and drug use during pregnancy, as well as the level of physical and mental disability we would accept. Of all the forms we had to fill out, that one was by far the hardest. We were told that the more “liberal” we were on the form, the greater the chance of us being shown to a birthmother who had contacted the agency. We’d done a lot of reading on drinking and drugs—many of the people I know seem to have some form of fetal alcohol syndrome, the symptoms of which include being grumpy and angry—and so we weren’t too particular about those boxes. When it came to hereditary medical history, however, things started to get more complex.
Consider this question: If you could choose between an unimpaired child or a physically or mentally challenged child, which would you choose? Biological parents don’t have that choice, whereas adoptive parents do (to some degree, because nothing is ever certain). So what choice do you make and does it show you as a good or bad parent in the eyes of a birthmother? The options available on the form are not extensive: no condition, a mild condition of any type or any condition. Eric and I both have or have had close relatives with mental impediments. Would we pick a child with a mental impediment or a notable risk of one if we had the choice? What would we do if our child was born with an otherwise undiagnosed physical or mental impediment? Adoptions can be “broken” at any point before they are finalized by either party. Would we ever consider doing that? We talked about it for a long time, agreeing that the universe would grant us whatever it did. So we checked the “mild” box and entered the adoption pool.
After six months of nothing, I did start to wonder whether we had made the right choices on the form and whether we should have checked another box or two. It was around that time when we got our first e-mail. It arrived at about 11:30 P.M. one night. We both had our adoption e-mail address synced to our phones and so far had only received random junk mail. But this time, our devices went “ping” and it was a birthmother. We were excited, apprehensive and eager to respond, so we jumped out of bed to reply—and then realized we had no idea what to say! It probably took us two hours to draft a two-paragraph message, redraft it, bicker a little about what we were going to write, redraft it some more and finally send it. Then we forwarded our reply to the adoption agency and tried to get some sleep, wondering all the while if we had said the right things and when she would reply, if she ever would.
Two e-mails later, we realized we were being scammed. The person was just trying to get money from us. We had been warned several times that this could and would likely happen. Knowing how raw and vulnerable adoptive parents are during “the wait,” it’s hard to imagine how a decent human being could prey on that, but people do. One of the many benefits of working with an agency is that they are very quick to spot a scam and let us know before we become too emotionally invested. To be fair, though, after a six-month wait and a sleepless night writing perhaps the most important e-mail of our lives, we were up to our ears in emotional investment and it was hard not to be a little sad that this wasn’t the one.
We put it behind us, along with a few other scams among the random calls we got. Before we knew it, one year had passed and we became eligible for the “last-minute list.” This meant we would be one of the families presented to a birthmother who decided to place immediately after birth. If she liked us, we would have thirty minutes to decide if we wanted to move forward. We tried to make that the positive outcome of a year spent waiting—we could now become a family instantaneously—and signed up.
Five days later, my cell phone rang while I was in a meeting at work. It was a number my phone didn’t recognize, so I ignored it. When I got home, we had a voicemail I hadn’t noticed earlier. It was around 9:30 P.M. when I pushed play in the kitchen and, after a moment of silence, we heard Stephanie’s voice for the first time.
“Hi, Eric and Mat…” There was a long pause. “Wow, this is awkward. My name is Stephanie. I saw your profile online. I’m thirteen weeks pregnant and I’m looking to place my baby for adoption. And I really liked your profile and would kinda like to get to know more about your parenting style and things like that. If you could please give me a call, I look forward to talking more with you.”
This was real and now it was our turn to be silent. From her phone number, we deduced that she was in the central time zone, so it was past 11 P.M. and had been almost twelve hours since her call. Do we call her back now? Do we wait until the morning? What would she be thinking? What do we say to her when we call? What are we supposed to do? We decided to send a text—that way she would know we got her message when she woke up. Stephanie replied in about fifteen seconds. After a brief exchange of texting small talk, we called her.
Our first call lasted close to two hours. We told her to ask us anything she wanted to know. She started with our views on pediatric vaccinations and circumcision. We were not prepared at all to start there, but were honest and answered every question she had as best we could. I took lots of notes. By the time the call ended, we were overwhelmed and could only imagine how she felt. Of all the things we covered that night—the fact that she was declared medically infertile after the birth of her second child, the night the baby was conceived (Halloween, Eric’s favorite holiday), her family situation, her decision not to terminate, her desire to have a home birth and her disdain for adoption agencies—the one that sticks in my mind the most is the response she gave to our question, “What drew you to us when you read our profile?” Stephanie said that she is a Capricorn and her best friend is a Libra. Since I’m a Capricorn and Eric is a Libra, she took that as a sign. The stars really were shining on us that day and they all seemed to be pointing towards Stephanie being the one.
The following day, we had another long conversation with Stephanie over video chat and met the birthfather, Josh. We all seemed to get on well, cracking jokes and laughing and getting to know each other. We gave Stephanie the number for our adoption agency and e-mailed our adoption coordinator to tell her about the contact, hoping we were not in fact seeing stars and that this was for real.
Eric and I spent much of Sunday discussing everything we had learned about Stephanie and Josh. We counted the weeks from thirteen to thirty-nine and tried not to think about the twenty-six weeks during which she could change her mind. We also tried to fathom how a non-hospital birth would work. Stephanie told us she had recently separated from her husband (not Josh) and was currently living in a shelter with her two children. Even though her living situation was complex, Stephanie did not want a hospital birth, which left us with the big overhanging question: “How do you have a home birth without a home?”
Monday came around and we called the agency to fill them in. Stephanie called them later that week and started the intake process and pregnancy validation. Like I said, the agency doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to ensuring their families are not being scammed.
Eric and I had agreed not to tell anyone about the call until we knew for certain that we were going to move forward—it was the hardest secret we’ve ever kept. Every call to our respective parents (and to everyone who knew of our family plans, for that matter) always included some reference or question about the adoption and whether there was any news. We told them not to ask, but couldn’t blame them for asking, either. We appreciated everyone’s questions and concerns, particularly our parents, who tried very hard to understand how the whole process was going to work. After all, they were as novice to this journey as we were, despite being grandparents already. We didn’t want to jinx anything, so we waited until the match meeting was confirmed before we told them about the call.
Our first meeting was scheduled for February 13 in Stephanie’s hometown, which was a good 1,800 miles away from us. We flew in the day before and she met us at the airport at 10:45 P.M.—you may note that she’s a night owl. We had spoken a number of times since that first call and texted incessantly, but we were still nervous as all hell when we met in person for the first time. Before us was the impossible dream and it could have been shattered in a heartbeat if we had done something wrong. And there was no way of really knowing what “wrong” might have been. We made our way through checking into a hotel and having dinner without her leaving, so we hoped we were on the right track as we arranged to meet again in the morning.
I never expected to feel pregnant as part of the adoption and had no idea what that would even feel like. I don’t mean cravings (even though I’ve now tried pickles with whipped cream and