On July 25, 2013, at 5:02 P.M., one sound changed me forever: the first breath of a new life. We had just walked through the door of a midwestern hotel room, not a moment too soon or too late. Our son was finally here.
Becoming a parent wasn’t something that generally came up in conversation, even with my best friends. In 2011, as our wedding day approached, I joked that I couldn’t possibly have a child outside of marriage—a reference to the ironies of the marriage equality debate more than anything else. Little did we know that soon after that magical day, Eric and I would indeed begin our journey to parenthood.
It still feels strange to talk about “options” when it comes to being a parent—one of many things that provoked unexpected feelings from the start. That’s not what they teach you in sex-ed class, but that was our reality and we reflected on them all. Adoption became our choice (a much better word) for two reasons: we would both be equal parents and it felt like the most selfless path to us. I wondered what the world would think of the choice—something I seldom cared about in my general journey through life. Was I really ready to be “that family”?
In June of 2011, we decided to find out and attended an information session at a nearby adoption agency. Every combination of family was present and, while we weren’t the only same-sex couple, we were not in the majority. But everyone was there for the same reason and that had a way of making the differences between us seem not so different after all.
As the session evolved, I realized that the other people in the room were about to embark on the same journey that we were. We all had the same goal and I started to think of them as competition. Did any of them have traits or characteristics that would help them match with a birthmother before we did? Instead of thinking about how we could match in the quickest way possible, I started thinking about how we could match before everyone else. How could we “win”? I wasn’t ready for that feeling, either. I found it uncomfortable that we saw others in the room as competition and not as comrades who could help each other out. Apparently this is a common feeling for adoptive parents, but knowing that didn’t make me feel any better.
The first step in the process was a two-day weekend intensive program. “If you are patient and do what we say, you will get a baby,” they told us in the opening session. I wondered again how many times I’d feel uncomfortable on this journey. We met our counselor for the first time and left with binders, books and contracts.
As I read through all of the information and started to understand the next steps, I felt another emotion I hadn’t expected in our journey to parenthood: anger. Reproduction is part of the natural order of the human race, a right acquired at birth that no law denies, at least in the United States. As I learned of all the hoops we were about to jump through, the thought did cross my mind: I’m a human being and I have the right to reproduce like everyone else. All I needed was a willing human of the opposite sex. Instead, we were about to take one serious parenting test: get fingerprinted, go through a background check by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have our financials rummaged through, get poked and prodded by a doctor, have our blood tested, provide references and go through an afternoon of interviews, all to become parents to the child of some straight couple who couldn’t fulfill the role that the natural order ordained them with. All they did was have some fun. That made me angry.
I know our son will read this one day. That is not how I think of his biological mother or father. I also know the beauty that is life can come from some truly harrowing circumstances, but at that moment, I was indeed mad at those who just “did it” without a care in the world or a questionnaire and then abused or discarded their children, straight or gay.
Then we began to do all of our homework and that anger gave way to a much deeper emotion. I felt like a normal human being—more unexpected feelings. I realized I knew very little about being a parent, something I now know many first-time parents feel. Not that this made filling out the parenting questionnaire any easier. I was trying to answer questions I had never asked myself before: What is the difference between discipline and abuse? How am I going to talk to our child about sex?
Where does one go to find answers to those questions? In the modern age, online search engines aren’t a bad source of inspiration, but there was another place I could go to for expert advice—my own parents. I don’t remember when I first told them we were planning to adopt, but we were on a family vacation when I asked them about parenting. We explained all of the things we’d been doing to “qualify” as adoptive parents.
“What did you talk about before I was born?” I asked.
“The only real thing we’d decided beforehand was that we would always be on the same page in front of you, even if we disagreed afterward,” my dad said. There was that “normal” feeling again, along with the realization that all of this question asking and book reading was actually helping Eric and I, both individually and together, to prepare to be parents and to think about things we otherwise likely never would have thought about or discussed before. I wasn’t so angry anymore.
I’ve studied for plenty of tests, written plenty of papers and essays and given presentations on all manner of topics, but I was at a loss as to how one prepares for a parent interview. Is there a right answer to a parenting question? Did I say the right things in my biography? Was I too honest or not honest enough? What if my “discipline versus abuse” response wasn’t good enough? What if Eric said something different from what I had when he was interviewed or disagreed with me—what would that mean? I figured I would just go with my gut instincts—isn’t that what parents do? I didn’t know. But that made me no different from any other prospective parent.
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