The Cost of Adoption

from our most recent invoice

We got an invoice from our adoption lawyer in the mail recently (see picture).  As you can see, we were charged for "receipt of family pictures; save to file".  Now, it does say "$25 no charge" an I'm not sure if that's what it's referring to, as we still incurred a charge on this bill.  But, remind me
not to send them cute pictures of our family any more!  They request them from time to time to stay current on our family, but I didn't realize we were getting charged for them to "save to file".  But, I am not complaining.  This lawyer has been great, and I know it's just the way it works these days.  But, it made me think about what it costs to adopt.  What it costs to give a home to a child who would otherwise not have one.  What it costs to provide a home for a child that would otherwise become a ward of the state and cost us, as a people, in tax money (and in so many other ways) to support.  Foster children have a much, much higher risk of needing social programs throughout their lives.  Did you know that 70% of people in prison in California were foster children at one point?  They are at much higher risk for needing all kinds of public assistance.  And I don't mean just as foster kids.  I mean way beyond into adulthood.  So, it just seems like it would help the whole situation if the whole adoption process was much less costly.  I have friends who became legal guardians to THEIR OWN grandchildren after their daughter passed away from cancer, and they had to do paperwork and pay $900!  I mean, it's a drop in the bucket compared to a regular adoption, but still ridiculous!

When I sat down to write about this, I thought about ALL the costs of adoption.  When all is done, S's adoption will wind up costing us about $10,000.  That includes social workers, a home study through the county (that costs $4500 alone!), lawyers, travel expenses back and forth to the hospital and little things here and there that nobody thinks about.  And $10,000 is getting off easy.  Most adoptions will cost much, much more, especially if you adopt internationally.  And there's the cost of the craziness it brings, the stress between spouses as you try to decide if this baby is for you, or if the situation is too risky and might result in a failed adoption, or the cost of the major life change it brings about, often with hardly any notice.  There is the cost of adding another child to your family and wondering how it's going to affect the child you already have.  There is the cost of having a child with a history and a family that you now need to figure out how to mesh with yours.  There is the cost of knowing that your child will always have a desire to know about his or her past and will most likely want some contact in some form with the birth parents or birth family, if possible.  There is the cost of your young child asking you why his parents didn't want him, or why they don't want to see him, or why was she so sick that she couldn't take care of me (because at four, we have chosen the word "sick" to describe her drug condition....we will tell him the truth later when he is able to understand what drugs are). There is the cost of those teenage years, when most adopted children go through a heightened identity crisis.  And I'm sure there are costs I don't even know about right now.

So, with so many costs, why adopt?  It's just like anything else you save up and pay a lot of money for.  Because it's absolutely worth it.  A new car, a European vacation, a new home....all those things have a cost attached, but what you get from it is so worth it.  Don't think I am comparing a child to a car or a vacation.  It's an analogy.  The experience you get on that vacation will last a lifetime.  You will make memories.  You will take pictures.  You will see and taste and touch things you never could have before.  And it will make the stress of saving that money and pinching pennies a very distant memory.  All you will remember is how amazing it was.  And that's how adopting is.  Every single one of those costs will never be more important than every single amazing moment of having a child, or of being a mom.  And not that every moment of being a mom is amazing....but you will look back and remember the good.  When my son, out of the blue says "Mom, I love you" or "am I your sweet baby?" or "come snuggle with me" or "will you read this to me?" or "will you play monster trucks with me?", the costs we incurred adopting him will just not matter.  In fact, S's adoption isn't even final yet, and it already doesn't matter, because I love these boys more than life itself, and you can't put a price on that.

Fear and Self-Loathing….Why Sometimes Not Having a Biological Connection to your Child is a Bonus.

I was reminded again this week that my insecurities are still a much bigger part of me than I had hoped they would be in my forties.  I won’t go into the sordid details, because frankly, they’re not THAT sordid, and most would say, just get over it!  But, here is my point as it actually pertains to adoption.  I have realized that there are benefits to not having a biological connection to my child.

My handsome D.

First, let me let you in on a little secret.  I have self-esteem issues.  Yes.  It’s true.  And those of you who know me really well are not at all surprised by this declaration.  Those of you who know me on a little more superficial basis are probably somewhat surprised.  Exhibit A.  The title of this blog.  As I went back to research it a little more, I realized that the phrase comes from a novel entitled “Fear and Loathing in Vegas.”  I would, of course, be the one to add in the “self” part.  I have had that phrase stuck in my head for a long time, “Fear and Self-Loathing” and it’s not even correct!  But, I’m digressing a bit.

