by Dan Savage
Later that afternoon, I opened our front door and found a box the size of a washing machine sitting on the step. Inside was a note from my mother. She'd sent “a few things” she picked up for the baby. Each gift was wrapped in tissue paper, and we didn't have to open any of them until after the baby came.
“That way, you won't jinx anything,” my mother's note read. “Set the box aside and unwrap the contents after you get home with the baby. This way, there won't be any jinx, and I'll sleep better knowing that my grandson isn't coming home to a completely unprepared house.”
“What do you want to do?” Terry asked.
“Set it aside and open everything when we bring the baby home.”
Terry pouted. Jinx or no jinx he didn't want to wait.
“We've got a crib in the house,” he argued. “There can't be anything in that box your mother sent more jinx-y than a crib.”
I relented.
We dragged my mother's box into the living room, and we dumped the baby stuff on the floor. There were bottles, onesies, baby clothes, blankets, pacifiers, and bibs. A day earlier, we were panicking because we had nothing we needed. Today, thanks to my mother and Terry's, we were totally set up.
My mom had sent four bibs. Two were a boxed set of matching “I Love Grandma” and “I Love Grandpa” bibs. The other two bibs were also from boxed sets. My mom had bought two sets, opened them, pulled out one bib from each, and packaged them back up. There was a note:
“I wanted to send you a matching set of ‘I Love Daddy’ bibs to go with the grandma and grandpa bibs (which I expect my grandson to wear at every meal!), but there weren't any ‘I Love Daddy’ sets. So I had to make one.”
The phone rang.
It was Saturday morning; Terry was at work and I was in bed reading the paper. I didn't get out of bed, but let the phone ring until our voice mail picked up. Whoever was calling would just have to wait. The Bill and Monica thang was unfolding, and as a sex writer I had a solemn duty to keep up with every salacious detail. The New York Times was using words the editors of the raunchy “alternative” papers I write for won't allow me to use. When I finished the paper, I headed for the bathroom, grabbing the portable phone on the way. Boop, boop, boop; there was a message. When I heard Laurie's voice my heart and bowel movement both dropped. Melissa was at the hospital; Terry and I had to go to Portland right away.
Holy shit.
I called Terry at the bookstore.
“Oh, my God!” he screamed. “Oh, my God.”
We make a plan: Terry would call Michael, his manager, who had agreed in advance to cover for him if the “You're in labor” call came when Terry was at work. As soon as Michael arrived, Terry would run downtown and rent a car. In the meantime, I'd pack our clothes. We hung up, and I called Laurie. Melissa had been at the hospital since early that morning. She could give birth at any moment.
“You never know how it's going to go. It could happen right now, it could happen twelve hours from now. When can you get here?”
I told Laurie that we'd be at least three hours.
“I'll tell Melissa, but you should hurry.”
“We're on our way,” I said, “and since we're not there to do it for her, tell Melissa to demand all the drugs she's got coming.”
I called the Mallory in Portland and reserved a room, then left messages for Bob and Kate and Carol and Jack.
Ten minutes later, with a bag of clothes packed, I was sitting on the couch, waiting for Terry to drive up. Our place was a wreck. We'd sold our condo three weeks earlier, and then pretty much stopped keeping house. We had to be out of the place in four weeks, so we were not only going to be dads, we were going to be homeless dads. The pressing problem, though, was the mess. We're not neat freaks to begin with, and neither of us could see the point in keeping the place up after we sold it. We'd only be tearing it apart when we moved, so why bother? Now the mess mocked me, seeming to say, “You're not fit parents—just look at this place! You can't bring a baby home to live in this pigsty! It's a disaster area!” The mess's voice sounded a whole lot like my mom's.
But a messy home was better than no home—which was also a problem. We live in the land of the Microsoft Millionaires; once we sold our condo we couldn't find another place we could afford. Every house or condo we looked at was bought out from under us by some Microshithead paying cash and bidding thousands of dollars over the asking price. By the time we did find something, it was too late: we had to be out of our old place a month before we could move into the new one. In a few days— barring BBD/BCM—we'd be bringing a baby home to a messy house that wouldn't be ours for long. This was not the plan. We were supposed to go into the pool, sell the condo, find a new place, and then get a baby! We'd expected to be in the pool at least a year, and we were going to be in a new place by then, settled and ready! No one said anything about getting a baby in eight weeks!
