Five Hours
Page 6
“I don’t really want to have another baby,” I say, surprised and a little skeptical of my sudden clarity as I hear the words come out of my mouth. “But I’d do it for you.”
“That’s a terrible reason!”
“True,” I admit.
We’re silent for a few seconds.
“I don’t know why I said that,” I say. “I think I might want to have another one. I resonated with what you said about our not being quite done. I guess I just wish we didn’t have to decide so soon. I can’t imagine having another baby now. I feel so pressured.”
“There’s no big rush, is there?”
“Oh yes, there is. At my age, it’s now or never. This is it. The longer we wait, the more out of the realm of possibility it becomes.”
“So why don’t we think about trying?”
Typical of me and my oppositional streak, as soon as I get a green light from the outside, my internal brakes slam on. I think of Maud, exhausted with her two small children. I think of how I don’t feel all that healthy: coffee addict again, gray hair invading. I’m yearning to write, travel, romance my husband—not change diapers, organize playgroups, go through the pain of separating. How I hated leaving Jasper when he was little. His crying broke my heart, even though I felt I couldn’t survive without breaks. But I love babies. Seeing the joy Jasper gives so many people, mostly us two, and the laughs and the magic and the wonder and the lessons, the growth, the sweetness—how could anything keep us from the amazing gifts we get all the time?
“I’m so confused. This is driving me crazy.”
“Listen,” Dicken says firmly. “Stop thinking about this. We don’t have to decide anything tonight, or even this month.”
“Okay, but I’m not getting pregnant after I turn thirty-six.”
“Fine. That gives us ten months, plenty of time.”
He takes me into his arms and I close my eyes.
The baby is on his way, he’s eight years old, he’s in Costa Rica waiting for us to come get him. He’s ours, he’s beautiful, he’s miraculous, and we’ll go from there.
I fall asleep with an ache in my chest, like a great unknown abyss.
*
The next morning our lawyer in San Jose calls with instructions on getting Kevin and his birth mother blood tests, one of the last requirements in the adoption process. They both live a long way from the only clinic in the country that performs the test. It takes me numerous phone calls to line everything up. Kevin’s uncle Bobby promises to arrange to get Kevin’s mother and put them on the bus and buy them round-trip tickets which I will later reimburse him for. I think about them all that day, seeing them on the bus together, arriving at the station and then making their way to the clinic in downtown San Jose, wondering what it is like for Kevin to be with his mother again, to have all those hours alone with her. Does he realize this trip is one of the final steps in severing any chance he might have of being raised by her? And how is it for her? Does she feel any shame in giving up her child? Is she sad? Hopeful? Relieved? Conflicted?
I call the clinic the next morning to make sure they’ve taken the tests. I have butterflies in my belly. We are getting so close to bringing him home! In my basic Spanish, I ask if the Brown-Gallardos made it to their appointment.
Expecting a yes, I hear the opposite: “No, they never showed up. No show, no phone call, no nothing.”
I call Kevin’s uncle a dozen times that day, finally getting through in the evening.
“What’s going on, Bobby? I talked to the clinic, they said Kevin and his mom never showed up!”
“No, we had a big flood, lot a rain. All the roads washed out.”
January–February 2005
It takes six weeks to get the Brown-Gallardos another appointment. Christmas comes and goes, without Kevin. I call Kevin’s uncle and aunt every day for a week leading up to the next test date to remind them. This time they make it. The clinic faxes me the results of the report a week after that: the chances that Kevin is Flor Gallardo’s biological child are 99.5 percent. The government of Costa Rica approves the adoption. He is clear to go now, just about.
I book myself a round-trip ticket to Costa Rica and a one-way ticket to the US for Kevin. Our lawyer says four days will be enough time to wrap everything up. We give it two weeks just in case. I end up staying four weeks, spending most of my days in line at visa and passport and embassy offices. One day I stand in line to get Kevin’s Costa Rican passport, finally making it to the window after four hours, only to be told I’ve been in the wrong room the whole time. Another day I’m told by a harried official that I have all the wrong documents. I break down crying. He opens the file to show me my mistakes, only to discover he’s got another family’s file. He doesn’t apologize. When my file is located, I’m told it is complete. I am hugely relieved.
