by Heather Avis
“Wait a second, Heather,” she interrupted. “Let me get your father on the phone . . . Kim!” she yelled, and I heard another line pick up.
“Hey, Dad, she’s healed. Her pulmonary hypertension is gone.” The three of us cheered and laughed and cried as I made a scene in the parking lot.
As we drove home, we took turns making phone calls to our family. I sent text messages to the dozens of people who had been on this journey with us. Many of the texts were followed by calls from my friends, who cried when I confirmed they had read my message right.
“Yes!” I would exclaim. “It’s really gone. She’s in her car seat right now with no oxygen!” Then there would be more laughing and more tears.
We pulled up to the house just as the sun was going down. Josh grabbed Macyn out of the car, and before we went inside to prepare for our party guests, we stopped and looked at our daughter. We both kissed her and took a deep breath.
“Babe,” Josh said as he grabbed my hand, “it’s gone.”
More than two years ago, Josh had held my hand in this same spot and reassured me we were making the right decision to bring this baby into our lives. Now I just smiled and nodded and stood there speechless. Then Macyn reached for me. I held her and looked at Josh.
“Okay, we’ve got a party to throw and so much to celebrate. Let’s go inside.” We returned to our home much different people than we had been when we left.
8
Arms Wide Open
Josh and I started the adoption process for Avis baby number two when Macyn was two years old.
This second time around was so much different from the first, and I would guess this is the case for women who grow their families naturally as well. I imagine being pregnant while raising a toddler is a whole different ball game from being pregnant without one.
But the difference for me between our first adoption and our second had nothing to do with the tasks and everything to do with my heart. Man oh man, had God done a work in my heart.
When we started the adoption process the first time, I was pretty sure I knew exactly what I needed. I wanted a healthy infant and did everything in my power to make my desires come to fruition. Then God gave me Macyn—a sick baby girl with Down syndrome. Two years later, when we began the process for our second adoption, God had shown me how his best for me was nothing I could have planned. Macyn had rocked my world and opened my eyes to the beauty and joy I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
So with this second adoption, I sat before the Lord with arms wide open and said, “God, I will adopt any child you send my way.”
Being wide open for our next adoption changed everything. For starters, we chose to adopt through the county instead of a private adoption agency. We knew the risks this involved. For example, we knew that the majority of babies adopted through the county have been exposed to drugs in utero. But we were up for the challenge, believing that God is bigger than “incurable” lung diseases and bigger than an addiction to methamphetamines. Plus, the cost for a county adoption in our area is zero dollars. That’s right, it’s totally free. Because I had been a stay-at-home mom for the past two and a half years, it was the right kind of price.
Our local county adoption began with a “taking care of business” day. On this day, prospective adoptive and foster parents attend an orientation, are fingerprinted, are given a TB test, and fill out the first of a million forms.
At the orientation, we learned we would have to complete twenty-four hours of classes. We would need to update our CPR and have a new home study done. We were told it was highly unlikely we would get a baby and basically impossible to get a healthy baby.
As the social workers stood on the stage instructing us, I felt the nerves in my gut start to churn. The idea of saying yes to any child this time around was beginning to sound crazy. God had been doing a grand work in me, and I had surrendered most of my desires to him, but in times like these, I was still prone to seek comfort by reaching for something I could control.
As we walked to the car, Josh took my hand and said, “This is crazy. It is so different from how things went with the private agency.”
“Right! That felt like the Ritz. Now we’re sleeping at a Motel 6.”
Josh pulled up a picture of Macyn on his phone. “But look at this. She’s our first end result. God’s got something great, I just know it.” Josh gave my hand a reassuring squeeze, and we headed home to give Macyn a big hug and kiss.
The next few months were full of all things adoption. We began filling out the paperwork, leaving nothing about ourselves to be assumed. With each form I filled out, I would pray for our future child. As I wrote my address for the hundredth time, I would think about that child’s tiny feet running around our home.
It was a wild thing to think that our child had already been conceived, maybe even born. That his or her little heart was beating in another woman’s womb as tiny fingers and little ears were forming. I thought about God’s good and perfect plan for my life. I pondered the mystery of one woman’s grief being my joy. I thought about these things and stepped into this adoption with a reverence for brokenness that I was lacking the first time around.
A year later, on August 26, 2011, I was frantically running around the house putting things together for a party my husband was having at work. I had Macyn in her high chair with small bites of soft tofu and tiny squares of roasted butternut squash on her tray. I was grabbing sippy cups and diapers and shoving them into our diaper bag.
I had volunteered to help my friend who was hosting the party, and I didn’t want to be late. I had just grabbed a wet washcloth and was wiping off Macyn’s messy hands when our phone rang. I almost let the answering machine pick it up, but it was sitting right next to me, so I glanced at the caller ID. “Private Caller,” it read, and my stomach dropped.
