Note: Originally published in Adoptive Families Magazine, March 2005. Revived for Mother’s Day and this week’s Mother of Confusion newspaper blog-column.

Would he love me? This time last year, while waiting for my son to be born, I worried that he wouldn’t return my love. I was certain that when he was a toddler he would, but as a newborn? Would he sense my love for him as I pulled him close or would he strain to hear the song and sounds of his birth mother instead? Would he feel fear and heartbreak and have to keep it locked tight in his body, unable to communicate anything more than a cry?

I also wondered about myself and if I possessed a mother’s sense with this child who was not biologically mine. At night when the baby whimpered or cried, would it be his birth mother, fifty miles away, instinctively waking up to reach for him while I slept?

The month before he was born, the huge obstacle of grief blocked much of my joy. My husband didn’t understand why I experienced such negative emotions. We were supposed to be the happiest expectant parents on the planet. I had a difficult time explaining that my tears were for my unborn son’s mother.

Jimmy and I had tried to conceive off and on for the last ten years, since our son Jay was a toddler. It was a decade of waiting mournfully, hopefully, and of soul-crushing heartache. There were days I felt I couldn’t live through it and I should die; other times, I built up a wall and said, “Fine we’ll be a happy family of three.” But still, to be infertile was like mourning a child or children, in the sense of what could have been. I didn’t have memories of a sweet dimpled face and saucy laugh, only imaginations of all that was lost.

I felt as if I was trading my grief for my new son’s biological mother’s happiness. She was going to give me my dreams and I was going to give her nothing but empty arms. She wasn’t going to have to imagine, she’d know. She would be able to picture exactly how this baby of ours looked, smelled and felt. I could leave behind the pain that I had carried from infertility. It felt suddenly shallow compared to what I could imagine of her pain. She wouldn’t get a decade sentence; she’d have to carry her grief for life.

The Arrival

My youngest son was born on the first day of winter with stick-straight blond hair and flashy blue eyes. I stood in the back of the room and watched as he emerged, saw the doctor as he gripped his head with firm, gentle hands that twisted and tugged to pull the baby’s shoulders out. Upon his arrival, the baby cried soft and briefly; my cries were loud gulps. I remember his grandmother – who’d just met me that day — coming over and hugging me. We cried together.

“Do you want to cut the umbilical cord?” the grandmother said a minute later, relaying her daughter’s question to me.

It was unexpected. I’d not considered being the one to do this. It felt right, so I did. I knew then that I wasn’t cutting the baby’s link to his birth family. His biological mother placed him with us, a life and family she wanted for him, one she, at the time, couldn’t provide. She was a stronger mother than I, and with her trust and a few snips, I now had to be as equally strong to raise my son. We would all three always be connected in spirit, through him.

Ours is an open adoption. The farewells said the next day as my son’s birth mother was discharged weren’t to be the last. I realized by then I couldn’t stem her pain with my words. I knew I could no more truly understand her depth of emotions than others could understand what I felt with secondary infertility. My role in this triad was to be Craig’s mother. The only way I could help his biological mother was to raise him in a committed family environment and to love him as my own.

Later that night, with all of us tucked in safely at home, I woke up from a deep sleep and reached out instinctively for Craig. He had just started to fuss and was in my arms before the first cry of hunger. So much for that worry, I held him close and he turned his head to me, latched on to his bottle and I rocked us both back to sleep and momentary peace.

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1. Adoption: The Open Option
2. A Mother of a Birth Story (part 1)
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Adoptive parents are perfect parents. At least that is what I sense the stereotypical thought is. We’ve waited a long time, have a lot of money and have learned extensively about child development. Somewhere during the process we have discovered our inner perfect parent and know the politically correct and right way to respond to our tantrum tossing toddler and sometimes snarling teenager. We’ve figured out the delicate balance of letting our children explore, learn from their experiences and somehow manage to keep them from safe from the lurking dangers that surround them.

