Friday is show and tell for The Boy.

 

I should know that by now.

 

Every week they study a different letter and on Friday they bring in something that starts with it.

 

But I didn’t go through the school papers yesterday.

 

And this morning it totally slipped my mind—

 

Perhaps I was distracted by the fact that Farrah got sick all over the apartment last night and Kipp and I were rolling up our living room rug this morning and taking it to the trash room—lots of fun.

 

I was reminded of show and tell when I dropped The Boy off at school and the other kids were talking about what they brought.

 

The Boy looked at me with eyes that said “MOM!!!!!!!”

 

I remembered from earlier in the week that this week’s letter was F.

 

“Good thing your last name is Fawcett.  You brought yourself!” I said with a huge smile.

 

And his face lit up.

 

He loved it….

 

“Hey guys….I’m a Fawcett. I brought myself to show and tell.”

 

All his friends started laughing.

 

Crisis averted.

 

I really need to get some sleep.

 

Love much,

xob

 

 

When we adopted The Boy I couldn’t bear to travel with the baby equipment. 

 

What if it didn’t work out?

 

It was more  than I could think about it.

 

So I traveled with nothing and had it all shipped once he was officially ours.

 

But this time it was different.

 

The Girl’s early arrival threw every one for a loop and thanks to the flexibility of the airlines – the papers were signed before we got to Texas. 

 

So I traveled with everything….

 

Including an empty car seat and stroller.

 

First stop in our “Texas Adventure” as The Boy called it was check in at the airport.

 

It will probably come as no surprise that my luggage exceeded the weight limit.

 

Now there are two reasons for this:

 

      a) It’s me we’re talking about

 

b)      When you travel with children you have limited hands so you really do need to cram as much into a suitcase as humanly possible. 

 

 

Before the man at curbside check in opened his mouth, I volunteered “Sir, please forgive me for this luggage.  I am certain that we have exceeded all of your weight limits.  So just charge me what you need to.  You see we are on our way to adopt our baby girl!” Clearly I was beaming.

 

Kipp was of course mortified at my wordy explanation and just wanted to pay the fees and be done with it. 

But I was hoping for kindness.

 

And kindness is exactly what I got.

 

“So you’re a big brother now?” The guy said to Jake.

 

“Yes.  We’re going to adopt my baby sister.” He said while jumping up and down.

 

The guy smiled.

 

“No extra charge today m’am.  Have a safe trip and congratulations.”

 

I expected kindness, what I got was the Magic of adoption.

 

Even I was surprised.

 

It had already started.

 

Next stop was security and as we passed the first check person she peered in the stroller and said “Who do we have here?”

 

“Oh. It’s empty.” I said with a smile.  “We’re on our way to adopt our baby girl.”

 

“Oh… then don’t stand in that line.  Here come with me. A baby girl…..now that’s exciting.” And she took my arm.

 

She took us to the front.

 

I turned around to shoot Kipp a smile and he just laughed…..I know I sometimes drive him crazy because I talk to everyone…. but he wasn’t going to start complaining now.  He was thrilled to skip the line.

 

Everyone wanted to help us……

 

Which after a two and a half year up hill battle to adopt this baby was a pleasant turn of events.

 

And as I finally settled into my seat on the plane it was as if I could feel The Girl in my arms.

 

I was almost there.

 

Almost.

 

Love much,

xob

 

 

Two days later my social worker told me that the birthmother wanted to talk again at 8:00 pm.

 

At 8:00 when the phone rang I was ready.

 

My heart was beating uncontrollably but I was ready.

 

“Hello” I said.

 

“I just wanted to call to say that we pick you.  We want you to parent this little girl.”  She said before I had a chance to say anything else.

 

There is no way to adequately describe the emotion surrounding these words—for either one of us.

 

“Thank you.” I cried into the phone.  “You have no idea how happy we are.”

 

Then she cried.

 

Looking back on this moment I can only speculate (I can not speak for her) that we were both in great pain. 

 

This decision, in one fell swoop, had given both of us a glimpse of peace and hope for the future.

 

Our individual pains are completely different and unique in their own right and in no way shape or form can be or should be compared.

 

Both should be recognized for what they are.

 

And no matter how different our pain we shared one commonality:  We had both found ourselves in unexpected situations and needed help finding our way through them. 

 

She was pregnant and carrying a little girl she deeply loved, and I was infertile and overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity to love her too.

 

She was due December 7^th.

 

Thank you to my new found friend……

 

You are forever in my heart.

 

Love much,

xob

I must admit that prior to the call I was a little pessimistic—call it self preservation.

 

This particular birth mother liked three families.

 

How could you like all three?

 

Were we similar?

 

How could we be?

 

Wasn’t there anything about us that stood out from the rest?

 

I convinced myself that there was just no way we could compete in this pool of prospective adoptive parents. The fact that we lived in NYC was proving much harder to match with Texas birthmothers than I ever anticipated.  My gut told me that the City just didn’t translate well to people who didn’t live here—-but what did I know.

 

I took a deep breath and made the call.

