Our adoption journey began with infertility, like for so many people. We got married in 1998 when I was 32 and Gregory was 33. We had a foreshadowing of difficulty because of my history with endometriosis, so it wasn’t too surprising when we didn’t get pregnant after a year of Toni Wechsler’s fertility awareness methods (I still love her book Taking Charge of Your Fertility). Having biological heirs was not as important to us as the chance to be parents and raise children, so we skipped the IVF route and went for adoption. We attended adoption information sessions with the County of Alameda and PACT Adoption Alliance before going to IAC (Independent Adoption Center). We balked at the county explanation that all children in the system had been forcibly removed from their homes. And we were told at PACT that first priority for children of color was to be placed with parents of color, and we are both white. We didn’t feel like we fit in at IAC very well, either, but the agency had been a pioneer in open adoption, which we felt strongly about. When I say we didn’t fit in, I think it is because Gregory and I are not mass media consumers. We don’t have a television and we rarely use our car. I am Jewish, and IAC had a distinct Christian feel to it. There were other reasons, too, like our connections to the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community, because at that time, same-sex couples were a novelty for IAC.
Gregory and I were open to a bi-racial child or a child who had some drug exposure, and we didn’t prefer girl or boy, but we did want a newborn. We waited about a year after completing our paperwork until we were “matched” in February of 2002. During that year I remember corresponding with several birthmothers via email, and we even met with one woman who decided against us. It was a difficult year, one in which I checked my email every two minutes throughout my workday. I had a couple of adoption buddies, two other waiting families we’d met at the IAC orientation. Talking to them helped a lot. When Monique called on Valentine’s Day, she said it was a combination of our geographic location and our interests and hobbies that attracted her to us. We chatted for a long time and made plans to meet at the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade. The night of the parade was cold and windy. Gregory had the flu. Monique, 8 months pregnant, was full of boundless energy and life. We watched the parade and then went to a Chinese restaurant where we stayed until 11pm. Shortly thereafter we met her younger sister and began to form a deep attachment to Monique and her sister. Our daughter Alice was born on March 20, 2002 at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley. Gregory and I and Monique’s sister were present at the delivery and got to hold Alice right away and take care of her in the nursery. Monique let me stay overnight both nights in the hospital in a cot beside her bed so I could be close to her and care for Alice. We left the hospital two days later with Monique and Alice, and went to our house. I think it was that night or the next that we brought Monique and her sister back to their home. The night was incredibly stormy, and the ride with Alice was a long one. Saying goodbye to Monique was one of the hardest moments of all, one I’ll never be able to forget.
A peaceful and happy baby is how I'd describe Alice. She slept well, ate well, loved the bath, and smiled a lot. On my first Mother’s Day, I couldn’t stop smiling, either. When Alice was only two months old, our adoption counselor from IAC called to inform us of an unusual situation. Another birthmother had called saying that she would like us to adopt her baby. When the counselor explained to her that we had already adopted, the birthmother said she’d still like to meet us. It turned out that Laurie found our letter online a few months earlier but held onto it and didn’t call until she felt sure she wanted to go through with placing her baby for adoption. Gregory and I had planned to adopt two children; we just didn’t expect the adoptions to happen so close together. When we met Laurie, we knew it had to be. Not only was she genuine and sweet, it turned out we had a mutual friend in common who sang her praises. Laurie had two more months of pregnancy to go, and she let me come to her prenatal appointments. Alice and I visited Laurie at work, too. By the time she went into labor, we felt thrilled and already deeply attached. Belle’s birth was a C-section, so Gregory and I didn’t witness the actual delivery, but we held her right afterwards. Laurie, like Monique, let me stay overnight with her and Belle in the hospital. I felt very blessed and happier than I ever did in my life (except our wedding day). Throughout every moment of happiness, though, I kept an awareness of Monique and Laurie, and so I experienced grief simultaneously with joy: a strange, but not bad, experience. Having two babies four months apart is difficult, no matter how wonderful. Those first few days alone with the two of them, I never made it out of my nightgown or brushed my teeth. There were many moments of hilarity at the ridiculous situations I found myself in, like trying to feed both of them at the same time. There were also moments of panic and exhaustion. I identified with mothers of twins, of course, yet I was not a mother of twins. My advantage over biological moms had to do with my physical well-being. I didn’t have to physically recover from pregnancy or birth and I didn’t have to breastfeed (though I really, really wanted to). My disadvantage was a lack of support, plus the fact that my babies didn’t know each other in the womb. They had completely different experiences, personalities and genetics – and they still do!
There is one more part to our story. When Belle was only 11 months old and Alice was 15 months old, I found out I was pregnant, at age 36. I took the pregnancy test on Father’s Day 2003 and it came out positive. I had never, ever missed a period before in my life, so I knew what was happening. My pregnancy with Jacob took all of us by surprise. Telling the birthmoms was one of the hardest parts, because I didn’t want them to feel in any way slighted or diminished. I now respected them more than ever. But the hardest part of my pregnancy was that I had two toddlers, both walking and talking, to care for while I underwent an extremely unromantic pregnancy. Believe it or not, the most helpful person to me during this remarkable year was Laurie, Belle’s birthmom. I always imagined pregnancy would be easy and beautiful for me. I didn’t anticipate months of coughing, vomiting, and incontinence. Sorry to be so graphic, but it really was like that. One of the routine blood tests told us our baby had a 1 in 12 chance of Down’s syndrome, but an amniocentesis ruled this out. Pushing the double stroller with two babies in it and being obviously pregnant drew so many comments from strangers I can’t even begin to catalogue them. Fortunately, there was at the time one other mother in Berkeley who had the same experience (and I’ve subsequently met two more). She gave birth to twins and then to a third child unexpectedly, right afterwards. Seeing her made me feel like less of a freak. Jacob’s birth happened in February of 2004. I had prepared tirelessly for a home birth with two midwives. Determined to have a beautiful birth after the unbeautiful pregnancy, I wanted a birthing tub, candles, no drugs. Luckily, my childbirth teacher Laura Todaro warned me that all that matters is a healthy mom and a healthy baby, whatever it takes to get there. After 27 hours of labor, Jacob was born in the same hospital where his two sisters came into the world two years earlier. I wondered if any of the nurses recognized me on my third maternity ward appearance in two years.
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