The Children Money Can Buy
Page 23
Emma and I talked almost every day, problems arose and were resolved (i.e., how to tell her mother, the birth father’s second thoughts about adoption, problems with medical care and insurance coverage, etc.), and time went by until the day I got a call from the prospective adoptive mother saying that they didn’t want to proceed. I don’t remember the exact reason they gave, but I suspect the real reason was discomfort with the idea of becoming a mixed-race family. I remember feeling a combination of relief and dread after their call. I was relieved because I had begun to have my own doubts about them, probably in response to the uncertainty they were feeling. But I dreaded having to tell Emma. Her reaction, however, made me feel incredibly dense but also incredibly relieved. She told me she had also been feeling that maybe they weren’t the right family and had been wondering what to do and how to tell me.
This time around, I was able to answer questions from prospective adoptive families much more thoroughly because I had gotten to know Emma so much better. I also told them that her ideas about ongoing contact had evolved. She still wasn’t sure exactly what would be best, but she imagined a perfect scenario in which someday she would be sitting in the audience, possibly anonymously, watching her daughter graduate from high school or college.
Most of the families were hesitant about this idea, but one woman, deeply moved, took a long pause before finally managing to say, with a lump in her throat, “It’s just like in that movie Stella Dallas!” (in which a birth mother stands, unidentified, in the crowd watching her daughter’s society wedding). I knew then, without any doubt, that she was going to be this baby’s mother.
Emma and the new adoptive family, James and Melissa, got along famously. Within a few weeks of having chosen each other, everyone was together at the hospital welcoming Haley, an exquisitely beautiful and enormously beloved child. Emma, as most birth mothers do, struggled with her decision after Haley was born, but ultimately decided on adoption and was tremendously comforted by the belief that she had found the perfect family for her baby. Garrett cooperated with the adoption because it was what Emma wanted, but he opted to stay in the background at that time.
James and Melissa brought Haley home to Washington and joyously began their lives as parents. They maintained close contact with Emma, primarily through phone calls, and sent her many pictures. They also invited her to come for a visit, and Emma spent time with them during her Christmas break that year, when Haley was six months old. During this visit, I got to meet Emma at last, and she proved to be even more delightful in person than she had been in all those phone calls. She, Melissa, Haley, and I went out to lunch together one afternoon, and Emma handled herself like a skilled ambassador for adoption. She and Melissa unhesitatingly answered people’s questions about Haley with complete poise and candor, and their obvious comfort with the situation and with each other was lovely to behold. The staff in the restaurant—and probably some of the patrons as well—got an amazing inside glimpse of how wonderful open adoption can be. Emma and James went on to provide a more formalized version of adoption education by taking part in a number of conferences together over the years, where they spoke about their open-adoption experiences. Emma did a superb job of dispelling scary stereotypes about birth mothers.
James and Melissa established a truly open relationship with Emma, and they all grew close. The adults took pleasure in getting to know one another better and in their mutual delight in Haley. There have been many shared activities—with and without Haley—many good times, and many good conversations over the years. The degree of openness in their relationship and the frequency of their visits was not something that any of them requested, anticipated, or even necessarily wanted. It developed naturally because they discovered that they genuinely liked and trusted one another and enjoyed the time they spent together. It may have worked so well because they were all heavily invested in having it work, but it wasn’t long before they discovered that they were good friends in addition to their more formalized relationships as Haley’s adoptive parents and birth parent.
After finishing college, Emma went on to get a master’s degree in counseling. Her graduate studies included work on adoption, and she educated not only her fellow students but the faculty, most of whom had serious misperceptions about birth parents and adoption. By virtue of her experience and intelligence, Emma is uniquely qualified to be a spokesperson for birth mothers, and she has enthusiastically taken on that responsibility. She has been working as a counselor for many years now, and her combination of intelligence, wisdom, experience, and empathy make her extremely good at her job. Haley, who is now twelve, and Emma keep in touch through occasional texts and email and, although in-person visits have become a little less frequent over time, they still usually see each other a couple times a year, and everyone looks forward to and enjoys these get-togethers.
