Tag: adoption

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Adoption 101: Final Exam

The response to our adoption story has been completely unexpected and surprising to Mary Tyler Dad and I.  Over 30K page views for MTM posts in just three days.  We are grateful for the support and encouragement, welcome the questions, and understand some of the criticism that has come our way.  And this, my friends, is why I opted to write about our experience.

As we were driving away from the town where we met the birth family, as I wept and traded texts with a friend, trying to make sense of what we had just seen and heard, there was a resolve to tell the story of adoption.  What happens, how it happens, the highs and lows (literally and figuratively, natch) of such a complex process.

In the first entry I wrote about my need to give order to chaos, but Adoption 101 has also been about shedding light on a part of America that so many of us do not see.  Poverty, addiction, and abuse are invisible to many.  Some might say that is a blessing, I personally feel it is a shame.  A few commenters felt there was too much judgment attached to the birth family.  I worked hard to simply tell the story as it unfolded.  No doubt, some of my anger, sadness, and simple sense of feeling wrung out to dry found itself in my words, and for that I am sorry.

Mary Tyler Dad suggested I wait a week before writing, but we all know how that went.  The keyboard is my greatest confidant, writing is my solace.  When I need to write, I write.  I am still amazed that you want to read.

Many of you have been moved to share your own stories of adoption — being adopted, having placed your child for adoption, being adoptive parents yourself.  And gratefully, so gratefully, we are learning how unique this past weekend was.  Someone chided me for titling this series Adoption 101, feeling it was misleading and would scare others researching adoption for themselves.  I don’t know what to say to that other than this experience has been our Adoption 101.  We will learn much from the past month as we continue to search for our child.  And the certainty we feel, Mary Tyler Dad and I, that if prospective adoptive parents are scared away by poverty, addiction, and abuse, than perhaps adoption was not in the cards for them.

We first talked about adopting in the fall of 2007.  In the midst of Donna’s treatment, as she was being prepped for her stem cell transplant, we were informed, sitting across a conference table from two of our docs, that the treatment Donna had received and would continue to receive, the toxic chemotherapies we hoped would save her, would prevent her from ever having children.  That was wrenching and made me so sad to know that Donna would never get to feel the kick of a child, her baby, inside of her.

There are so many losses in cancer that are also invisible.

I started thinking about the need to educate Donna, to normalize for her the reality that giving birth does not make one a mother.  Families are made in many different ways.  In the spirit of choosing hope, we wanted Donna to grow up with a sibling that would feel as much a part of her as her biological brother, so that if she grew to adulthood and chose motherhood, she would know adoption.  The course of Donna’s illness and the arrival of her brother made adoption impossible a few years ago.  And full disclosure, there have been four miscarriages along the way, three in the eighteen months after Donna died.

It is fitting that Donna brought us to adoption.  She has brought so many of the good things I value into my life.

But now it is Mary Tyler Son we want a sibling for — he was born a brother, feels like a brother, envies the siblings of his friends and cousins.

Like many folks we know, we came to parenthood late.  Contrary to every fear and concern I had, I am a good mom.  Not only did I have no idea I would love it so much, I had no idea I would take to it as I have.  And Mary Tyler Dad?  Forgettaboutit.  Read for yourself what an amazing man he is.

Maybe because of that, because we realize the combination of us, Mary Tyler Dad and I, create some good parenting, is one of the reasons we opted to pursue adoption.  We simply want more of parenting.  We want another child to love and hold and diaper and teach and learn from and raise and nurture and discipline and laugh with and sing with and weep over and stand back in amazement as we watch them soar.

And that child is out there, that birth mother is out there.  We haven’t found one another yet, but they are there.  Maybe they are looking for us right now, as we are looking for them.  I’ve thought for months and months that our baby would find us through Mary Tyler Mom.  There are so many of you, nationwide, that read my posts, and know what kind of parents we are.  I honestly had a whole campaign strategy planned, enlisting the help of my fellow bloggers, none of whom I have yet informed they were part of my plan.

