by Dan Savage
Contents
Acknowledgments
Fertilization
Younger Brother Dynamics
A Kind of Progress
Grieving Our Infertility
The True Feminist Man
The Real Reasons
Put This Book Down
Open and Closed
DG Kids
Friends and Family
Misrepresenting Our Relationship
Rutherford B. Finger
The Susan Scenario
Gestation
Picked
FAS
Getting Close to Melissa
Pool Parents
Worst-Case Scenarios
Good News Will Come by Phone
Spelling Out Melissa's Rights
Birth
David Kevin
Daryl Jude
The Logic of Open Adoption
Afterbirth
Father Days
Bacchus
Back in Portland
The Kid
(WHAT HAPPENED AFTER MY BOYFRIEND AND I DECIDED TO GO GET PREGNANT)
An Adoption Story
Dan Savage
Praise for Dan Savage's The Kid
“Savage tackles the politics of gay adoption head-on . . . Intelligent and honest . . . A love story, an argument, and a how-to book all in one.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Compelling, funny, memorable, and moving . . . a heartfelt book that makes a strong case that love, tenderness, and respect are more important to a child's welfare than the gender of his parents.”
—New York Newsday
“A touching account of Savage's attempts to adopt a child . . . as moving as it is entertaining.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“A fast, compelling, don't-want-to-put-it-down read, filled with great one-liners and unforgettable scenes. Savage is stunningly honest, and The Kid is as good a documentation of the way a certain class of Americans—gay or straight—lives and thinks at the turn of this century as anything I've ever read. It's impossible not to notice his originality, skill, and sheer exuberance as a writer.”
— Ira Glass, host of This American Life
“If you are going to raise a child, you need three things: a lotta love, Dr. Spock's original baby book, and Dan Savage's The Kid. This is the most provocative and thoughtful book I've read about parenting in a very long while.”
— Susie Bright, author of The Sexual State of the Union
DAN SAVAGE'S nationally syndicated column, “Savage Love,” runs in more than thirty-five newspapers in the United States and Canada. He is also the author (with his mother) of “Savage Family Advice,” an on-line advice column for OnHealth.com, as well as a monthly column for Out magazine, and a regular contributor to This American Life on public radio. Savage is the associate editor of The Stranger, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Travel & Leisure, Salon, and Poz magazine. Savage Love, a collection of his advice columns, is available in a Plume edition. He lives in Seattle.
“Gripping . . . engagingly readable . . . Savage has the slapdash panache (and spot-on timing) of a stand-up comedian.”
—The Seattle Times
“Remarkable . . . of the scores of books on adoption in print at the moment, the best—most informative, most moving, most empathetic, and most instructive—is by a gay male . . . An outstanding book on two subjects—homosexuality and adoption— that have long been shrouded in bigotry and misinformation.”
—The Seattle Weekly
“Savage's memoir reveals an acid tongue and a boundless heart, a savvy blending of social commentary and self-deprecating humor . . . A vision of life lived fully . . . a book that can't be put down.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
“A fascinating firsthand account of the mechanics of open adoption, and a peek into his life . . . I could not put this book down. In addition to dispensing advice, Savage has the ability to weave a great story . . . one of the more provocative yet insightful writers of our time.”
—The Gay Parent
“Honest and informed. Many who believe that adoption is prohibited to them will welcome Savage's book like a visit from a generous and irreverent stork.”
—Booklist
“A critique of conservative values and a celebration of family and the lengths to which people, both gay and straight, will go to create one of their own . . . Revelatory . . . humorous and honest.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Funny and touching . . . such a good read that even those who have thought a lot about gay parenting will find their horizons expanded.”
—Library Journal
for Terry . . .
Acknowledgments
I owe a tremendous debt to my family. Much thanks to my mom and stepdad, Judy and Jerry Sobiesk; my boyfriend's mom and stepdad, Claudia and Dennis Biggs; my father and my stepmom, Bill and JoEllyn Savage; and my wonderful siblings Billy, Eddie, and Laura. I wouldn't get a thing done if it weren't for my assistant, Kevin Patnik, and my boss, Tim Keck. Bob Fikso and Kate Flack helped every step of the way, as did Mark and Diane Spaur and Emily White and Rich Jensen. Some parts of this book were first heard on public radio's This American Life. Much thanks to Ira Glass and the producers at This American Life, Nancy Updike, Alix Speigel, and Julie Snyder. At Dutton, I'd like to thank my editor, Brian Tart; Carole DeSanti for her patience; and Kara Howland and Alexandra Babanskyj for their assistance. Much thanks to my literary agents Elizabeth Wales and Kim Witherspoon; also to Nancy Shawn, Elise Harris, Lisa Schwartz, Jason Sellards, and Mark Van-S. For their encouragement and advice at different stages of this process, much thanks to Urvashi Vaid, Suzie Bright, Andrew Sullivan, Billy Savage, and especially my very good friend David Schmader. Also thanks to Angeline Acain, the Portland Public Library, and the staff at the Mallory Hotel. And a very special thanks to Suzie Arnold, Ann Lawrence, Marilyn Strong, and Shari Levine.