Emily and Rich, friends of mine from work, had offered us their basement for our homeless month, so we wouldn't be on the streets. And we did have a crib covered in lead paint, a car seat, two “I Love Daddy” bibs, six bottles, and the four-foot-high pile of baby clothes that our mothers, thankfully flouting the no-shopping order, “couldn't resist.”
Forty-five minutes into my panic attack, with my mother's voice still screaming in my head—“The bathroom! Look at the mildew on that shower curtain! Oh, my God, the sink! The baby will have malaria by the end of the week!”—Terry finally pulled up. It was Saturday morning, and the only car Budget had left was an enormous white van. It seated nine. We could have driven to Portland and adopted a Little League team. Terry stood in the living room, looked at the mess, and said, “We're not ready.” Then he picked up a camera and started taking pictures. He wanted the kid to see what we lived like before we brought him home. We tossed the car seat, our bag, a blanket, and some baby clothes in the back, and drove off.
Today our lives would change forever, and all I could think while Terry sped down I-5 in the van was . . . I look like shit. Terry was presentable; he'd cleaned himself up for work this morning, but even if he hadn't, Terry's one of those people who could look good falling down stairs. I, on the other hand, looked like a mob hit. I'd been up late the night before, I hadn't shaved or showered, and in the rush to get our stuff together and get down to Portland, I forgot to brush my teeth or pack any toiletries. We had nothing to fight over on the drive down, as there was no CD or tape player in our maxivan, only an AM radio, so we fought over stopping in Olympia to buy toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, razors, and shaving cream. Terry wanted to get to Portland, but I didn't think the voice in my head—“Look at you! You're filthy!”—would allow me to walk into the maternity ward at OHSU without at least stopping to shave and brush my teeth.
On our way up the hill to OHSU, we got lost and had to double back. Finally we found the entrance and parked. The building with the maternity ward was built into the side of the hill, and the ground-level entrance from the parking lot side was on the ninth floor. Melissa was on the fourteenth. Still worried that no hospital would let someone as grubby as me near a newborn, I insisted we stop in a bathroom so I could clean up. While Terry waited beside me and Melissa pushed five floors up—I washed my face, shaved, flossed, and brushed my teeth. Terry looked at his watch: twenty-five after two. Almost four hours had passed between Laurie's phone call and our walking through the hospital door.
On the fourteenth floor, we weren't sure where to go. When we finally found the doors to the maternity wing, we stopped. What should we do? Knock? Just stroll in? Were boys even allowed? There was a small window in each of the swinging doors, but we couldn't see anyone through them. Nor could we see a nurses' station, and we hadn't passed an information desk since the ninth-floor entrance.
“What do we do?” I asked Terry. “Go back downstairs?”
“We don't have time.” Terry pushed open the door. “If we're not supposed to be in here, someone will tell us.”
The hallway was long, da
rk, and deserted. We walked past four empty birthing suites, rounded a corner, and found ourselves standing in front of a nurses' station.
“Can we help you?”
We hadn't braced ourselves for this moment, or this question. Laurie wasn't here to “facilitate our initial contact” with the maternity ward nurses; I guess we'd assumed someone from the agency would be here holding our hands, walking us through this step just as we'd been walked through every other. Apparently, this time we were on our own.
Terry looked at me. I looked at the nurses. They looked at me. Terry nudged me.
“Um, we're the guys adopting Melissa Pierce's baby,” I said. “We just got here.”
The nurses all smiled as if they'd been expecting us—Nancy, Melissa's social worker, did make a note on her chart. One picked up a clipboard.