I will admit I did find myself lured into swimming the honey-scented sea of Pleasantville. It was a place where clean clothes were plentiful, bedtimes were always angelic and wrongs were righted again with a quick hug from me. Above all, it was where I had endless patience and, with some thought, all the right answers.

Reality check, I’m nowhere near perfect and at this point I can’t even claim super mom status. I’m mom; just plain old mom and we’re late again.

The clock ticks nine forty am and we have to leave at eleven. I’m in full-blown anxiety mode trying to get us out the door for my brother’s wedding reception. For two hours I searched for my oldest son’s good pants. It started as a casual load of laundry at seven thirty then turned into a frantic and futile hunt. They weren’t in his hamper, under his bed, on top of his bunk, tucked in the crevices of his closet or crammed in the dryer.

“Jay, when is the last time you’ve seen them?” I asked and gave him my mean squinty glare. The one he, in calmer moments, teasingly called my ‘lizard eyes.’

“I don’t know,” he said glumly and hung his head. I got the feeling he wished the pants would miraculously appear or, even better yet, that I would disappear.

I realized I saw only the ratty jeans and recently too small beige slacks hanging in the closet when I rifled through.

Oh great! There’s more than one pair missing. The last place I knew those pants were, count them — four pairs, was in his duffle bag. “Did you leave your clothes at sixth grade camp?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

His passivity grated my patience. “What did you wear all this week since you’ve been back?”

His eyes were as shifty as a grandfather clock pendulum. I felt lame for asking a question I already knew the answer to; he’s worn the same pants all week. The worst part was, I had just noticed.

Frustration bubbled up in my throat like pizza-induced heartburn. “Go take a shower, brush your teeth and use the Listerine.” I said the last word with force. Even the shirt I planned on him wearing wasn’t going to work; he outgrew it in the space of two weeks. He was going to have to go to the reception in old jeans, a t-shirt and scuffed shoes.

Instead of following directions, Jay plopped into the wingback chair and pouted. The weight of personal hygiene was too heavy for his preteen responsibilities. I hadn’t even mentioned yet he had to use deodorant.

I glared at him and ran through my mental checklist. There was still the diaper bag to pack, baby to wake, bathe and dress, the wedding present to wrap, outfits to iron, husband to prod and I still had to get ready. Worse yet, my first cup of coffee hadn’t been brewed yet either. I really just wanted to flop on the couch and do my own temper tantrum trick. Instead, I used my angry mom power voice. “Jay get up, get in that shower now.” My pointed finger commanded him to action with a shake at the hallway. “Go, go, go.”

He looked up and made eye contact. “Can’t you just spray me with Lysol?”

“What?” Incredulous, I’m not sure if the glint in his eye was hope or humor. I felt conflicted; I didn’t know if he was completely exasperating or totally hilarious. It was an effort to both keep my patience in check and fight to hide a grin. “Lysol?”

“Yea, I’ll smell good then.”

I shook my head and said, “Shower.” My smile escaped and he caught it.

“Fine, if I have to.” He said it with mock arrogance and grin. He stood up, rolled his eyes, made his weird face and walked away.

It was my turn to slide into the chair. It was clothes and a shower. Why was it such a struggle? It wasn’t like we were discovering cold fusion or even doing sixth grade math fractions. He was going to have to go to the reception in old jeans, a t-shirt and scuffed shoes.

Coffee Talk

It was noon before we packed ourselves in the car. Each of us shot out emotional sparks of crankiness. My husband and the boys had no care in the world if we were late; it was my irritated attitude that had rubbed off on them. Even Craig, strapped into his car seat, refused to laugh when Jay cooed at him. At least we were on the freeway and, if we hurried, were only thirty minutes late.

“Are you going to stop at Starbucks?” asked Jimmy about forty minutes into our trip.

I gave him an irritated look. We were so close, stopping for coffee would pile another fifteen minute lag time.

“Have you had coffee yet?”

“No.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“We’re late.”