Then they ask me where my husband is. I tell them he’s back home in America. They say he needs to sign the final document before they can approve it. I try to remain calm as I explain what my lawyer said, that only one of us needed to come down to complete this process. They are firm: Dicken needs to sign this last form.
I break down again. I call our lawyer from a pay phone. He doesn’t sound surprised. He says he’ll look into it. I go back to the hostel and watch cartoons with Kevin. When I speak to the lawyer again, he says the newest regulation does require both parents’ signatures on the final decree.
“Can your husband fly down as soon as possible?”
Are you kidding? A last-minute flight would cost thousands. Does he think we’re made of money?
“Are there any other options here?”
“Well, yes. Your husband could go to the Costa Rican Embassy, or a consulate, and sign in front of an official.”
The next day, Dicken flies to the consulate in Los Angeles and signs the document. A copy is faxed to the officials in San Jose. We are done with Costa Rican bureaucracy and sail through the US immigration and passport process. After the weeks of struggle and frustration and waiting in long lines in sweltering rooms, I can’t get over the customer service at the US Embassy. They are so friendly and helpful and organized that for the first time in a very long time, I feel grateful to be an American.
The US Embassy gives us Kevin’s passport entry stamps, meaning he can come home now. I can’t believe we are cleared to go—it seems too good to be true. Then I start to think we’ll never get home, because for days I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get through to the airline to change our tickets, which have been on hold for weeks now. Every number I try is either out of service or for the wrong department, or I run out of time on the cheap local phone cards I’m using while I’m on hold.
Standing in the hostel in San Jose two nights after our approval, I finally get through to Dicken on a pay phone, techno music blaring in the courtyard behind me.
“Dix?”
“Is that you, Cinda? I can hardly hear you.”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Did you get my e-mail?”
“No, a storm blew out the Internet connection.”
“I’ve been worried about you. What’s the story with your flight home?”
“I still haven’t been able to reach United to get seats tomorrow. The phone system down here is terrible.”
Kevin is next to me, looking up at me with big, inquisitive eyes. I smile, trying to reassure him.
“Listen, give me the pay phone number and I’ll look into it right now and call you back,” Dicken says.
I give him the number.
“Now, stay by the phone and don’t let anyone use it. I’ll call you back as soon as I know something.”
I cross my fingers and wait, reminding myself that Dicken and his British accent seem to have a way with airline agents.
Five minutes later, after fending off a number of young backpackers desperately wanting the phone, it rings.
“Honey, United has no seats available until late March, because it’s tourist season right now. T
hey’re booked solid.”
I feel like I might break down. We’re still in February.
Dicken continues, “But I managed to get you tickets on American for Tuesday.”
I start to cry. I can feel how badly I want to get home.
“I explained the story to the agent,” he goes on, “and she was so moved she got you seats in first class, no extra cost.”
“Wow, Kevin’s first time on a plane, and he’s in first class.”
“Tell him not to get used to it!”
*
Kevin has a million questions as we ride in the taxi to the airport in the early morning. He wants to know how many days the flight will take, and if there will be food and a bathroom on the plane. He wants to know why I’m giving my bag away when I check it in at the desk. He has no suitcase to check; all his belongings fit in the small backpack he’s carrying. On the plane, I give him the window seat. As we take off, I watch his face, pressed up against the plexiglas. He pulls my arm and gets me to look out the window over and over, sharing his amazement at all the miniature things he can see below. Whenever the flight attendant brings us a drink or food, which is frequent in first class, Kevin looks at me with wide eyes and exclaims, “Free?! It’s free?” After we land and the flight attendant holds up people’s coats for them to claim, Kevin’s refrain rings out again: “It’s free?!”
