I've written a few times about our first meeting with Fiona and Nate, Lily's first parents. However, I recently remembered something new -- something that Fiona said to me at the end of our first meeting. She said, "You guys seem too good to be true."
Let me back up a bit. The local agency that did our home study facilitated very few domestic adoptions. They encouraged us to pursue other avenues - sign up with more active agencies - but G and I were very clear in what kind of situation we would be comfortable with. (And at the time, I was not nearly as knowledgeable as I am today in terms of how most infant domestic adoptions come about.) We told the agency that we did not want to meet any pregnant women. We did not want to be part of anyone's decision-making process. We would only be interested in starting the adoption process after a woman had a baby and decided she wanted to place. We were told many times that it almost never works that way, that if a woman is going to place, she's going to want to meet us before she gives birth. We maintained that if it didn't happen, then it didn't happen.
I was completely floored when we got a call from the agency social worker telling us a baby girl had been born the previous day and her mother wanted to place her but did not have an adoption plan. Then floored again when we were told that her parents wanted a closed adoption -- that we would know very little about them or them about us. When we picked up Lily at our local hospital the next day, what had happened didn't seem real. It was as if the mythical stork had flown by our home and dropped off a baby. As I was falling in love with this baby, I had so many questions about her first parents. And a little more than a week later, I would start to get answers.
That was the first time we met Fiona and Nate. We were still within the revocation period. And that's the day when I went into the zone -- the place where I wondered how I could go on if we lost Lily. Not only were G and I in love with Lily, but so was Ferb, our then five-year-old son. My life had been turned upside down. I had become a new mother with less than 24 hours notice. I had taken unplanned leave from work. I wasn't sleeping. I was mentally and physically exhausted. I was feeling a lot of confusion, just trying to keep my head above water. And then Fiona and Nate wanted to meet us -- they wanted to talk about having an open adoption.
Something inside of me kicked in during that meeting -- a force or energy that is hard to describe -- and I said all the right things, all the things that Fiona and Nate wanted to hear about the open adoption we would have, one that involved visits and birthday parties and holidays and sporting events and so on and so on. As Fiona told me, it sounded too good to be true.
But here's the thing. When I looked into my daughters' parents' eyes and told them that they would be a real part of our lives, of Lily's life, I knew I had to find it in me to live out that promise. How it all would work seemed complex and confusing at the time, but I was committed to sorting it out. Because never in a million years could I live with deceiving my daughter's parents. Never. Hurting them in that way would be simply unbearable.
That's why I get sick to my stomach when I read about far too many situations where prospective adoptive parents make promises to mothers and fathers about being a real part of their child's life post-adoption, and then totally renig on those promises. And even though I'm not one of those people, I don't even like sharing the title "adoptive parent" with them. Hurting your child's parent is hurting your child. Period.
Of course, our adoption has opened wider and farther than I ever could have imagined. What seemed so confusing and complex at the beginning is second nature to me now. Fiona has lived with us. Both Nate and Fiona have had keys to our house for various reasons. They spend time with Lily with us and without us. Fiona's mother has volunteered at Lily's school. There have been visits and birthday parties and holidays and soon there will be sporting events, too. Fiona and Nate are among the most important and special people in my life. Turns out that it wasn't too good to be true - for all of us.
