Adoption

A family at last

By Judith Wine

I was not at the birth of my son. He was five hours old when I met him. Sometimes I wonder about those hours I missed. Did he cry out? Did he sense that the people who would most shape his life were not near, did not yet know he had taken his first breath?

I wonder if he was held. I mean really held—snuggled at a breast where he could hear a heartbeat and feel comfort. I wonder if Debbie held him. Debbie—the woman who gave birth to my son.

Before my husband and I met Debbie, she was simply "her". We had talked on the phone, but she was not yet real. She was this voice that had control over our happiness, our lives. Every word she uttered caused us to either ascend into bliss or plummet into despair. We were so scared—scared we would not like her, scared she would not like us, scared it would all fall apart.

When we finally met, it was wonderful. She was wonderful—warm, caring and intelligent. She thanked us. She thanked us. She said she no longer felt like she was giving us her child but that she was giving her child a family. All the air seeped out of my chest. I let myself hope, just a little, that the years of trying, waiting and hoping might soon be over.

We had been on the medical make-a-baby treadmill for almost three years. Three years (a short period for this sort of thing) of physical and emotional hell. That first December, I wrote my own version of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Every day of treatment my doctor brought to me: three self-inflicted needles, two bruising blood tests and an ultrasound by a novice nurse.

Each attempt was the one that was going to work. Each failure was worse than the one before. Weeks of praying for the right result followed weeks of treatment followed weeks of recovering from the previous attempt.

Our relationships with family and friends suffered. We felt isolated. They felt uncomfortable.

They were never sure if they should invite us to their kids' birthday parties. They hesitated before telling us that they were once again pregnant. We were quick to say that we wanted to share those moments, that we were happy for them. Yet they knew that sometimes, just sometimes, we also felt a little sorry for ourselves.

One day, it was enough. Actually, there were months of slowly sinking spirits before I finally broke down and said: "We must move on."

For us, moving on meant adoption. A childfree lifestyle was not an acceptable alternative. I was excited when I made that first phone call to the government adoption agency. We were finally strong enough to walk out of the casino. We had been like gamblers who keep placing money and hope in a slot machine, sure that the next pull will be the one.

A seven-year wait. That is what I was told. Seven more years. Devastating.

Days of frustration followed nights of despair. Then someone mentioned "private adoption." Although we had heard about it, we didn't really understand what it meant.

A friend arranged for us to talk to a couple she knew who had adopted a child. They told us their story and then arranged for us to meet another couple. We were amazed at the compassion of virtual strangers. They shared their sorrows and joys with us, simply because they too had been through this hell.

Private adoption is not an illegal or unethical adoption, but simply an adoption that is not arranged by the government. Which does not mean you can do whatever you want. Provincial laws must still be met—laws that attempt to protect all parties: the adopted child, the biological parents and the adoptive parents.

We learned that we need not sit and wait. We learned that we could fulfill our dream by finding a pregnant woman who wanted us to adopt her unborn child. The harder we worked at letting people know we were looking, the greater our chances of success. Unbelievable: a process that allowed us to regain some control over our lives. We were hooked.

We told everyone we were trying to adopt—every friend, acquaintance, business associate, shopkeeper, hairdresser, taxi driver. We wrote every doctor we or our friends or our friends' friends knew. We rode the ups and downs of finding leads, only to have them go nowhere, of having a pregnant woman choose us to parent her child, only to change her mind. We worked for months and months and months until, on Christmas Eve, a card from a stranger brought us more than season's greetings.

Debbie was six months pregnant. For reasons that are hers to tell, she felt she could not raise her unborn child. She knew that, with a private adoption, she could meet and choose the adoptive parents. She had heard our story. She wanted to meet us.

When I left our meeting with Debbie, I was literally jumping with joy. In my hands was a teddy bear, a gift from Debbie for our unborn child. That night, my husband and I were so excited that we lay in bed talking until early morning. As exhaustion took over and the room became quiet, it suddenly hit me: There was nothing more for us to do. All we had to do was wait for the birth of our child. Simple. Just wait. Ha!

Just wait and try to ignore the ever-gnawing fear—the fear that Debbie, like that first birth mother, would change her mind. Debbie had assured us that she knew adoption was best for her and her unborn child, but so had the first birth mother. They were not trying to increase our pain. They were simply young women going through the most difficult time in their lives.

As Debbie's due date drew near, our state of panic became more acute and obvious. I stopped doing anything, going anywhere. I borrowed a cellphone and carried it whenever I left the house. Every time the phone rang, I would forget to breathe. My mouth would go dry. I would have trouble saying hello. If it wasn't the social worker handling our adoption, I would quickly free the line. When the phone hadn't rung in more than 15 minutes, I would check to make sure it was working.

When the call finally came, it was Debbie, and not the social worker. "You have a son" are the most beautiful words I have ever heard.

What can one say to describe the feeling as you look for the first time at your child? Wonder. Awe. He was so small, so beautiful. Judith and Mitchell Wine with 18-month-old Braeden.

He didn?t feel like he was mine. I was afraid someone might at any moment scream: "What are you doing? Put him down!"

My son and I are not biologically related, but so what? I also have no genetic connection with the other most important person in my life, my husband.

Our son is a joint effort—from the moment he was first imagined, through finding and caring for him, to helping him learn to take care of himself. No one could convince me that I do not have a child conceived with my chosen life partner.

Someone once said that the process of adopting was "the longest labour on record." The difficulty of our labour brought us closer. It made us realize the strength of our commitment to each other and to having a family.

I would not change anything that led me here. Because, you see, that boy whose breathing I check every night is my son. It is so much more than the simple idea that I could not love another child any more than I love him. No one else could be my son. I am glad I cannot have a biological child, glad the government adoption agency was unhelpful, glad the first birth mother changed her mind. If any of those events had not happened, my son would not be my son. Unimaginable.