More details coming soon but the adoption journey is over and the journey as parents and a family begins today.
Welcome to the world and to our family, Esme Louisa!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Oh wow!
Massive hurricane? Check. No light, power, phone, Internet or electricity for four days? Check. Switching to a new job? Check. Adopting a baby in the space of 48 hours? Sure! Why the hell not! Clearly, the Universe has a twisted sense of humor.
More details coming soon but the adoption journey is over and the journey as parents and a family begins today.
Welcome to the world and to our family, Esme Louisa!
More details coming soon but the adoption journey is over and the journey as parents and a family begins today.
Welcome to the world and to our family, Esme Louisa!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Another Op'nin', Another Show
Another op'nin', another show
In Philly, Boston or Baltimo',
A chance for stage folks to say hello,
Another op'nin' of another show.
Another job that you hope, at last,
Will make your future forget your past,
Another pain where the ulcers grow,
Another op'nin' of another show.
Four weeks, you rehearse and rehearse,
Three weeks and it couldn't be worse,
One week, will it ever be right?
Then out o' the hat, it's that big first night!
The overture is about to start,
You cross your fingers and hold your heart,
It's curtain time and away we go!
When it comes to the adoption process, I'm feeling like the stagehands and extras in Kiss Me, Kate faced with performance after performance of one show after another in city after city, hoping to finally reach the promised land of a big hit and the bright lights of Broadway.
I haven't written much in the last few months because, honestly, there hasn't been much to write about since the disruption and there's only so often that I can write (or anyone can read) about a lack of progress.
We biked into town today for the big July 4th parade and we were both thinking "another holiday, another month" without a baby. This is our third Independence Day since deciding to embark on this journey and it's feeling like it will never end, like there will never be a kid to clap and cheer with us for the marching bands, to cover her ears with her mom when the guys in Revolutionary War outfits fire their muskets, to run out into the parade route to hug the poor people walking in 95 degree weather while dressed as Elmo or Cookie Monster.
Intellectually I know it will eventually happen. Emotionally, I have trouble staying optimistic and so, instead, I'm just trying to ignore it now. I compartmentalize it. I don't think about it. The crib and the changing table, the glider and the baby clothes that we bought in February and March -- they are just background noise now and don't really register when I walk by our former guest room/future nursery. I get up, I go to work, I ride my bike. We read, we write, we go to museums, we visit with friends and family, we make plans for future events and we really don't take into account that we might have a baby at some point in the future. It's become an abstraction, which feels both like a loss as well as a necessary step to allow us to continue moving on.
Yes, it will happen in the future. It has, too. I need to believe it will. But until then, I just need to keep hoofin' it, making the trek to Philly, Boston, and Baltimo'. Eventually we'll get the Call again and the curtain will finally, finally go up on the next act.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Dummies Guide to Adoption
In Jennifer's touching post today about moving forward, I was struck by this observation:
It's easier to wait now that just about everyone in our lives knows that our adoption placement fell through at the last minute. No more having to explain. No more saying "Chris and I will just move forward" or "I'm doing OK" or "well, obviously the Universe has other plans for us" or "It is what it is" or any other hope-filled re-frame that I can think of to make others feel better about my pain. So many people have expressed their sympathy and asked their questions (for which I am really, truly, deeply grateful - even if I didn't sounds terribly grateful in that last sentence...) and heard the explanations. So, now it's a relief that I don't have to keep talking about it.
It struck me, as I read it, that there's an opportunity for us to find some small bit of humor and a bit of adoption education amidst our disappointment and our hopes for the future.
I think I might begin sketching out an Adoption 101 guide for real people from someone who is going through the process. I remember in college that we joked about the fact that if we really wanted to leave college with marketable skills, they should teach a Life 101 class to help us understand how to deal with credit cards and health insurance and the myriad niggling details that make up our daily lives. I think we could create something like that with questions we wished we'd asked and thing we should have considered to help other people on similar journeys.
Of course, it won't all be dry text. I'm seriously considering an adoption-specific version of the scene on the bus in Bull Durham where Crash is teaching Nuke the most effective baseball cliches.
"The Universe has other plans for us."
"It's going to happen. It's just going to take a bit more time."
"It is what it is."
See what I mean? We'll be fine. We're moving forward and the Good Lord willing, it will all work out.
Thanks, Crash.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Supposed to be
It wasn't until late tonight, as I was making a salad to bring for lunch tomorrow, that either of us said it.