Here’s the thing.  I have realized that because I have some unaddressed issues that keep me from feeling as confident and self-assured as I would like to feel, I have a really hard time feeling that confidence about anything I do, whether it’s artwork or writing or anything I have had a hand in creating.  Like children.  But, I’ve realized, that since I didn’t have a hand in creating these children, that I find they are exempt from this.  I used to pine away over not being able to get pregnant.  But, I’ve realized that maybe that was one of the greatest blessings.  Not just for me, but for them, too.  They will never have to suffer me coming down on them because they represent something I never was.  To me, they are even more beautiful and more amazing partly because they came from somebody else.  I feel perfectly justified in bragging about them and in telling them, or others, how handsome they are, because there is no part of me that feels they are beautiful because they carry any of my genes.  I am removed from them in a good way.  They will never carry my baggage.  I will never feel to cut short a compliment because, in some roundabout way, I might feel I am bragging about myself.  Or worse, YOU might feel that I am bragging about myself.

My beautiful S.

Maybe this is all just a little twisted.  And yes, I’m sure I need therapy.  And I am not saying that others withhold because of these reasons.  I am speaking to me and my case alone.  Contrary to what this might portray, I am a silver lining kind of a girl.  And this is one of the unexpected silver linings to adoption.  I love these boys partly because they are NOT a part of my gene pool.  I shower them with compliments.  I tell others (probably to an annoying, nauseating degree) how beautiful these boys are.  How amazing and talented they are.  How funny and smart and thoughtful they are.  How athletic and bound-for-the-Olympics they are.  And, even though I know some of that comes from how they are parented, I truly believe that a lot of it came with them when they were born.  I love these boys more than I thought I would be capable of.  And maybe, when I truly feel that love for myself more, I will be capable of even greater love for them, too.  I hope to get there someday.  But for now, I know I am released from any boundaries that would inhibit feeling and expressing my love for them, because they are released from representing any part of me that I don’t love.  And that is a great thing.

P.S.  PLEASE don’t see this as a call for compliments and reassurances that I am just so wonderful.  It won’t change me.  I have to be the one to change myself, and I am truly working on it.  It only makes me think you don’t know me so well!  :)

(photos by the amazingly talented www.ashleykressinphotography.com)

Our Second Little Miracle

It’s been nine months since my last blog entry, and eight months since our little world changed again. I have been meaning to sit down and write the story of our second adoption, but the whirlwind and subsequent day to day life of raising two little boys has somehow prevented that from happening.  Until now.  I thought it was time to sit down and finally tell the story of this second little miracle.  I am going to try to keep it as brief as possible, and touch on other aspects of it down the road.  Today, I just want to tell you how it all came to be.  It is such a little miracle.

If you haven’t already read my last entry, written just weeks before this second baby came,  “ComeWhat May and Love It” was about accepting and embracing the fact that I might only ever have one child, and that I was okay with that.  Haha!  I think God has a way of waiting until you have truly given in, before giving you the thing you desired in the first place.  And, after years and years of fighting it, I had truly gotten to that place.  And then…..bam!

aby came into our lives, you should read it.

I think the timeline is kind of funny, so I will share it with you.  My friend, who adopted three children from the same birth mother, messaged me Facebook.  Here is how the conversation went:

May 13

MY FRIEND: Hi Susan. I know u haven't heard from me for a long time, but would u mind giving me your number so I can call you?

ME:  Sure!

MY FRIEND: Hi Susan. I'll call u at around 2pm. If you're not available then, I'll try again later. Not to be mysterious or anything. Just want to talk to you about adoption.

We had a phone conversation, in which she told me that the birth mother of her three children was expecting any day now, and they just couldn’t take a fifth child and would we be interested.  Now, let me tell you that a lot of people might have been super excited.  But, I honestly had no idea that this would really go through.  I mean, the birth mother didn’t even know us.  And, considering our past experience with a failed adoption, and knowing that people had approached us before about “a sure thing” and we had never heard from them again, I did not even think twice about it.  I said yes, we would be interested, and then I thought I would cross that bridge when a paper had been signed.  The mother didn’t have a due date since there had been no prenatal doctor visits since very early on in the pregnancy. 

A week passed and I got this message on Facebook:

May 20th

MY FRIEND:  Hi Susan. Just wanted to update u. I still haven't heard anything from ####, the Birth mom. I spoke to ####'s mom this morning and she hasn't heard anything as well. Sorry for the delay of information. Hope all is well for you.

ME:  No problem. Like I said before, we are used to things not coming through so we aren't holding our breath! But, thanks for thinking of us. I talked to our adoption social worker and she said it would be a private adoption, so we would have to figure out how to pay for it. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it. Thanks!

Just as I suspected.  It wasn’t going to pan out.  Glad I didn’t spend any time looking at baby clothes!

Four days later, on Friday afternoon, May 24^th, I was at the park with D and I got a call from my friend.  She said the birth mom had spoken to the social worker and had given her our names.  Okay, now it was a little more serious, but still…..call me when someone has signed a piece of paper and when a baby has been born!  I hung up the phone a little more anxious, but still not getting my hopes up.  I thought about the whole possibility for a few minutes, when the phone rang again.  It was 4:30 in the afternoon.  This time it was the social worker, Christine.  She told me that the birth parents had spoken with her and given her our names and they were sure they wanted to place the baby with us.  Okay…this was even more serious.  But, she hadn’t been able to get a meeting with them to get papers signed.  It was Memorial Day weekend, and she said she would try to get it all in place this weekend and update me next week.  I hung up and started thinking that this really could happen.  However, still….call me when someone has signed a dang piece of paper!  I went home and told John and we chatted about it for a minute, but knew nothing was set in stone, so off to bed we went.