When Haley was a toddler, James and Melissa were able to meet Garrett on a trip to the East Coast. They stayed in touch through Facebook, and some years later, when Garrett was getting married, James and Melissa sent a gift. They received a thank you card that included a note from his wife saying that she would love to meet them someday. Garrett is a park ranger, his wife is a teacher, and they now have a young daughter.
James and Melissa have answered Haley’s questions about why Emma and Garrett decided not to raise her by explaining that the timing was just not right for them to become parents. They were both in school, didn’t have jobs, hadn’t planned to stay together, and felt they couldn’t give a baby the life they wanted her to have. There are undoubtedly more conversations to come on this subject, some of them with Emma and Garrett. Haley has full access to information about her birth family and the circumstances of her adoption, and full permission and encouragement to talk with any of her family members about anything that interests or concerns her. She also has ample evidence that the adults in her life love and care about one another and that they all believe that adoption was the right choice for her.
This degree of openness, which works so well for this family, is not the norm. It is not generally expected or even appropriate for everyone. But lest you dismiss their success as a fluke, consider James and Melissa’s second adoption. When Haley was just about one year old, a young couple in Seattle called to talk with me about adoption. I met with them at the boy’s mother’s home, where they were staying. They were both extremely polite and pleasant. The birth mother, Josie, was African American, and the birth father, Jarod, was Caucasian; the baby was due soon, and they wanted an adoptive family that would reflect their child’s mixed-race heritage. I showed them some family profiles in which the parents were of different races. I also took them James and Melissa’s (and Haley’s) profile—Caucasian parents and a mixed-race child—and the couple chose them.
Because James and Melissa had had such a positive experience with Haley’s adoption, they didn’t hesitate to agree to a completely open adoption with the new birth parents. Prior to the baby’s birth, both birth and adoptive parents made and signed a post-placement-contact agreement stipulating that there would be abundant ongoing contact. James and Melissa were to send pictures once a month, phone calls were welcome, and visits (including visits with extended family members) were expected. All of that seemed completely natural to James and Melissa, even though this time the birth parents were across town instead of across the country.
Everything was in place for an adoption but, as often happens in rushed situations where counseling has been minimal, when the baby became a reality rather than an abstraction, the birth parents reconsidered—in this case, for several weeks. Then they called to say that they were ready to move forward and baby Charlotte joined her new adoptive family.
It all seemed fated and perfect—until, several weeks later, after a visit with Josie and Jarod at James and Melissa’s home. Almost immediately after the young couple left, Josie’s grandmother called James and Melissa to ask if Josie had spoken with them about g
etting the baby back. She was very polite about it and James was equally polite in responding that nothing had been said and that “the matter is settled.” And then he called me and I called Josie. She explained to me that her mother and grandmother felt that she had made a mistake in agreeing to the adoption and that her grandmother was particularly upset because she “didn’t believe in adoption” and didn’t believe her granddaughter hadn’t been coerced.
It wasn’t clear what Josie actually thought about all of this. She freely acknowledged that she had not been coerced into an adoption, and was gracious in accepting the fact that she could not simply change her mind and reclaim her baby after relinquishing her parental rights. She may actually have had a change of heart and was considering raising her child after all, or she may have been placating her mother and grandmother by simply exploring the idea of undoing the adoption. Josie did not make any further attempts to urge James and Melissa to return Charlotte to her but, obviously, the relationships between the families became strained after that phone call. It would have been easy for James and Melissa to respond fearfully but that is not what they chose to do.
Everyone was scheduled to get together again just a week later for Haley’s first birthday party celebration. It was a big event with lots of people, including Jarod and Josie and their mothers, but the grandmother stayed away. It turned out to be a happy and uneventful day Charlotte and Haley were admired, compliments were given all around, and there was laughter, warmth, and talk about future get-togethers. There were also serious and poignant moments, but there was no talk about regret or undoing the adoption.