"How are you doing?" Jennifer asks me.
"Fine, I guess," I reply in a subdued tone. "Just trying not to think about what we were supposed to be doing today."
"Yeah," my wife replies. "Me too."
March 13th.
The due date.
I hope L had her baby today and that mother, daughter, siblings, and family are all happy. I wish them well and am keeping my fingers crossed that L made the right decision for all of them.
I'm just tremendously sorry that we weren't in a hospital in Glendale, AZ, today experiencing that same joy.
It will happen. I do believe that. But until it does, I won't look at March 13th the same way for a long time.
"How are you doing?" Jennifer asks me.
"Fine, I guess," I reply in a subdued tone. "Just trying not to think about what we were supposed to be doing today."
"Yeah," my wife replies. "Me too."
March 13th.
The due date.
I hope L had her baby today and that mother, daughter, siblings, and family are all happy. I wish them well and am keeping my fingers crossed that L made the right decision for all of them.
I'm just tremendously sorry that we weren't in a hospital in Glendale, AZ, today experiencing that same joy.
It will happen. I do believe that. But until it does, I won't look at March 13th the same way for a long time.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Square One
Our profiles are posted again on the adoption agency's websites. When our profiles originally went live, I remember a sense of anticipation, of imminent success, and the excitement that came with taking such a big step. Today, seeing them posted again makes me feel tired and worn out.
It feels like we're back to Square One.
When we first decided to adopt, we spent lots of time answering questions, explaining the process to friends and family. Now, we're explaining what happened and where we go from here. Returning from the gym this morning, I was standing outside and our neighbor across the street stepped outside and called over, "Hi Chris! You guys must be getting so excited!"
I expect that this will continue to happen as we see friends and colleagues over the coming weeks who might not have heard the news. They ask because they care and they're excited for us and I have to answer them because they're grieving a bit for us now, too. We are part of a wonderful community that was there for us when we made the decision to adopt and is going to be there for us when we finally do become parents.
I suppose the answers and explanations will get easier with time but right now, they just bring the reality back, front and center for me along with the realization that our profiles are now live again and we're back to waiting for someone to choose us.
Back to Square One.
It feels like we're back to Square One.
When we first decided to adopt, we spent lots of time answering questions, explaining the process to friends and family. Now, we're explaining what happened and where we go from here. Returning from the gym this morning, I was standing outside and our neighbor across the street stepped outside and called over, "Hi Chris! You guys must be getting so excited!"
I expect that this will continue to happen as we see friends and colleagues over the coming weeks who might not have heard the news. They ask because they care and they're excited for us and I have to answer them because they're grieving a bit for us now, too. We are part of a wonderful community that was there for us when we made the decision to adopt and is going to be there for us when we finally do become parents.
I suppose the answers and explanations will get easier with time but right now, they just bring the reality back, front and center for me along with the realization that our profiles are now live again and we're back to waiting for someone to choose us.
Back to Square One.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Writing while Numb
It's been a while since I've written. It wasn't from a lack of interest in writing but rather a conscious decision not to do so as events unfolded here at home.
I was making chili and cornbread in preparation for our annual "New Year's Eve Eve" party on December 30th. My wife walked in at 2:30 after a short day at her office. Her cell phone rang. No one ever calls her cell phone but me and I certainly wasn't the one on the phone. She answered, looked shocked, said "you'll need to call us back on the land line so my husband can be on the phone, too."
It was The Call. The adoption agency had a placement for us, a little girl due on March 13th in Arizona. The birth mom, L, wanted a closed adoption, was asking the agency to select a good family and a good home. It was us. After a Christmas tinged with a hint of sadness that there was no child in our home yet, we were about to enter the new year with the prospect of actually becoming parents ahead of us.
I'm not a superstitious person by nature and neither is my wife. Still, we decided that it might be best to stay quiet about this to avoid tempting fate, angering the gods, or jinxing the whole thing. And so, there's been silence here on the blog for quite some time.
Of course we told family. There were calls to siblings and the parents we weren't going to see that night. At the party that evening, we told my mother and stepfather that we had a belated Christmas gift for them -- tickets to see Paula Poundstone in Boston in mid-March. I'd bought them as a Christmas present for my wife but we wanted them to have the tickets as we didn't think we'd be able to use them.
"Why not?" my mother asked.