 

On the third ring she answered. 

 

…….45 minutes later I said goodbye to my new found friend.

 

I went into The Boy’s room where he and Kipp were playing trains.

 

“I think we’re done.” I said, as I looked Kipp in the eye.

 

He shook his head and told me not to do this to myself again.

 

“Don’t set yourself up for disappointment again Snyds.” (pronounces Snides—short for my maiden name of Snyder).

 

“Kipp, I hear you but I haven’t had a call like this since The Boy.”

 

Now I had his attention.

 

“So what was the difference? Did she say she liked us best?”

 

“She said I was different.  She said I talked to her as a friend, with a different tone in my voice than the others.  She said I talked about “her” as a piece of our family.  No one else did. She said the others seemed hesitant and a little scared.  But I get it—we’ve done this before.  I shared with her how we were scared of the “birthparent scenario” the first time ‘round and she laughed.  ‘I’m just a regular person’ she said.  I laughed back and told her that we were just regular people too.  I told her I knew some of what she was going through–I’d been through it with the Boy’s birthmother.  I can sympathize with how hard it is for her.  I know the difficulty of this decision. I also told her I know how brave and generous she is and that the little girl that she is carrying is going to know that too.  I told her about Jake’s Box in my closet and how I’ll start one for The Girl if she picks us.  And get this…..she loves Jake, she loves the Ladies and she loves that we live in NY! Hard to believe right? But she grew up on the East Coast—it’s a sign.”

 

He started to believe me and asked “and what made her different?”

 

“She didn’t ask me judgmental questions that have nothing to do with motherhood—like who did I vote for in the last election, would I love this child if she was a “Wicken” (yes, I’ve been asked that) and why do I think working fulltime is a good idea with children (uhhhh because the bills don’t pay themselves)? She asked me what I love best about being a mom. She wanted to know about our life with The Boy—what we all do together.  She asked me why I wanted another child.  She wasn’t looking for a reason to hate me.”

 

“And what did you tell her?”

 

At this point I was crying.

 

“I told her I love everything.  But I especially love the simple things.  Like the first time he hugged me.  The first time he held my hand.  The first time he gave me a kiss without me asking for one.  I told her I never imagined that I would ever love my child this much and I wanted another to grow our family to do it all again and especially to give them each other. “

 

“And what did she say?”

 

“She said she will talk to her social worker on Monday and get back to us.”

 

“And what did you say?”

 

“I said great. Talk to you soon.  I couldn’t help myself…it was as if I was getting off the phone with L.”

 

And if I was wrong?

 

Well then I’d just deal with that then. 

 

But for now I was going to be cautiously optimistic. 

 

Monday was two days away.

 

Love much,

xob

July 30, 2009—Philadelphia

 

Jake was in the pool, because that is where he’d spent the better part of the week. 

 

I was sitting out and taking a break while Kipp took a turn trying to teach The Boy to put his face in the water.

 

 My phone rang, which of course brought some judgmental stares from the other pool goers since there is a strict “no cell phone” policy.

 

 But as I reached into my bag to silence it, I noticed the number calling and knew I had to answer.

 

It was Texas.

 

Our book had gone out the week before to birthparents who were very early in the process and to be honest with you I thought it was too early and that they would just keep looking at books because they had the time. 

 

So I hadn’t really given it much thought. 

 

“They’ve picked three families and you are one of them.” Said my social worker.

 

“What does that mean?” I asked

 

“The birthmother would like to talk to all three and then make her decision.”

 

Ughhhhhh I thought to myself. 

 

It was my experience that these were the birthmothers who weren’t 100% secure in their decision to place their babies. 

 

These were the birthmothers who kept looking at books and having phone calls, while they looked for something to push them in one direction or another. 

 

I had been through this one too many times this past year but I guess that’s just part of the deal, so I said:    “Okay.  When is the call?”

 

“She’d like to talk to you tonight at 8:00, your time.”

 

Crap.

 

We were having dinner with some of our best friends (one of Jake’s Godmothers) who we never see, and tonight was the only night they could do it.  So I did the unthinkable.  “I am really sorry but that won’t work.”

 

“Really?” My social worker said with a surprise.

 

“Yes, really.  Can we make it another night?” I knew if Kipp was in earshot, he would think I was nuts. He would tell me to cancel dinner. But all I could think of was how I had put so much of my life on hold the past two years and how we had cancelled so many things for a “wild goose chase” and quite frankly, I was done.

 

If this situation was meant to be, then it would work out—but in the meantime I wanted to see our friends. I had been looking forward to it all week.

 

It didn’t cross my mind for a minute that this was foolish.

 

If this birthmother really wanted to talk to us, then what’s one or two more days.

 

“Okay let me check with her social worker but what about Saturday night at 8:00 your time?”

 

“Perfect. We can do that.” I replied.

 

 Saturday was two days away.

 

Love Much,

xob

With reality.

At all.

The tree is still up and we’re listening to Christmas music in the office….

I’m going to stay in la-la land a little longer…

love much,

xob