The following day, we had another long conversation with Stephanie over video chat and met the birthfather, Josh. We all seemed to get on well, cracking jokes and laughing and getting to know each other. We gave Stephanie the number for our adoption agency and e-mailed our adoption coordinator to tell her about the contact, hoping we were not in fact seeing stars and that this was for real.
Eric and I spent much of Sunday discussing everything we had learned about Stephanie and Josh. We counted the weeks from thirteen to thirty-nine and tried not to think about the twenty-six weeks during which she could change her mind. We also tried to fathom how a non-hospital birth would work. Stephanie told us she had recently separated from her husband (not Josh) and was currently living in a shelter with her two children. Even though her living situation was complex, Stephanie did not want a hospital birth, which left us with the big overhanging question: “How do you have a home birth without a home?”
Monday came around and we called the agency to fill them in. Stephanie called them later that week and started the intake process and pregnancy validation. Like I said, the agency doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to ensuring their families are not being scammed.
Eric and I had agreed not to tell anyone about the call until we knew for certain that we were going to move forward—it was the hardest secret we’ve ever kept. Every call to our respective parents (and to everyone who knew of our family plans, for that matter) always included some reference or question about the adoption and whether there was any news. We told them not to ask, but couldn’t blame them for asking, either. We appreciated everyone’s questions and concerns, particularly our parents, who tried very hard to understand how the whole process was going to work. After all, they were as novice to this journey as we were, despite being grandparents already. We didn’t want to jinx anything, so we waited until the match meeting was confirmed before we told them about the call.
Our first meeting was scheduled for February 13 in Stephanie’s hometown, which was a good 1,800 miles away from us. We flew in the day before and she met us at the airport at 10:45 P.M.—you may note that she’s a night owl. We had spoken a number of times since that first call and texted incessantly, but we were still nervous as all hell when we met in person for the first time. Before us was the impossible dream and it could have been shattered in a heartbeat if we had done something wrong. And there was no way of really knowing what “wrong” might have been. We made our way through checking into a hotel and having dinner without her leaving, so we hoped we were on the right track as we arranged to meet again in the morning.
I never expected to feel pregnant as part of the adoption and had no idea what that would even feel like. I don’t mean cravings (even though I’ve now tried pickles with whipped cream and it’s totally gross), morning sickness, backaches or sleepless nights, although somehow Eric and I managed to gain a sympathetic fifteen pounds each and we have been working it off ever since. I mean the pre-natal journey itself. We had expected to match with someone much more advanced in her pregnancy—maybe six months along—and really not be that involved. But there we were, standing in an ultrasound technician’s laboratory at the hospital, watching the monitor and learning we were having a baby boy. I had never expected to have that experience.
The match meeting took place at our hotel later that morning. It was facilitated by not one, but two adoption agencies: one from our home state of California and one from Stephanie’s home state of Illinois. Together, we all started to talk about a birth plan and post-adoption contact. There were a lot of forms to be filled out and the “transactional” feeling in those moments still makes me uncomfortable. The end result, though, was a successful match! And all too soon, it was time to fly back to California. We were elated and scared to death.
We spoke with Stephanie about once a week after that and swapped endless text messages. We’ve printed many of the early ones so our son can read them for himself one day. It was difficult to know just how much contact we should have with Stephanie at that point. We didn’t want to overwhelm her by texting, calling or e-mailing too much, but on the other hand, we didn’t want her to feel like we weren’t very interested. Sometimes a day or two passed between messages and we silently hoped that the pause was just another day in the busy life of a single mom of two, rather than a change of heart. Then another message from her came, along with a deep sigh of relief.
I had buried my head in the sand about the home birth for three months, hoping that Stephanie might change her mind or the agency would require a hospital so I wouldn’t have to think about it again. That ostrich syndrome was accompanied by a deep-seated fear that, if I couldn’t get my head around it and we couldn’t make it work, our journey would come to an untimely and unhappy ending. We had to find a way. But how do you arrange a home birth when you don’t have a home?
To add to the complexity of the home birth situation, certified nurse midwives are required to have a signed collaborative agreement with an obstetrician in order to practice in Illinois. For some reason, that is extremely difficult to get and doesn’t happen often. The result is an underground group of midwives unofficially performing home births, which doesn’t really work for an adoption where everything needs to be official.
Quite the dilemma! So two months before the due date, we got on a plane to figure everything out together. Stephanie had already solved the midwife challenge: Kathleen Devine, a fitting name for the person who was to deliver our gift from the heavens. Kathy lived about an hour from Stephanie in the neighboring state of Iowa and was thrilled to be a part of our journey. The only catch was that we now had to cross the state line to give birth—not that this was getting complicated or anything.
We also still had to solve the “where” of the actual delivery. First we looked at some vacation home rentals, but the neighboring towns were not exactly big vacation destinations. There wasn’t much in the way of corporate housing either and we were starting to despair when a friend of Stephanie’s suggested the hotel we stayed at when we first visited, which had two-bedroom suites. Stephanie could stay in one bedroom while Eric and I stayed in the other. We toured the rooms that afternoon and booked before we left.