"Because it looks like we'll be in Arizona bringing home our daughter," I replied.
Needless to say, chaos reigned for a while in our house. It felt very very good.
We told some people at work because we wanted to be sure that things were prepared. Due to state regulations, we were going to need to stay in Arizona for two weeks with the baby before we could retrn home. Then my wife was going to go on maternity leave. There was a lot to be done.
As we moved from late December into January and February, I really wanted to write about the experience -- shopping for a glider, clearing out the guest room and turning it into a nursery, checking Consumer Reports for car seat reviews, and all of the other activities that go into preparing for a baby. But I still decided to hold off. No sense announcing to the world until it was done and we were home.
L, the birth mom, was in her mid-20s, already a mom to two children, unmarried and trying to complete college, and strongly of the opinion that she wouldn't be able to parent this new child properly. Our adoption contacts in Arizona met her several times and reiterated L's commitment to the adoption. The copies of her medical records all included "adoption" written prominently on all of the pages.
The process progressed. The legal wheels in Arizona and here at home started to spin. We continued to collect items for the baby's room, for life with a child. More people entered the circle of "in the know". We politely put a stop to an initial offer to host a shower for my wife. "If there's going to be a party, it's going to be for me, too!" I said with a laugh in response. "But please, we don't want to do anything until after we're home with this little girl. We really appreciate the thought but not right now."
The first thing I actually wrote about this anticipated change was a Facebook post after unpacking some stuff we'd ordered:
"OK, so here's a joke. Let me see if I got this right. A priest, a rabbi, and a nun walk into a bar...no, that's not it. Ummm, a blonde, a brunette, and and a redhead walk into a hotel...nope, that's not right either. Oh yeah! A crib, a stroller, and a car seat walk into what used to be our guest room. Oh crap...I'm not sure if there's actually a punchline but we'll hopefully find out in about 5 weeks."
"No," a friend and parent wrote back. "There's no punchline."
The plane tickets were booked. My lovely wife found a furnished apartment that we'd be able to rent for the two weeks we expected to be in Phoenix. We began to check e-mail and home voice mail more frequently than normal, waiting for the message that said it was time to head west.
Exactly two weeks before her due date, a very sweet plan to have a surprise party at my office was stopped after e-mail invitations had been sent out. "Chris really doesn't want to have a party beforehand in case anything happens with the adoption before it's complete," explained one of my coworkers who knew how my wife and I felt. But the word was out. A few people came by to extend their preliminary congratulations or to tell me about their own experiences adopting (it's surprising how many people we've known for years are also adoptive parents).
With 10 days to go, I was sitting in the office of a colleague when my phone rang. It was my wife and she never calls me on my cell phone when I'm at work.
"L has gone to the hospital and may be in labor," she reported. "But the agency says that she is having doubts, that her family is pressuring her to call it off."
I'm a writer by trade. My wife is a fantastic writer as anyone who has read her adoption and health blogs will attest. Before this placement, we'd even gone so far as to create a dedicated website to help tell our story to women who sought a loving family for their unborn child. I like to think that we can tell a good story, that we can make a compelling case, and that we can entertain or influence or guide when we write.
But suddenly, with L wavering, we felt helpless. It was a closed adoption. We'd had no contact with L and she didn't want any with us. We couldn't talk to her, write to her, let her know that we were so ready to provide this child with a loving home, that she could trust us. Instead, we were bystanders and all of the words that we might have used rested unsaid.
After that shocking Thursday, the next 48 hours were a blur of e-mails and phone calls with the agency and our contacts in Arizona. Finally, we got the word -- L was having contractions but was not in labor; she was home resting; she realized that despite the pressure from her family, including her father who was crying at the hospital, going ahead with the adoption was the right thing for her and her baby. She wanted to know if we could be there to take the baby when she was discharged from the hospital.
Everything was going to be fine.
We continued packing our bags so that we'd be ready to go at a moment's notice, all the while telling ourselves that, yes, L could still change her mind. But the word from Arizona over the following week was still positive -- Yes, L is still committed to this; she realizes it's her decision to make, not her family's; she is convinced this is the right thing.
But there was still that niggling sense of doubt.
The news came this morning in writing, an e-mail sent from the west coast offices of our adoption agency at midnight our time last night. I fired up my computer for a quick check of the headlines after getting home from spin class. "Unfortunately, I have some bad news..."
