Surrogacy was now the recommended course. There was nothing wrong with my eggs or Ryan’s sperm. I had what we called a hostile uterus. My baby cabin was inhospitable to say the least. It was spitting out kids like a 2 year old eating broccoli. (See what I did there?) We had done all the research and met with a surrogacy specialist. We understood the procedures involved as well as the cost. No matter what, we were willing to go to any extreme to to figure out how to make it work. We had a few family members and close friends who offered to carry our baby for us. This was a helpful option. We felt like surrogacy was a viable option. But there were still so many things to consider. It was a huge decision. Another big unknown. How would I feel watching someone else carry our baby? What if they had complications or become emotionally attached? The unknown was frightful.
It was then that the idea of adoption started to take shape. It hadn’t really been on our radar before. I even remember having a discussion with a friend after our third miscarriage. She, got all pushy about the reasons why we just didn’t just adopt?!? We just weren’t there yet. We wanted to leave no stone unturned. We were so focused on a child of our own DNA that adoption just seemed like a last resort.
Now, this seems so silly. Two of my sisters (twins) were adopted at birth. I never in my entire life thought of them as anything other than my sisters. In fact many of my friends who have known me for twenty years don’t even know that two of my six sisters are adopted. It was an unimportant and unnecessary fact to mention. So why would we even question it as an option now?
So there it was; like a toddler that continues to say “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” until you finally respond. I sat up one night with a good glass of chardonnay and starting Googling. One of the first agencies that popped up was Adoption Network Law Center (ANLC). They did adoptions from all over the country and were based out of Orange County, only about 50 minutes from where we lived. We thought that was a nice sign. Our next sign was when Ryan discussed our new interest in adopting with a co-worker who lived in Chicago. He and his wife had recently adopted...and guess from where? ANLC! Now we had a personal testimony from someone we knew. So in February 2012 we made the call!
I remember feeling nervous. But I also felt a hopefulness that I had not felt in a very long time. It felt good. It felt right. I remember one of the questions I asked our consultant in our initial interview was “How long do most couples wait to be matched?” Teri told us that between nine and thirteen months was the average. She then went on to tell an inspiring story of a couple who after only a few months of waiting got a call that a birth mother had chosen them. She had just given birth. They were to head to the hospital and pick up their baby! At the time the wife was on her way home with a car full of groceries. They had no car seat or crib or clothing. The husband rushed to Babies R Us and picked up a few necessities and met his wife at the hospital. And then they were, a family. Just like that.
We thought at the time “Oh, that’s one of those rare cases that they tell couples like us to get us excited and hopeful.” We had already been through so much and nothing had been easy. I was already prepared for a long and drawn out process with all kinds of hiccups. It truly never occurred to me that maybe we were due for an easy ride!
We proceeded immediately with all of the requirements. Health screenings, both mental and physical. Background checks. There were so many questions we had no idea why we were being asked. “When was the first time you had intercourse?” “Was it enjoyable, traumatic, etc?” “How will you discuss sex with your child?” On top of the invasive questions, our house had to be baby-proofed as if we already had a nine month old crawling around. All this before we had even been matched. We had four in-home visits with a social worker to confirm we had marked off everything on our checklist and that we seemed sane and competent. At times we felt like “Seriously? People who don’t have our issues get to be parents without doing any of this stuff. No one checks up to make sure they can care properly for a baby!” But we knew it would be worth it and we forged ahead gladly.
In July 2012, we finished all of the required visits and batting down the hatches at our home. We finished all the required family photos and the letter to whoever our birth mother would be. Then, we gladly submitted everything to ANLC. We were leaving for a vacation in a few weeks and were relieved to have all of the last steps completed before our trip. ANLC’s marketing department would now create a webpage exclusively for us. In a month or so we would be visible to all those working with ANLC who were searching for the right parents to love their baby. We just had to wait to be chosen. This was the part that scared me the most. What if it was like Red Rover in elementary school? What if you just kept waiting to have your name called? Over and over they called someone else and as you fearfully dreaded being the last one. What if no one wanted us?! Ryan didn’t worry the way I did. He was so much more confident. But then he didn’t suffer from the same feelings of inadequacy that I did.