Just Adopt!

“I’ve always wanted to adopt,” says my friend, a faraway look in her eyes as if there exists an alternate universe she is privy to that lets her play out her fantasies. My immediate response is indignation. “You have no clue what it is like,” I want to shout. Instead I nod my head and let the moment pass.

It happens every so often, these kinds of conversations. Mostly, I let them be. Occasionally I muster the strength to talk about it. Very rarely, I try and educate. I am not sure when it was that I knew we were headed down adoption alley. In the years claimed by infertility, adoption was a vague thought, the kind that is Plan C or maybe even D, E or F. I did not want to go there. It hovered in the recesses of my mind knowing it was at best something to keep the blues at bay.

Somewhere in the years between my last IVF cycle and my insistence that I was perfectly fine being childfree, I met a friend for lunch. We were ex colleagues. We shared the same fertility doctors. Our conversations mostly revolved around protocols and med speak.

“We are adopting from India,” she said simply. I recognize now what I felt at that moment was the spark of hope igniting in my belly. The beginnings of what I can call my journey to my daughters. It was as if I was waiting for a sign to permit me to let go of years of holding on, a sign that permitted me to change tracks and absolve my body of its failure to procreate.

It was early June, a week before our ninth wedding anniversary. I remember sitting up late at night, googling “adopting from India,” “adopting on a green card,” “Indians adopting in the US.” I remember bookmarking countless pages, devouring every bit of information to be sorted, analyzed and put away. I remember sitting down with my husband at dinner, my voice all solemn as I proposed that we adopt. I remember the somber atmosphere as I laid out details of my research and the daunting conclusion that as permanent residents we had no easy way to adopt from India.

Each night I sat up researching domestic adoption, the US immigration websites and law forums for precedents. I found the first one on some forum on adoptions dot com. An Indian couple who had adopted a Hispanic child in Texas. I remember the sound that soaring hope makes, one that sounds suspiciously like a silent laugh. I remember the emails, the impatient wait for replies, the pictures and sharing of personal stories.

That June, my husband and I sat across from an adoption attorney in an affluent section of mainline Philadelphia laying bare our dreams of building a family. We sat, side by side as we checked off boxes that tailored our child for us. Race, Ethnicity, Color, Newborn, Toddler, Health conditions that were acceptable to us. “Brown,” we said as we exchanged smiles and checked “Hispanic.”

The emails arrived regularly hawking yet to be born babies. Scant information on the expectant mother, detailed notes on agency fees and a subtle pressure to be quick or else…

Giddy with excitement, we called our parents when we were finally matched. I called my mother and him, his father. Even 8000 miles could not mask the anxiety and worry as my mother querulously grilled me about the child to be.

“Why brown?” thundered my father in law. “Black, Brown or White, the child is yours once he or she enters your home.” I remember the tears, the overwhelming joy as I felt more than heard the support in his voice. His glass of hope was over full compensating for the half empty glasses all around.

Months passed, the first match fell through in a spectacular flurry of emails. The next match dragged through the holiday months injecting my body with purpose and my soul with joy. It came crashing down on New Year’s Eve after we flew a day to be at the hospital with the baby only to be told as we landed that the mother had changed her mind.

The New Year dawned and with it a spectacular lack of joy. I went through the motions at work, I continued with my part-time MBA and shelved dreams of ever experiencing motherhood. I briefly considered trying IVF again and scheduled a doctor’s appointment for a Friday.

Late Thursday night, 10:45 PM to be precise, the phone rang, a familiar number on the caller ID, the social worker we had hired to help with our last failed adoption. We had paid her dues and there was no reason for her to be calling us. A part of me wondered if the mother had changed her mind. Another part of me wondered if we owed the social worker money.

I picked up the phone and listened without speaking a word for a good ten minutes. Hanging up, I turned to my husband. “Twins,” I said. “You must be crazy.” He replied, his eyes not leaving the television. My body hummed with a knowledge that my brain had no way of knowing. After I stared him down, he lowered the volume and turned to me. I repeated what the social worker had told me. He shook his head to indicate I must be crazy.

I sent our adoption profile out that night. One I had perfected over the year. We wore matching smiles, our life bared for strangers to read. Our desperate plea to be considered. The next evening, I had an excited voicemail saying the mother wanted to talk to us. We met the birth family over Skype, an hour later, we were picked and a week later, we flew out again to the same town, to meet our daughters and bring them home.

This was six years ago. Our lives have not been the same since.

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