Things went so well for these two families that by November, when Charlotte was five months old, James and Melissa and their daughters were invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with Jared’s extended family. The following year they were invited to share Thanksgiving dinner with Josie’s extended family, including the grandmother, and James was even called upon to carve the turkey. The day was a huge success, and celebrating Thanksgiving together became a tradition for the next five years. As they did with Haley, James and Melissa have nurtured Charlotte’s relationships with her birth family, and she too knows how well loved she is by them all.
Josie and Jarod have gone on to successful careers and other relationships. Jarod and his mother stay in touch with James and Melissa and are invited to such family events as Charlotte’s birthdays and choir concerts. Contact with Josie is much more frequent; she regularly comes to Charlotte’s soccer and basketball games, where Charlotte introduces Josie as her birth mother. Josie also comes to occasional “movie nights,” which include spending the night at James and Melissa’s home. Charlotte, who is now eleven, has overnight visits at Josie’s three or four times a year and Josie has stayed with the girls while James and Melissa were out of town on occasion. She even accompanied them on a three day vacation, including a whale watching excursion, several years ago.
One year James and Melissa hosted a Christmas party that included many members of Charlotte’s extended birth family. Even Josie’s grandmother was there. In talking with her, James and Melissa learned that she had been adopted herself and that it had been a very unhappy situation.
Happily, the grandmother had come to accept the fact that Charlotte’s adoption experience was entirely different from her own. James and Melissa were grateful for the opportunity to see the situation from her perspective, and to know that her earlier objections had been resolved. They were also grateful to be able to take pictures of the four generations of women together, including Charlotte, Josie, Josie’s mother, and Josie’s grandmother—pictures that became particularly precious when the grandmother died just a few months later.
Haley and Charlotte and all the people in their families serve as examples of the enormous benefits of open adoption. James, Emma, and Josie have done formal presentations, sometime all together, and are enormously informative and reassuring to their audiences, which are usually made up of prospective adoptive families. More significantly, the way they all simply live their lives serves to educate others. When Josie stands on the sidelines of a game with James and Melissa, cheering Charlotte on, the four of them do a beautiful job of letting the rest of the world know what they already know about how well openness can work for everyone.
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Choosing an Adoptive Family
Adoptive parents, understandably, always want to know the secret formula that will lead a birth mother to choose them. You would think that the formula is obvious: birth mothers want families in which the parents are good people who are able and eager to provide a happy and stable life for a child.
But how do you convey that message to a birth mother? There is no universal agreement about the definitions of “good people,” “happy and stable life,” or “able and eager.” One birth mother may feel that anyone with an income and a roof over their heads can provide for her child, while another might be determined to find an upper-middle-class Mormon family with a stay-at-home mom. And the prospective adoptive parents’ eagerness might be seen by one birth mother as pushy and neurotic but by another as marvelously endearing evidence that they will be properly devoted to her child.
The process by which birth mothers select an adoptive family is fascinating and mysterious. As part of my work, I help couples create a profile of themselves, typically in book or website form, that is sent out to prospective birth mothers searching for an adoptive family. The profiles usually consist of a two- or three-page letter and at least twenty-five photos intended to give the reader a good idea of what it would be like for a child to be part of that family. The letter usually covers basic biographical information, says something about why the family wants to adopt, and describes their views about child-rearing and openness. The intent is to provide appealing information without boasting or aggressive salesmanship. The photos are a collection of mostly casual shots depicting the couple involved in the various activities of their lives; the hope is to show how much fun it would be for everyone if a child was with them.
