The 150th Step

I started this blog (and foolishly let it lapse right just as things got interesting) to document the journey that my wife and I had started as we sought to adopt a little girl. The blog was kicked off shortly after a friend asked about the adoption process. I started to explain all the things we were doing and still had to do before giving up and saying, "If the adoption process has 150 steps, we're on step 6."

Now, almost three years later, we've reached and completed step 150.

Today, the judge finalized the adoption of our baby girl, making us legally and forever a family. Over the last 6 months, she's captured such a huge part of my heart that I can't really remember what it was like before she dropped into our lives so suddenly. Actually, it's not that I can't remember. It's that I don't really care to. I can't imagine life without her, even the occasional barfing.

I'm actually having some difficulty processing that fact that the adoption is DONE. There will be no more paperwork, no more home visits, no more legal steps, at least not when it comes to ensuring that she is ours and we are hers. I fully expect paperwork and bills to keep coming for decades to come but that's the journey of parenthood and I honestly have no idea how many steps there are in that journey.

But I'm looking forward to finding out.

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!

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!

 -- "Another Op'nin, Another Show"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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."

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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..."

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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?

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disrupt |disˈrəpt| verb [ trans. ] interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or problem; drastically alter or destroy the structure of (something)

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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.

Halloween

We had a ton of kids come trick or treating to the house tonight. Some were in full regalia, others (the older ones) often in just the barest hint of a costume. Then there was the kid who didn't have a costume but was brazen enough to fake it ("I'm dressed as a skateboarder but forgot my skateboard" he says). I always loved Halloween, first because of the costumes and candy, and then the fun of giving away candy. One of my favorite books when I was growing up was "The Halloween Tree" by Ray Bradbury. I even named my second cat, Pipkin, after the character who goes missing in the book and must be pursued through time and to the edge of death itself by his friends. After the paperback I'd been given when I was 10 finally fell apart a few years ago, I went online and found a hardbound copy signed by Bradbury and bought it.

Last year at this time, we were in the final stages of pulling together our profile and home study materials. We didn't know what to expect but I think we both dreamed that by Halloween this year, we wouldn't just be handing out candy to kids but we'd be bundling a little one up as a peanut or a pumpkin or a tiny Red Sox player. Unfortunately, it looks like we need to set out sights on Halloween next year. I know our profile hasn't been up even a year yet and that many adoptive parents wait a lot longer than that. But seeing the parents tonight walking their kids up to our front door, hearing the kids chant "trick or treat" without even the hint of potential vandalism if we don't hand over a snack sized Twizzler, just makes me wish even more that this would have been the year we could have started the whole costumed kid tradition.

But instead we wait. I wonder if there are any Twizzlers left?

Picture This

I read a somewhat distressing article today in the New York Times about the decline in sales of picture books for kids. It's not all bad, of course -- kids are moving on to chapter books earlier -- but the idea that picture books are deemed too simple or won't help a child develop seems laughable to me. Our house is full of books and quite a few of them are absolutely brilliant picture books. Watching a child read again and again a stunning book like David Weisner's Tuesday or the more challenging Flotsam, you can see their minds working as they build the story in their mind, flipping back and forth between pages, totally immersed. I'm certainly all for moving on to chapter books but even at 41 years of age, there's a joy and a magic in a picture book that will never go away.

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer

As readers of my other blog, Walks in the Marsh, may know, last year my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She fought like a trooper and with the help of amazing doctors, nurses, and medical treatments she beat it (none of us doubted that she would).

The relief at that news was overwhelming for all of us and that's why I'm walking in this year's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event on October 24 at Roger Williams Park in Providence. Other women and other families should all be given every chance to experience the relief and joy that comes at the end of the fear and heartache that appears when cancer steals stealthily into their lives. I hope to be the father of a little girl at some point in the future and I'd like that future to be one where she doesn't have to fear this particular spectre.

I encourage those of you in the region to come out for this walk. If you can't make it, I hope you'll consider making a donation to support our efforts to raise awareness and funds to support breast cancer research and treatment for our mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, aunts, friends, and coworkers.

