“Have Kira make an appointment with me. I’ll get the information you need to decide.”
Alan’s job included spending time with Kira, asking about her decision to give up her baby and to collect a full background history. He’d find out about drugs and alcohol, illnesses in her family, what kind of home she wanted for her child, if she cared about siblings…
If Kira wanted to move forward, Alan would tell her about us. She would decide if we were the people she wanted to give her baby to. There was a long line out there. We would be given first choice as we “found” her, but Kira had no obligations to anyone but herself.
If we went ahead with the adoption, Alan would provide whatever support Kira needed, including being at the hospital when she gave birth and with us for the handover of the baby.
For our part, if we were approved and decided to move forward, Alan would give us support too, and file the myriad of government documents required in adoptions. He would speak with the birth father, find out about the family medical history and request written approval for the adoption. Having his approval in writing would help avoid potentially nasty custody conflicts in the future. Birth fathers are not always told they have sired a child. If and when they find out, it can become an unholy mess, often landing in the courts to determine who gets custody.
Kira and Alan met several times. He thought she was bright and charming, was taking relatively good care of herself and clear about giving the baby up — he didn’t foresee any reversal. She said she was confident her baby would be going to a good home (meaning us!).
Kira was twenty-two, said she was a smoker, drank alcohol a few times before she knew she was pregnant and had only taken prescription drugs since. She was drinking milk constantly, felt great, and her previous pregnancies were easy. “I stay in touch with the girls and they’re both in good health,” she said, referring to her two children in Czechoslovakia. With respect to AIDs, Alan assured us the government required testing of all babies at birth, “and the hospital will perform a battery of tests before releasing the baby. You’ll know if there’s any problem.” More good news: the birth father agreed to the adoption. “Kira is asking him to sign the official release papers and provide his family history.”
It was time to make the decision, yet it took days of considering and reconsidering. “Let’s do it,” I said one minute. “Maybe we shouldn’t,” the next.
Robin was also vacillating. “What are we waiting for?” he asked. Neither of us believed another child was coming our way anytime soon. Especially a newborn.
Robin and I were painfully aware there were actually children immediately available for adoption through Children’s Aid, not chosen because of disability, age, colour or ethnicity. They weren’t white or newborn. Yet, like other prospective parents who dream one day of having a child, we too initially hoped to begin parenthood with a newborn, a healthy newborn if possible, and a child with skin or hair similar to our own. Parents who give birth take these expectations for granted. They never have to give them a second thought.
We weren’t rescuing pups from the pound. We had to give serious thought to what might lie ahead. We had no doubt that we would love any child that became ours, but were we really up for adopting a child from a different race or with a disability? Could we handle the extra challenges? Would this be the best way for us to do our bit to repair the world? Were we made for it?
No, we decided, we weren’t. Our non-youthful age had something to do with it, but we had also heard too many disturbing stories about well-meaning adopting couples with high ideals and social consciences like ours. They had adopted children different from them in colour, who were older or had known emotional or physical problems. The challenges were often tragic. We were old enough to know that raising children was sufficiently tough without those extra dimensions. Some of us are better made for the challenges than others. We were not what my friend Barbara calls “God’s people,” the ones who take on the work of angels.
Couples wanting to adopt privately have to hire someone, usually a licensed social worker like Alan to lead them through the long, laborious and expensive legal process to parenthood, which included a “home study.” The government-required a round of in-depth interviews and home visits to determine if we were fit to parent.
Good thing I liked Alan because I quickly became resentful about everything we had to do to become legally approved. I found the required questions like “Tell me about your mother?” irksome. As for the home visit, how clean did the house have to be, and should the freshly baked muffins I popped out of the oven on Alan’s arrival be banana or blueberry? (I went for blueberry.)
I hated trying to figure out what the authorities were looking for. Anybody can have sex, bring a child into the world and be a lousy parent if so inclined. We, on the other hand, had to bake muffins and go through a long bureaucratic rigmarole to prove we would be good parents. It made sense to have to follow this process, but I had just spent a year with fertility specialists and now, with the home visits, I was dwelling way too much on what was and wasn’t fair.
We couldn’t make up our minds. Should we or should we not adopt Kira’s baby? We’d go back and forth, never settling on a yes or no. Were we waiting for a better offer? Who were we kidding? Alan had a long list of parents who couldn’t find babies to adopt, and who were counting the years slipping by. Would we be nuts to turn down this opportunity? Probably. But we were only clear on one thing. No baby comes with a guarantee.
After several weeks of this indecision, my final words to Robin were “Let’s go for it.” He agreed. Many of our doubts had little to do with Kira or her baby. We were scared to become parents, particularly this way. There’s nothing natural about deciding to have a baby with your brain instead of your body.
We called Alan and told him we wanted to go ahead. Kira did too.
We were not surprised to hear she was opting for a “closed” rather than “open” adoption. It meant she didn’t want any contact with the baby or adoptive family after the birth. In those days, “closed” was the most common form of adoption arrangement. Everyone would move on with their lives after the baby was handed over, independent from one another. All arrangements would be handled through Alan. Kira wouldn’t receive any identifying information about us, like our name or address. Though she knew we were friends of Lynn and her father and could easily find us, she was clear with Alan. She had no such intention.