“Oh my word, Macyn, this is it.” I looked at my daughter. “This is the call.” I set down the washcloth and wiped my hands on my dress. Clearing my throat, I answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Heather, it’s Katie.” Katie was our semiretired social worker, who worked a few cases as the county needed her. We were so blessed to be assigned to Katie. At our first meeting with her, I was disappointed that she lacked the warmth I’m usually drawn to in a person. But she was good at her job—exceptionally good. I trusted her expertise and her ability to get our family matched with the right child.
“We have a child for you,” she said.
When I first heard her voice that day, I thought she sounded too calm to be delivering news about a child. But that was Katie. She was always steady, a welcome anchor for Josh and me in what was sometimes a tumultuous process.
At her words, my mama heart—the heart that didn’t know how it could love another child like it loved my Macyn—expanded to twice its size. For me, the love I felt was instantaneous, and I didn’t even know if it was for a boy or a girl.
“Really?” I squealed.
Katie continued in businesslike fashion. “We have a little girl for you. She’s five months old. Her birth mom is Guatemalan, and the birth dad is unknown. She has no major health concerns we can see at this time. She was placed in a loving foster home straight from the hospital and has been doing wonderfully with them. What do you think?”
What did I think? What did I think! Oh my, so many things. But I said, “Katie, I need her. She sounds perfect. What do we do now?”
“First there will be a meeting with you and Josh, me, the baby’s social worker, and a team of other social workers,” Katie began to explain. “During this meeting, we’ll give you all the information we have on the baby, including a picture.”
“I seriously have to wait for a picture?”
“This is a mandatory meeting, and I can’t tell you anything more about the baby until then.”
“But I want her now, Katie.”
“You’ll have to wait.” There would be no rule bending, no funny business.
“Okay, I guess I’ll do as you sa
y!” I said with a tease.
“The ball is rolling; she’ll be in your arms soon.”
“I can’t wait. Thank you, Katie!”
I called Josh at work.
“We’re getting a baby!” I shouted, and I jumped up and down in the kitchen, doing a little celebration dance while Macyn waved her hands in the air and laughed at my antics.
“Wait, what?” He was stunned. “Tell me what you know.”
“All I know is she’s a five-month-old girl who is half Guatemalan.”
“A daughter!” His voice cracked, and I knew he was crying.
“Hey, I’m headed your way, so I’ll give you all the details then. I’m running super late; I’ve got to jet.”
“Heather, wait,” he shouted before I could hang up. “She’s our Truly? She’s our Truly Star, right?”
We had loved the name Truly for a while now, and my older sister’s middle name is Star, but we had never said it out loud like this, like bringing a real-live child into existence, into our family.
“Yes! We finally have our Truly Star.”
Our county’s department of children and family services was located in what used to be a mall. Most of the old storefronts were full of cubicles and fax machines. What were once a Hallmark store and women’s clothing store were now meeting areas with large oval tables surrounded by chairs. We had taken most of our required classes in these rooms, so it was a familiar space for us. Still, the county offices can be a strange and mostly uncomfortable place for any parent.
We arrived early and walked through the sliding doors. More common than adoptive parents walking through those doors were parents who have had their children removed from them. As we waited for our social worker, we watched parents arrive and tell the person working behind the counter that they had come for a visit. Then foster parents came in, holding babies or the hands of young children. We watched school-age children quickly drop the hand of their foster parent and run into the arms of their mom or dad. We watched babies as they were pried out of their foster parent’s arms and placed in the arms of their mother—a stranger. We watched toddlers cry into the shoulder of their social worker or foster parent when they were told their mom or dad didn’t show up.
I grabbed tightly to Josh’s hand and wiped tears from my eyes, mystified by and angry at this “system” we were now a part of. I was reminded of the initial tragedy that had to take place for me to be there. In our case, a woman was not able to parent her daughter, and a critical relationship was severed before the sun set on Truly’s first day of life.
Silently I pleaded with God to heal the brokenness present in that space. I found my heart breaking equally for the innocent child stuck in the negative repercussions of his or her parents’ choices, and for the parents who were also stuck, often unable to escape difficult circumstances. Brokenness upon brokenness.
When Katie arrived and asked us to follow her to the room where we would joyously learn about our new daughter, I was thankful to have witnessed the events in the waiting area. It was important for me to understand that when I said yes and followed God into these new relationships, I was also saying yes to brokenness, to pain, to surrender—and to knowing the grace of God more fully.
We walked into a stark room and sat down in the two empty chairs at the long rectangular table. Sitting across from us were three county workers: the birth mother’s social worker, our new adoption placement social worker, and Katie. In front of them were manila folders, notepads, and pens. I got out my notepad and a pen and wiped my clammy hands on my jeans.
Katie asked, “So how are you guys feeling?”
“Great,” Josh said. “We’re anxious to learn more about this baby.”
I resisted the urge to nervously bite my nails.
“Let me start with what the next steps will look like.” Katie was best with these practical details. “At this meeting, we will tell you everything we know about the baby. You can ask us any questions you may have, and we’ll answer them if we can. You’ll then have a mandatory twenty-four-hour period to decide whether or not you want to adopt her. If you say yes, then we’ll set up visits for you at the foster home. Because she is five months old and has been in the same foster home the whole time, we will schedule a few days of visits before she goes home to you.”
