Out of the Blue

I’ve always known that I wanted to adopt some day.  In fact, my original plan as a choice mom had been to adopt.  I kept putting it off, not making plans, until I finally admitted to myself that I also really want to experience pregnancy, so I decided to try to conceive with donor sperm.  Given the fact that my tests all indicate diminished fertility, I’ve been thinking I’d try to adopt when it comes time to have baby #2.  I've found a lot of blogs about adoption lately, and it’s been discouraging to learn that so many choice moms have had a very hard time trying to adopt, and most seem to recommend fostering to adopt as the best option for a single mom who wants to adopt a child.  Which is where my office manager Michelle comes in.  She’s been a foster mom for years, the kind of foster mom that any child in the system would be lucky to have, and she keeps track of all her kids, even after they leave her and graduate out of the foster care system.  I talked to Michelle once about foster to adopt, which she tried before she had her son, but after talking to her, I decided it was something I’m not capable of doing.  (She had a little boy she brought home from the hospital after his birth, but then had to give him up when he was a year old.)  So I’ve become more and more discouraged as I realized that I might never be able to have more than one child.

Friday afternoon, Michelle stopped me as I was leaving the office.  She told me that she had talked with one of her former foster kids this week, and that his girlfriend is pregnant with their second child.  They can barely afford to pay for the things their first child needs, and are in danger of losing their home, so there’s no way they can raise another child.  He had called to ask Michelle if she’d be interested in adopting their baby.  Michelle and her husband are at the brink of divorce, so she told him she couldn’t give him an answer right away.  And then she thought of me.

She asked me if I’d want to adopt this baby.

I was in shock.  One second I was thinking about meeting LB and her kids for dinner, and the next I’m being offered what I have only dreamed of – the chance to adopt an infant.  So of course I told her yes!  I know it’s a long shot.  As my mom said today, it has just about as much a chance of happening as it does of not happening.  Michelle doesn’t know if the parents would want to give their child to a single mom.  She doesn’t know for certain if she wants the baby instead.  And it still isn’t a hundred percent positive that the parents will really go through with the selfless plan of giving their child to someone who can give him or her a better life than they can.  But just the possibility that it may happen fills me with a sense of hope and joy that I haven’t felt in a very long time.  You know how life works sometimes, one minute it’s the same old thing, then you turn a corner and suddenly something fabulous and unexpected is there.  It seems that I never manage to turn that corner, most of my friends have, but not me.  And now here I am, I’m the one peering around the corner and seeing that something amazing might be waiting. 

This wouldn’t change my plans to try to conceive at all.  Even if the parents told me on Monday that they want me to take their child, I’d still go through with my planned IUI next month.  That means there’s a chance, albeit a small one, that this time next year I might have two children, just 5 or 6 months apart in age.  Is that crazy?  It makes me wonder if I should tell Michelle no, that I’m not prepared to take that chance, because I’m having a hard time imagining caring for a newborn while being pregnant with another child, much less handling the chaos of two infants at the same time.

But what if this child is meant to be mine?  I feel like I need to step out on a limb and take a chance that might make my life crazy for the next few years – but crazy in a good way.  Just imagining the possibility is overwhelming and wonderful and incredibly frightening, all at the same time.  Does anyone have any words of wisdom or insight?  Am I insane for even considering this possibility?


*the baby elephant in the picture is one of the many at the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi - this seems like a good post for her.