How I Met My Son

The call. THE call. It was a Thursday afternoon, I was home from school and the phone rang. It was the agency in Chicago that had a proposition. There was a baby, it was already born but only a week old. Were we okay with that? Uh, YEAH. “And sorry, you know all of our kids are African-American but he’s actually Mexican descent. Is that okay?” Uh, YEAH! “Okay, well don’t get too excited, she’s kinda flaky but I have a meeting with her tomorrow in a park to show her your portfolio and a few others. If she shows up and it looks good, I’ll call you.” She said maybe 4:00.

Next day Deb and I, sitting, watching the telephone at 4:00. Still watching at 5:00. At 6:00 we looked at each other, took a deep breath and sighed into the next valley. Then the phone rang. They were in a park, she’d seen our package but wanted to talk to us before making a final decision. She told us a little about herself, about the father, about her other two children and how she couldn’t handle any more with just her and a welfare cheque. She asked about us and I kicked into salesman role. I told her about me becoming a nurse and my other kids, Deb told her about being a teacher and working with young kids and when she said she’d named him Antonio I sang a song my mother sang to my brother Tony…”Oh my Antonio…” It was thicker than peanut butter but this was our chance. The social worker got back on the phone and said “I’ll call you back”.

And she did half an hour later. “How soon can you get here?”

We were on a plane that night and took an empty baby car seat with us. Antonio was with a family that did a lot of short term foster care for this agency. Shortly after his birth (and maybe long before) his mom decided she had to give him up and when she got home gave him to a neighbour. A day later she walked by the adoption agency and then stopped and went in to ask questions about how to legally give away her child. They sat her down and gave her a cup of tea. After hearing her story and finding out where her baby was, they told her what had to happen for her child to be given up for adoption. They discussed her rights and what would be in her best interest as she moved into her future. I wasn’t there for that conversation but there must have been talk about where she wanted him to grow up, what colour or religion should the parents be and how much contact did she want. They told her that the people that had her baby had to go through the same process as all other prospective adoptive parents did for it to be legal. They said it was important that they get the baby away from the people that had him before they got too attached. And she agreed.

We got off the plane with an address on a scrap of paper. Get a car, get a map, get a son. A freeway here, a highway there and a few side streets later we were parked in front of the house and we stopped to look at each other in our last childless moment. “This is it, last chance to change your mind”, I said. She whispered “I’ve waited my whole life for this”. We held hands and looked at the front door. Another deep breath and we leaned into the peak we were about to climb.

Antonio, soon to become Luka, had been with his mom, his neighbours and this foster family in the first week of his life; he nestled into my arms in sleepy contentment. We gathered what little info was available: “He sleeps well”, “He has 3 ounces each feeding, sometimes more”, “Very settled baby”. It was time to fill the empty seat and put this new family in forward motion, it had been a very long day and there was an even longer week ahead. We were to meet his mom the next day at the agency but first we had to find our hotel. We didn’t have cell phones or GPS but we had a map and an address and a baby happily settled into the back seat. 

With Debbie the Navigator calling the shots we arrived at the hotel just as our son began to stir. It was feeding time. We pulled in front of the hotel and I jumped out to check us in. Deb got our son out of his seat to comfort him realizing we needed to get into our room to make his formula. She came into the lobby to inform me of this and closed the car door behind her. I had left the keys in the ignition. The auto-lock function, meant to make us feel safe, sealed the formula in its steel and glass prison with the engine running. Panic set in immediately. Deb had an empty bottle in her hand and nothing else. The stores were all closed and Luka’s stirring became a wail. We called AAA who said they could get into the car but it would be at least an hour. Up in our room we paced and patted and hoped it would be sooner than later. I put some of the complimentary sugar in warm tap water to try and fool him into thinking he was getting a meal and he was curious at first but soon realized it wasn’t hitting the spot. He wanted real food and communicated that real well.

And thus began our new life with our new family. The guy showed up around an hour later, released our belongings and took our money. Luka, with a full belly and a dry bum went to sleep while mom and dad opened the champagne they’d brought for this very moment. Deb, the grandmaster of orchestrating the adoption process, mapped out the week ahead; there was paperwork waiting at the agency, at immigration, at the doctor’s office and the courtroom. But it was meeting Tammy, Antonio’s mom, the next morning that took up most of the conversation. She hadn’t seen him since he was removed from the neighbour’s house by the foster family a few days before. Would she change her mind? Could she change her mind? Would Luka go to her and become Antonio forever? I brought our movie camera to document the moment for Luka and knew it would be intensely emotional; I knew nothing.