Well, plans change, don’t they?  And this adoption thing keeps evolving, doesn’t it?  We weren’t expecting the call we received on July 16.  We weren’t expecting the roller coaster we would enter, hanging on for dear life all the way.

But here we are, Mary Tyler Dad and I, still standing, still waiting, still looking.  We are not discouraged by the pain and sadness we witnessed.  We are resolved.  Resolved to keep looking, resolved to keep telling our story, resolved that we will find our child and that child will find us.  We are resolved that there is a birth mom out there that believes, as we do, that we are the people she wants and needs, just as she is the person we want and need.

Maybe you know her.  Maybe she is your sister, your aunt, your daughter, your granddaughter, your friend, your sorority sister, your classmate, your neighbor, your church member, your patient, your client, your neice, your goddaughter.  Maybe she is the girl who shampoos your hair, or the one who sells you coffee, or walks the cute dog down the street.  Maybe she is you.

Mary Tyer Dad and I are waiting.  You can find us at marytylermom@gmail.com.

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Adoption 101: The Visit Ends

There we were, clinging to one another in the Wal-Mart — our own little islands of calm and sanity.  Birth mom requested a different cell phone and given that it wasn’t significantly more expensive, Mary Tyler Dad went through the exchange while we shopped for some food.

Think about food without a kitchen to prepare it in.  The hotel room had a fridge and microwave, which is a bonus, but both were small.  You can’t buy anything frozen, as the freezers are no bigger than a radio.  You can’t buy anything that requires more than a heating.  At one point, birth mom remarked they had no bowls.  Not having a bowl will stick with me a whole long while.

We did the best we could.  I watched, hung back, tried to observe her food choices.  Again, I felt intrusive, and yet, this information seemed significant to me.  I am trained as a social worker.  We are observers by nature, then taught to assign meaning to our observations.  I remain so very grateful for my training and education that have served me so well with cancer and now adoption.

Birth mom was amenable to being linked to a social service agency — something I had been pushing for with our attorney.  She continued to state a wish to extricate herself from her mother, another good sign, I thought.  She asked again about open adoption, wondering how often she might see the baby.  She hoped for once a month.  She hoped we would help the family move closer to Chicago, the land of opportunity.  Oy.  This worried me.  Our friends and family with open adoptions work very carefully to maintain boundaries.  It is a tight rope walk, but one we see working for those we love.  Except the idea of birth mom and dad living close to us set a panic in my heart.  I dodged.  I evaded.

As we proceeded to check out, I got a spontaneous hug from birth mom.  It was easy to hug her back.  She was so very vulnerable in my arms.  There was so much this girl did not know, did not understand, was not capable of — I worried how those things might impact an adoption.  I felt old knowing as much as I did, carrying the worries for both of us.  I hoped she knew nothing of my worries.

We dropped her off at the hotel with a promise to return in 30 minutes for dinner.  And in 30 minutes we returned for dinner.  She picked the restaurant at the truck stop across the street.  Birth grandmother came out to smoke while birth mom was getting her son ready.  There had been tears and more concern about stolen meds and the cost of them.  There was more than a faint hint of expectation.  I could feel in my bones her desire for us to give her money, to fix the situation.  I ignored those tears as best I could, anxiously waiting for birth mom.

She came out, decked out in her new clothes, holding her cell phone in her hand, hoping Mary Tyler Dad would help her activate it over dinner.  That boy of hers was as bright as ever.  Just beautiful.  He looked right at you, clear eyes, always a smile on his face, trusting and playful.  We got to the restaurant and ordered dinner.  We both worried birth mom did not read.  Still hard to know.  The waitress seemed annoyed with the birth family.  Did she know them?  What did she know?