Saturday morning, May 25^th, 8:00 a.m.  I was getting dressed for work when the phone rang.  It was Christine.  The birth mom was in labor and on her way to the hospital.  Long story short, she had to get an adoption plan in place and signed by them before the baby was born.  They suspected the baby would be born positive for drugs, and the county would take it away if an adoption plan wasn’t already in place.  If the county took the baby, the birth parents wouldn’t have a say in where it was placed.  But, we also had to have a lawyer’s signature.  God steps in on these little miracles, I know He does.  Christine just happened to be in the process of adopting a baby herself, and because of the circumstances, even though she was a social worker, she needed an adoption attorney.  She said “the only lawyer I have in my phone that will answer my call at 8:30 on a Saturday morning is the one we are using.”  I said I trust that an adoption social worker knows how to hire a good adoptions attorney and that I trusted her judgment.  She said the only other hang up could be if the county social worker decided this adoption plan hadn’t been put in place soon enough, then she would have the right to take the baby, if and when it was born positive for drugs.  She called back thirty minutes later and said everything was in place.   The lawyer was on board and the county social worker said she was fine with the plan and had no intention of disrupting it.  One hour later, he was born.

 

I didn’t know about him until 12:30 that afternoon.  I was at work with butterflies in my stomach.  I was texting and calling family and friends and the lawyer and the social worker and my friend.  At 12:30, Christine called and said the father had called her and said he had been born at 9:33 a.m., 22 inches long, 12 pounds and ready for school!  Haha!  He was huge!

 

And the kicker?  He was born on my son’s birthday.  D and baby S share the same birthday.  Isn’t that amazing?  I had decided to have D’s birthday party the previous Wednesday, and I don’t know why.  His birthday was on a Saturday, and that would have been easy to do.  But, I had chosen not to.  And now I know why.  D was born at 7:33 a.m. four years earlier, and S was born that morning at 9:33 a.m.  It was, and continues to be a miracle.  I got to drive up to Anaheim that night with a friend, and see this little miracle ten hours after he had been born.  A baby I had no idea was going to actually come into my life just the day before, and I was sitting in the hospital nursery holding him.  He was beautiful and huge and precious and mine.  There is more to the rest of the story, but I will save that for another post.  Just know that I know that God knows each of us.  He knows us personally.  He answers our prayers, and sometimes that answer is “no.”  And sometimes the answer is “not right now.”  And sometimes the answer is “yes.”  And all the “no” answers and all the “not right now” answers make that “yes” answer just that much more precious.

 

The Surfboard. My second favorite Gotcha Day memento.

I was reading a thread on a Facebook post recently about the terms that adoptees/adoptive parents/birth parents don’t like.  Things like “real mom” were pretty universally disliked.  But there were others that I was surprised to find were so controversial.  The term “biological mom” was disliked by lots of birth mothers, because they felt that was such a cold, scientific term and they felt like much more.  I even saw that “birth mom” was disliked by many because birth mothers (for lack of a better term….I don’t know what to use any more!) felt that was a description of one event and not what they really meant in their children’s lives, even if they had placed them for adoption.  But the one I’ve been thinking about the most is how many families didn’t like the term “gotcha day”, which refers to either the day the adoptive families took their new child home, or the day the adoption was finalized.  I was surprised this was so controversial.  Both those days are certainly monumental days in our lives, and though we don’t do a full on celebration for either day, we certainly recognize it and maybe get a special dessert or commemorate it in some small way.  We do need to be sensitive about how the child feels about that day because it may be a very bittersweet day for them.  For us, a dream came true.  For them, a dream fell apart.  It marks the point of no return for their biological family.  It marks a day of finalization when it became sure reality that they would no longer be an official part of their biological family.  And no amount of showering of love and gifts can replace that loss.  So, of course, we need to be sensitive.  I’ve heard of some families that ask their adopted child every year how they feel about it and if it is something they want to celebrate.  Some years, they are sad and don’t want to celebrate, and some years, they do.