“Melissa had her baby a few minutes ago,” she said, “at two-twenty-six P.M. Melissa and the baby are doing fine.” She showed us to a waiting area; we'd be able to see Melissa in a few minutes. The waiting area was by the elevators; I wasn't sure how we'd managed to miss it. It had an information desk, several couches, and a couple of television sets tuned to the Saturday afternoon sports programs. Golf. The nurse told us the doctor would be out in a few minutes, pointed to a pot of coffee and told us to make ourselves comfortable. We plopped down on a couch. It was now 2:36. At the moment the baby was born, Terry and I were in a bathroom, Terry watching me shave. Not that it made any difference where we were, since Melissa hadn't wanted us in the birthing room. We had to be somewhere, so why not a bathroom? We'd spent our first moments alone together in the bathroom of a gay bar.
We were sitting close together on our couch. Terry started to say something about the hospital, the baby, his father—then he stopped. I looked around. There were some thugs on the other side of the room, all from one family if I could judge by their shared fashion sense. I risked it: I put my arm around Terry and kissed him on the forehead. He leaned into me. The thugs didn't rush us; they didn't seem to notice or care that homos were cuddling in the maternity ward's waiting room. Wives and girlfriends were pushing out pups down the hall; thugs or not, these guys had more important things to worry about.
A short woman who couldn't have been more than fourteen walked into the waiting area and called our names—an aide or a hospital volunteer coming to take us to Melissa, I assumed, expecting her to turn and walk us back into the maternity ward. She didn't budge, and only then do I take her in. She was wearing scrubs, with little paper booties on her feet. She introduced herself as Melissa's doctor, and told us the baby was healthy, and that we could see him and Melissa just as soon as Melissa “passes the afterbirth.”
“And if she flunks it?” I asked.
Not funny, but I was delirious. The polite little doctor laughed a polite little laugh, gave me the fish-eye—clearly she'd heard that one before—and said we should be able to see Melissa in about ten minutes.
Melissa was sitting up in bed with the kid in her arms. He was wrapped up like a burrito, with a tiny knit hat on his cone-shaped head. Melissa was wearing a hospital gown, her long hair was pulled back into a knot, and she looked . . . clean. She smiled at us and nodded toward the baby, as if to say, “Look what I did.” She wasn't glowing or beaming or gushing or crying. Melissa was as composed as she always was—and her baby was pretty composed, too. He was awake, but not crying. He was looking up at Melissa, blinking and looking bewildered, as if he were trying to figure out what the hell happened. No one said anything. The nurse who showed us in left, closing the door, and the four of us were alone. We said hey; Melissa said hey. Terry and I crossed to one side of the bed, stepping over a small puddle of something or other. Terry sat on a chair; I leaned against the windowsill.
“You okay?” Terry asked.
“I'm fine,” said Melissa. “It wasn't like a surprise.”
She looked down at the baby.
“He's healthy,” she said. It wasn't clear who she was talking to—the baby, us, or herself. That her baby was healthy must have felt like a victory for Melissa. Two couples had rejected her for fear that he had been damaged by her drinking and drug use. They were wrong. He was healthy.
“They give you your drugs?” I asked.
She nodded. “It still hurt like hell, though.”
The baby yawned, blinked his huge blue eyes, and stared up at Melissa.
From everything we'd heard and read, these first moments— the adoptive couple and the birth mother checking out the baby together—were supposed to be profoundly moving, full of pathos, cementing the bond between birth mothers and adoptive families. Not today. We took our cues from Melissa, and Melissa was underplaying this moment. Subtle. No weeping, no hugs. Just the facts: Here's the baby. He's healthy. It hurt.
Terry and I made no sudden moves. We didn't ask to hold the baby, and we didn't approach the bed. Neither of us wanted to appear too anxious to snatch the kid away from Melissa. If she didn't change her mind, Melissa would be signing away her rights to the baby tomorrow. We'd have plenty of time to hold him; legally, we were going to be dads forever, but Melissa was only going to be a mom for the next twenty-four hours. In olde-tyme closed adoptions, birth mothers weren't allowed to hold their babies, and often weren't told the baby's sex or whether the baby was healthy. They were supposed to pretend nothing had happened, to make believe they didn't give birth. Keeping the baby away from the birth mom helped prevent her from bonding, and was supposed to make the “Baby? What baby?” pretense easier. We didn't want to prevent Melissa from bonding, or from basking. She'd given up booze and drugs, found an agency, found us, gotten off the streets, and taken care of herself. A healthy infant was her goal, and she'd pulled it off. She had a right to be proud of what she'd done, and she had a right to bond, so we hung back. Way back.
