Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood. Eric Rosswood
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Название: Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood

Автор: Eric Rosswood

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Секс и семейная психология

Серия:

isbn: 9780882825151

isbn:

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      We passed the interview. I wondered if people ever failed it but didn’t ask. The home study came next. At the time, we lived in a newly-built condominium that we had bought together shortly after our engagement. It suited us perfectly as a couple, although now we needed to make some changes—installing carbon monoxide detectors, buying a fire extinguisher and moving everything potentially harmful to an infant out of reach (even though a newborn couldn’t reach it for a number of years). We did everything we were asked to do. It seemed to take forever. Then the envelope finally arrived to say we had passed the tests and were now approved adoptive (and foster) parents. We were excited to be one step closer to becoming dads.

      We spent weeks writing and rewriting and designing our Dear Birthmother letter, picking photographs and changing layouts. When it was finished, it looked like four pages from People magazine. We thought we had the best letter ever written—more enthusiasm than arrogance—and were convinced we would be picked almost immediately. We finished our online profile with the agency and set up the required e-mail address and 800 number so a birthmother could reach us anytime without cost to her. Then we were all set to start waiting for the call.

      We wondered how we would feel when it rang for the first time and didn’t have to wait long to find out—about as long as it took us to learn that 800 numbers are recycled and otherwise prone to misdials. The first call I excitedly picked up was someone trying to get her cell phone fixed. These numbers also seem to get easily placed on automated call lists, so the phone rang at all hours, day and night. Each time we hoped it was “the call,” only to usually find no one on the other end of the line. Then we would wonder whether we should call the number back in case it was a birthmother trying to reach us, even though the agency told us not to call the birthmothers back—and for good reason. If the birthmother hadn’t told anyone about her pregnancy, you didn’t want to accidently unveil her secret if another family member answered when you called back.

      Eric and I had said at the beginning of our journey that we were going to try to live a normal life during the wait. The agency told us the same thing and discouraged “nesting” or anything nursery-related before placement. For six months, nothing really happened, so we decided to try some new things. Eric started a few social media accounts while I tried my hand at website design. We talked about redesigning “The Best Dear Birthmother Letter Ever,” which had only been sent out once, and about whether we wanted to change our client profile.

      The client profile sets out the adoptive family’s preferences regarding the birthparents’ racial heritage and religious background. It also specifies the behaviors they find tolerable in regard to smoking, drinking and drug use during pregnancy, as well as the level of physical and mental disability we would accept. Of all the forms we had to fill out, that one was by far the hardest. We were told that the more “liberal” we were on the form, the greater the chance of us being shown to a birthmother who had contacted the agency. We’d done a lot of reading on drinking and drugs—many of the people I know seem to have some form of fetal alcohol syndrome, the symptoms of which include being grumpy and angry—and so we weren’t too particular about those boxes. When it came to hereditary medical history, however, things started to get more complex.

      Consider this question: If you could choose between an unimpaired child or a physically or mentally challenged child, which would you choose? Biological parents don’t have that choice, whereas adoptive parents do (to some degree, because nothing is ever certain). So what choice do you make and does it show you as a good or bad parent in the eyes of a birthmother? The options available on the form are not extensive: no condition, a mild condition of any type or any condition. Eric and I both have or have had close relatives with mental impediments. Would we pick a child with a mental impediment or a notable risk of one if we had the choice? What would we do if our child was born with an otherwise undiagnosed physical or mental impediment? Adoptions can be “broken” at any point before they are finalized by either party. Would we ever consider doing that? We talked about it for a long time, agreeing that the universe would grant us whatever it did. So we checked the “mild” box and entered the adoption pool.

      After six months of nothing, I did start to wonder whether we had made the right choices on the form and whether we should have checked another box or two. It was around that time when we got our first e-mail. It arrived at about 11:30 P.M. one night. We both had our adoption e-mail address synced to our phones and so far had only received random junk mail. But this time, our devices went “ping” and it was a birthmother. We were excited, apprehensive and eager to respond, so we jumped out of bed to reply—and then realized we had no idea what to say! It probably took us two hours to draft a two-paragraph message, redraft it, bicker a little about what we were going to write, redraft it some more and finally send it. Then we forwarded our reply to the adoption agency and tried to get some sleep, wondering all the while if we had said the right things and when she would reply, if she ever would.

      Two e-mails later, we realized we were being scammed. The person was just trying to get money from us. We had been warned several times that this could and would likely happen. Knowing how raw and vulnerable adoptive parents are during “the wait,” it’s hard to imagine how a decent human being could prey on that, but people do. One of the many benefits of working with an agency is that they are very quick to spot a scam and let us know before we become too emotionally invested. To be fair, though, after a six-month wait and a sleepless night writing perhaps the most important e-mail of our lives, we were up to our ears in emotional investment and it was hard not to be a little sad that this wasn’t the one.

      We put it behind us, along with a few other scams among the random calls we got. Before we knew it, one year had passed and we became eligible for the “last-minute list.” This meant we would be one of the families presented to a birthmother who decided to place immediately after birth. If she liked us, we would have thirty minutes to decide if we wanted to move forward. We tried to make that the positive outcome of a year spent waiting—we could now become a family instantaneously—and signed up.

      Five days later, my cell phone rang while I was in a meeting at work. It was a number my phone didn’t recognize, so I ignored it. When I got home, we had a voicemail I hadn’t noticed earlier. It was around 9:30 P.M. when I pushed play in the kitchen and, after a moment of silence, we heard Stephanie’s voice for the first time.

      “Hi, Eric and Mat…” There was a long pause. “Wow, this is awkward. My name is Stephanie. I saw your profile online. I’m thirteen weeks pregnant and I’m looking to place my baby for adoption. And I really liked your profile and would kinda like to get to know more about your parenting style and things like that. If you could please give me a call, I look forward to talking more with you.”

      This was real and now it was our turn to be silent. From her phone number, we deduced that she was in the central time zone, so it was past 11 P.M. and had been almost twelve hours since her call. Do we call her back now? Do we wait until the morning? What would she be thinking? What do we say to her when we call? What are we supposed to do? We decided to send a text—that way she would know we got her message when she woke up. Stephanie replied in about fifteen seconds. After a brief exchange of texting small talk, we called her.

      Our first call lasted close to two hours. We told her to ask us anything she wanted to know. She started with our views on pediatric vaccinations and circumcision. We were not prepared at all to start there, but were honest and answered every question she had as best we could. I took lots of notes. By the time the call ended, we were overwhelmed and could only imagine how she felt. Of all the things we covered that night—the fact that she was declared medically infertile after the birth of her second child, the night the baby was conceived (Halloween, Eric’s favorite holiday), her family situation, her decision not to terminate, her desire to have a home birth and her disdain for adoption agencies—the one that sticks in my mind the most is the response she gave to our question, “What drew you to us when you read our profile?” Stephanie said that she is a Capricorn and her best СКАЧАТЬ