Robin and I weren’t against open adoptions, where birth parents and adoptive parents stay in contact. When adoption was still in the abstract, that’s what we hoped for. But from what we knew about Kira, we felt she could be a wild card. We weren’t sure whether or not she might decide to pop in and out of our lives or the baby’s on a whim. We were relieved when she said “closed.” But of course, closed adoptions required keeping secrets. We wouldn’t be able to tell our child who his or her birth mother was or anything revealing about her other than what we got from Alan. That was part of the deal.
But it also meant I was now in a situation leading me to betray the vow I made as a child when I uncovered the terrible secret my mother had kept about my grandmother — my grandmother who was supposedly dead. I swore that as an adult, I would harbour “No secrets, no lies.” But this adoption would change all that.
I wasn’t too upset, though, about keeping Kira a secret. I didn’t believe the secret would last forever. I was sure we’d connect someday.
I had always been surprised that some adopted people had no desire to know who their birth parents were. I couldn’t imagine not wanting to see the genetic line I descended from, checking out what traits I might have inherited or being able to ask a few questions. Feeling that way myself, I assumed that day could come for our child.
I also knew Kira would not disappear from our lives the moment we walked out of the hospital with her newborn in our arms. There were too many threads connecting us. Lynn was a close friend: it would be natural for her to talk about Kir
a. Even if Lynn didn’t initiate a conversation about Kira, I would most likely ask how she was doing, either out of curiosity or concern.
My biggest concern was that Lynn and Don lived nearby. In other words, close. The Island was different from most neighbourhoods because there are no streets, just sidewalks that separate rows of houses. Whether we were out for a walk or going to a community meeting, we were always walking past one another’s homes. And, we rode the boat together to and from the city. It wasn’t easy to avoid running into people. So when Kira came to visit Lynn and Don, it was possible that she might see us with the baby on the boat or walking somewhere. What if she recognized the baby? As Kira and I had once met, what if she saw me with my new baby and came over to say hello?
“Oh, hi, Linda. What a cute baby! Lynn didn’t mention you were pregnant. When was your baby born?”
What a deceitful web we weave. Lynn and Don promised their best to ward off chance meetings or unplanned overlaps in our lives. But really, who trusted this plan to be foolproof? I had a sense that the Yiddish saying “Man Plans, God laughs” would soon become operative.
“You’re not eligible for maternity leave like other new mothers,” said the human resources officer at the Ontario government office where I was working. “You’re adopting.”
The adoption was starting to feel real, so it was time to discuss parental leave from my job that would kick in once the baby was born. The HR woman was so dismissive, I looked at her incredulously. She looked back with the same expression of surprise.
“It’s not like you’re going to be sick or anything,” she added.
Well, whadya say to that? I called my union rep, assuming he would be outraged as I was. Dead wrong. “We don’t represent enough adoptive mothers to make it worth our while to take up with management. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
Not much I could say to that, either. Robin and I tried to decide how far I should take the issue. We both thought that it was a union concern, so that’s where to put the pressure. At the same time, I was waffling. How much energy did I want to put into fighting the idiotic policy? I didn’t want anger to mess with my happy state waiting for our child to be born.
I decided not to get too roused, but made several phone calls, calmly threatening to get a lawyer and make a stink. In that day and age, there was no way to deny adoptive mothers the same rights as birth mothers. My baby would need as much mother love as any other baby.
“I believe the Human Rights Code would be on my side,” I said, not really knowing if it would be or not. “Want to test it?”
“We’ll get back to you,” the union rep said.
Soon after, he did. They took the issue to management and the maternity policy was amended. I was granted adoption leave with benefits. I could take up to a year off after the baby was born, like any other new mother working for the Ontario government. This ruling would now apply to all adoptive mothers within the civil service. What a sweet victory.
I said goodbye to the television job offer and put the bagel factory on hold. How could I be unhappy abandoning either career dream? I was about to have a baby.
I will never forget the moment I became a mother, because that’s what it was, a moment. The phone call from Alan had finally come. Kira had left the hospital, and all the medical tests were complete. Except for a minor heart anomaly considered inconsequential, the baby was deemed healthy. Kira’s seven-day-old, five-pound-thirteen-ounce baby boy would soon be ours.
“Everything’s all set. You can come and, well, meet him,” Alan said, acknowledging how strange the words sounded.
Robin, my best friend Barbara and I took the next boat to the city and drove out to the suburbs. We virtually jumped out of the car the second it stopped, ran through the parking lot, then flashed through the revolving front doors of Scarborough Centennial Hospital in search of elevators. After what felt like an interminable wait, we arrived on the fifth floor. As the doors opened, I saw Alan standing there, a Cheshire cat grin gilding his face. “Best part of my job,” he said, leading us to the nursery.