Old friends with kids

This weekend, Jennifer and I attended a reunion of Troop 82 Providence, the Boy Scout troop that I belonged to when I was a kid. I hadn't seen most of these guys since we all gathered in December 1988 to mourn the passing of our scoutmaster, Donald C. Dewing. So it was a treat to see them all more than 20 years later, the boys I'd grown up with and almost all with kids of their own. Many were young, 6 or 7 years old, others were in their mid to late teens, and all were welcomed to the Troop 82 family. As we sat on a picnic table at Yawgoog Scout Reservation, Jennifer turned to me and said, "next time we have one of these reunions, we'll have one of our own running around." I'm looking forward to that and is just another reason I'm now eagerly awaiting the next get-together.

Fruity Holiday

Happy National Watermelon Day, everyone! As my wife will tell you, watermelon is, bar none, my absolute favorite fruit and it's worth putting up with hot humid summer days to get my hands on some. Which leads me to wonder...does every kid like watermelon? I hope so. Plus One will need to learn to like it, I expect, given the amount of the juicy delectable fruit is consumed around here.

A matter of degree

A thank you to Kate and Stephanie:

Thank you both for the great feedback to my In the Face of Statistics post. Your comments are extremely helpful as we think about how we want to proceed.

Part of this reassessment has been driven, in all honesty, by our own sense of impatience and a need for slightly less delayed gratification. However, the choices we made also were predicated on our desire to protect and nurture the child who will hopefully be entering our lives, even if we don't know who that child or her mother are right now.

Our initial placement profile with our agency, ANLC, included several highlights:

• open to any race
• preference for a girl (my wife says that she wouldn't have the faintest idea what to do with a little boy...I think she also likes little girl clothes better)
• no smoking
• willing to consider if the expectant mother had been drinking at some point (we figure that it's not unreasonable to expect that anyone might have a drink or two before she realized she was pregnant)
• no hard drugs
• no mental illness/disability or family history of schizophrenia, etc.

We're in our early 40s and I occasionally joke that we won't be getting extra points from the Russian judges based on degree of difficulty (yes, that's a joke, we know it will be challenging but absolutely worth it).

During our conversation with our new client account person, she made the observation that many of the choices above are not necessarily hard and fast yes/no or black/white answers but rather represent a spectrum of choices, a matter of degree.

As she remarked, we're already willing to consider something along that spectrum when it comes to drinking. If we said "no drinking at all", we immediately rule out the possibility of a placement with a mother who did have that beer or two before she got the news. Instead, by choosing the "willing to consider", it leaves our options open as well as increases the chance that an expectant mother who wishes to trust us will be able to do so.

We're now faced with considerations of a similar nature with smoking (neither of us smokes so like you, Stephanie, we'd be bringing our Plus One home to home with clean air) and mental disabilities (in ANLC's profile, apparently something like dislexia falls into the category). Are we willing consider a potential placement with those two factors present in some fashion? Are we going to stick to our hard and fast "no" on those?

In all honesty, we aren't sure. As part of our effort to put some "we're ready for Plus One" energy out into the world, we're beginning to talk to pediatricians to find one we trust and like. Those conversations include these topics as we try to get a better sense of what our decisions and choices might possibly mean to a baby who comes into our family.

Part of our decision is also to learn from other people who are facing the same questions, the same fears, the same brilliant and wonderful journey. Thanks, Kate and Stephanie, for sharing your thoughts. They are truly appreciated.

In the face of statistics

According to our client account manager, 80% of expectant mothers who work with our chosen agency smoke throughout at least part if not all of their pregnancy in part as a response to stress. Seeing how our initial profile indicated we hoped to adopted from a non-smoking mother, we seem to have narrowed the potential number of expectant mothers who might select us pretty dramatically.

Our first client manager told us to consider loosening up on the “medical stuff” and accepting a child from a mother who is a heavy smoker because "really, the doctors we work with say that smoking doesn't really affect the babies all that much."

Our new client manager didn't actively promote this same change but she did make sure we understood the mathematics of the situation, recommended we speak with a pediatrician, and simply take this information into account in the event we decide to change our profile.

I'm curious...have other people run into this same issue? What did your placement agencies recommend? What decisions did you make?

Dog Day Thoughts

It's been a while since I wrote.

I keep finding other things to do or not to do as the case may be. Either way, I appear to have gone on hiatus. I didn't really mean to do so. It just happened. Things got busy. I got lazy...or apathetic...or I don't know what. The compulsion to write anything anywhere seems to have melted away in this god-awful heat and humidity.

After we had our conversation with our new client account manager at the adoption agency, I thought I'd be all fired up to write about it.

Hmmmm...not so much.