Throughout this entire journey, we have said that until the birth mother tells us "please raise this child" and the paperwork is complete, it is absolutely, without a doubt her right to change her mind and say "no, I'm sorry, but I can't do this. I realize that I need to raise this baby."
I do believe that. I truly do. But damn it, does it have to hurt so much to have to actually prove that they aren't just some trite words on the screen or tossed off in conversation? Is this some cosmic test? Did I really piss the Universe off my with my "priest, rabbi, and a nun" joke?
The term in the adoption world for what we've just gone through is "disruption." I can't tell if that's intended to be diplomatic, polite, or brutally honest. All I know is that it's true for everyone involved.
I can't begin to imagine how disrupted L's life is right now as she approaches the birth of a child she was prepared to give up until her family weighed in at the hospital and in the days after. I fervently hope she is making the right decision and wish L and her family happiness. This little girl, whom we'll never meet but who had started to take on such a central role in our lives despite our best efforts to stay detached until the adoption was complete, will grow up with her siblings, her mother, and a family that fought to keep her. I hope that passion and love endures. A child should have those things.
For us, we're now 16 hours post-disruption, 16 hours after I read the e-mail and bolted upstairs to my wife who was preparing for work, 16 hours after being told that the plans we'd been making with such joy needed to be shelved for an as-yet-undetermined amount of time, 16 hours during which a numb feeling has settled through us both.
We keep telling ourselves that this is just a bump and that we'll be parents someday. Our friends and family tell us the same thing. I have to believe that because to waver, to doubt the inevitability of becoming parents is just too devastating to contemplate. These things happen. Friends of ours experienced a disruption during their first adoption attempt and they now have two wonderful, lovely daughters.
We aren't the first people to go through this but it's the first time we've gone through this so it's new and raw. It's going to take a while for the numb sensation to wear off, to not walk by the new nursery in our house and wonder about the little girl who is expected to be born on March 13th and what she would have been like to hold in our arms. Instead my wife and I have just been holding on to each other today, a hug or a touch, a kiss, or a small smile to know that we're still here, that we're still together, and that the end result will be a daughter and a wonderful future.
It's just going to take time. I wonder if writing will help.
------
I was making chili and cornbread in preparation for our annual "New Year's Eve Eve" party on December 30th. My wife walked in at 2:30 after a short day at her office. Her cell phone rang. No one ever calls her cell phone but me and I certainly wasn't the one on the phone. She answered, looked shocked, said "you'll need to call us back on the land line so my husband can be on the phone, too."
It was The Call. The adoption agency had a placement for us, a little girl due on March 13th in Arizona. The birth mom, L, wanted a closed adoption, was asking the agency to select a good family and a good home. It was us. After a Christmas tinged with a hint of sadness that there was no child in our home yet, we were about to enter the new year with the prospect of actually becoming parents ahead of us.
------
------
Of course we told family. There were calls to siblings and the parents we weren't going to see that night. At the party that evening, we told my mother and stepfather that we had a belated Christmas gift for them -- tickets to see Paula Poundstone in Boston in mid-March. I'd bought them as a Christmas present for my wife but we wanted them to have the tickets as we didn't think we'd be able to use them.
"Why not?" my mother asked.
"Because it looks like we'll be in Arizona bringing home our daughter," I replied.
Needless to say, chaos reigned for a while in our house. It felt very very good.
We told some people at work because we wanted to be sure that things were prepared. Due to state regulations, we were going to need to stay in Arizona for two weeks with the baby before we could retrn home. Then my wife was going to go on maternity leave. There was a lot to be done.
------
------
The process progressed. The legal wheels in Arizona and here at home started to spin. We continued to collect items for the baby's room, for life with a child. More people entered the circle of "in the know". We politely put a stop to an initial offer to host a shower for my wife. "If there's going to be a party, it's going to be for me, too!" I said with a laugh in response. "But please, we don't want to do anything until after we're home with this little girl. We really appreciate the thought but not right now."
------
The first thing I actually wrote about this anticipated change was a Facebook post after unpacking some stuff we'd ordered:
"OK, so here's a joke. Let me see if I got this right. A priest, a rabbi, and a nun walk into a bar...no, that's not it. Ummm, a blonde, a brunette, and and a redhead walk into a hotel...nope, that's not right either. Oh yeah! A crib, a stroller, and a car seat walk into what used to be our guest room. Oh crap...I'm not sure if there's actually a punchline but we'll hopefully find out in about 5 weeks."
