At Long Last, Our Wished-For Child is Here
When describing our adoption experience, I often feel the need to add the fine print you find at the bottom of ads for miracle weight loss products: Results Not Typical.
But this is our true story.
One morning last January, I woke up with a name rolling around in my head. It was a girl’s name that meant “wished for child.” I cannot explain why the name stuck with me, but it did. My husband was out of the country at the time, so I e-mailed him, in jest, to warn him that I was renaming our imaginary future children. We both laughed and went on with our day. We weren’t laughing because we thought the possibility of eventually naming a child was laughable, but because we didn’t think choosing one was the urgent business of that particular week. Or month. Or even that year. Only the week before had we sent a single copy of our family profile to Spokane Consultants. We wouldn’t have the chance to attend the agency’s mandatory seminar in Spokane before March, and until we’d completed that step, we could not “go active” and have our profile available to potential birthmothers. Parenthood was on the horizon, we thought, but still a long way off.
The next day, I received a phone call from Maureen at Spokane Consultants. She was calling to ask if Matt and I would be interested in going active before attending the seminar. This wasn’t something they did often, she explained, they were in a very busy time, understood our extenuating circumstances, and wanted to have a more robust pool of families to present to birthmothers.
Here is where I need to pause and pay homage to the cliché, “famous last words.”
The thing about all clichés is that we roll our eyes because they are like those annoying pieces of advice your parents gave you as a kid. You hated to hear them because you knew they were right. But it is true: You always remember what you say in these moments because they inevitably become the beginning a story.
My famous last words? “Well, I like extreme sports.”
Three days later, I was standing in my kitchen, planning out the rest of my day. At the top of my list was taking a trip to make four more copies of our family profile to send to our agency, along with the paperwork that signified that we were in the active pool. It was 10:15 when the phone rang and I heard this: “Hi Sarah. This is Maureen from Spokane Consultants. Well, you said you like extreme sports…”
I confess that I do not remember much of what came after that, beyond the words “birthmother,” “went into labor,” and “she picked you.” (A few hours later I had the clarity of mind to ask if it was a boy or a girl. But somehow I already knew.)
I had not yet researched infant car seats. I didn’t have a single diaper or a blanket or a baby wipe in my whole house. What I did have was a plane ticket to go out of town three days later. And a husband who wasn’t due home for another month. But there is only one thing you can do when someone says “and she picked you”: you get in your car the next morning, drive over the mountain pass, and go meet your daughter.
The events between the call and the driving over the mountains are, much like that first phone call, a blur. My cell phone overage charges can attest to the fact that I spent most of the day on the phone. Several more calls with Maureen resulted in a plan, which is distilled rather cogently on a post-it that I keep in a small bag with our daughter’s hospital bracelet: along with Maureen’s cell phone number, the only words on the paper are the name of the city where my daughter was born, “HOLY MOLY,” and “hotel—find one.”
That evening, I drove myself to the giant baby superstore, and almost laughed out loud as I stumbled through the aisles, loading a car seat and diapers into my cart. I felt like I was a crazy lady on my way to steal a baby. I told the check out clerk where I was headed and couldn’t shake the feeling that I was telling the biggest whopper of my life.
What was more surreal was that I still hadn’t been able to talk to Matt about any of it. After not hearing from him all day, I finally admitted that this was an event worthy of breaking with my own personal military wife code; a code that goes something like, “Don’t call. Sort it out on your own unless someone is dying.” But by 8 pm, I decided that perhaps I should see if I could reach Matt. It wasn’t exactly an emergency, but I thought I probably shouldn’t do something as life changing as bringing home a child without at least mentioning it to him.
When I finally spoke to someone, they told me that I wouldn’t be able to talk to him for another eight hours. I went to bed, understanding that the exercise of trying to sleep was important, whether or not any sleep actually occurred. Sometime after midnight, Matt finally called. While I was nearly positive he wouldn’t tell me not to go, I still needed to hear him say “yes.” He did.
So I went.
After arriving at the hospital, I met Maureen and Nancy from Spokane Consultants. We chatted for a few minutes and they filled me in on some basic outlines of our birthmother’s story. A few minutes later, we were knocking on the door of her hospital room. As I peered cautiously around the curtain, I had no idea what to expect. Here I was, a complete stranger, waltzing into her life, hours after she had given birth. How could I not feel like an intruder? And yet she disarmed me in seconds. She saw me, and a wide, welcoming smile spread across her face. In her arms, she held an impossibly small baby—truly, the smallest baby I had ever seen—and quickly offered, “Do you want to hold her?”
And then time stood still. At some point, I realized it was dark outside and that my daughter, her birthmother, and I had been sitting together for quite some time.
Many hours later, my friend (a varsity mom who had dropped everything to join me for the most surreal and wonderful day of my life) and I walked gingerly out into the icy hospital parking lot with my tiny daughter strapped into her new car seat. We were both giggling because it seemed so impossible. I was walking out of the hospital. With a baby. That was mine. A baby I didn’t know existed 36 hours before that moment.
There are many more details that I could share about this experience, but truly the most remarkable one is this: there are not words to describe what it feels like to be given—GIVEN—a child. Trusted with her care from here until I am gone. Our daughter’s birthmother gave this little girl life, carried her, and then had selfless presence of mind to consider that someone else might be in a better place to give her all that she needs. And then, in the world’s greatest act of trust, she handed me her child. Right there, still in her hospital gown. Because she believed that I could give this little girl what she could not.
A year later, I remain in awe, because she didn’t have to do any of those things. It is humbling to consider that the most priceless gift in all my life was given to me by a perfect stranger. I am grateful, too, that she is no longer a stranger. I am humbled by the strength it takes to choose the kind of adoption where we can talk and meet; that as hard as it might be, she is willing to keep her heart open to our daughter, in case she has questions that I can’t answer. I might be a pretty nice person, but truly, I have never done anything to deserve anything this good.
And just like everyone said it would, those years of heartache and uncertainty evaporated the moment I laid eyes on my baby girl. “Ohhhh,” said my heart. “This is why. This is what all that waiting was about. THIS child.”
Recently, I found myself imagining what I might say to my younger self, if given the opportunity. I would, of course, have plenty to say to about questionable fashion choices in the early 90s, but the prevailing message, particularly in the years leading up to meeting our daughter is this: The good stuff is just around the corner. Before my daughter, I couldn’t see it.
But now I do.
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