The terms “put up for adoption” sound nicer, but that expression actually has really dark origins. It goes back to the “orphan train” days of the eighteen-hundreds. Back then, missionaries would take poor children (not necessarily orphans) out of city slums and put them on trains headed West. The trains would stop at different cities and the children would be “put up” on the train platform. The locals would crowd around to see if there was a kid on the platform they wanted to adopt. The children who didn’t get picked went on to the next stop. At best it was an early foster care system. At worst, it was a way for farmers in the West to pick up an extra worker. In any case, we try to do things better now.
Adoption has come a long way since then, even since just a few generations ago. Back in the 1950s, unexpected pregnancies were often handled in really shady ways. In many places, pregnant teenage girls would be shipped off to “boarding schools” where they’d finish out their pregnancy only to have their child whisked away from them, never to be seen again. That’s why old-fashioned stories about adoption often involve a birth mom or adopted parent who have no way to find each other. But things have changed so much since then. Laws and regulations have been passed to legitimize adoption procedures and give everyone involved control over every step of the process. A parent who chooses to make an adoption plan has no reason to expect a scary, secretive experience that will leave them confused or helpless.
Things have changed. Modern adoption is a positive thing, so we try to stay away from the old negative language. Instead of saying “We gave our daughter up for adoption” or “We put our child up for adoption,” we say “We placed our daughter for adoption” or “We made an adoption plan for our child.” Using positive language reflects that adoption is a purposeful choice involving a careful plan for the benefit of the child.
It can be awkward to replace a phrase you’re used to with a new one, but hopefully by the time you’ve read our story, you’ll agree that the positive language is a way better fit for what adoption really means.
A First Preview of Adoption
Tyler:
When I was fifteen, my sister found out she was pregnant. She’d graduated from high school just three days before. It was not a happy surprise. She was a popular girl and a high achiever, and she had big plans to head for college and make something of her life. On top of that, she was no longer with the father, who had major anger issues. Nothing about the situation was ideal, to say the least. When she found out she was pregnant, she was freaking out.
She told my mom what was going on, and after my mom had her own freak-out, they started to discuss the options. In my sister’s mind, there was no way she could take care of this baby; there was no chance the father would make a suitable parent, and besides, she had all of these plans for her life. So when my mom suggested making an adoption plan, my sister jumped for it immediately.
My mom helped her get the whole adoption set up. We drove down to Florida and met the couple who were hoping to adopt the baby. Everything was ready to go, right up to the day my sister gave birth.
Catelynn:
I was there at the hospital for the whole intense experience. The adoptive couple was there with the car seat and everything, ready to go. They fed Tyler’s niece her first bottle, and they were all set to go home. We hung out with that family for three days. But Tyler’s sister had struggled with her decision, and in the end, a new boyfriend talked her out of it in the hospital. It was devastating for the couple who had gotten all their hopes up. But it happens that way sometimes. Tyler’s sister was a nineteen-year-old girl who’d just given birth and was recovering from her C-section, and she was vulnerable to those second thoughts. She just couldn’t go through with it.
Tyler:
I remember the couple breaking down in tears. They were devastated. It was a tragic moment all around, but at the same time, I had my sister’s back. Whenever she’d seemed indecisive, I was really worried about her being pressured one way or another. I was always telling people to back off. In the end she just didn’t have enough peace with the adoption decision to resist this guy talking her out of it. She had to go with what she felt at that moment or risk regretting something forever. It was a rough moment, for sure.
Catelynn:
That entire experience was fresh in our minds when I got pregnant. We’d both had an up-close and personal look at adoption, and that was our main inspiration. When we realized we wanted to look into adoption for ourselves, Tyler’s mom called and made an appointment for us just like she’d done for his sister. Soon enough we were sitting down with Dawn, our adoption counselor.
Looking at All the Options
Tyler:
One of the first things we discussed with Dawn was the different types of adoption we could go with. There are open, semi-open, and closed adoptions. Both open and semi-open adoptions involved contact between the birth parents and the child. The main difference between a semi-open adoption and a complete open adoption is that a semi-open adoption doesn’t allow for face-to-face visits, while in an open adoption you actually get those physical meetings. A semi-open adoption involves photos and other kinds of communication, but not face-to-face contact.
Dawn told us the options, and at that first meeting, we looked at each other and said, “We definitely want it closed.” We had our minds on a clean break in the beginning. We thought it would be better to have absolutely no involvement. We eventually started to soften up and thought we might have photos sent to my mom, and then my mom could hold onto them until we were ready.
Catelynn:
As we went back and forth on that part of the decision, I remember Dawn looking us in the eyes and saying, “You guys need to try and understand that this is going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your life.” We thought we got that, but we didn’t. We couldn’t. She did, though. And what she made sure to do was to make it clear that we were in complete control of the situation. She said, “You get to pick everything that you want for your child.” Bethany Christian Services is very focused on what the birth parents want for the child. They’ll do anything to help the birth parents.