 

That said, one of my favorite things in our house—one of the few things I would try to save in a  house fire, is the thing that commemorates the finalization of our adoption.  This surfboard.  We threw a big party when everything was done, and I wanted something that everyone could sign.  I didn’t want to do a mat for a picture frame.  I wanted something more personal.  As we thought about it, we came up with the idea of a surfboard.  John loves to surf and we love the ocean and we live fifteen blocks from the beautiful blue Pacific.  And on top of that, when we chose D’s name, the one thing that sealed it for us was that D meant “son of the sea”.  Our house is an old beach cottage style and it just seemed like the perfect fit on all levels.  A friend of ours went through his boards and gave one to use that his kids used to use.  It was signed and dated by the surfboard maker and had been built in the 70’s.  It was perfect.  Well, not yet.  It was perfect later after everyone had written a special note to D on the night of this perfect party.  This board hangs in his room, and I often stop and read the signatures and the messages and remember what an incredible time that was.  After so many heartbreaks, this dream had finally come true.  The adoption finalized when he was sixteen months old, and each birthday since, we have stood it up, and marked his height in red up the center of the board, so it’s meaning is growing each new year.  There are expressions of love and sweet messages from kids on there, and there are things like "Scharpf Forever" and "remember your mother is always right" and clever bits of advice, often about surfing or being happy.  But I think my favorite one is a simple phrase...."And then there were 3."  It makes me tear up every time I read it.  I think that summed up that day best of all.  One of these pictures shows a photo behind the board and a teddy bear.  The photo was taken the day we finalized as we celebrated....where else?  On the beach, and on a surfboard.  The bear is wearing the onesie I made for our little Isaac who was returned back to his birth father after five months.  Many thought that onesie belonged to D, but he never wore it.  It's been on that bear since the day Isaac left.  I thought it fitting he be there to help us celebrate.  It makes that statement even more meaningful and powerful to me.  And then there were 3.

To read more about some of the memories mentioned in this post, see these links:

Our failed adoption:

http://weareadopted.blogspot.com/2012/01/the-one-that-got-away-memories-of.html

http://weareadopted.blogspot.com/2012/12/giving-my-baby-back-worst-day-of-my-life_9.html

What kind of adoption language to use or not use:

http://weareadopted.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-not-to-say-regarding-adoptionnot.html

The Other Mommy, and Why It's Important to Love Her

Oh my gosh, I can't express how much
I love this kid!  Is he the cutest, or what?!

It’s 4 a.m. and I just spent a half an hour helping my sweet son go back to sleep.  These are tiring, yet precious moments.  There is something about 4 a.m. that brings clarity of mind as I sit there with his little hand in mine as he drifts back off to a peaceful, dreamy state.  These last few months have been emotionally draining for me, for reasons I won’t go into except to say I’ve been sorting through a lifetime of struggles that have, for one reason or another, come to the surface lately.  It’s as if I’ve been shooting wiper fluid onto the windshield of my life and clearing all the dirt and bugs and haze away, and am able to see more clearly.  I wish it was that easy, but the good thing is that it is definitely making it easier to drive.  I had a conversation with D (my son) in the car a couple of months ago.  We have always been very open about his adoption, but he is only three years old, and it’s not like it comes up in conversation all the time.  He doesn’t understand the concept at this age, and frankly, we are busy living life and it just isn’t a topic that comes into everyday life, as we go to the park and have dinner and read books.  So months pass, and I started to realize that I didn’t want to have a big sit down discussion with him one day to say “hey, you’re adopted”.  My goal has always been that he just knows.  I want him, when he’s older, to be able to say “I’ve always known I was adopted”.  I don’t want there to be a moment he found out, as if it was a deep dark secret we were keeping from him. Children think secrets mean something is wrong, and more specifically, wrong with them, and I never wanted him to feel that there was anything wrong with the way he came to us.  I am learning that this is easier said than done.

Think about it.  How many times, and at what age, did you sit your child down and discuss conception and their birth with them?  And is it something you worked in to their everyday lives?  Probably not.  Anyway, one morning, a few months ago, I started to think that I needed to make more of an effort to slip it casually into conversations, so it just becomes knowledge.  I have done this before, but that’s easy when they are two.  When they are almost four and able to have conversations and ask tons of questions but not yet fully comprehend concepts, it becomes more difficult because they can hear you and understand your words, but not the meanings.  Which can just lead to confusion, not clarity.  So, this particular morning, we were driving and somehow babies and whatnot came up in the conversation and I said something to him about when he was born and how he was with his other mommy.  I thought it was innocent enough.  But I saw his face fall through the rear view mirror, and I heard the fear and concern in his voice when he said “aaawww.  But I don’t want to be with another mommy!”  And I realized this is going to be harder than I thought.  It was a heartbreaking moment.  It didn’t occur to me that the word “mommy” to D had a wide range of meanings.  It is the person he lives with.  The person he spends all day with, playing and going to the zoo and bathing and tucking him in at night.  In his little mind, he was afraid of having to go do all those things with someone else that he didn’t know.  I quickly reassured him that he wasn’t going anywhere else with anyone else, and that I was his mommy and he would stay with me.  But throughout the day, his concern was vocalized several times.  “But I don’t want to go with another mommy!"  It would just come out randomly.  And I would hug him and say, “honey, you aren’t going anywhere.  You are staying with mommy and daddy.”  

