at Adoption Star

The staff at Adoption Star surrounded us with hugs and congratulations. I had gotten to know so many of them during our wait. I looked for Lynnlee the intern who had brought our profile to the hospital. The mother had asked for childless families. Lynnlee had insisted on bringing ours “just in case”. I wanted to find her, give her 10,000 hugs, and run back to these smiling faces. The director Michele stepped forward to shake our hands, she said, “I’m superstitious so I’ll save my congratulations for when the adoption is complete.”

Minds might still change.

My heart sank but before I could dwell there, Missy ushered us into her office. She had stacks of legal documents on each bore the name Caleb Zion. We had named him and yet he wasn’t yet ours. It suddenly felt like we were making him up as if this were all a dream. I kept thinking if I sign those papers, maybe he’ll materialize. Too little sleep. Too much stress. Standing on the brink of transformation, events become surreal.

We signed the papers and handed over the cashier’s checks. The fairy tale Rumplestiltskin came to mind.  All I could remember of it was the princess made a pact with a hobgoblin to spin straw into gold so she could meet her prince and have her baby. If a hobgoblin had appeared to me in those 18 months of waiting and said, “You must spin straw into gold for all eternity”, I would have agreed. The desire for a child to love and raise is profound.  And for some of us, making children appear is a crazy-making challenge. I felt at times that I would do just about anything.

The last group I marshaled into the posse was my answer to pacts with hobgoblins. Rather than give in to despair, I began to seek connections. I grew up in Oregon. I contacted many of my classmates on Facebook. One of my old friends, Deb, had “liked” the Adoption Star Facebook page.  She now lives in Brooklyn and adopted her daughter from Adoption Star nine years ago. Her daughter was born in Buffalo and they were coming for a visit to introduce her to her birthplace. We set up a date to have lunch and later, Sam and her daughter played in the park. Deb was the first person to tell me an adoption story that happened on a moment’s notice with all the accompanying panic and challenges. At the time, I thought “Oh that won’t happen to us. We live here.” Now, I was relieved to have her story in my archive of adoption stories. Our mutual friend, Lisa, who now lives in Hawaii had also adopted. During the past several months, Lisa and I spent hours on the phone and email. She told me about her two failed adoption attempts. From her, I learned to be wary.  In high school, Lisa, Deb and I would cross Main St. to have the fifty-cent hot lunch at Lincoln Elementary School. Sometimes I imagine time travel: I meet up with the younger me, Deb and Lisa. I tell them that we will meet and connect again and will share something more than a cheap meal. I wonder if we are drawn to people because of some unconscious understanding of the future. I don’t usually fall into the trap of “meant to be”. Life, it seems to me, is a series of choices. However, if physicists are correct and time isn’t as linear as we perceive it to be, wouldn’t choices forge a path into the future that winds back into the past? Maybe I started rounding up my posse back in high school.

As we were leaving Adoption Star, Missy asked if we had spoken to our lawyer. Financially, I hadn’t wanted to retain a lawyer until an adoption seemed possible. I started to feel that panic and then I remembered my old suite-mate from college Kelly had thought to email me the name of a good attorney. The number was still on my phone. The posse had our back once again.

The paperwork at Adoption Star had gone so smoothly, we had time to go to the mall and buy the necklace with the birthstone as Megan had suggested. Then, we were on our way to meet the birthmom at Denny’s.

I thought that might be the end of our need for a posse. But for a long time after, a friend or a family member or a complete stranger who knew someone we knew would appear with support, advice, a helping hand or a gift for our new baby. I was astounded by the outpouring of kindness. I’ve surrendered to the outlay of generosity. Dave and I believe the best pay-back is to be a gun for hire. We posse up for other hopeful adoptive parents.