He’s in my arms on the red velvet couch, and the fire is about to go out.
A log put there a few hours ago is almost completely void of any remaining embers. I take a full breath, careful not to wake this sleeping baby by moving too much, and exhale slowly. He moves slightly but is still asleep. I stare at his tiny swaddled body and cannot believe it. I cannot believe he’s real or maybe that it’s finally happened. That I am instantly a mother without having to hold him inside of my own body. That he has happened outside of it and still he is somehow mine, and I am somehow his.
I stay on the red velvet couch all night catnapping while he sleeps in a bassinet beside me. I keep my hand on the bassinet in case this is all a dream. As if somehow he might float away if I’m not vigilant. If I’m not careful, he might fall off the red velvet couch onto the hard floor or suffocate by my amateur attempts at swaddling. Any number of unspeakable things can happen to babies who are neglected. I am alert in a way I never thought possible. I need to keep him alive and happy and content and fed and growing.
I become a mother overnight.
I become a mother overnight without nine months’ gestation to prepare. Without the kicking feet and stretching arms in a growing tummy. Without the adorable maternity clothes and balloons and cupcake-filled baby shower where I’m given tiny outfits babies can wear only once. Baby showers happen after an adoption is finalized. Six months after you and your baby have lived together and bonded.
Birth parents have the right to change their minds in that six-month period. It’s best not to think about it, but it does happen.
We wait four years to be chosen by a birth mother who actually moves forward with us. We are chosen a few other times, but for one reason or another, they do not go through with it. We are ghosted by them after a few emails or phone calls. They get back together with their boyfriends or they just can’t go through with it. Sometimes, they don’t tell us why.
I empathize with the birth mothers but also feel betrayed each time we get our hopes up. I am destroyed for a week afterward. Recovering from these possibilities that go nowhere is the most momentous lesson in patience I’ll ever learn.
My husband and I keep our spirits up by updating our adoption profile with even cheesier photos while drinking margaritas and listening to the Violent Femmes at full blast. We dance around our kitchen and agree, “You can’t do this with a napping baby around, can you?!”
We take trips to Mexico. Exotic beach retreats in Tulum and Sayulita where we swim and surf in dangerous waves, and I practice yoga in immaculate glass-walled studios facing the ocean. We eat leisurely sunset dinners on candlelit tables in the sand while drinking lots of wine and eating tacos. We try in vain to relax and enjoy our time of not being parents when that’s all we want to be doing. No amount of sleeping in, late dinners, movies, concerts, or faraway vacations will fill that void.
They all say we will not remember the wait once it happens, but the wait is excruciating and exhausting. The amount of time spent gathering, completing, and submitting the paperwork is more than three college applications combined. We meet with social workers together. We meet with social workers one-on-one. We think this is to see if we answer the same crucial parenting questions similarly and are in line with one another. A psychological profile is given, even though they don’t call it that, but it’s pretty obvious. How are we raised? Did we have family conflict? (Who hasn’t?) What religion will we follow? (Is “none” the wrong answer?) We have our house inspected and are officially fingerprinted (twice), once at the beginning and then again at the two-year mark. In between endless paperwork and meetings is the actual wait. Time in the day when you have nothing to do but look at your phone, willing it to ring, while it remains silent, and you wait and wait and wait.
Six months after our son is home with us, our court date is scheduled. He’s had a stomach virus the entire week prior, and I scramble to change his soiled diapers before he gets a diaper rash. I almost cancel our appointment but don’t dare. I know we need this final step to be over so we can begin our duties as his parents without fear of him being taken back. I’m confident of the birth mother’s decision, but I’m nervous about the birth father who has been in and out of the picture. The birth mother begs us not to worry. She assures us that he has no desire to parent, but wants to let it be known that he tried to convince her to keep him, even though she cannot parent him.
We publish a notice in the local paper about our upcoming adoption, a requirement in open adoptions, literally inviting anyone to stand up disagree and say “No, we will take him!” We hire a lawyer to find the birth father, and it turns out he’s been recently arrested on minor drug charges and is given direct notice of the adoption in county jail. He can still fight the adoption if he wants to but finally does not.
We dress our son in a smart blue button-down shirt with a tiny yellow tie and slacks for our court date. He is still recovering from his stomach virus but smiles all morning. The pictures we have from that day are some of my favorites. We all seem to be glowing with possibility, hope, and determination.
And then, our endless four-year road to this moment is wiped from our memories in an instant when the judge’s gavel hits the bench.
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