Monday, April 27, 2009
Almost There
I put the last of our many, many materials into the mail to Teresa, our coordinator, today. It’s a relief, but also makes this whole experience a lot more real, somehow. We also just got the Dear Birthmother letters back from the printer, and now have to sign them all before sending half on to Teresa and keeping half at home for presenting to people who we happen upon in our regular lives. I am unclear how to start that type of conversation…
In the beginning, I think we’re just going to put out the letters and website and see what happens. There are a lot of steps that couples can take to improve their odds, but it seems somehow premature to post Google or Facebook ads, not to mention awkward. It’s funny, but there is a feeling of awkwardness and imposition on others in this whole experience – it’s the reason I don’t know how to talk to someone about if they know of any women who might want our letter, and why I get a little shy when asked about how the process is going at work. There’s a part of me that feels both inappropriate and rude in this process, which is hopefully both silly and transient. And then there’s a small part that feels awkward and, dare I say, embarrassed—not at attempting to get a baby, per se, but at the idea that we might make a misstep that makes us look desperate or needy. I understand in a way that I didn’t really at the information meetings why it’s so important for the straight couples to talk about infertility—it makes it more common and more okay, and takes the stigma off. What’s funny, of course, is that we don’t have infertility issues (except insofar as we don’t either one of us have a uterus), and so both Seth and I spent the majority of the earlier meetings slightly smug that this wasn’t our last-ditch effort, wasn’t desperation, but was just the order of the world for us. In the end, though, the reality seems to be that whether you’ve tried other methods or not, at a certain point we as an adoptive couple must ask another person (really, a whole series of other people once you get into the adoption coordinator’s requirements, the social worker’s requirements, the government screenings, etc) to give us a baby. Seth and I can’t go off and have sex and have a baby nine months later—and while it shouldn’t matter as much because really, who is surprised by that statement, it does, because it somehow makes our parenting suspect, or at least suspect-able, able to be judged (pre-judged).
When I look at a Google Ad for a prospective adoptive family, what do I feel? What would I feel as a birthmother? How can I know? Do I feel desperation, or enterprise? Need, or hope? When I wrote last year’s Christmas letter, right at the very beginning of this process, we had mentioned of the adoption process, but then took it out. We weren’t sure yet who we wanted to initiate into this process. Which is odd – it goes against all of the tenets of marketing, which is essentially what we’re doing here, marketing ourselves to a small and, largely, hidden population. We should be putting the word out everywhere we can, blanketing (with, ideally, some thought and scope) everywhere we can to cast the widest net. It seems somehow vain to think that we won’t have to do anything more than post our website and letter, and it will just happen – but it seems somehow equally vain to think that our ad, our appeal, our letter in the hands of friends would somehow translate for a birthmother into a connection: These are my child’s parents, these men.
Ultimately, I guess that’s the thing—we’re asking someone to pick us as parents for their kid, which is just about the oddest situation in the world. We’re asking someone to use parameters that are arbitrary simply for the fact that they don’t often have to be constructed to decide that yes, we two, we will do good by an unborn child. It’s so scary and daunting. I cannot go on; I’ll go on.
In the beginning, I think we’re just going to put out the letters and website and see what happens. There are a lot of steps that couples can take to improve their odds, but it seems somehow premature to post Google or Facebook ads, not to mention awkward. It’s funny, but there is a feeling of awkwardness and imposition on others in this whole experience – it’s the reason I don’t know how to talk to someone about if they know of any women who might want our letter, and why I get a little shy when asked about how the process is going at work. There’s a part of me that feels both inappropriate and rude in this process, which is hopefully both silly and transient. And then there’s a small part that feels awkward and, dare I say, embarrassed—not at attempting to get a baby, per se, but at the idea that we might make a misstep that makes us look desperate or needy. I understand in a way that I didn’t really at the information meetings why it’s so important for the straight couples to talk about infertility—it makes it more common and more okay, and takes the stigma off. What’s funny, of course, is that we don’t have infertility issues (except insofar as we don’t either one of us have a uterus), and so both Seth and I spent the majority of the earlier meetings slightly smug that this wasn’t our last-ditch effort, wasn’t desperation, but was just the order of the world for us. In the end, though, the reality seems to be that whether you’ve tried other methods or not, at a certain point we as an adoptive couple must ask another person (really, a whole series of other people once you get into the adoption coordinator’s requirements, the social worker’s requirements, the government screenings, etc) to give us a baby. Seth and I can’t go off and have sex and have a baby nine months later—and while it shouldn’t matter as much because really, who is surprised by that statement, it does, because it somehow makes our parenting suspect, or at least suspect-able, able to be judged (pre-judged).
When I look at a Google Ad for a prospective adoptive family, what do I feel? What would I feel as a birthmother? How can I know? Do I feel desperation, or enterprise? Need, or hope? When I wrote last year’s Christmas letter, right at the very beginning of this process, we had mentioned of the adoption process, but then took it out. We weren’t sure yet who we wanted to initiate into this process. Which is odd – it goes against all of the tenets of marketing, which is essentially what we’re doing here, marketing ourselves to a small and, largely, hidden population. We should be putting the word out everywhere we can, blanketing (with, ideally, some thought and scope) everywhere we can to cast the widest net. It seems somehow vain to think that we won’t have to do anything more than post our website and letter, and it will just happen – but it seems somehow equally vain to think that our ad, our appeal, our letter in the hands of friends would somehow translate for a birthmother into a connection: These are my child’s parents, these men.
Ultimately, I guess that’s the thing—we’re asking someone to pick us as parents for their kid, which is just about the oddest situation in the world. We’re asking someone to use parameters that are arbitrary simply for the fact that they don’t often have to be constructed to decide that yes, we two, we will do good by an unborn child. It’s so scary and daunting. I cannot go on; I’ll go on.
# @ 8:32 PM 
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