Fast forward to a couple of days ago.  I had decided to leave it at that, and approach the subject later when he was more able to understand the idea.  We were talking about birth and how he was born (or “borned” as he says) in a hospital.  I was sticking to ideas he could understand.  “You were so tiny!  You were just a little, tiny baby and you were in the hospital.  Later, we got to bring you home and you were my tiny little baby.  You were so small and mommy fed you and held you.”  He has been fascinated with babies lately, and he will crawl into my arms and lay down and say “I want to be a baby again”, and we will pretend for a minute or two that he is so tiny and that I’m feeding him with a bottle.  And then I will tell him all the cool things he can do now that he couldn’t do as a baby, and he will laugh and add to the list, and then be happy with being three.  So, this particular day as we were discussing how small he had been and how he was born in the hospital, he said “when I was with my other mommy?”  I was blown away that not only did he remember an extremely short conversation, but that he had put it in its proper context.  And what was even more amazing, was that he wasn’t afraid.  He said it, I said “yes, when you were with your other mommy” and that was it.  He was satisfied, and we moved on with the day.  It was probably a more powerful moment for me than for him. 

The thing is, I want her to be a part of him.  I want him to know that there is room in my heart for her and that I am not afraid for him to love her.  She passed away before D was even a year old, so he will never get to meet her in this life.  But she is forever a part of him.  And she is forever a part of me.  She gave me a gift that I cannot repay, and there is love enough to go around.  One day I hope to meet her and I want to be able to show her an amazing man and reassure her that she made a good choice.  And I want D to have nothing but good feelings towards her.  So we will continue to, age appropriately, talk about his “other mommy” and the contribution she made to his life.  They may not always be easy conversations, but they will always be important.

Giving My Baby Back. The Worst Day of My Life.

I wrote a little bit about this in another post (see The One That Got Away:  Memories of a Failed Adoption for some of the background info I won't cover again here) almost a year ago, and in that post I said I would write more about the story later.   Well, today is the five year anniversary of that incredibly painful day when we had to hand over our little guy and I want to tell you a little bit more about that week.  I can't tell you everything.  I still have trouble writing about it.  But I will give you the highlights.

I will start with Monday, December 3, 2011.  I was at a retirement get-together at work.  It was a casual thing, so I had arranged to have Isaac with me.  The paternity test had finally been ordered and we were awaiting results.  Isaac was snuggled in his carrier on my chest.  It was mid-afternoon and I decided to leave, when I noticed a missed call on my phone.  My heart immediately began to pound as I recognized the social workers number.  I called voice mail as I walked to my car, hardly able to breathe.  I knew as soon as I heard her voice that she wasn't delivering good news.  The test was positive and our little Isaac was to returned to his father after almost five months of being our baby.  I was in shock.  I just kept saying "oh no, oh no, oh my gosh" as I walked to my car trying to keep it together.  I was physically shaking as I strapped him into his seat.  I don't know why the tears didn't come, as I'm usually pretty quick to cry.  I called the social worker back but she didn't answer.  I didn't call John because I wanted him to come home before he heard the news, as I knew he would be upset.  I called my friend, Genie, and told her, still unable to cry.  Somehow I made it home.  John is normally home like clockwork around 4:15, but wouldn't you know that today he decided to go buy new running shoes and didn't get home until almost 7:00.  I was dying.  Adrenaline was pumping for hours.  I wanted to be calm so I wouldn't freak Isaac out, but my world was crashing in.  So many years of trying to have a baby.  So many years of failed fertility treatments.  I had hoped and prayed so hard that the test would be negative.  It wasn't.  My stomach was in knots.  How was I going to break this to John.  I was feeding Isaac at the table when I heard his car pull up.  He walked up to the front door which was open and was upbeat as usual.  He stopped at the front door and noticed something was wrong.  "What's up?"  I said "The test was positive."  He said "Oh no!  Are you serious?!"  I said I was and he walked back into the yard and broke down.  And that's when my tears came.  And they didn't stop for four days, and even then, it was for short periods of time.  I am not exaggerating when I say I cried for four days straight.  I couldn't stop.  I didn't go to work.  I couldn't focus on anything.  I couldn't eat or sleep or pull myself together.  John went to work.  I think it helped him to keep a routine.  I couldn't gather myself enough to even get out of the house.  The dam had broken and there was too much force behind the rushing water to allow anything to even begin to fix it.  I prayed harder than ever, but I knew the answer was no.  I tracked down the biological father's e-mail and wrote him a long letter--a last plea that he might consider leaving him with us.  I knew it was probably in vain, but had to try.  We had an exchange of e-mails and I came to terms with the fact that it wasn't going to happen.  We did agree that he would do a transition over the weekend instead of just showing up and taking Isaac home.  I was grateful.  Friends and family fasted for us on Thursday (a practice in my religion of abstaining for food and water for two meals in order to focus on drawing closer to God, especially when there is a particular desire for help).  I think that is the only thing that got me through it.  I woke Friday morning December 7 (our own personal D-day) and was able to dry my eyes for the first time all week, and focus on the day ahead.  Isaac's father and grandmother would be arriving that evening.  This whole thing wasn't his fault and I didn't want to feel angry or show any harsh feelings towards them.  I didn't want to show how hurt I was.  I knew this was hard for him, too, and he had been robbed of these first few precious months with his son.  We were all victims.  I'm leaving out so many details, but to make a long story a little shorter, when they arrived and he walked in the living room and knelt down to see his son, I was so touched.  I even snapped a picture for him.  I could see the joy on his face and I felt the healing begin.  It would take years, but that is when it started.  We talked for two hours--Me, John, Isaac's father and grandmother.  We filled in all the gaps for each other on what had been going on and the lies that Isaac's mother had told.  It was a wonderful conversation.  We were still heartbroken over what would have to happen over the next 48 hours, and I still held out hopes that maybe he would change his mind, but we were beginning to accept it.  The next morning, they took Isaac for a few hours and then brought him back for a nap.  They took him again that afternoon, and brought him home for one last night with us.  My mother flew in that night to be with us, and I am so grateful for that.  I finished Isaac's scrapbook--got it all caught up with all the pictures we had taken and all the journaling, so his father could have a record of the months he had missed.  We packed up everything we had for Isaac--all the gifts given to us by friends at two different baby showers.  We gave them everything except three things.  One was the little onesie I had made for him that said "Superman was adopted."  I put it on a teddy bear my brother and his wife had sent us, and that bear still has it on today in my son's room.  The other thing was a little brown and cream striped sleeper he had worn.  I saw it in the box of stuff and took it out and tucked it away.  It smelled like Isaac and I wanted to keep it.  The funny thing was that John asked me later where that had gone because he wanted to save it.  I thought he might be upset that I was keeping it.  I smiled and told him I had already taken it and saved it.