I am pinching myself as we make a smooth transit through immigration at LAX. Then, after two more flights, we finally arrive in Medford at midnight. Dicken and a wide-awake, super-excited Jasper are waiting at the gate. Jasper takes a big step forward to hug Kevin, but Kevin steps back, and the hug looks awkward.
Dicken kneels down and looks into Kevin’s face. “How are you doing? Are you hungry? Thirsty? You must be tired.”
Kevin smiles a little shyly, maybe not understanding Dicken’s words, but clearly feeling his warmth. Then he reaches into his backpack and gives Jasper the chocolate bar he bought him at the airport in Costa Rica with his last colones.
“I’ll carry your packback,” Jasper tells Kevin. “I been to Costa Rica seven times and one time I threw up on the plane so I know it’s a looong way.”
Kevin holds onto Dicken’s hand as we walk to baggage claim.
CHAPTER 8
March 2005
After Kevin’s arrival and our fairly smooth integration into a four-person unit, I feel a new sense of fullness. And still, the question that keeps nagging me in a never-ending cadence is, “Are we complete as a family?” Is domestic life too complicated now to think of adding in another factor?
One morning, I wake up and see that it’s light out, but there is no sign of Jasper, who very rarely gets through the night without ending up in our bed. Dicken, already dressed and carrying two mugs of hot coffee, comes into our bedroom. “You’ve got to see something,” he says, handing me one of the mugs. He leads me downstairs and opens the door to Jasper’s room. Jasper and Kevin are sitting in Jasper’s bed, looking at a Tintin book together, both in their blue all-in-one footed pajamas.
“Salt and Pepper,” Dicken says. I smile, remembering how on the beach one day in Costa Rica, that first summer we met Kevin, someone said the boys looked like salt and pepper shakers, with their exact same height, Kevin’s dark skin and bushy black hair contrasting with Jasper’s pale skin and fine blond hair. The description fit so well that the names Salt and Pepper stuck for a while, which made Jasper ask one day, “Mom, which one am I, the salt or the pepper?” Now here they are, the happy pair bundled up in their northern-climate attire, Kevin reading aloud to Jasper, and my heart floods with a sense of well-being. I remember what my youngest sister Cecily said to me on the phone the other day: “You guys have done an amazing thing, adopting Kevin. I just know good fortune will follow you from now on.”
April 2005
Dicken returns from a business trip in England, where we’ll be spending the summer. The long stay over there makes sense to us because one of Dicken’s new business ventures involves bringing a line of American nutritional supplements to the United Kingdom. He’s also been invited to teach several seminars in London. Plus, I’ve always loved England, especially in the summer, and it will give us the chance to spend time with Dicken’s family, as well as my own English cousins and uncles.
“I can’t wait to show you the guest room at Mum’s house,” Dicken says as he unpacks his garment bag. “It’s so romantic! I have a feeling I’m going to get you pregnant there.”
Hearing him say that gives me a thrill. Not because of the reference to sex, although I like that, but because of his clear declaration that he wants another baby. In some ways I see having another child of our own as a way to thank Dicken for going along with the adoption. He’d always said that if we had a second child, he wanted it to be ours biologically. Yet once he felt the instant yes for Kevin, he never wavered. So I want to show him my deep gratitude, and honor the part of him that wants another baby of our own. Dicken adores babies and is an unusually hands-on father, happy to wake up in the night to change diapers, happy to have Jasper still sleeping in our bed half the time at the age of seven. I write in my journal that night, April 27:
Positive Intention: I’m inviting a soul to come through, to be our baby. I’m only receptive to a girl, one who is easy to gestate, give birth to, and raise. A soul sister, a seeker of enlightenment, one with a great sense of humor, a huge heart—loving, forgiving, generous, wise, calm, calming, beautiful, radiant, free, positive, with a huge yes to life. A sparkly diamond soul—perfect, awake, alive, a celebrator, a teacher, a friend to all people and creatures of the earth, one who is supported and supports a wide web of beings. Healthy. Smart. A cozy joy. A great sleeper and eater. Cheerful, outgoing, eyes the color of Dix’s. Bringer of unsurpassed joy. Enlarger of all hearts, especially ours (Dix, me, Jasper, and Kevin).
