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THE ADOPTIVE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Dan and I flew back to New York, quiet and expectant. I didn’t want to tell anyone we were going to adopt. I wanted to keep it inside, this strange, slow calm I felt in the days after our decision. This was new for me, feeling ready. I had always feared having children: the change, the loss of control, the loss of self. I’d had scares before, times I thought I might be pregnant. Gripped and panicky, all my emotions firing at once: hope, fear, ecstasy, despair, until my fate in a pale pastel would surface on the pregnancy test and release me, exhausted and childless, into a pile of sadness and relief. Our decision to adopt was not that. I wanted this. I felt grounded and strong, as right as rain.

I called my cousin. “Melanie! Dan and I have decided to adopt!” She was excited for me. “That’s wonderful, tell everyone you know.” I wanted to ask her about special needs. “What’s it like raising Jake?” Melanie paused. “It’s very physical,” she said. “Very physical and very spiritual.” I could hear the weight in her voice. “Jake has been an enormous gift to our family, especially to the other kids. Huge lessons there. If you are open to adopting special needs, be sure you know what you are signing up for. It’s a great service if you can do it. Those kids are hard to place.”

Her husband Max got on the phone, “Wow, Ann, it’s great news! I wished I’d known a week ago. I got a call about a two-year-old South American who needs heart surgery. You guys have health insurance, right?” We did indeed. “And you’ve got your home study done, right?” Hmm. I cringed a little, “Nope, never heard of it.” Max paused. “Well, you have to have a home study and get approved. You might want to get on that. You’ll need it for domestic or foreign adoption. Best bet is to get in touch with an agency.” I was writing this down. “Home study. Agency. Thanks, Max. I’ll let you know when we’re all set.”

I called my social worker cousin at Columbia and she recommended an agency on the Upper East Side. I made an appointment for Dan and me. The social worker was all smart and businesslike in her red, rectangular glasses. “It says here you are open to special needs, micro-preemies, cystic fibrosis, etc. What do you know about these conditions?” We gave her an overview, throwing in a few personal stories that would make us seem more credible, personable.

She was not impressed. “No religious affiliation . . . would you consider yourselves religious or spiritual, just not attached to an institution?” Neither. She was not encouraging. She shuffled our papers and shrugged, “I don’t get it. You don’t fit the profile. Both professionals, double income, no kids, no religious affiliation . . . it doesn’t make sense. Why special needs?” There was a pause. Dan said, “I grew up in South Dakota.” I jumped in, “I was raised Mormon!” She leaned back in her chair and nodded slowly. “So you’re both from out west. That’s where most of our special-needs kids get placed: big religious families with cultures that value life.” Value life? Her choice of words seemed out of place on the Upper East Side of New York City. “You’re going to need a lot more information,” she said. “Read these,” and handed us a list of books. She stood up and thanked us for coming. We were being shown the door! I couldn’t believe it!

“Can you recommend someone to do our home study?” I asked as she walked us into the hallway. She handed me a list of names and numbers. “Anyone in particular?” I asked as she shook our hands. “Anyone of them would be fine.” The elevator closed. I was incredulous. “That’s not at all how I thought this was going to go! I thought she was going to hug us, have us sign something, and walk us down to the nursery.” I felt dismissed. Why was I being dismissed?

Brushing my teeth that night, I gave myself a good stare in the mirror. The real question was, why would anyone want to give me a baby? I had no experience: Hell, my biggest parenting cred to date was being Melanie’s cousin. Why would anyone want to give me a child to raise? The answer was easy and sad: money.

* * *

Armed with a checkbook and high-hopes, Dan and I entered what we called “The Adoptive Industrial Complex.” Many of the agencies that make up this enormous infrastructure were, like us, well-intended. Nonetheless, they were businesses and most of the meetings I attended were an uncomfortable mix of high emotion and enormous fees. The persons who ran these meetings wanted to know what we were looking for: color of hair, curly or straight, race, color of skin and eyes, age and disposition. I could buy a photograph, a video, get a list of a child’s characteristics on the Down syndrome rubric or a deluxe examination by a physician. “Would you like a boy or a girl?” I was concerned that we were getting off track. The process was overtaking the product. “Would you like more than one? There is a rebate if you get two and of course you save on airfare!” What do I want? I want to give! They were selling me a noun and I wanted a verb.

Like nausea, the paperwork came in waves: personal essays, fingerprints, references, every address since 1970, finances, and medical histories on both sides of both families. This was so different from a pregnancy. There was no weight gain, no sonograms, no life force driving its miracle through your body. With adoption, it is all on you. You have to manually grow your baby every day, call by call, check by check.

Four months into our adoption process, which I tried not to think of as the first month of our second trimester, we chose a foundation that facilitates adoptions from Eastern Europe as an arm of its child advocacy work. They had a reputation for being both ethical and politically connected. Wait, is that possible? At one point, they told us that a man holding a sign would meet us at the airport, “and you will need to give him five-thousand dollars in cash which we suggest you carry in your shoes.” Dan was already in bed when I got home from the meeting. “I just keep thinking how that five-thousand dollars would be better spent on, oh, I don’t know, maybe raising a kid?”

There was no easy answer. We’d been warned against domestic adoption, the potential that it held for heartbreak is enormous: biological relatives can appear years into your family life and take your child. Or you finally find someone who wants to give you their child and at the last minute, they change their mind. It’s devastating. Nobody wants to go through that.

I started hashing over our remaining options when Dan looked at me and said, “Foster care.” WHAT? I froze. We had never spoken of foster care. He said, “I checked it out.” I gulped. The only stories I’d heard about foster care adoption were disastrous.

“Dan! That is so hard core!”

“That’s where the need is.”

“But the horror stories . . .”

“Horror? A horror for the adults or the kids?”

“Did you say ‘kids’? Plural?” I was almost yelling.

“Sibling groups are considered special needs.”

I felt a chill. “It would be really, really hard.”

“It’s harder for them.”

He was right. I called my sister, Michelle. Michelle had agreed to be our backup, the person to take our kids should anything happen to us. “So, we’ve decided to adopt through the foster care system,” I told her. Silence “. . . Michelle? Are you there?” Silence. She sounded stressed when she finally answered, “I’m out. I can’t take that on. Oh my God, Ann! I’ve heard terrible stories. I have my own children to consider. I have a friend who adopted a foster kid, it was horrible!”

I called my brother John, my kid brother, my best bud. “Dude, you have to sign this form.” John said, “Ann, I can’t raise your kids, my life is not set up for that.” I assured him, “You don’t have to raise them, you just have to decide what to do with them if we both die at the same time. Come on.” Silence. Then finally: “Fine. I’ll sign.”

We were back on track.