After our rooms were secured, we met up with Julie, our Illinois adoption coordinator, to finalize the birth plan. We went over who was going to be in the room at the time of birth and who was going to hold the baby first. Eric was mostly worried about the noise and mess of the whole thing, since Stephanie was giving birth in a hotel room. But Stephanie reassured us that actual births are less messy than the ones portrayed in movies and on TV. She also said that Kathy would lay out puppy pads to absorb everything and make the clean-up easy. We laughed at the thought of a fully pregnant Stephanie crowning while squatting over puppy pads in a hotel bathroom. It sounded like a comedy series waiting to happen.
“What about the placenta?” Eric asked. It seemed like an odd question, but seeing as the placenta couldn’t really be absorbed in a puppy pad, I guess it was a fair one to ask.
“We’ll put it in the freezer,” Stephanie replied.
“For what?” Eric quipped. “A snack later?”
“Yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “We’ll dry it out in the oven and use a coffee grinder to grind it into pills.” Our eyes widened and our jaws dropped when we realized she wasn’t joking. “The nutrients are really good for your body. We can even bake it into a lasagna.”
“You mean plasagna?” Eric joked. We all broke up laughing at the table.
Everything was coming together. It was all very real and only two months away. Eric and I owned nothing baby-related at that point. We’d been told all we needed was a change of clothes and a car seat to leave the hospital, but as there was no hospital involved, we had to make up our own rules. We took our first baby-shopping trip and came back with way too much stuff. Everyone else was banned from buying any baby things until three days after he was born.
While it seemed like forever as we li
ved it day-to-day, the month of the birth arrived before we knew it. We had been capturing potential names for about two years. Eric even bought me a book of 20,000 baby names for my birthday, as if we didn’t have enough to choose from already. I had a fantasy when we started the adoption process that our birthmother would let us choose the baby’s first name, so that it would match on both of his birth certificates (the one issued at birth and the one issued with our names as the parents after we finalized the adoption).
Reality turned out to be much better than my fantasy. As Stephanie had no attachment to either her married name or her maiden name, she had already decided to give the baby our last name and whatever other names we wanted. For his middle name, we initially thought about asking Stephanie to choose it but, as she had insisted it was our decision, we selected Stephen in her honor. There were a few tears that day. And while everyone around us was getting excited at the pending arrival, we kept his name a secret until three days after he was born.
Having been part of the pregnancy pretty much since the beginning and given the complexities of the birth arrangements, we had planned to fly back to the Midwest ten days prior to our son’s due date. We arrived to a very pregnant Stephanie and settled into our hotel suite together—she (and sometimes her two children) in a room at one end and us in a room at the other end. Josh, the birthfather, stopped by and we all took turns guessing the actual arrival date. We were all convinced the birth was imminent. How wrong could we be?
Every morning we woke up, ate breakfast together and politely inquired if there was “any sign of arrival” before going about our day. Every twinge or cringe from Stephanie prompted the same. After ten days, the due date had come and gone and we were all going a little stir-crazy holed up in a hotel room.
At five days late, we all went to see the midwife to find out if the baby was stressed. Thankfully he wasn’t, unlike his parents-to-be. Kathy handed Stephanie two capsules containing a specially blended homeopathic labor inducer. We had talked before about induction—Stephanie was very clear that she wanted everything to happen naturally—so this was as close to a natural induction as we could get.
On the way back to the hotel, we picked up some children’s paint and spent the evening painting pictures on Stephanie’s stomach to have a little fun and relieve some stress before she took the pills, just in case they worked and tomorrow was indeed the big day. We all laughed together as we painted a giant sun on her belly, followed by a huge rainbow. When we started this whole adoption journey, we envisioned meeting a birthmother close to her due date and never really imagined having a relationship with her, let alone living with her or painting her giant, pregnant belly. We were really bonding and it felt good. It felt right.
There was no guarantee the labor inducer would work, so when we all got up the following morning to have breakfast and watch Stephanie take the first pill, we figured it would just be another day. Lunchtime came and we called the midwife, who told Stephanie to take the second pill. Within about thirty minutes, Stephanie came back into the living room of our hotel suite. She looked profoundly different and announced the baby was on his way. Stephanie had labored for a day with her previous two children and so when Kathy and her assistant, Monica, arrived an hour later, followed by Josh shortly after that, we figured we were in for a very long night. Wrong again!
At 4:47 P.M., her water broke. Stephanie was in the bathroom and we were at the other end of the suite in our room. She asked that we leave, so Josh, Eric and I took a walk across the street. We were gone about twelve minutes when everyone’s phone started to beep and we raced back to the hotel.
Our Connor had finally arrived. We walked into the room the moment he took his first breath and, although we couldn’t see him, we heard his first cry. Fortunately, no one had a camera pointed at us at that time—our faces would have made quite the picture.