Fertilization
Younger Brother Dynamics
My boyfriend likes to listen to dance music when he drives. He likes to listen to dance music when he cooks, cleans, wakes, sleeps, reads, picks his nose, and screws. There isn't much he doesn't enjoy doing listening to dance music. I'll listen to dance music when I'm under recreational general anesthesia (that is, if I'm really high), or if I'm in a dance club somewhere, dancing. Since I don't get high or go to clubs often, I don't listen to dance music much. As for listening to dance music out of context— no drugs, no dance club, no dancing —well, frankly, I don't see the point.
But Terry was techno before techno was cool, and his attachment to dance music has been a rich source of conflict in our relationship. We've both made sacrifices on the bloody altar of coupledom: I no longer listen to the radio while I go to sleep, to give one piddling example, as he can't sleep with the radio on; he no longer goes clubbing all night long (if I couldn't have a radio in the bedroom, then, by God, his ass had better be in my bed to justify the sacrifice). But he's been having a hard time completely letting go of dance music because much of his pre-me social life revolved around it. After monogamy, dance music has been our single biggest “issue.” Monogamy was a quickie fight, over and done with: he didn't want me sleeping around, and I didn't want to fight. Should a day come when I do put someone else's dick in my mouth, he won't dump me because: (a) I'd do all I could to make certain he never found out; and (b) if he did find out, well, he's promised to work through it.
We'd been together two years, so our fights had become highly ritualized
ceremonies, and the dance-music-in-the-car fight was one we had down pat. We were in a car, driving to Portland, Oregon, and he was subjecting me to Iceland's pixie lunatic, Björk. I didn't think this was fair, as I don't like dance music, and when we were doing ninety on I-5, I couldn't escape.
The fight didn't begin at the start of the trip. They never do. I'm a conflict-avoidance champ (see monogamy, p. 3), and if we fought at the beginning of every road trip I would, like a dog that associates a ride in the car with a trip to the vet, refuse to get in the car. Had I anticipated this fight, I would have insisted that we fly, or take the train, or ship ourselves UPS, or get to Portland on some form of transport that puts nice, reasonable people in charge of the music. But Terry was tricky, taking advantage of my memory problems. Before we got in the car, and for about the first forty-five minutes of any trip, Terry was on his best behavior. He lulled me into the car with false promises of books on tape, or conversation. Then, when we were too far from home to turn back, and going too fast for me to jump, he put on a CD he knew I'd object to— chunk-ka tcha, chunk-ka tcha, chunk-ka tcha — and with fleeing not an option, I had no choice but to turn and fight.
“You know I can't stand dance music, especially in a car, so why do you do this?” I said, typically. “While I'll happily put up with Björk at home, because I can leave, or blow my brains out, or beat you to death with a hammer, I think it is unfair of you to subject me to Björk when I'm trapped in a car.”
And we were off! I didn't have a driver's license, Terry pointed out, which forced him to do all the driving. Therefore, he should get to pick the music. Yes, but while he might have a license, he didn't own a car, and I happened to be paying for this rental. Therefore, as the automobile's temporary legal guardian, I should have some say in the music I was subjected to. I was being unreasonable, he said. He was being selfish, I responded. Yi, yi, grrr, icha-yiy, Björk sings.
Thinking it was a compromise, the boyfriend turned the music down. All we could hear now was the beat: boom-boom-boom. Which, as it happens, was the thing about dance music that drove me out of my mind. I was not satisfied. I sulked. He drove. He said something bitchy. I said something bitchy. We fought on for about twenty-five more miles, and finally, unable to enjoy Björk for my bitching and sulking, the boyfriend snapped off the CD player, and we sat in silence.
An hour and fifteen minutes of silence later, we were in Portland. We'd driven down to Portland from Seattle on a wet spring day because, in our wisdom and maturity, my boyfriend and I had decided to become parents. We were in Portland to get pregnant.
This was my first visit to Portland. During the seven years I'd lived in Seattle, just three hours away, it had never before occurred to me to visit Portland. Seattle's a hilly, damp place with a lot of water and trees. Portland's a hilly, damp place with a lot of water and trees. Portland and Seattle both have Pioneer Squares, Hamburger Marys, homeless street punks, and huge bookstores. Why would anyone who lives in Seattle vacation in Portland?
My boyfriend Terry, however, was very familiar with Portland. His father spent a couple of years dying here in the mid-nineties. Daryl, Terry's father, had non-alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver. Daryl went to Portland's Oregon Health State University hospital for a liver transplant, but when they opened him up, they found cancer. They cut out the cancer, put in the new liver, and sewed Daryl up. But the cancer returned, and promptly attacked Daryl's new liver. When they opened him up a second time, the doctors decided he was too far gone to “waste” another liver on, his own bad luck for not being Mickey Mantle. It was in Portland that Terry, his mother, and his brother were informed that their husband and father had less than a year to live.
Three months later Daryl Miller was dead.