I peered through the scratched Plexiglas picture window. My palms were sweaty and my heart beat fast as I watched a pink-uniformed nurse walk among the rows of babies on the other side. In her matching pink cushioned-soled shoes, she walked slowly up, then slowly down perfectly straight rows of newborns lying side-by-side in little see-through plastic bassinets. Taped to the side of each one was a last name written in bold letters.
Her steps seemed to take forever. The procedure felt like a surreal game of slow-motion musical chairs. Where and when is she going to stop? Nobody knows. But when she does, we’ll have a son. No pushing, no moaning. She finally paused next to a bassinet. Squinting, I could just make out the letters “O-b-e,” Kira’s last name. The music stopped. She leaned over to pick up the tiny swaddled baby inside, then held him up, directing his pink face towards the window so we could see him.
All hell broke loose on our side of the Plexiglas.
We were all crying when the nurse came out to us. She walked straight to me and placed the baby in my outstretched arms. I leaned over to kiss his warm forehead, then looked up and smiled at Robin and Barbara. I had just noticed the unbelievably thick shock of long, reddish-blond hair on his tiny head.
“This is my baby,” I squealed, in a voice I hardly recognized, roughly two octaves above normal. Robin was busy taking pictures while I smothered Baby Boy Obe in wet kisses. “Isn’t he the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen? And look what he’s wearing. Where did the sweet little blue outfit come from?” I looked towards the nurse.
“The volunteer ladies,” she replied. “They have a ‘thing’ for the adopted ones. They always knit little going-home sweaters, booties and hats.” Her explanation sent me into even deeper sobbing, complete with snorts each time I came up for air.
“You’ve got a feisty one there,” the nurse said as I handed the baby to Robin. “And I know feisty. I’m Irish.”
A beaming Robin took his blue-sweatered son into his arms, gushing almost as wetly. Then on to Barbara, who tucked a fluffy white bear she called Teddy gently into the folds of his tightly wrapped flannel blanket.
“Your first friend,” she told him, sweetly.
People say you can feel the moment the soul leaves the body of someone who has just died. Though I have been at the deathbed of people I love, I could not say this had been true for me. I could say, though, that the moment my son was placed in my arms and I held him to my heart, a little bit of his soul entered mine.
If I loved the Island before, I adored it even more on the day we brought Michael home from the hospital.
We took the noon ferry. As the horn sounded to signal our arrival on the Island side, I gathered up the diaper bag we bought at Storkland, then walked down the boat’s gangplank with Michael in my arms. Robin was steps behind, proudly pushing the big, elegant navy blue and steel English pram we borrowed from Ellie for the occasion.
A crowd was waiting for us. Dozens of neighbours were clapping, yelling and cheering, welcoming our new family home.
In the centre of the crowd stood a bunch of goofy-looking musicians, members of the Island’s homegrown, cacophonous marching band. They were wearing homemade costumes of rags and lace, feathers and beads that looked like cast-offs from Mardi Gras ’54. They came complete with tuba, drums, trumpets and tambourines and called themselves The Arhythmics. Entry into their ranks required nothing more than good intentions and a well-tuned heart.
Grahame, sometime tuba player, more regularly TV’s Guerilla Gardener, yelled out “Hit it folks.” On cue, a chorus of voices and instruments belted out “Happy Birthday” to welcome our baby as the community’s newest member.
Robin was speechless. I was not. I was crying and waving, pointing, hugging and screaming. I worked my way through the crowd like a campaigning politician, pointing at everyone and making whatever physical contact I could while yelling out their names. “Oh, look, Robin, little Liz
zie and Hanne too,” I said, pointing at the children. They were standing with red and white helium balloons drifting upwards from the colourful ribbons their parents had fastened to their wrists.
As it was a sunny spring day in May, I had dressed that morning in a pastel floral skirt and lacey white blouse for the occasion, assuming that’s what you wore in spring, out for a stroll, showing off your new baby in your English pram. From the docks, we walked along the path by the lagoon, past the freshly painted community clubhouse surrounded by aging black willows. Everyone took turns pushing and cooing at Michael. He remained content under the blankets, still asleep in his soft blue hospital outfit.
We marched onward, artfully dodging the ubiquitous green guano from the Canada geese gobbling grass along the knoll leading to a string of sailboats moored in the lagoon, and winding our way past the old fire hall and playground. We were almost home, all that was left was to cross the wooden bridge to take us from Ward’s Island to Algonquin.
I paused momentarily when we reached the flattened crest of the bridge. It was my favourite spot, where I marked changes in the seasons during the thirteen years I had lived on the Island. Even with Robin nudging me on, I stopped, looking west along the lagoon, hoping to see the tufted crewcut of my favourite bird, the kingfisher, and then down the bridge at the enormous pink-bloomed weigela in front of my friend Barbara’s house.
“Keep moving,” Robin called out, noticing my descent into never-never land. “Only a little way more.”
We would be home when we spotted the tree house in the cottonwood in our front yard. The graying hand-built structure was a replica of a traditional South African elephant lookout, built to scale by the South African architect who lived with his family in the house before us.
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