The conversation was generally positive -- more info than we'd received in months, some positive feedback about the number of expectant moms who are looking at our profile, some thoughts on how we might want to consider altering our expectations to increase the odds -- but nothing is actually all that different on the adoption front.

Is positive news that doesn't really change anything actually news or is it just a series of statements that find no anchor and have no impact?

The act of putting oneself out there to be selected as an adoptive parent strikes me as akin to being a job seeker who never actually gets the job. You send out resumes, you even interview sometimes, but you never get the job and you never get feedback as to why not.

At least as a job seeker, you have the opportunity to put yourself physically and emotionally in front of the person doing the hiring for the interview. In the adoption process, you don't even get that level of anticipation. Your profile is out there -- your interview -- and you're being viewed and judged with no feedback on who is taking a look at you and why they aren't hiring you (as it were).

It's too bloody hot.

Bystanders

An acquaintance of mine isn't a fan of flying. It's not a fear of flying or heights per se but rather the fact that someone else is in control. "How do I know if the pilot got enough sleep or isn't paying attention because he's pissed off at his spouse?"

For me, I approach it the other way. I'm fine with flying because I'm willing to put my trust -- hopefully not woefully misplaced -- in the professionalism and experience of the pilots. I'll drive my car from point A to point B but when it comes to getting from point A to point Z in the shortest time possible, I'll defer to the pilots who have the skills and knowledge that I lack. I'll simply sit in my seat, read a book, munch on the peanuts, and ignore the occasional turbulence on the journey. I'm a bystander, a passive passenger as the pilots -- the experts -- do the work and I'm OK with that.

Unfortunately, I've discovered that we've become bystanders on our adoption journey with pilots I'm having doubts about, and I'm definitely not OK with that.

The first stage of our adoption process felt like a crazy, stressful, invigorating road trip without a complete or altogether legible map. We plunged into the research, plowed through tons of paperwork, wrote checks, and participated in home study meetings and adoption classes. It was up to us to complete our tasks, drive the schedule, maintain the momentum, always knowing that we would determine where we ended up and how we got there.

But once we turned over our profile information and photos to our selected adoption agency, we suddenly had nothing to do but wait. And wait. And wait. We knew this was going to be the case. Unfortunately, we expected to be a bit more...well...involved in the waiting.

Instead, we watched as our profiles were posted and then heard nothing. No updates. No input. No news. We've had to actively seek out every scrap of information and feedback that we've received. Again, I can handle that if that was how the process had been described to us by the adoption counselor (aka sales person). But it wasn't.

(Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! Frustrated Prospective Adoptive Parental Rant Ahead!)

My first frustration...We were told that the significant number of expectant mothers in their system meant that clients were averaging a 2-4 month wait. We’re now told, but only after asking about the process four months into it, that the average wait has been extended to 6-18 months. OK, I can understand that the situation changes but there's a nagging question in the back of my mind whether or not we were sold a bill of goods at the start. If so, it's a bit like falling for a used car salesman's "only driven by a little old lady on Sunday" pitch and we have no one to blame but ourselves for believing it.

Frustration #2...Despite being assigned a client liaison at the start (and then a new one three months later) we haven't received the promised guidance on what else we might do to increase our chances of being selected above and beyond a recommendation to consider loosening up on the “medical stuff” and accepting a child from a mother who is a heavy smoker because "really, the doctors we work with say that smoking doesn't really affect the babies all that much. So, y'know, it's something you could consider." (Really?! And what doctors might these be? Drs. Kevorkian and Doom? Thanks but I'll go with the subtle guidance provided by the Surgeon General's warning on the side of a pack of cigarettes.)

And the most recent frustration...Despite being promised a detailed review and assessment of our profile after the first three months, we received no news on how our profiles were being received or feedback on how we might improve them. However, being diligent participants in this process, we took it upon ourselves to review the materials posted to our various profiles and then make minor updates to reflect changes in our lives.

Sadly, removing the mention of our three cats and downgrading to only one following the deaths of two of our kitties this winter was one of those changes. Not so sadly, we removed the cheesy statement that the agency inserted without our permission about "drinking hot cocoa, watching snowflakes fall and building snowmen" as our winter activities. WTF! I don't think my wife and I have ever built a snowman together! (Wait a minute...maybe we're missing out on something there. Do snowmen have aphrodisiac qualities?)

So we made relatively minor edits to the profiles that had already been live on the various profiles for the last five months, sent them in, and received a "Thanks! We will update your profiles ASAP!" response.

OK, standing by. Patiently.