He sighed and said, “So what?”

That drove me crazy. It’s one thing he didn’t care if we are on time or not, but couldn’t he respect that, for once, I’d like to be or at least realize how much effort I put into getting us out the door to be on schedule? Before I could respond, Craig announced his lost patience with a shriek and a yell.

Jay, seated next to the adorable ear-splitter, dangled primary colored toys to entice Craig into contentment again. Through the cacophonous ups and downs in the backseat, Jimmy and I attempted to continue our java discussion. However, every time Jimmy opened his mouth, Craig overpowered him with what could be the voice of a future opera singer.

“I can’t make him stop,” Jay shouted a few moments later.

We did the only thing we could do, we sang. Two rounds of ‘Pat-a-Cake’ and one ‘If Your Happy and You Know It’ settled Craig down again.

Twenty minutes late now, instead of rushing through city streets towards our destination, we idled in the Starbucks drive-thru. I drummed the steering wheel, agitated.

“Well we can be late with coffee or be late without coffee,” said Jimmy. “Which do you prefer?”

“Coffee, definitely with the coffee.”

Jimmy was right, in his way he pointed out a new truth to me. Whether we were late or not, why not just enjoy our time regardless. I forced myself to relax.

Before it was our turn at the speaker box, I turned to ask Jay what he wanted. Craig chimed in and again our voices competed. I wanted to keep my cooler mood, so instead of yelling to be heard, I decided to sing. This time the song was, “Jay what would you like to drink?”

Jay gave me his practiced preteen scowl in response. It’s the one where he makes the ‘my mom is so lame’ face.

I continued in lyric. “Jay, don’t you like my singing?”

He replied in baritone, “No, I don’t like it and I don’t want anything either.”

I asked Jimmy what he wanted in the same manner.

He sang, “Why do you sound like ‘West Side Story?’”

“I was shooting for ‘Sound of Music.’ Do you want your usual Macchaito?” The last line in sing-song left us all in a fit of laughter.

Not So Perfect

Okay, so this wasn’t the Pleasantville I had imagined. You know the one where I adopted my youngest son and automatically became the ‘Mother of the Year’ and was able to handle cooking, diaper changing, help with homework, work full-time and write all while doing a breezy pirouette wearing my fantastic red-and-white-checked mommy apron.

Sure, sometime during the last decade my husband and I improved our parenting techniques. At some point, we realized not all songs by Nine Inch Nails and White Zombie were appropriate for our oldest to head bang to. We’ve learned to step back and let Craig explore, stumble and discover more than we did with Jay – even if that means being grass-stained with a scraped knee. We did do a ton of research about adoption and the different issues an adopted child and adoptive family might face – and still do — but that didn’t magically make us the greatest parents ever. Like with other families, each day for us is a new adventure.

Reality check is I’m Jay and Craig’s mom, their plain old mom, with more good than grumpy days. Though we’ll never be on a poster labeled as the ‘family to be,’ the one thing we have that is perfect, is our love for each other – even if it is in an off-key sort of way.

Related posts:

1. Adoption: The Open Option
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3. Go away! Mornings aren’t welcome here

It was our first night home. I woke up that morning with the winter sun peeking lazily through the bedroom blinds. With a stretch of my arms and a twist, I rolled over. There he was, my new baby, in his co-sleeper. He was swaddled in the fuzzy blue blanket I had meticulously shopped for a few months earlier. Craig’s lips puckered and relaxed repetitively, as if drinking a bottle in his sleep. I touched his arm gently; he was definitely not a dream.

Behind me, my husband, Jimmy woke up and asked quietly, “He okay?”

“Yes,” I said in a whisper.

“Why didn’t you wake me up to help you during the night?”

I turned to face him, put my hand on his sharp stubbly cheek, “Because that’s my job. We can take care of him together during the day.” He kissed my palm and smiled.