For Terry, Portland was the city of bad news. The hospital where Terry's father got his liver and a little while later the bad news squatted on a hill overlooking the Willamette River. It looked like a cross between L.A.'s Getty Center and a clump of East German apartment blocks, and there was no escaping the sight of OHSU as you drove into Portland. As we crossed the Steel Bridge over the Willamette on our way to the Mallory Hotel, the hospital where Daryl died came into view. Looking grim, Terry pointed it out to me.
“I hate this place,” Terry said. “I hate fucking Portland.” The bridge dipped down and we drove into Portland's old downtown as OHSU slipped out of sight.
The adoption agency we were pinning our hopes on was based in Portland. It had offices in Seattle, and with the exception of a required two-day seminar in Portland, all the preparation—the paper-work, the intake interviews, the jumping through hoops—could be accomplished in Seattle. Once the two-day seminar was over, Terry insisted, we were never coming back to Portland. Ever.
Our agency did “open” as opposed to “closed” adoptions. In an open adoption, the pregnant woman, called the birth mother in agency-speak, selects a family for her child, and has a mutually agreeable amount of ongoing contact with her child, usually two or three visits a year, with photos and letters exchanged at set times. In an open adoption, there are no secrets: the kid grows up knowing he was adopted, and knowing who his bio-parents are. Our agency was the first and still is one of the few in the country to do truly open adoptions. Since a lot of people were unfamiliar with the concept, and since some were spooked by it, the agency's managers felt they needed at least two days to explain how it all worked.
It also gave the agency a chance to weed out couples who didn't get it. Since the agency placed more children than any other in the Pacific Northwest, couples who weren't into openness sometimes attempted to adopt a kid through the agency. These couples might come to resent or fear the birth mom after they got their baby, and attempt to interfere with her right to visit, or make her feel unwelcome when she did. The agency felt it was in the best interest of all concerned that the children they placed wound up with couples truly committed to the concept.
So here we were in Portland, checked into the Mallory, this fussy ol' lady of a hotel, ready to demonstrate our commitment. But if we didn't get out of our hotel room in the next fifteen minutes, we weren't going to make it to the seminar on time, which would make a bad impression, which would call into question our commitment. And if we didn't get a kid out of this, the drive and the fight would all have been for nothing.
But we couldn't leave, because my boyfriend had locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn't come out.
Which was my fault. While I'd been right to stand my ground about blasting dance music in the car, I should have dropped it after I'd gotten my way. But I kept right on picking, making snide remarks about Björk when we were getting out of the car and walking into the hotel. Had Terry won, he would've done the same to me. After monogamy and dance music, picking was our biggest issue. We both had older brothers; I was the third of four kids, and he was the second of two. Younger brothers are less powerful than older brothers, so persistence and stamina are our survival/revenge strategies. Older siblings may hit harder, but younger brothers move faster, and we are relentless. And like all younger brothers everywhere, neither of us knew when to stop. We took jokes, wrestling matches, and “playful” fights past the point where they were fun or sexy, right up to the point where someone, usually me, got hurt.
In straight relationships the younger-brother dynamic is sometimes present, but only when a younger brother is present, and most women date only one younger brother at a time. Only in gay relationships can two younger brothers come together. The younger-brother dynamic was why, when the hotel receptionist asked us how our drive down was, I opened my fool mouth and said, “Fine, except for the Icelandic lunatic in the car with us.” I'd gone too far and someone—Terry this time—got hurt. But I was not responsible for my actions; my birth order made me do it.
From inside the bathroom, the boyfriend wanted to know why I couldn't let it go. He'd turned Björk off an hour and half ago. We weren't even in the car anymore. Why couldn't I leave it alone?
“It's
stressful enough being in Portland at all,” Terry said from behind the green bathroom door. He wasn't locked in the bathroom because he was crying, but because we were fighting, and when we fight we prefer to have a door between us. A closed door. “We have to be the presentable, nonthreatening, happy, happy, happy gay couple in a room full of straight people for two days. Why do you have to pick now to be such a prick?”
“ 'Cause I'm a brat,” I said to the door. “I'm a brat just like you. And what is this locked-in-the-bathroom stuff but your final dig?”
He didn't answer.
“We gotta go be presentable now, Terry.”
Silence.
“I'm sorry I called Björk a lunatic. She's a genius.”
Nothing.
“Honey, let's go get pregnant. You can name the baby after Björk, teach him Icelandic folk songs, I don't care.”
Still nothing. Finally, in desperation, I lied.
“You can listen to whatever music you want in the car all the way back to Seattle.”
The door opened. All was forgiven.
We met right after I turned thirty. Terry was twenty-three, but told me he was twenty-four, thinking the extra year made him sound more mature. I was in a gay bar for the first time in three months. The end of a particularly rocky relationship had kept me in my apartment for weeks, wondering why I'd ever wanted to suck cock in the first place. This relationship ended months before our lease expired, so my ex and I continued to live together. He worked through his grief by stuffing as many cocks in his mouth as he could get his hands on, and then coming home and telling me about it. We all grieve in our own ways. I stayed home and moped; he went out and screwed. The totally unfair part was that I dumped him. Why was he out there having a grand old time while I stayed at home eating bags of cheap cookies and reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for the fourth time? Not fair.
