Adopting a New Way of Being

I didn't know how much I didn't know. I had no idea how tough it was to become an adoptive parent, in fact, from a distance it looked a lot easier and less painful than enduring a pregnancy and giving birth. Couldn't we just go through a catalog and pick one out? But every province, every state, every country has different rules about adoption so there was a lot to learn. We started by attending an adoption fair - I know, I hadn't heard of them either - where there were booths set up by various agencies with poster pictures of smiling families.  The Ministry of Children and Families was there to promote adoption of foster kids and offered discounts for adopting 'special needs' kids. In talking to various professionals we learned how expensive and lengthy a process this was going to be.

It goes something like this: to adopt a child you have to be approved by the province to get a license to adopt. To get licensed we had to open our lives to multiple intrusions into our private affairs, our bank accounts, our social lives, our home. We were interviewed (a 'Homestudy') as were our teenage children and extended family. It's an excellent time not to have a criminal record. To guide you through the process you need an agent and that's who'd set up all those booths at the fair. We naively chose an agency in Victoria thinking that would expand our hunting ground. We could keep our ear to the rail in Vancouver to see if there was a baby coming our way and our agent in Victoria would do the same. It didn't take long to figure out he/she wasn't going to come from either one.

Infants are the most sought after by would be adopters. Any mother unable to have one naturally, naturally wants one anyway they can get it. Most of us don't consider kidnapping so adopting one is the only (legal) option. My sister gave up her baby in the early 60's because good Catholic girls didn't get pregnant outside of wedlock. It was taken immediately after birth and it was given to a 'good' family; she didn't actually see her daughter until 30 years later. But today the only babies available are born of mothers that value human life so highly that they would rather give birth and give it away than have an abortion. That moral structure is closely aligned with most religions and consequently, if you were going to adopt a baby here you probably belong to the same church as the mother.

But god, religion and I hadn't been on the same page in decades. I could have gone back just to get something out of it that I wanted but you and I both know that would have been wrong. In retrospect, most people attend church or refer to themselves as Catholic or Jewish because they get something out of it. For some it's the sense of community, for others it's the belief that god knows who shows up on Sunday so if you want him to smile on you be in your seat. So after a year of local looking we expanded our horizons to find that moral mother that would accept Deb and a heathen like me as parents for her child. We did it but it took a lot of time, a lot of money and one false promise.

When it looked like it wasn't going to happen here we looked first at China (they had a booth at the fair). There were lots of girls available as the result of their one child law and most people wanted their one to be a boy. But the youngest would be at least 8 months old because the bureaucracy with China is extensive and time consuming. We met some people who'd adopted from Guatemala and they were so happy that we joined the Guatemalan Adoptive Parents Assoc. We looked at the Ukraine and Russia but post-natal care was suspect and again, they would be close to a year before you brought them home. Anywhere in the world any baby already born was going to be at least 8 months old before you got to hold it. Except Illinois.

Deb found AdoptionLink, an agency in Chicago that connects would-be parents with mothers that haven't given birth but have already made the decision not to keep it. They're mothers-to-be that want to choose the parents of her child and with whom she can develop a relationship that could stretch into the future. We could even be there for the birth if we chose. Illinois laws give the birth mom a three day window to change her mind after the birth but that's a small risk if you've developed a relationship and she's remained unwavering in her decision. And there's the fly in your soup.

Not long after our agent sent our package to Chicago we got a call. An expecting mother liked it and wanted to know more so a teleconference was arranged. She liked us enough to say yes and a correspondence grew as her baby grew towards its arrival date which was still half a pregnancy away. All moms at this agency were African-American though all the staff and all the adopting parents were white. Kinda weird. It may have been because the disparity in wealth between white and black was stark enough that there just weren't sufficient resources for black moms before or after the child was born. Which would have meant more black babies available and the need for an agency just for them. I don't know that for sure. I never asked and maybe didn't care; we just wanted a child. A healthy child so pre-natal care was discussed including drugs/alcohol, sufficient food and support.

As the baby grew so did mom's love of the creature within and shortly before the birth she disappeared. No more phone calls, no more emails and the picture and letter that had come the old fashioned way sat on the desk smiling at me. I've never had a miscarriage so don't know the physical pain but the sense of loss was profound. We moped for a few days wondering "What next?" and "What about those thousands of dollars we sent them?" It wasn't long before the phone rang again and it said "We found you a new mom". As we got to know her we were sure we'd taken a step up. She was a computer programmer, her mom and dad were both doctors. She was healthy, smart and single but was on a career path that didn't include a child. The correspondence resumed and we moved slowly forward to the day when she stopped responding as well.

"Maybe we need to re-think this. Maybe an older child is the way to go. One that already has a  healthy track record and mom's already out of the picture" And then we got THE call.