I told Melissa that at the moment the kid was born, we were in a bathroom on the ninth floor. When I told her why—I thought I was too dirty to be allowed in the maternity ward—she laughed.
“They let me in,” she said. “You had nothing to worry about.”
Melissa named the baby David Kevin Pierce; David for her current roommate, Kevin for his biological father (a.k.a. Bacchus), and Pierce, Melissa's family name. Melissa asked if we'd like to hold the baby. We nodded. She passed him to me—I was closer, and the moment he was in my arms I felt . . . nothing. Terry gave me his chair; I sat down and he knelt next to me. The baby was all of twenty minutes old, and weighed all of seven pounds. I slipped one finger into his hand, and as he gripped, I felt . . . nothing.
What the hell is wrong with me? The kid was doing his part: his huge blue eyes were open and he was looking up at me, blinking. His little hand was strong and warm, his fingernails were large and surprisingly sharp, and he kept gripping my little finger. He had a pushed-up nose, and some blondish hair poked out from under his blue hat. The baby yawned, let go of my finger, and closed his eyes. Terry put his arm around my waist, and sighed. Clearly, Terry was feeling something; I could practically see him bonding. What was wrong with me?
Now that the baby was in my arms, I didn't have to hang back anymore. I told Melissa he was beautiful, that she'd bred well, and I smiled down at the squishy little face looking back up at me. But no rush of feeling swamped me. I ordered myself to bond, dammit, but no “This is my son” epiphany took place. Terry took my picture with the baby; as I smiled for the camera, I wondered why I was having to will myself to feel something.
I passed the baby to Terry; he walked over to Melissa's bed and sat down on the corner. I took a picture of Terry and Melissa with the baby, and then sat down on the other corner of the bed.
“He's so beautiful, Melissa,” Terry repeated over and over, “so beautiful.” Terry looked as if he might burst, he was so happy. Even Melissa was smiling.
And I felt nothing.
We'd been working toward this moment for years. We'd been to seminars, read baby books, written stacks of progressively larger checks, and opened our ban
k accounts, police records, and skulls for inspection. We'd been talking about this moment—the moment we would become dads—for so long that maybe it had come to seem like so much talk. One big abstraction. Maybe I was numb. Maybe I had a spinning ball of rock and ice where my heart was supposed to be.
Terry was about to pass the baby back to Melissa when a nurse came in to take some tubes out of her back, from the epidural anesthetic. The nurse asked us to step into the hallway, and told us to take the baby with us. We both looked at Melissa, and she shrugged. It was okay with her.
In the hallway with the baby, the first time the three of us were alone, I looked at Terry, he looked at me. We looked at the baby. We looked at each other again.
“What have we done?” I said, half joking.
“He's so beautiful!” Terry said.
The hallway was dark, and the place was deserted. Only two of OHSU's twenty birthing suites seemed to be occupied. Terry leaned against the wall, the baby in his arms, and I slid an arm around him, afraid he might sink to the floor.
The door to Melissa's room opened, the nurse came out, and we walked back in. We hung out, taking pictures and passing the baby around. Melissa told us that she'd gone into labor early in the morning, and taken a cab to the hospital a couple of hours later. We told her the story of our drive down. The nurse who'd removed the tubes from Melissa's back returned, weighed the baby, put him in a diaper and a tiny cotton shirt, and wrapped him back up. She then shook and opened a two-ounce bottle of baby formula, and asked which one of us wanted to do the first feeding.
“I've done enough work today,” Melissa said, leaning back in bed. “You guys do it.”
Terry took the bottle from the nurse, and Melissa handed him the baby. The formula was in a tiny glass bottle, with a yellow label and a little brown nipple. Terry gently touched the nipple to the baby's upper lip, and his tiny lips parted. He sucked in the nipple, and as he pulled on the bottle he gripped Terry's little finger. Terry looked up at me, and then at Melissa.
