The first thing I see is her hair. Who knew a newborn could have so much of it? As I look through the window into the operating room, I see the doctor hand over to a nurse a wailing, ruddy baby with a head full of dark hair.
I cry.
Will she be my daughter? Will I get to be her mommy?
Her mother has decided to let my husband and I adopt her baby, but this is before the birth. She might change her mind.
I tell myself to stop crying. I may not get to be this baby’s mommy after all.
A nurse sees me looking in and flashes a smile and give me a thumbs up as the baby is placed on a table. She tells me to come on in and meet my daughter.
How could something so tiny wail so loudly?
“Look, tears!” one nurse says. “You don’t see that very often with newborns.”
Sure enough, a fat tear slides down my maybe baby’s cheek.
The umbilical cord needs to be trimmed. The nurse asks me to do the honors. Of course I want to, even though I don’t think I should. Cutting the cord is an intimate act, usually reserved for fathers. This baby’s father isn’t at the hospital. He isn’t involved in her birth.
I take the scissors and cut. The cord is thick, and the blood that splatters out is a deep, rich red.
Next to the baby’s table is the woman who gave birth to her, still under anesthesia. I hear the nurses counting sponges to make sure they got them all. They are about to close her up after performing a Cesarean and—at her insistence—tying her tubes.
Three-Year Journey for a Baby
Seven months earlier, my husband, Jason, and I start down this rocky road of domestic adoption. A year before that—after two years of negative pregnancy tests and inconclusive infertility testing—we gathered up stacks of documents required to adopt a baby from China.
But that process slowed, and we ache to be parents. So we hire an attorney. We attend domestic adoption seminars. We make up a booklet about our life together.
Then, we start talking to pregnant women thinking about adoption. The first is Katie, in her twenties. She loves dogs, just like us! Jason is sure we nailed the interview. She chooses another couple.
Next, “Gia.” She is eight months along, and she rubs her belly as she tells us she is determined to do right by her baby.
In her midthirties, Gia is educated and resourceful, but she picks the wrong men. She and I cry. I tell her we are honored to be in the running, and she taps her fingers on our booklet and says, “Oh, believe me, you’re more than in the running.”
The next night we have dinner in the suburbs with Christine, in her early twenties. Tall and striking, she is only five months along and wears her black hair in a chic bob. I have frizzy, unmanageable hair, and can’t imagine my child having such fantastic hair.
We tell Christine about having to interview with pregnant women and hoping to get picked. “Now auditioning for the role of Mother and Father … Jason and Patti … ” We laugh at the surreal nature of the process. Christine offers to pay her share when the check comes, a classy touch, though Jason doesn’t let her.
On the ride home, Jason tells me Gia picked another couple. He hadn’t told me earlier because he didn’t want my disappointment to show during our dinner with Christine.
For the next few weeks, nothing happens. Jason calls our lawyer daily, but she is out of leads, and Christine needs more time. I decide our booklet doesn’t present a strong enough case that as a white couple, we are capable of providing a good home to a bi-racial child. I rework it, including pictures of my friend Rochelle, who is black, and my cousin, Isaac, who is black and was adopted ten years ago. I’ve never met Isaac. He lives three thousand miles away. I include his photo anyway.
We hire a new lawyer in a neighboring state. He thinks we have several things in our favor: our openness with race and the fact that Jason has all his hair and neither of us is overweight. Pregnant women tend to choose the couple that looks youngest and healthiest, he says. It helps that we are barren and have no children, he tells us. Pity points, I’ll take ‘em.
Within days, a FedEx package crashes against my door.
Inside is the story of “Sonya,” a twenty-five year old with two kids already. An immigrant from a middle-eastern country, she is divorced and works at a fast-food restaurant. She cannot not care for another child because she has no family to help her, she writes.
I instruct the lawyer to show our booklet to Sonya ASAP. All weekend I keep picking up her photo, which shows a dark-eyed woman posing with a handsome African-American man, her baby girl’s father.
Our local attorney says Christine wants to spend more time with us; we arrange another dinner.
The day before our rendezvous, our out-of-state lawyer calls to say Sonya has chosen us! She gives me Sonya’s cell phone number.
Sonya is walking to work, and I can hear the cars rushing by. We talk for about ten minutes. “Well,” she says, “I’ll call the lawyer tomorrow and tell him I’ve made my final decision.”
We call off dinner with Christine and ponder this stunning development. Chosen. Us. Finally.
A few weeks later we spend the weekend with Sonya. She is smart and funny with a survivor’s instinct. Her toddler daughter is adorable. Her son lives with his father in another state. She gives me sonogram photos.
But the baby is still hers.
Anxiety After Birth
After the baby’s birth two days before Thanksgiving, Sonya doesn’t want to put her down even to get some sleep. “She’s perfect,” she says over and over.
Florida law allows a mother to surrender her baby for adoption forty-eight hours after birth. Jason and I pace in the hospital waiting room while Sonya meets with the lawyer, a court reporter, and a witness.
We were told the signing of papers will take only fifteen minutes, but thirty minutes has passed. We can barely breathe.
Finally, the court reporter emerges. She whispers in my ear: “Happy Thanksgiving, Mommy.”
I put my head in my hands and release all those pent up tears.
Inside the hospital room Sonya and I shared for the past two days, Sonya cries as she dresses my daughter.
“My baby,” she says as she sobs. “I’m giving away my baby.”
I stand back, crying and taking in her natural ease with the baby we have named Celia.
“Sometimes in life,” she says, wiping her tears, “you have to do things that are hard.”
The following Saturday we take the baby to Walmart with Sonya and her daughter to have portraits made. She promises to send us half and keep half. The photos arrive a few weeks after we return home. My favorite is of Celia with Sonya’s daughter. I hope they can have a relationship down the road, but with open adoption there are no certainties, only intentions.
One day, a few days after sending Sonya some photos, I return home to a phone message from her. She says she misses Celia, and she compliments Jason and me on the great job we are doing. I plan to save that message forever. For Celia. For me.
I don’t pretend to know the depth of Sonya’s grief. There is no way I could. I want to understand adoption from her side, but I can only wonder.
I don’t know what happened with Katie, Gia, and Christine, whether they are missing the baby they didn’t keep or marveling over their newborn’s rapid growth like I am. With adoption, whether domestic or international, there is so much wondering, so many unknowns.
What I do know is that I’m this baby’s mommy. This chubby, happy, gorgeous baby. Every morning when I lift her out of her crib, that still amazes me.