Saturday night in the middle of the night, Isaac woke up screaming and was inconsolable.  It was the weirdest thing.  He had never done that before and it was upsetting to me.  It was as if he knew a big change was coming.  I held him and we stared out of our bedroom window at the moon together as I talked to him. He finally settled and we put him in bed with us--something we had never done--and he slept the rest of the night with us.

Sunday, December 9th was the day.  They were supposed to come get him at 10 a.m.  I tried to keep Isaac awake, but he was so tired.  I was sick to my stomach.  John was pacing waiting for them.  Isaac fell asleep right before they got there and I was worried about sending him off asleep and just having him wake up in a car on a five hour drive with two people he really didn't know.  One of the hardest things about this whole day was thinking that he would feel we had abandoned him.  As far as he knew, we were his parents, and then one day, we hand him over to someone else.  That bothered me for months, and actually, it still does.  They got there, and I lost it.  I felt the fear wash over my face as I knew the moment had come to say goodbye.  Isaac's father would tell me later that it was the worst day for him, knowing he had to take him away from us.  His mother cried and kept saying "I'm so sorry.  I'm so sorry."  I told her it was okay, that it wasn't her fault.  I said we would be fine.  She had a niece who had struggled with infertility, so she had some idea of what this meant to us.  I woke Isaac up, slid him into his carrier and kissed him goodbye and they left.  it was 10:30 in the morning and it was over.  I wasn't a mother any more.

I laid on the sofa in tears and shock for awhile.  A few friends stopped in to check on us, and by the afternoon, I felt like I was pulling myself together.  But grief is like the ocean.  It washes over you and then recedes for a time and then hits again, and sometimes the waves are lighter and sometimes it's like a Tsunami and you think you won't recover.  I cried every single day for months.  I couldn't sleep at night.  I worked and worked to the late hours hoping I would be so exhausted I would just crash.  No such luck.  I would lay in bed and hold that little bear with the onesie like it was my baby boy, and just cry.  Christmas was the worst.  I had been so close to my first Christmas with a child, and that had been ripped out of my hands.  John was just as bad as I was.  It was a tough time in our lives and a tough time in our marriage.  But we survived.

Oh, there is so much more to tell, but I will end this story here for now.  December 9th hasn't come and gone since then without revisiting that weekend.  And although life is good now, and I love my little guy, nothing will ever take the place of my first child.  I think about him every day.  I keep in touch here and there with his father and I see pictures of him and he is handsome and perfect.  I don't know why we had to experience that horrible event, but we did.  I understand grief and loss now more than I ever did before and that has made me more compassionate and kind, so I suppose that's the silver lining.  Isaac's father gave him a new first name, but kept Isaac as his middle name, which I thought was a beautiful gesture.  His middle name had been John, but that allowed me to give D that middle name instead, so it worked out.  Five years, though, and I can feel that pain as if it had happened this morning, at 10:30 a.m.

The One That Got Away: Memories of a Failed Adoption

NOTE:  This was originally posted in January of 2012.  I wanted to reference it and noticed it was gone from my blog, so am re-posting it.