While we waited for food, Mary Tyler Dad and I seemed to be the only ones noticing that a toddler in a restaurant requires stimulation.  Books, activities, toys — little incentives to sit still and be patient.  I never left the house without a bag of tricks for Mary Tyler Son.  I still don’t.  This little one had to be content eating crayons.  Repeatedly.  And while I know all toddlers explore with their mouths, it just hurt a little more to see him with his grandmom on his right and his mom on his left and they didn’t seem to know or understand that every time they handed him a crayon he would eat the tip of it.

When our food arrived, a plate of chips was placed in front of the boy.  Neither of his caregivers seemed to notice that the pizza they ordered for him was not delivered.  When it finally was, they put it in front of him without cutting it.  Here was this little guy trying so hard to navigate too big pieces of hot pizza.  Eventually, they got it, his mom and grandmom, but why did it take so damn long?

Over dinner, once birth moms new phone had been activated, a series of calls and texts were made to birth dad.  Would he be joining us?  Where was he?  The instinct to reach out to him was almost primal in birth mom.  The messaging was almost constant.  In between texts, birth grandmom told her daughter that she was moving to the shelter in the town where her other kids lived and that she would be taking the toddler with her.  She advised her daughter to leave her wreck of a thieving boyfriend and come with her, but if she didn’t, the boy was still going.  She warned her daughter not to get “too spoiled” with all her new things from our shopping trip.

In the middle of this there was a call from birth dad who wanted to talk to me.  He needed a cell phone and wanted the same one as birth mom — could we get it tonight?  His wasn’t working well.  Um.  No.  No, we can’t get you a cell phone, my friend.  The answer is no.  He kept asking, I kept saying no, as clearly and firmly as possible.  He told me that birth mom’s mother accused him of stealing her pills after we left, but he was innocent, and she had just misplaced them.  Uh huh.  Got it.  No worries.  He hung up.  He was mad?  Angry?  He was something.

Turns out, he was high.  As a kite.  He walked over soon after, all dolled up in his new Chicago Bears shirt.  For some reason, that annoyed me.  Birth mom was wearing hers, too, and that annoyed me.  We offered him food, he declined.  He sat, sulking and glaring, at the lot of us, but seemed most focused on birth grandmom.  After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Mary Tyler Dad and I almost singularly focused on the sweet boy at the table, birth dad stated clearly and loudly, “I did not steal your pills and I was not cheating.  I was sitting at my mother’s grave.”  As if that explained everything.  As if he wasn’t under the influence.  As if his entire life wasn’t a shambles.

We paid the bill, birth mom with a new spring to her step.  She had gotten a paper over dinner and was looking at apartments.  She was happier than I had seen her.  I was sadder.

When we got to our car, I offered birth dad the front seat.  I had heard somewhere that it was good to defer to the birth father, pay him the respect he so craves.  As I was getting in the back seat, birth grandmom was looking for her cigarettes.  She asked birth mom if she could bum one off of her.  She knew precisely what she was doing, in asking birth mom, who simply ignored her.  She asked her daughter and birth dad to borrow some money to buy a new pack.  Neither had any.  Our wallets were closed for the night.

As we made our way across the street, I saw birth dad leaning over talking to Mary Tyler Dad.  I was curious, resolved to ask later.  We got to the hotel, everyone hopped out, we made tentative plans to meet for 9 AM breakfast.  I suggested a movie to clear our heads.  Mary Tyler Dad just needed to drive, so we did.  We drove and breathed and shook in disbelief.

I asked after what words were said with birth dad.  Mary Tyler Dad told me that birth dad asked if he could contact us directly.  The consummate gentleman, Mary Tyler Dad said, “Sure, but it’s really up to birth mom, isn’t it?”  BUZZ!  Wrong answer.  What I had seen was birth dad leaning forward, giving Mary Tyler Dad the “jailhouse stare,” and asserting his dominance as decision maker, “It’s up to me, too.”  That alone, his attempt to intimidate us, scare us, threaten us with his power over birth mom, probably sealed the deal for us to walk away.  Before the day started, we had created a “safe word,” that was to be enacted if we needed to bail.  Just short of either of us wanting to be the first to exercise the safe word, we called our attorney to report on the day’s events.