Two weeks later...

No changes.

So I send a very polite "Hi there. Just wondering when the changes we sent two weeks ago might be made" inquiry.

The response? We were added to the schedule and it typically takes two weeks to make the changes. (Apparently the profile person missed the irony that she was responding to a follow-up message that I sent more than two weeks after sending the profile updates.)

Sigh...(ok home stretch on the rant, I promise).

A few days later, I receive an update that the changes were made and the new photos were added. So again, being the diligent person and adoption non-bystander than I hope to be, I go online to see the new versions of our profile.

Hmmm...they seem to be a bit shorter than what we submitted.

Yes, they're definitely a lot shorter. Like 20% shorter as the opening paragraph is just gone. Wiped out. Not there anymore. Like Alderaan after the Death Star dropped by for a visit.

Hmmm...perhaps it was an error. But on all of our profiles?

So I send yet another inquiry, assuming that it was an oversight.

Nope. They made the decision to lop off 20% off of the message to expectant mothers that Jennifer and I put our hearts into.

Apparently, feedback from the expectant mothers was that the letters are too long so the agency's new policy is to shorten them up dramatically.

Now, if their marketing department feels that letters should be shorter, wouldn't it have made sense to tell us this when we sent in our proposed revisions to our letters? We would have been thrilled to rewrite what we'd sent, knowing that doing so could strengthen the appeal of our profiles and increase our chances of being selected. (See...doing our best not to be bystanders.)

Instead, the agency simply lopped off the first 20% of our letters. What's even more frustrating was that the only way I knew it had happened was because I visited our profiles to see which of the new photos we'd sent had been incorporated. As a professional writer, that didn't go over too well. I try not to get overly attached to stuff that I write for work, knowing that what emerges from the lengthy review process will no doubt be different from my initial draft. But I do take a certain pride of authorship in what I write for my personal use, especially when it's this personal.

Given that we'd taken the initiative to update and resubmit our profile letters, wouldn’t it have made sense for the profile people at the agency to take a look at what we sent and then reply with a “you know, before we post these, we’ve received some feedback based on what we’re hearing from birth mothers” message? Adding to the annoyance was the fact that none of the other profiles we checked out had similar cuts. They were all longer and had opening paragraphs in a similar vein to what was deleted from ours! So if we'd never sent in our profile updates, they wouldn't have made the changes?

Arrgghh.

So I wrote to the profile person and our client liaison (you know, the "sacrifice your hopes for a healthy baby because it doesn't matter if moms smoke like chimneys" liaison). I tried to be calm and respectful.

OK, I'll admit that I did back off a bit after my wife commented that perhaps I'd gone a bit too far over the snarky line (I was tempted to use something like my "Dr. Doom" comment above in the e-mail). I just wanted them to know how much we cared about what we were doing and that it didn't feel good to be left in the dark over and over. I ended with:

When my wife and I embarked on this journey, we were told by my father that this might possibly be the most important thing we’ll ever do. We believe that he is right. Based on our conversations with your past clients and with a member of your staff, we also felt confident that we were making the right decision to work with your agency. We still do, and hope that you will help us succeed in this journey. All we are asking for is a level of communication, support, and feedback that enables us to be a part of this process, not simply bystanders.

And then my wife and I went back to waiting.

It's been 36 hours. And there's been no reply.

Standing by...

************ Update...12 hours later ************

I returned home tonight to find an e-mail from the agency and our new client liaison who wants to spend some serious time talking with us to ensure that we're happy and feeling confident and satisfied with our adoption journey. Apparently Mrs. Marlboro is no longer with the agency. I don't know the details -- maybe she left of her own accord, maybe she was let go. If the latter, I am sorry she lost her job but on the flip side, adoption facilitation seems to be one of those "customer service is paramount" types of jobs and sadly, we weren't getting it from her.

Dreams

I woke myself in the wee hours of Memorial Day, starting up from a dream. In it, I had been holding a little girl of Asian descent named Molly who had just been placed in my arms. She was going to be our daughter. It felt so excruciatingly good and right and I just couldn't bear to continue. I forced myself awake. I couldn't sleep much after that.

------------------------------------------

I've tried not to think about the adoption process as much lately as time keeps passing. Apparently, my subconscious feels differently. I'm not sure where the little girl's Asian background came from (though we are open to any race in our domestic adoption) and for some reason my brain latched onto the name of my mother's cat. Who knows why. All I know is that the joy I felt in my dream almost hurt, it was so extraordinary. And it was only a dream. What will it feel like for real? Tempered with a healthy dose of fear, no doubt. That part was blessedly missing from my nocturnal musings.