 My little Isaac has been on my mind a lot lately.  I don’t know why.  It’s been just over four years since we lost him.  It’s not the anniversary of anything—not his birthday, or the day we took him home, or the day we lost him back to his biological father.  Maybe it’s because we have finally gotten back on the list to adopt our second child in the last couple of weeks.  Whatever it is, I’ve been thinking about him a lot more than normal.  Sometimes when people hear about our failed adoption, they make comments about how it’s good that we’d only had him five months or else it would have been even more difficult.  But the thing is, I always saw him as my child.  I bonded with him the first moment I heard about him over the phone, and by the time I held him for the first time at the foster mom’s house, I was done.  He was mine.  He was a low risk adoption—99% guaranteed to go through.  His mother relinquished rights and hand-picked us out of the pool of waiting couples.  She told us she didn’t know who the father was, and that she’d hidden her pregnancy from everyone, so nobody knew about this precious baby boy except herself and the social workers, and of course, us.  After years of failed fertility treatments, including two very difficult and unsuccessful runs at invitro, and then more than a year and a half getting through the process to get on the list for adoption, this amazing boy was ours.  I was elated.  I finally got to be the one at the baby shower on the receiving end, holding the cute little baby and telling my story.  It was a most wonderful time.  And then, the hammer fell.  To keep the story short, the birth mother had lied about everything, and after placing him with us, called the birth father to tell him he had a son, but that he couldn't have him because he’d been placed for adoption.  She looked us in the eye and told us she didn’t know who the father was and that she hadn’t told him, but she had.  It took a while for him to get the paternity test, and a few weeks before Christmas, he came to take his son.  That is all a story for another blog entry, but I just wanted to say that it didn’t matter that it was “only five months” (and it is still very painful to hear that comment from people).  We were devastated.  We had lost our long-awaited child.  We had a deep bond with him, and he had become a precious part of our lives.  I still have a hard time talking about it, and this is the first time I’ve written about it since just after it happened.  We still miss him.  I think about him every day, and I still shed tears every now and then when I look at photos and think of that difficult day when I put him in the car seat and kissed him good-bye, so afraid that he would feel I had abandoned him.  He is doing well now.  These pictures were taken two days before his father took him home.  I had been crying all week, and praying for strength.  I asked my friend to take some pictures of us so I could have some final shots of us together.  And in an answer to that prayer (although not the answer I REALLY wanted!) I woke up that Friday morning calm, and more prepared to face the impending weekend events.  
The strange thing was that I could not get him to smile, and that was very unusual.  I tried playing with him, as you can see in the photos, but no smile.  It was as if he knew a traumatic change was coming and he just wasn’t his normal self.  But, I’m happy with the way they turned out, and glad we were able to capture a sweet moment with him before he went away.I still consider him my first son, even though when people ask, I say that Dylan is the first.  In my mind, Dylan is our second, but I keep Isaac tucked in a special spot deep in my heart that I can only pull out in private.  Dylan will never take his place, although he did fill a deep void when he came to us a year and a half later.  If you know someone who had a failed adoption, I hope you never say "well at least he was only ____ months old", and I hope you never assume the next child will ever take his place.  You would never think that if you lost a biological child.  It is such a painful experience, and it doesn't ever go away.  I know he is with his father who wanted him so deeply, and I know that’s where he needs to be, but my sweet little Isaac will always be the one that got away. 

***You can read more details about this in my latest post "Giving My Baby Back.  The Worst Day of My Life"

It’s a Marriage, Not a Birth: Get Over It. Love It. Embrace it.

I’ve been told that adoption is more of a marriage than a birth.  I think that is pretty accurate and the older the child is at the time of adoption, the more of a marriage it is.  At first I thought that because we got D when he was so young, that this wouldn’t really be as true for us, but it is.  Think about the differences between a birth and a marriage.  A birth is when a human life enters the world not ever having known anything else but his mother and father.  I add father because even though he hasn’t physically touched his father until birth, he is still made up of DNA and other physical things that came directly from his father—things that physically touched him.  This child has known no other life besides his own and in some degree, that of his parents.  An adopted child has a history before you—family, friends, DNA, culture, and so many other things—and that’s okay.  It’s even good, so embrace it.

As I’ve sat in numerous adoption and foster parent classes, I have been privy to many, many discussions, some which included me, and some to which I not-so-subtly eavesdropped.  It has been interesting to hear how many prospective adoptive parents would like to erase their potential child’s past and “move on”.  Things like drug and alcohol abuse, neglect, mental illness and so many more issues that have plagued various birth parents lives, become the reasons for criticism.  And keep in mind that many adoptions happen as the result of very coherent, deliberate choices by wonderful birth parents to place their children with families because they just don’t feel that they can give those children good lives.  Those choices are made out of a great love for their child and extreme unselfishness.  But, as one who has adopted out of our local foster care, I can say that most adoptions aren’t the result of a choice like that.  I believe that adoptive parents really need to face this fact:  adoption is not the same as a biological birth.  Accept it.  Mourn the loss of it, if that bothers you, and get over it.  It’s not the same and it never will be and that’s not a bad thing.  It’s just a different thing.