I lead with the clear substance abuse that seemed rampant.  That was followed with the dicey family dynamics — a father and grandmother who seemed jealous of the attention we paid to a baby and the gifts we had bestowed on birth mom.  Gifts like paper plates and plastic forks and underpants and a cell phone and a package of turkey.  Our heads were spinning.  I was angry, so angry at their attorney,  who didn’t provide a whisper of a clue as to what we would find.  We hung up, dazed and exhausted.  I noticed there were two voicemail.  “Here we go,” I said, as I listened to them.

What I heard was horrifying.  A baby screaming, a mother pleading, shouts of “GET OFF ME, GET OFF ME, PLEASE GET OFF ME!”  The sound of slapping, hitting, skin on skin contact.  And that sweet boys piercing screams.  Not fifteen minutes had passed since we left the family.

I broke out in sobs, Mary Tyler Dad just kept driving.  I quickly called the attorney, telling him I needed to call 911 — was there 911 in this town?  I was frantic and wrecked.  I called immediately, got it together to keep my voice intact.  Before I got to the issue, I explained who I was, where I was from, why I was visiting — trying to establish credibility?  Who knows.  I was shaken and as I got to the messages and the location of where they came from, describing a mom, dad and grandmother, the 911 dispatcher said their names.  Each of their names was said to me before I said them.  He encouraged me to stay on the line until police arrived at the hotel, just to keep me calm.  He was older and had a kind voice.  I cried, I wept for that boy and for that mother.

We drove past the hotel and saw the police presence.  Mary Tyler Dad wanted to leave town.  Was that alright?  Yes, knowing full well that this baby was not our baby.  You can’t call 911 on a family and move on from that.  Done is done.  Over is over.  Enough is enough.

We drove and I wept.  My tears were not for us, my tears were for that boy.  What will happen to that boy?  What will happen to the unborn baby?  What will happen to this mother?  Nothing good.  We felt it, both of us, and yet drove to protect ourselves, drove fast away to feel better, drove to get the hell out of Dodge.

Last weekend was a nightmare for us, but we got to drive away.  It was a visit, a blog post, a bad memory.  For that family — everyone in that family — it is their life.  Their nightmare that they do not wake up from.  I can’t feel angry at them, or upset over a lost dream of a child that was never ours.  All I feel is sad.  Big, giant mountains of sad.

Truth is, we can’t fix people.  We can’t help someone that can’t receive help, or doesn’t want it.  We can’t grab their baby, hoping to reverse whatever physical and emotional and substance induced violence he has witnessed.  We can’t do any of that.  All we can do is drive away.  Drive far away to catch a plane that will take us home where we are safe and loved and supported.

And when we get home, we will realize that we didn’t help at all, but more likely worsened an already untenable situation.  By swooping in from Chicago with our suitcase of good intentions and our pound of Frango Mints, we upset the birth family balance.  We showered praise, attention, and things on the three least powerful members of the family — mom and toddler and baby-to-be.  Without knowing it or meaning to, we made it worse.  We did that.  And we are sorry.

Tomorrow:  Adoption 101:  Final Exam

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Adoption 101: The Visit Begins

Our visit was fast approaching.  The comfort of knowing the birth family had met with their attorney was tempered by the news that our attorney would not be granted a meeting with them before our visit.  When you’re new to adoption, you rely on those advisors you surround yourself with, hoping you made the right choice.  That is oddly parallel to what the birth mom goes through, isn’t it? 

The birth family’s attorney questioned why such a meeting would even be requested in the first place, and stipulated that if one were to occur, it would only be in her presence.  Seemingly, as evidence of her not being completely contrary, she agreed to attempt to meet with her clients to complete social and medical history forms before Friday, the day prior to our visit.  That never happened.  Another glaring red flag, always more obvious in the rear view mirror, was that she wanted budget figures from us for realistic living expenses.  The birth family would then accept our budget, or propose one of their own.