Dawn even told us that we could go through the adoption agreements and add whatever we wanted in between the lines. She said we could do everything in pencil so we could erase it at any time if we started to feel uncertain or changed our minds about the terms. She thoroughly explained that we were in the driver’s seat and we were the ones who would choose what happened with our child. The agency was extremely invested in the birth parents and what they want.
And if we changed our minds completely? That was all right, too. Dawn always told us: “There’s nothing wrong if the day at the hospital comes and you decide this is not what you want after all. That wouldn’t make you a bad person.”
Tyler:
Of course, the adoptive parents have to be prepared for that possibility, too. Adoptive parents have to go through a lot. They have to take all these classes and go through a year of random visits from social workers who will stop by to see how things are. They have to write practically a whole book about their lifestyle, their family goals, the way they run their homes. They go through background checks and couples’ therapy-type investigations to look at how they get along as a married couple. Because of all that, it’s not unusual for adoptive parents to wait up to five years to get a child.
They also go through classes for grief and loss in case the birth parents change their minds, and they take classes about what the birth parents go through so that they can understand the thoughts and feelings on the other side. There are tons of counseling and therapy elements to help prepare them for the possibility that the adoption doesn’t go through.
Catelynn:
During our talks with Dawn we came up with a list of things that we hoped to find in the adoptive family. We wanted them to have been together for a long time. We wanted them to be involved in their church. We were hoping to find a couple who were unable to have their own c
hild, because we thought it would be such an amazing gift for them, and reinforced our idea that they would really cherish our child. We didn’t want the couple to have any other kids because we wanted our daughter to be their first. We wanted the mom to be a stay-at-home mom. We had tons of points that we wanted.
Bethany Christian Services has a website where you can look at every single adoptive family that they have in every state. Tyler and I spent hours with his mom going through families in every state but Michigan — we thought having her in our own state would be too hard. We went through and read the entire biographies of these couples. Eventually I worked out a list of ten people I’d narrowed down, and I put stars next to the ones that I really liked. And the ones who really jumped out were Brandon and Teresa.
Reading Brandon and Teresa’s biography, I just fell in love with them. They had been married for seven years, they’d traveled the world, they had college educations, and they were involved in their church. On paper, they were perfect. But what really cinched it was the video. They were the only couple on the list that had included a video in their biographies, and that gave us a chance to actually see the environment that our child could possibly grow up in.
In the video, Brandon and Teresa sat together on their porch and expressed their gratitude to the birth parents who had taken the time to look at their profiles. They explained how badly they’d yearned for a child, which they were unable to have on their own. It showed them at church, spending time with their family and friends, and people around them speaking to the camera about how much this couple deserved to have a child so much. I’ll never forget this little boy in the video who prayed every night for Brandon and Teresa to get a baby from God. There was a friend on the video who had tragically lost a child, and explained how Brandon and Teresa had invested so much time and compassion into helping them through that horrible loss. There was obviously so much warmth and kindness between these people and in their world.
Tyler:
It was amazing, too, to see the actual house and the physical environment that they were hoping to bring a child into. We got to watch them moving around through the house, showing where the nursery would be for a boy, and what it would be for a girl, the living room, the kitchen. That was really reassuring.
When I got home that day to join Catelynn and my mom, she already had her top ten possible adoptive parents for us to go through. And she showed me the one with the video first. Once I saw it, I said, “I don’t need to see anymore. That’s them.” She said, “We have nine more to look at!” And I said, “No. That’s them. This is who we’re supposed to have.”
And we did. We just knew. Maybe it sounds weird. But we spent all this time going through all these hundreds of possible parents, so many of whom were obviously amazing people with wonderful homes. And when we found the right ones, it hit us in the chest like a ton of bricks. The rightness of the choice could not have been more obvious. When we knew, we knew. It was so weird. To be able to plan it out and find the people who fit everything we wanted for our kid was such an amazing experience.
Catelynn:
So we told Dawn that we found a couple that we liked, and she set up a meeting with them. We met with them at Bethany Christian Services, and we all sat down and talked about their jobs and their lives. We discussed how we wanted to send gifts and things, and talked about how open they wanted to be and we wanted to be. After we met at Bethany, we went to Starbucks and hung out for a few hours. We didn’t look at anyone after that. We just knew these were the people we were going to go with. We had total peace with that decision.
Tyler:
I’ll never forget the first moment we walked into the room to meet them. I went in first and said hello and shook hands, and Cate-lynn came in right after me. As soon as Teresa saw Catelynn, she just pulled her into a hug and held her tight for what seemed like fifteen minutes straight. They were totally silent. It was this magical, emotional, special moment. Teresa was hugging the woman who was carrying what could possibly be her child. And to see the love that she had for Catelynn, and to see her extend it so openly, was amazing. That connection was there. To us, and to our daughter.