"No," a friend and parent wrote back. "There's no punchline."
------
The plane tickets were booked. My lovely wife found a furnished apartment that we'd be able to rent for the two weeks we expected to be in Phoenix. We began to check e-mail and home voice mail more frequently than normal, waiting for the message that said it was time to head west.
Exactly two weeks before her due date, a very sweet plan to have a surprise party at my office was stopped after e-mail invitations had been sent out. "Chris really doesn't want to have a party beforehand in case anything happens with the adoption before it's complete," explained one of my coworkers who knew how my wife and I felt. But the word was out. A few people came by to extend their preliminary congratulations or to tell me about their own experiences adopting (it's surprising how many people we've known for years are also adoptive parents).
With 10 days to go, I was sitting in the office of a colleague when my phone rang. It was my wife and she never calls me on my cell phone when I'm at work.
"L has gone to the hospital and may be in labor," she reported. "But the agency says that she is having doubts, that her family is pressuring her to call it off."
------
But suddenly, with L wavering, we felt helpless. It was a closed adoption. We'd had no contact with L and she didn't want any with us. We couldn't talk to her, write to her, let her know that we were so ready to provide this child with a loving home, that she could trust us. Instead, we were bystanders and all of the words that we might have used rested unsaid.
------
After that shocking Thursday, the next 48 hours were a blur of e-mails and phone calls with the agency and our contacts in Arizona. Finally, we got the word -- L was having contractions but was not in labor; she was home resting; she realized that despite the pressure from her family, including her father who was crying at the hospital, going ahead with the adoption was the right thing for her and her baby. She wanted to know if we could be there to take the baby when she was discharged from the hospital.
Everything was going to be fine.
We continued packing our bags so that we'd be ready to go at a moment's notice, all the while telling ourselves that, yes, L could still change her mind. But the word from Arizona over the following week was still positive -- Yes, L is still committed to this; she realizes it's her decision to make, not her family's; she is convinced this is the right thing.
But there was still that niggling sense of doubt.
------
The news came this morning in writing, an e-mail sent from the west coast offices of our adoption agency at midnight our time last night. I fired up my computer for a quick check of the headlines after getting home from spin class. "Unfortunately, I have some bad news..."
------
I do believe that. I truly do. But damn it, does it have to hurt so much to have to actually prove that they aren't just some trite words on the screen or tossed off in conversation? Is this some cosmic test? Did I really piss the Universe off my with my "priest, rabbi, and a nun" joke?
------
disrupt |disˈrəpt| verb [ trans. ] interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or problem; drastically alter or destroy the structure of (something)
------
The term in the adoption world for what we've just gone through is "disruption." I can't tell if that's intended to be diplomatic, polite, or brutally honest. All I know is that it's true for everyone involved.
I can't begin to imagine how disrupted L's life is right now as she approaches the birth of a child she was prepared to give up until her family weighed in at the hospital and in the days after. I fervently hope she is making the right decision and wish L and her family happiness. This little girl, whom we'll never meet but who had started to take on such a central role in our lives despite our best efforts to stay detached until the adoption was complete, will grow up with her siblings, her mother, and a family that fought to keep her. I hope that passion and love endures. A child should have those things.
For us, we're now 16 hours post-disruption, 16 hours after I read the e-mail and bolted upstairs to my wife who was preparing for work, 16 hours after being told that the plans we'd been making with such joy needed to be shelved for an as-yet-undetermined amount of time, 16 hours during which a numb feeling has settled through us both.
We keep telling ourselves that this is just a bump and that we'll be parents someday. Our friends and family tell us the same thing. I have to believe that because to waver, to doubt the inevitability of becoming parents is just too devastating to contemplate. These things happen. Friends of ours experienced a disruption during their first adoption attempt and they now have two wonderful, lovely daughters.
We aren't the first people to go through this but it's the first time we've gone through this so it's new and raw. It's going to take a while for the numb sensation to wear off, to not walk by the new nursery in our house and wonder about the little girl who is expected to be born on March 13th and what she would have been like to hold in our arms. Instead my wife and I have just been holding on to each other today, a hug or a touch, a kiss, or a small smile to know that we're still here, that we're still together, and that the end result will be a daughter and a wonderful future.
It's just going to take time. I wonder if writing will help.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)