What the what?  What does a couple in Chicago know about living expenses for a very small town in a completely separate state?  Yeah, it made no sense to our attorney either.

Despite the red flags, glowing brighter each day, there was a baby.  A tiny girl baby in her mother’s womb.  A mother who continued to identify us as the parents she wanted for that baby.  We chose hope and finalized plans to make the visit.

The day before we were to leave, I got another plaintive text.  Birth mom was stressed beyond her limits.  She needed space and separation.  Would I arrange for a hotel room for her?  Ugh.  These texts always sent me.  I knew Mary Tyler Dad would balk, I knew they required consultation with our attorney, I knew I would have to respond.  Given that we had already agreed to subsidizing a short term apartment for the remainder of the pregnancy, the hotel request made sense.  With approval from our attorney, we were to provide a room through the weekend and present a budget for review Monday morning.

I asked birth mom if she had a hotel preference, as there are about half a dozen in town.  She did.  I arranged for the room and texted her the confirmation number.

Within an hour, birth grandmother called to clarify — which hotel had I selected?  Did it have a pool?  Did it provide food?  Was it too late to switch the reservation?  Yes, I said, it was too late.  “Oh,” she said, “I would have preferred the Comfort Inn.” 

Just let the weight of that sink in for a moment.

Suddenly, I was tired of this family.  And angry.  And tense.  I felt the anxiety of the past weeks in my jaw, my shoulders, my back.  But tomorrow was the visit.  No backing out now.

After uneventful travel, we arrived at the hotel.  A meth head opened the door with a smile on his sore and scab covered face, revealing two rows of decaying, black teeth.  This man, rail thin, the birth father, was clearly engaged in the active use of methamphetamines.  Watching four seasons of Breaking Bad had paid off, teaching us how to recognize the signs of meth addiction.  Fuck.

We made nice, despite our initial alarm.  We met the toddler son who was the brightest light in the hotel rooom.  His eyes shown beautifully.  He was active and healthy and seemed perfectly intact.  Unscathed.  We met birth grandmother, who looked rough, to put it kindly.  Her eyes were puffy and damp.  She mumbled a lot.  They all did.  Birth grandmother was much less social than she had been on the phone conversations we had shared.  She asked for a ride to a town ninety minutes away, that Mary Tyler Dad and I had just driven through, except she said it was forty-five minutes at most.  She wanted to see her two children that had been removed from her care.  She thought it would be good if we met the whole family.  Mind you, we had not yet met birth mom.

A few minutes later, there she was:  birth mom.  She was fresh from the shower and had chosen a floral sun dress.  She was pretty and looked healthy.  It was good to see her.  She seemed nervous, eyes darting, was preoccupied with fixing her hair.  It was odd, but not too odd considering she was a young 20 year old girl.  We shared the gifts we had carried from Chicago — a pound of Frango Mints and Chicago sports team t-shirts for the room!  Ugh, there we were in a dark motel room eating mints with a meth addict.

Because there was no space for Jeremy and I to communicate, to acknowledge our fear, concern, confusion, well, we simply put on our smiles and chatted.  Small talk as the great equalizer.  The toddler was getting a little antsy, so birth dad offered to take him outside for a bit.  He tried to put his shoes on.  Repeatedly.  Over and over, never figuring out that they were both too small and on the wrong foot.  He just kept trying and trying.  Mary Tyler Dad saw that as a sign of bad things to come.  The significance of a dad who does not know how to put shoes on his toddler son hit him hard.

With birth dad out of the room, we were left with birth mom and grandmom.  We talked a little more about grandmom’s wish to drive to see her other kids, she mumbled something about relapse, but I don’t honestly know who she was referring to –herself?  the kids?  their own father?  I’m a Cancer Mom and for me, relapse means something else entirely.  I had to keep reminding myself of that.

