Today We Cried
It was a beautiful day outside. The sun was shining but the spring air was cold and brisk enough to warrant a sweater. Inside, the cheery, dusty blue and peach colors in the country style living room reflected off the shiny, freshly polished surfaces of the maple furniture. The perfection of the day seemed almost a grotesque contrast to the gut wrenching despair my husband and I were experiencing. Would a death of body and soul be easier than this? I contemplated this question as I waited for the knock at the door. A knock to be made not by the proverbial grim reaper with black hood and scythe, but rather by a social worker with legal documents and an empty, infant car seat.
The memories of a decade were flying through my mind, mocking the innocence of childhood expectations when Bob, my husband, was my high school sweetheart. In our teens, Bob and I spent almost every free hour together while annoying siblings would tease us with childish rhymes about two lovers sitting in a tree with love, marriage, and baby in a baby carriage in mind. Although they were teasing, in reality, we spent a considerable amount of time sitting on the grass in the shade of a giant oak tree planning for our future. We intended to get married straight after graduating and start a family right away. We knew we wanted two children, daughters, and even had their names picked out: Heather Marie and Desiree Michelle. Sadly, or perhaps thankfully, neither Bob nor I knew that “baby in a baby carriage” did not happen for everyone. In the near future the word “infertility” would become a shocking, unwelcomed addition to our vocabulary.
Trying to get pregnant was fun. So much so, in fact, that it took several years for reality to sink in. Something was wrong. My life became a series of doctors, tests, procedures, disappointment, doctors, tests, procedures, disappointment, round and round, in a seemingly endless circle. Cold tables, embarrassing questions, bright lights, invasive instruments, all combined to push aside fond memories of adolescence under the oaks or early married days spent almost entirely in the bedroom. Eventually, we had to accept the reality that we would never see what the biological offspring, the physical manifestation of our love would look like. Determined still to be a family of more than two, we turned our minds and efforts to adoption.
Having very little money, there was no way we could afford to go through an adoption agency, so we decided to work with an adoption ministry at a church. We filled out a massive amount of paperwork and then sat back to wait. And wait. AND WAIT. After about two years, our wait appeared to be over, but in a manner we did not anticipate.
During a Christmas service at church I was singing a song about the birth and death of Jesus from the perspective of His mother, Mary. The bright lights pointing at the stage practically blinded me to the three thousand or so people in attendance that day. I knew they were there, but I felt very alone on stage as I introduced the song. The poignant lyrics of the chorus were guaranteed to touch the hearts of every mother in the building. “I rocked Him as a baby. I held Him as a child. I heard Him call my name out in the night. I helped Him take His first step. I cried when I heard His first words. I wish they all could see through a mother’s eyes.” I poured out my heart that Christmas morning as I revealed that it was very difficult for me to understand the perspective of Mary as I was unable to have children of my own and had never experienced the joy of motherhood. Unbeknownst to me, in the auditorium that morning was a young, pregnant woman who was planning on putting her child up for adoption. After the service, she approached my husband and me about adopting her child.
Her name was Ada and she was only eighteen years old. She was a beautiful Hispanic young woman with short brown hair and sad brown eyes. Giggling, she revealed that the father of the baby was in prison and that her parents had kicked her out of the house. She was living in the home of two sisters who sheltered women who found themselves in just the situation Ada did. Ada wanted to find loving parents for her baby and, while attending the service that day, had decided that Bob and I were the ones. Thrilled, scared, grateful, and full of countless other emotions, we agreed to take the steps necessary to adopt Ada’s baby.
During the next three months, we spent a lot of time with Ada. We drove her to school, an adult education school where she was striving to get her high school diploma. We took her to her doctor’s visits. She even invited us to her Lamaze classes, although only I was to be allowed in the actual delivery room. It was awkward at times when people would look at the three of us, but Ada would cheerfully answer questions about her pregnancy by saying, “This isn’t my baby. This is Bob and Donella’s baby. God just put it in my womb.” Sometimes doubt would creep in, as people warned us to reconsider, concerned that Ada’s plan to stay in the neighborhood and at our church afterwards would make the situation impossible. On occasion I asked her, “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” She would always reply, with a Madonna-like smile, “Absolutely. God wants me to do this.”
Finally, a few days before Easter, we got the long-awaited call. Ada was in labor. We rushed to the hospital and were allowed in to see Ada. In a soothing labor room of soft, pastel colors with pastoral prints on the wall, Ada reclined in conversation with her two caregivers. In the quiet moments that followed, Ada was cheerful and talking to us about our plans for the baby. During contractions, however, she was screaming, crying out the name of the baby’s incarcerated father, her brow sweating and her hair sticking to her face. Six hours later, as the screaming moments far outweighed the quiet ones, Ada, one of her videotaping caregivers, and I entered the delivery room.
There was an odd contrast between the sterility, brightness, and plainness of the delivery room and the beauty of what was occurring. With the doctor and nurses at Ada’s feet, the videotaping caregiver moving throughout the room seeking good camera angles, and Ada herself gasping, panting, and sometimes screaming in the bed, it felt rather surreal. Ada gripped my hand so tightly that it hurt, but I said nothing other than the words of comfort and encouragement I was there to say. “You can do it. It’s okay. Breathe, breathe.” I felt very guilty because I was supposed to be Ada’s coach but what I really wanted was to be where everyone else was, watching for the first glimpse or her baby, my baby, our baby. Occasionally, I would stretch towards the foot of the bed and try to see what was going on, but Ada’s need, strength, and determination physically pulled me back close to her face. Moments, or perhaps years later, I heard crying and saw the hurried movements of the doctors and nurses as the baby, a girl, was born.
After she was cleaned up, tested, weighed, and wrapped, she was placed into Ada’s arms. She was absolutely gorgeous, with a tuft of black hair, rosy complexion, and a perfectly formed body all wrapped in pink softness. My husband Bob was allowed into the delivery room then and we stood in the doorway, afraid to approach what appeared to be a sacred moment of mother and child, afraid to believe that she would be able to hand us the beautiful infant in her arms, afraid to hope. From the bed, Ada moved the baby into the position that, had she been able to see that distance, she would have had a clear vision of us. Ada then spoke to the baby, “This is your new mommy and daddy. They are going to love you and take good care of you for me. I will always love you, but this is the best thing for you.” Both my husband and I cried as we heard those beautiful words. Less than a week later, we would be crying together again, but for a very different reason.
The sound of a car door slamming outside brought me back to the present. My head and body shook as I watched the approach of the sad and compassionate woman whose job it was to return our beautiful baby, Amanda, to the care of the birthmother who had changed her mind and leave us with an empty crib, aching arms, and broken hearts. Neither the social worker nor I said a word as I opened the door and let her in. Hearing a sound, we both turned and looked towards the couch where Amanda lay. Tears poured down both of our faces as we watched my strong, macho, blue-collar, Italian husband on his knees sobbing while he used his body as a shield to prevent the woman from taking Amanda, the daughter who was conceived not in my womb mere months ago but in our hearts more than a decade ago under the shade of an old oak tree. Needing to be the strong one for the first time in our relationship, I carefully but firmly pulled Amanda out from under my husband’s shuddering form and handed her over to a future that did not include us, a future of first words, first steps, first birthdays, and other milestones that we would never see. As the door closed on our dreams of a family, I turned back to my husband and wrapped my arms around him. In the months and years ahead we would see the positive effects of this day. We would understand grief like we never had before. We would comfort others who would welcome our words of encouragement, knowing we had personally experienced suffering. We would grow up. All of that and more we would accomplish in the future, but for today, we cried.
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