Catelynn:
After that meeting, we just rolled forward. We never had a single moment of doubt that we had chosen the right parents for our child. I’m not even sure Brandon and Teresa knew what to make of the peace we had with our decision. I can remember many times during the pregnancy when we’d be talking to them on the phone and we could hear the nervousness on their end. They were so afraid to get their hopes up in case we backed out. They didn’t want to get too close to us just in case. But I would always tell them, “You guys, don’t be afraid. I’m not going to change my mind. You’re going to go home with her. There’s no reason to fear.” I always tried to uplift them and make sure they knew. They probably thought I was crazy. They had gone through a loss before when birth parents had changed their minds, so they were on their guard.
Tyler:
There’s a difference between the loss we feel placing our child, and the loss they risk of the birth parents backing out. As birth parents, we have control over the decision to hand the care of our child over to these parents we’ve vetted. And the sense of loss involved in that is huge, make no mistake. But the adoptive parents have a difficult experience, too. Especially considering the couples who are unable to conceive. It’s very difficult for many people to come to terms with the fact that they can never have a biological child with the person they love, and that in itself can carry a lot of grief and sadness.
It was important for Catelynn and me to put ourselves in their shoes and understand where they were coming from. The whole adoption process, especially in an open adoption, is an ongoing experience. We’re still getting to know each other, still building and developing trust. It can get difficult at times. People are very sympathetic to us online. But fewer step back to think about what the adoptive parents go through. They have to put their entire family plan in some teen-ager’s stomach, and that’s an incredibly vulnerable thing for them. It’s important to remember what they go through just as much as what the birth parents go through.
The Moment of Truth
Catelynn:
I think God knew what I was doing for Carly, so he decided to make the pregnancy easy for me. Besides morning sickness, I had back pain. But other than that, my pregnancy was awesome. I loved being pregnant with Carly. I wanted to keep her in there forever. It doesn’t bother me at all! I could probably be a surrogate mother and just be pregnant all the time.
Giving birth was a little scarier, at least for a minute there. The idea of giving birth didn’t seem totally real until I got to the hospital. Because we wanted everyone to be there at the same time, I had scheduled a day to be induced. The fear suddenly hit me when I put the hospital gown on. Then I thought, “Whoa, I don’t want to do this at all.” After carrying her for so long, the idea of not having her in there was terrifying to me. But you can’t exactly turn around and run out the door. There was definitely no going back at that point.
Once we got started, I settled down. They induced me and broke my water and stuff, and the birth went smoothly, too. But, man, does that crap hurt. You can’t even explain it. I’m not a pain person. I’ve never broken a bone or had any extreme pain (knock on wood), and I was not prepared for that. As soon as they offered me the epidural I was like, “YES! Give it to me!” After that I was fine. And once the whole thing is over, you don’t feel anything. Some crazy hormone thing kicks in and you sort of forget the pain. Which is good, because otherwise, a lot of people probably wouldn’t go back for seconds.
I was in labor for about four hours, pushed for eighteen minutes, and she was out. When I was pushing, I heard Tyler’s mom going, “You’re a baby-making machine, Cate! You’re a baby-making machine!” Our daughter Carly was born at ten thirty-nine in the morning. Seven pounds, four ounces; twenty two inches long.
Tyler:
My mom was sup
portive of adoption the whole time, and so was Catelynn’s grandma, her dad’s mom, who flew from Florida to be with her for the birth. She had to skip her other granddaughter’s graduation to come and be with Cate, which obviously meant a lot to us. Her dad wasn’t able to be there, which was really hard on him, but he was there in spirit. And my mom and Cate’s grandma were really the ones who stood by us. They were crying with us, holding us up and reminding us constantly that we were doing the right thing.
We had this whole plan. We told the doctors, “When she’s born, take that baby and get her out of her as fast as you can.” We were so afraid that listening to her voice and hearing her cry would be too much for us. We thought that natural parenting instinct would kick in. The plan was that after the baby was born, I’d cover her ears with my hands and put my forehead to hers to block her vision, and just talk to her as they took Carly down.
I said, “You’re so strong, I love you so much, you’re doing the right thing.” But after Carly was born she was looking around asking, “Where is she? Where is she?” That just shows how strong those instincts are. She wanted to see her, she wanted to hear her, she wanted to know she was okay.
So we laid there for awhile, Catelynn took a shower, and I went down and looked at Carly and talked to Brandon and Teresa about how beautiful and perfect she was. Finally they wheeled her back into the room.
Catelynn:
We didn’t change our mind about wanting an open adoption until the day Carly was born. Once she was born, it was real. We’d been scared that if we held her once, we’d never be able to let her go. But once we were able to spend time with her and share that time with Brandon and Teresa, we realized we were strong enough in our decision to allow that extra openness we had resisted. It was also obvious how hard it would be to not know where she was and what she was doing in life. That would make it ten times harder for us to heal. We still wanted to see them, see her, build a relationship with this family and be connected to the experience of her life. So we called Dawn over and said, “Break out the eraser. We want to change this agreement.”
Conquering Chaos Page 8