We talked a bit and tried to get to know one another.  We asked some questions, encouraged her to ask us anything.  We wondered what birth mom was looking for in a family for her daughter.  Most important to her was the ability to see her as she grew up.  Birth mom wanted an open adoption.  We want that, too, and talked about some of our friends and family that have successful open adoptions.  There was a significant lack of curiosity about us.  I felt the Catholic in me rise up and want to confess our parenting sins:  Is it okay that we live in a big city?  Is it okay that we have a condo without a yard?  Does it matter that we already have a child?  We’re not religious — is that a problem?  Ugh.  I can’t remember if we talked about this together, or if it was just an internal conversation I had with myself.  The only emotion over this decision we saw was in some of birth mom’s tears.  She had already lost her first daughter — a three year old being raised by her paternal grandparents — and she did not wish to lose another.  I understood.

I offered to show the photos of our life in Chicago.  The day before, in between making hotel arrangments, I had photographed the rooms in our home.  I had also selected some more family photos to supplement the ones we had already sent.  Birth grandmother, not very communicative since we had arrived, fell asleep while looking at them.  Passed out is honestly more accurate.  Right there in front of us, there went birth grandmother down for the count.  I was worried she was going to fall over.  I asked birth mom if her mom was okay.  I shook her just lightly and encouraged her to lie down.  She roused enough to look at a few more photos.  Within seconds, she had passed out again.  I lightly touched her shoulder again, asked her to lie down, and told her we would take birth mom out shopping for a few things.  She agreed and off we went.

You know when you’re in the middle of a couple’s squabble, but they’re trying hard to be civil with one another?  Well, leaving the room, we ran into birth dad and his son right outside.  We mentioned that we were going to shop for a few things — some food and clothing.  Clearly, birth mom wanted to go alone, but birth dad handed her the baby.  She handed him right back.  He kept trying to hand the child to her, but she walked away towards our car.  That alone broke my heart.  I felt like we were intruding, witnessing a couple in conflict that needed some space to figure it out.  Except there was no space.  He wanted one thing, she wanted another.  In the end, birth dad was left behind with his boy. 

So where do you go when you want to shop for your birth mom?  WAL-MART!  Well done, Walton Family — bringing adoptions together!  Ugh.  Birth mom and I ditched Mary Tyler Dad to shop for clothing while he went to go look at cell phones for her.  I wanted to give her some space to talk and shop and breathe.  With that little bit of space, I learned some important things.  Birth mom was on disability, SSI, for ADHD.  Who knew that was even possible?  The State had cut her benefits when she reported that birth grandmother was stealing her monthly checks.  Now that explained A LOT.  Birth mom was hoping to move out on her own with her boyfriend and son and that we would make that possible.  She described birth dad as jealous and possessive, but you know what?  She loved him!  And she knew him better than anyone.  I am certain she does.

Over socks and undies, a picture started to present itself:  birth mom was caught in the middle of her two alpha family members.  There she was, powerless and weak, caught between two opposing forces, each harming her in their own way.  Grandmom stole from her and birth dad was an addict.  Neither of those were healthy for her, her son, or the baby growing in her belly.  And yet, there they remained in her life.  Not going anywhere.

Wal-mart was good for chatting.  I learned that birth grandmother was currently on Klonopin and Vicodin and that she tended to take too much.  The passing out suddenly made a lot more sense.  After loaning birth mom my phone, I learned that right after we left, birth grandmother accused birth dad of stealing her meds.  Oy.  Birth mom did not seem phased by this in the least.  In.  The.  Least. 

I needed some space, so went to go check on Mary Tyler Dad.  Poor guy had mistakenly purchased the phone he thought was best.  Oops.  It was not the model birth mom had requested.  Never mind, it was just good to hold his hand in the midst of this crazy.  Right there in the middle of Wal-Mart. 

Tomorrow:  The Visit Ends