That night, when Dicken comes to bed, I initiate lovemaking. He asks, “Where are you in your cycle?”
“I’m not exactly sure. How about taking a chance?”
We take the chance, and afterward Dicken says something lighthearted about throwing caution to the wind.
Dicken falls asleep, but I can’t. I lie in the dark wondering if we’re about to conceive a baby, my mind racing with thoughts of what that would mean for us. I worry about Dicken’s new business, which is demanding and might require a lot of travel in the next year or two. But I secretly hope I will get pregnant.
I calculate that I’ll probably ovulate sometime in the next five days. I fall asleep with images of an egg about to burst from my ovary and make its way down the fallopian tube to meet a swarm of eager sperm, a whole school of perfect miniature replicas of Dicken.
The next morning, I check my fertility status by licking the slide on my mini-microscope. I’ve been using this device as a way to avoid getting pregnant ever since Jasper was born. It works by using saliva patterns to predict ovulation. During a woman’s menstrual cycle, estrogen surges around the time of ovulation and can be detected by changes in how saliva dries on the microscope. High estrogen makes it dry in snowflake-like patterns, a signal that ovulation is about to occur. Just before estrogen levels peak, little stick-like shapes begin to emerge. If I see those, it means I’m approaching my most fertile days. These simple sticks are normally followed a day or so later by large, complex fern structures—the big kahuna.
This April morning, after the saliva on the slide dries, I take a deep breath, click the light on the tiny instrument, then peer inside. At first, nothing but indistinct round blots. I adjust the focus, which can sometimes change a blurry landscape into one with identifiable objects. Still nothing. I shrug. Without a sign of even slightly increased estrogen, chances are I’m not about to ovulate.
A few hours later, I check again. Nothing. Oh well, I guess it’s not meant to be right now. The next morning, I give it another try. This time, I find something that looks shape-like, adjust the focus, and there on the screen is a giant, beautiful fern. Not a pre-ovulation stic
k, but a big, complex design, as stunning as an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture.
I calculate that I might have timed things right—they say sperm can live for forty-eight hours or more inside a warm body. I smile to myself, excited by the possibility that a secret process is unfolding within me, and even more excited at the prospect of surprising Dicken with the news once I know for sure.
May 2005
Over the next couple of weeks, I’m preoccupied with lots of other things, including a visit from our brother-in-law, Giles, who’s been battling metastasized colon cancer for more than two years. Giles, married to Dicken’s sister Becca, has been having phone consultations with an Ashland-based herbalist and cancer specialist, and has decided to come all the way from England to see him in person. Dicken is also helping Giles, doing research on his case and taking suitcases full of herbs and supplements over to England. Dicken has known Giles since high school and considers him a brother and close friend. He’s also one of my favorite people, so we happily drop everything to be with him during his short stay.
Before we know it, it’s time to prepare for our summer in England. The day before we fly to London, I feel decidedly hormonal: tender breasts, volatile moods, slightly bloated abdomen. I even detect a tiny spot of blood and figure my period is on the way. I make sure to pack tampons in my carry-on luggage.
So it looks like I’m not pregnant—not a big surprise or letdown, since I ovulated at least a day or more after lovemaking; and I didn’t expect to get pregnant after a single unprotected encounter. According to most medical experts, the chances of someone my age getting pregnant each attempted cycle is somewhere around one-in-ten. And that’s for couples who are actively trying—the scenario people joke about when the calendar-obsessed woman is demanding sex five times a week and the exhausted man starts to complain that he feels like nothing more than a sperm donor. In our case we’ve taken just that one uncalculated chance.
*
The flight to London is one of the most uncomfortable I’ve ever experienced. My ankles swell up for days, which has never happened before.