Still, I'm trying not to think about it, though deep down, I suppose some some fanciful part of my brain hopes that my dream is a portent of things to come. If it was, hopefully those things won't take too long to get here.

Revisit, revise, rewrite

Four months after our profiles went live on three different sites managed by our agency...spent a little time today rereading our profile answers and birthmother letters with an eye toward updating and refreshing them.

It was odd rewriting the sections where we previously discussed our three cats, two of whom sadly passed away in the time since we wrote our "birthmother letters" and other information. Other than that, not much else needed to change except a sentence that we hadn't written but our agency apparently inserted about watching snowflakes and building snowmen in winter, apparently to round out the seasons because we'd mentioned fall, spring, and summer. Yeah, that had to change. Not sure how we missed that one on the original review.

Other than that, there was a phrase here and there, some other minor updates, but in the grand scheme of things, we're the same people with the same interests, ideals, and beliefs that we were when we wrote these documents last winter. Time has simply moved on.

Not going it alone

During my 1-month hiatus from writing on this blog, all manner of adoption news raced across the front pages. Most focused on Torry Hansen, the Tennessee nurse who sent her 7-year old adopted son back to Russia alone with a note declaring that she could no longer cope with the child she'd brought home, along with Russia's subsequent freeze on all adoptions to U.S. families (a freeze that was since denied/lifted).

Amidst all of the blaring headlines, panicked postings, and vilification of Ms. Hansen, I was particularly struck by this Slate.com column written by KJ Dell'Antonia, a mother of three, including a little girl from China. Her discussion of the challenges faced by adoptive parents and children, including the false expectation (myth?) that all will be happiness and light when adopted parents and children come together, is one that I found particularly powerful as we go through a similar process, though on a domestic basis rather than an international one.

Like me, Hansen must have thought she was prepared. She was screened, questioned, and evaluated. She would have sat through the mandatory "adoption education" session on institutionalized children featuring descriptions of sexual and other abuses, violent anger, and unpredictable procedural delays. She would have filled out forms, she would have been evaluated by social workers, and, because of Russia's strict travel requirements, she would have traveled there twice—the first time to meet the child she would adopt, and again, after a waiting period, to confirm her commitment to parenting him and to legalize their ties. But prospective adoptive parents are either incorrigible optimists (that was me) or people of deep and abiding faith, and it does not really sink in with most of them that things might end badly—might really end badly—until it is too late.

I started writing this blog, separate from my other "regular" blog, because I wanted a place to share my experience as a prospective adoptive dad. It's a perspective that I found to be rather rare in the blogosphere, at least compared to the avalanche of brilliant (and some not so much) blogs written by adoptive moms (here's where I insert a shameless plug for my wife's phenomenal blog) and birth moms.

But writing this blog and reading the others out there has also introduced me to a growing virtual community that helps me get a better understanding of what other people are going through, how they cope, how their lives have changed, and what we might expect. This is a powerful resource we need to take full advantage of if we're to move through this journey as smoothly as possible.

I wonder what Torry Hansen had in the way of support. Did she have resources to help her and her child? Perhaps they did but the difficulties eventually became just too overwhelming. I feel for Hansen as well as for the troubled son she put on a plane to Russia. I'm approaching our adoption in the "incorrigible optimist" camp but do so knowing that we have a remarkable support network of family and friends (both real and "virtual") who will be there to aid, advise, and encourage. I can't imagine trying to do this alone. Thankfully, we won't have to.

No such thing as normal

Screw it...yesterday I said I was trying to put thoughts of the adoption aside and take a Zen "if you don't look for it, it will find you" approach. I lied.

Sure, the adoption process is not front and center as it was every day as we worked to get our home study done, but it's there, it's a part of my life and I'm embracing it. I'm just tired of it taking so long, especially when we were given indications early on that the normal timing going through our chosen agency was shorter than it's been so far.

However, there's no such thing as normal and I just need to accept that. Helping me along was this great article on Slate.com about the myth of developmental milestones and calendars for children. Things happen in their own time and wishing for it won't rush it, any more than you can rush a kid's teething or potty training.

Actually, does anyone know of a way to rush those milestones along? I'd really like to know before it's our turn to deal with them.

And we will be dealing with them sometime soon. I do believe that.