I remember sitting through a wonderful class that was all about how we need to not cut off all ties from a child’s birth family or the life they had before adoption.  The instructors taught about how continued visits with biological family long after adoption can be most beneficial to the child.  They taught us to not throw away clothes or blankets or anything from the child’s life before adoption because no matter how tattered and dirty those things might seem to us, they are one of the few connections that child has with their biological family and with a former life that is becoming more and more distant in his memory.  They talked about not changing their names (especially in older children) because it may be the only thing their mother ever gave them.  They talked about the difficulty in still having contact with the biological family, but that in many cases, that contact was very healing for a child.  They discussed how many adoptive parents don’t want the hassle of more extended family, or regular visits, or dealing with people that aren’t their own family.  They said often adoptive parents are insecure that a child might perhaps love someone else more than them, and maybe want to return to live with that family, but that on the contrary, usually what happens is that the adopted child realizes this was the better choice for him and is happier to have discovered that for himself.  Ironically, right after the bulk of this class was taught, I heard an adoptive father turn to someone else during a break and say “Well, I’m severing those ties as soon as possible.  I know what’s best for my child and they aren’t it.”  I was totally surprised that he had missed every single principle taught in that class, and I felt sadness at how his child may feel, not only with his parents’ attitude towards where he came from, but also without that connection that might have helped him to heal more quickly and more completely.  Adopted children need to sort through all these things at their own pace, not at a pace that is more convenient for us.  A marriage is two people entering in to a contract, with risks on both sides.  Don’t forget it’s a risk for the child to take you, too, and he never asks for you to leave your past behind.

Adoption is a wonderful thing.  If you have read any of my blog entries, then you already know how I feel about it.  But it is the marrying of two worlds.  It is two or more people that aren’t blood-related coming together just like in a marriage.  As you willingly step into that union, remember that you are taking that child to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until…well, I know the traditional vows ends with “til death do us part”, but I believe in the eternal nature of families, so I will replace that with “forever and ever”.   

The Thing About Waiting....

“Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.”  This is a favorite quote from the book “A Thousand Splendid Suns” that sums up our entire fertility treatment and adoption process.  My friend, Genie, pointed it out to me one time in reference to our long, tiring quest to have a child.  Not to compare my challenges with those of Miriam’s in the book, but it is such a beautiful, concise statement that is so eternally true. It has been almost nine months since we have been back on the list to adopt again through San Diego County Adoptions.  It has been almost two years since we finalized D’s adoption, and we started pretty soon after jumping through the hoops to get back on the list.  It took six months to get everything finished, and seven more months before we could get our final interviews and home visits.  Two months later, those were finally processed and we were back on the list in January of this year.  I suspect it will be about another year before we get a call.  I hope and pray that it is sooner, but mostly I hope and pray for the right child (or children) for us at the right time.  

(As always, all my poems and artwork are copyrighted!
Please don't use without permission.)

Why is waiting so hard?  I’ve decided that I can handle just about anything if I know there is an end to it.  If someone told me the exact date I would be given a child, then I could have handled the years of waiting more easily.  You would know how much time you had to pursue something else, or to tie up loose ends, or that you could save all that money you spent on pregnancy tests, and you would know exactly when to start getting excited.  It would still be hard to wait, but it would be much, much easier.  The worst thing about not knowing is not knowing.  Five minutes before your trial is over feels just like five years before because you don’t know the difference.  We’ve all waited for something--maybe a job offer, or a wedding proposal, or a raise, or acceptance to graduate school, or a call from the doctor to say you are in remission.  It’s the fear of the unknown that gets us.  We want to know—it is human nature.  We want to know what we are dealing with so we can plan and prepare and have some control.  And we know whenever that thing we are waiting for decides to finally arrive, that we will be so relieved or happy or excited and we will be able to move forward instead of feeling like we are in limbo.  I’ve learned, though, that strangely, the greatest lessons are taught during those times of waiting, much more so than at the moment we are granted that thing we so desire.  And so, we wait.  But, it’s different now.  Instead of crying and stressing over each childless day ticking by, I have decided that this time around, I will enjoy walking the path, and I will pay attention to everything along the way, and I will be grateful that I’m walking this path with the sweet hand of a vibrant, little black-haired tank of a three-year-old boy holding my hand.  I wrote and illustrated this poem about him.  It captures so much the way I see him.  His name actually means “son of the sea”.  It was one of the things that sold me on his name, and I have found that it is very fitting.  He is difficult to tame and a little unruly at times, but magnificent and strong, and I am in awe when I stand with him, as I am with the ocean.  We are enjoying every minute together.  And as much as I want another child, and want him to have a sibling (or two) with whom he can share his life, I know that if that doesn’t happen, we have been blessed beyond measure to at least have him.  That said, we still stand on the shore and wait…