Most prospective adoptive parents are eager for guidance in creating their profiles, and I am happy to provide them with opinions I have developed over the years. But the most important thing I’ve learned is that you can never know what will make a particular profile stand out to a particular birth mother. As with beauty, adoptive-family appeal is in the eye of the beholder; birth mothers pick their babies’ families for completely unique and personal reasons that can’t be predicted or second-guessed. All the years of watching birth mothers scrutinize family profiles have taught me that it is almost never an adoptive family’s good looks, the size of their house, or the extravagance of their vacations that grabs a birth parent’s attention. Instead, it seems to be something less tangible: the birth mother’s sense of connection and familiarity with a family—and there is no end to the surprising ways that that feeling can come about.
When I meet with a birth mother who wants to look at profiles, I usually show her five or six at a time. Often she will have given me some initial parameters, such as wanting a stay-at-home mom or a couple who don’t already have children. I bring her profiles of families who meet her description, but I also throw in a few who don’t because, more often than not, women change their minds about their parameters when they see a family that appeals to them for unexpected reasons.
People enjoy finding common ground, and it is this sense of connection that birth mothers cite when they tell me why they chose a particular family. One young woman told me that she picked her adoptive family because they had a black Lab named Smee (Captain Hook’s sidekick in Peter Pan) and she had had a black lab named Smee when she was a child. Obviously, that wasn’t the only reason she thought they would be good parents, but the coincidence made a family with other appealing qualities feel especially familiar and comfortable to her. Another birth mother picked a couple because they had included a picture of their Aunt Bootsie, and she had a favorite aunt name
d Bootsie. It seemed like fate to her that her child might be able to have the same treasured relationship with an aunt. (Given the rarity of the name Bootsie, it seemed pretty fated to me, too.) Yet another birth mother explained that what had tipped the scales in favor of a particular family for her was a picture of the prospective adoptive grandmother with a plate of chocolate chip cookies. She told me that chocolate chip was her favorite kind of cookie, and she loved the idea of her child having a cookie-baking grandmother. Liking, and baking, chocolate chip cookies wouldn’t normally single someone out but, in the eyes of that birth mother, it did.
Sometimes the connections between birth parents and adoptive parents are easily recognized, and sometimes they are mysterious. One birth father was delighted to see a profile in which the prospective adoptive father talked about his interest in a particular type of cartooning. Although he never would have thought to specify that he wanted his baby to be raised by a dad who liked cartooning, their mutual interest was a catalyst for a deeper connection between the two men. Another birth father, who was from Guatemala, chose an adoptive family in which the father had spent time working in Guatemala during his college years. It wouldn’t seem surprising that the birth father was attracted by this except that there was no mention in the profile of the adoptive dad’s experience in Guatemala. I have never again worked with either a birth father from Guatemala or an adoptive father who worked in Guatemala so, yes, that adoption also seemed fated.
One of the most poignant requests I’ve heard was from a young woman who first listed some of the more typical qualities birth mothers ask for in an adoptive family: things like a stay-at-home mom, no other children, and an involved extended family. Then she said, in a wistful voice, “This will sound funny, but what I’d really like is to find an adoptive mom who is into things like manicures.” It did sound funny, and I chuckled, but I also reassured her that I would look for someone like that. I pulled out a stack of family profiles, most of which, as expected, didn’t reveal any information about manicures. But there was one startling exception with a professional cover shot featuring the woman’s beautifully manicured hand draped over her husband’s shoulder. The hand was front and center in the picture, looking almost like an ad for a nail salon. Manicures might seem like a frivolous quality to look for in an adoptive mom but, as I got to know the birth mom better, I discovered what was behind her unusual request. She wanted to save her child the complicated combination of emotions, including love, worry, shame and sadness, that she had experienced growing up in chaos with a mother who was a hoarder. She wanted her own child to live in a well-ordered home with a mother she could be proud of, and she felt that a woman who took care of her fingernails would also take care of other aspects of her appearance and her home. That birth mother did pick the woman with the manicure, strong sense of self-esteem, and very tidy house to be her baby’s mother.