So far so good, I thought as I listened. Except for the twenty-four-hour thing, and the slow transition. I wanted my daughter now. It didn’t matter what they might tell me about her; she had already managed to enter my heart, and I loved her. I felt as though I needed her that very second. But I knew the rules and was not surprised at how things would need to unfold. I had to go along with it, but I didn’t have to like it.
The birth mother’s social worker went on to tell us everything she knew about the birth mom. She was born and raised in Guatemala, and then she went to college in Mexico City before finding her way to California. We were told she was articulate, fair-skinned, and petite. Parts of her story felt heavy and terrifying. Elements of it could affect our daughter’s future in unknown, scary ways.
As I listened, I found myself once again on a roller coaster, holding on tight and trying not to puke. I was ready for this baby and everything she brought with her. If I had learned one lesson by this time, it was that I should stop worrying about the future. God had proven himself time and time again. Old habits die hard, though. I would try to avoid the scariest unknowns if I could.
But parenthood and adoption exist smack-dab in the center of Unknownville. I remembered this as I looked across the table at these three people who held the latest key to my family’s growth. Just as I was about to excuse myself for some fresh air, God showered his grace on us.
Our social worker asked, “Do you want to see a picture?”
Her inquiry pulled me off the nauseating roller coaster and back to reality. Wait? What?
“Yes!” Josh and I practically shouted.
Then there she was, our Truly Star, a little slice of heaven on Kodak paper.
The room became silent as all three social workers looked at us with big smiles. We looked at her picture with tears in our eyes, huge grins on our faces, and my hand clutching my heart.
The baby staring back at us from that photo was gorgeous—not in the new-baby way, but in the way that extends past a parent’s eyes and crosses cultural ideas of the word. Her image knocked the breath out of me. I looked at her deep-set, dark brown eyes. The expression on her face was serious and gave her an old-soul aura. Her skin was the most perfect shade of brown, almost the color of cinnamon, but even more delicious. Her nose sat perfectly in the center of her face. Her lips were closed and looked like a sweet little bow. And her cheeks—oh those cheeks! They were begging for me to kiss them a million times each. Her head was covered in silky black hair and adorned with a huge pink flower bow. She was lying on her back, and her hands were folded across her tummy. Her body language made it feel as though she was lying there waiting for me, waiting for her mommy to call her, child.
She was perfect! She was more than I could have hoped for. And I loved her so much already.
After staring at her for what felt like an hour but in reality was just minutes, Josh said, “She’s so beautiful.” His voice cracked.
“She really is such a pretty baby,” one of the social workers agreed, and they all nodded.
I spoke up. “I need her. So what now?”
Katie reminded us of the mandatory twenty-four-hour “sleep on it” phase.
I held in my hand a photo of my daughter—my heart-pumping, lungs-expanding, living-and-breathing daughter—knowing I would have to wait a whole week or longer before I could breathe her in and kiss those chunky cheeks. I wanted her that very minute.
The emotion in my gut wanted to protest and demand I get my baby now! But my rational self, combined with our experiences so far, simply looked my social worker in the eye and said, “Okay. We’ll be calling you tomorrow.”
We shook everyone’s hands, thanke
d them for their time, and left the office holding tightly to each other as we stared at the photo of our daughter.
We watched the clock and counted the minutes as we waited for twenty-four hours to pass, and as soon as it did, we placed the call and gave our official yes. Katie set up the necessary visits with the foster family, and before we knew it, the day arrived when we got to bring Truly Star home.
When we went to her foster home to pick her up, we found ourselves once again entangled in the mystery of joy and sorrow so perfectly interwoven. Everyone in her foster family was there taking turns holding her and giving her kisses. They remained positive and strong, and though Truly was one of dozens of children they had fostered and placed into the arms of loving parents, I knew this day was sad for them. They had spent almost six months with this precious baby girl, loving her as their own.
We finished loading up the car with the few items belonging to Truly. Her foster mom gave her one last kiss and placed her in my arms.
“There is no way I could ever thank you enough,” I told her. “You have been the mama our little girl needed, and you’ve shown her so much love. Thank you! We have your number, and I promise we’ll keep in contact.”
She gave me a tearful smile. We hugged her, and then Josh buckled Truly into her car seat, and we drove off.
Boom—we were officially a family of four.
We pulled up to our house. In the short time we were away, my creative and thoughtful mom had put up a big banner welcoming Truly Star home. Hana’s car was in the driveway. My younger sister had come from Los Angeles to be with us on this exciting day and to meet her new niece for the first time. My sister Harmony and her youngest, Addison, had made an eight-hour drive to meet Truly.
We pulled into the garage and opened the back door of the car to find Truly sound asleep. Josh gently lifted the car seat out as I walked in first and was met by the beaming faces of my parents and sisters.