About thirty minutes later, Kathy came into our room to give us an update. She had a puppy pad for an apron that was covered in blood. So much for there not being a mess! The midwife told us that Connor had gotten stuck on his way into the world. His cord had wrapped around his neck and snapped upon delivery, spraying blood and stem cells all over the bathroom and its occupants. But thanks to Kathy and her quick responsiveness, a life-threatening situation was avoided and everything turned out fine.
Kathy told us that Stephanie was getting settled and that she would come back to get us shortly when Stephanie was ready. To this day, the hotel has no idea what happened in Room 908 that afternoon. If anyone ever takes a blacklight into that bathroom, they will likely call the FBI.
The next thirty minutes felt like forever. When Kathy finally came back into the room to get us, every possible emotion swept over me. Most of all, I just wanted to see him. As we walked across the hall, our hearts in our throats, I wondered how it was going to feel when my eyes met his for the first time. I soon discovered it was like nothing I’ve ever felt before in my life. There he was, curled up against Stephanie, feeding. We knew he was feeding before we went into the room—it was at the midwife’s recommendation to help Stephanie heal physically—but I couldn’t stop the feeling of dread that suddenly came over me.
We had discussed long before that there would be no breastfeeding, given the bonding it promoted. This was Stephanie’s position and we had supported it. Now I was overcome with doubt that she might change her mind. She smiled as she saw us, looking more beautiful than ever despite being completely exhausted. She motioned for us to come and hold our son. I held him first. I’d never held something so precious in my entire existence, an existence that now felt more complete.
I quickly realized just how instinctive parenting is—although I defy any man to be truly ready to change his first meconium-filled diaper, complete with a birthmother and midwife audience. As we fumbled around, the fear of Stephanie changing her mind about the adoption still lingered in the back of our heads. It had just taken us ten minutes to change a diaper. What if she thought that meant we weren’t ready to be parents?
I mentioned earlier about waiting three days before telling everyone the baby’s name and a three-day ban on buying gifts, but didn’t explain why. Every state has its own adoption laws, including the point at which an adoption can progress after birth. For us, that was three days. The next seventy-two hours were the most complex of the entire process. We were still living in the same hotel room with Stephanie, as we had been for three weeks. Eric and I were in a state of exhausted joy as she began to grieve. It was a humbling irony; there was nothing that could be said, nothing that we could do to fix it or heal it. Of all the unexpected things we had experienced on this journey, those three days were by far the most profound. They made us ever more grateful for Connor as the process reached its conclusion and we could take our son home.
It has been over a year now and we are still in constant contact with Stephanie. We text, phone or video chat once or twice a week. Video chat is wonderful since it allows Connor and Stephanie to see each other and it’s an added bonus when Stephanie’s two children are able to join in as well. We also have an agreement to meet in person once a year. We just flew back to Illinois recently to see Stephanie, Josh and Josh’s mom. We had a wonderful time with plenty of great photo opportunities.
If you were to ask her, Stephanie would tell you that she didn’t give Connor to us; she gave us to him and we are forever blessed that she bestowed that honor upon us. Stephanie is now a part of our family, as we are a part of hers. Although life will take us all in many new and exciting directions, we will be forever bound, because the bond of love between parent and child is the strongest bond of all.
Chris and Novia Rowzee
CORYDON, INDIANA
When my wife and I met in 2001, she was twenty-three and I was thirty-eight, so obviously we had a fairly significant age gap between us. But she was clearly an “old soul” and I’m perpetually immature, so we sort of met in the middle and it worked for us. One area in which the age differenc
e was clear, though, was in our different points of readiness for children. I was ready to start a family and hoping to meet someone with whom I could build that family. Novia wasn’t quite ready for children yet, although she did want a family eventually. She just had other things she wanted to do first. Although I wasn’t getting any younger, I hadn’t yet hit that unknown age where I would be uncomfortable as a “mom,” so we waited. We originally planned on artificial insemination, but knew adoption was also a perfectly acceptable possibility to both of us.
Our lives and relationship were certainly complicated and not just because of our age difference. When we met, I was living in Little Rock and working full time as a Major in the Arkansas Air National Guard. In those days of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” being a lesbian in my field was downright oppressive. By law, I couldn’t be “out” in the military and I lived in constant fear of being outed and losing my job. I had been living in the closet my entire military career, which at that point spanned almost seventeen years.
Novia was also in the military. After we started dating, I convinced her to transfer to the Air National Guard and she was eventually hired into a full-time position in my unit. So there we were, both of us working for the same Guard unit, living in a military town and trying to make a relationship work while avoiding getting drummed out for being gay.
Because of the nature of my position, I was very well-known and recognized by virtually everyone in my eleven-hundred-person unit. Pretty much anywhere I went around town, there’d be people who would recognize me. Novia and I were in constant fear of being seen together. We’d drive to the grocery store on base in different cars and shop separately, starting at opposite ends of the store while talking on our cells to make sure we got what we needed. We’d worry about going out to dinner together or Novia being seen mowing our yard and having people realize that she lived there with me. We struggled with trying to figure out how we might raise a child in that environment.
Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood Page 3