I was finally, once again, a member of the middle-of-the-night-mother’s club. I would be the parent to get up in the darkest hours, rock our crying son, feed him, change him and soothe him back to sleep. Craig and I would be the only two awake in an otherwise quiet home. That night, as we began our new routine, I imagined an invisible connection to all the other mothers out there, solitarily and sleepily doing the same thing. I felt selfish and I didn’t want to share that experience, not even with my husband.

Questions

“You’re okay with his real mother seeing him?” a co-worker asked when she found out my youngest son was adopted. He was fourteen months old now, and I still wasn’t very good at answering questions like that.

“Yes, totally,” I said. However, I felt flustered, I was his real mother and wasn’t sure how to set her straight on that without seeming rude.

“So how often does she get to see him?”

“His birth mother? Whenever. It’s really casual.” We had no set schedule, I hadn’t even thought about it in terms of x number of visits per time frame.

“Is this him?” She pointed to some photos I had set out across my desk.

“That one is Jared. This one here is of Jay and Craig.”

“Oh, did you adopt Jay too?”

“No.”

“So, he’s your real son?”

“He’s my biological son, Craig is my adopted son. But really, they are both just my sons.”

She smiled at me and cocked her head as if studying a bug under a microscope. A small part of me felt like I was being interrogated, but I knew she was just curious.

“So that’s really good you to let her come over and help raise him and stuff. I totally wouldn’t be comfortable with sharing parenting like that.”

“Sharing?” Is that what she thought open adoption was? “No, we’re not co-parenting. I’m his mom. We don’t share the parenting.”

She looked confused. I felt tyrannical.

Before Craig was born I studied the different types of adoptions. From the beginning ours was considered open. We knew who our son’s birth mother was. It was also an independent adoption, meaning that we didn’t have a facilitator or agency. From the time we matched up, my son’s birth mother invited me along to the checkups. We both heard the news that Craig was a boy at the 26^th week ultrasound. She told me when she first felt him kick and later, when he was really active, she relayed how it felt like he grabbed her ribs and bounced up and down like he was on a trampoline. These were the small moments that meant the world to me, and she shared them freely.

“Don’t you get jealous though?”

“No.” This was an easy question for me to answer. “Not at all. It would be like getting jealous of my mother for being a grandmother or my sister for being his aunt.”

“Oh.” She nodded like it made more sense to her now.

Open adoption was hard to explain. Sure there was the tangible things like how Craig’s birth mom spent the Fourth of July with us or how we sent her pictures. But the comfort and dynamics of the relationship was harder to relay. It was more than “we’ll do this because it’s best for our son” feeling. Like with Craig’s grandmothers and aunt, I wanted to share with his birth mom the daily miracles of him growing up. I wanted to give her the same small, special moments she gave me when she was pregnant.

Being Open

I can’t remember what I thought adoption was before Craig. I’m sure it was something along the lines of this magical person putting a baby in my arms and we lived happily ever after like in the fairy tales. During the five months my husband and I waited for Craig to be born, I read books, web sites and online forums and learned as much as I could about the different types of adoption.

That first night home, as Craig and I started our new middle-of-the-night routine, the one I wanted for myself, I knew Jimmy and I made the right choice. We wanted what was best for our son, and for us that meant a very open adoption.

Craig’s birth mom was the one who conceived him, felt him grow inside of her and made the difficult decision of placing him for adoption. Jimmy got to be Craig’s dad and I his mom. We would be the ones who parented him, watched him grow and guided him on his journey to becoming a man. I tried finding a two-sentence sound bite on why this relationship works for us. I wanted something that was easy to understand for those outside of our adoption triad. Now after fourteen months and many strange questions, I realize, I don’t need one. The dynamic between us each of us is too rich and complex to reduce it. The focus for others shouldn’t be on how we are able to make this work. It should stay on the real magic, our shared love for Craig and how we are all doing what’s best for him

Related posts:

1. Becoming Craig’s mother
2. Adoptive Parents: Not So Perfect
3. A Mother of a Birth Story (part 1)