Poppa Daddy Baby

The Bassinette

clay@theatrebayarea.org (Clay Lord) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:18:00 +0000

My parents were out for a long weekend from North Carolina about a month ago. During the time they were here, we made sure to do many activities that would look good and active in our Dear Birthmother letter (“Here’s Seth and Judy making homemade meatballs.” Or “Here’s Bill, Seth and Clay walking jauntily down the street.”). But also, my mom and I had a conversation about my bassinette, and she offered it to us for the baby. The bassinette is beautiful – white wicker with a bonnet and a skirt, and it touched my heart for my mom to offer it up. It was my dad’s, and mine, and my brother’s in turn, and we’re really excited that it will be our son or daughter’s someday as well.

Right after my parents left, we headed off to central Europe for a couple weeks. While we were there, we saw a collection of royal furniture and jewels in Austria – gorgeous stuff, but a bit…gaudy. How fabulous, then, that one of the items was the most outrageous bassinette I’ve ever seen. We of course promptly found a postcard.

Seth sent it off to my mother with the quick note, “We were thinking of this for the baby’s bassinette. What do you think?”

Mom loved it.

The bassinette is wrapped in a big bow, which was blue my brother and me, but has also been green and yellow. We haven’t decided what color to make the bow yet, but Mom’s waiting with baited breath.

Almost There

clay@theatrebayarea.org (Clay Lord) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:32:00 +0000

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.

Day Larvae

clay@theatrebayarea.org (Clay Lord) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:17:00 +0000

I told our nephew Ryan today, as I have many times before, that his Uncle Teppy studies crab larvae. Ryan told me that he liked “Day (Clay) larvae and truck larvae and Casey larvae and Teppy larvae.” Cutie. I can only hope our son or daughter will be as charming and hilarious as he is.

Making the Letter

clay@theatrebayarea.org (Clay Lord) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Seth and I have had at least five major fights over the Dear Birthmother letter, which I think is just a testament to how much this matters to both of us. Essentially, I think, it’s a question of skill sets clashing – I design stuff for a living, so I have a workflow, but it’s very hard for Seth to not be directly involved. He doesn’t like commenting on changes after the fact because he feels like then it’s not our letter. On the other hand, I have a lot of trouble working directly in tandem with someone else because I find that it leads to indecision and extended work. Of course, we neither one really agree with each other.

I’m happy that we fight about this, as hard as it is. It means that we’re both invested wholly and completely in this whole process. It will make the best letter we can make – plus, we’re both so stubborn that we won’t just give up, which means that we’ll end up with a letter that is really truly ours. Now if only we could get it done…

A Dream

clay@theatrebayarea.org (Clay Lord) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:18:00 +0000

The dreams are starting. I've heard about this happening with expectant parents, but I guess I didn't really think it would happen when there wasn't a baby actually growing inside. And yet -- I dreamed last night that S. and I were claymation lost toys in that classic version of Rudolph, except it wasn't while Rudolph was there. It was just another day - I was a ragdoll and S. was a pingpong paddle with a ball attached with a string, and we were lounging about the land of lost toys and the sun was setting when we started hearing a baby cry off across the sea. The other toys helped us build a boat out of fallen timber and we sailed across, heading towards the sound, which got louder and more insistent until I woke up.

Of course my alarm went off in the middle -- why would I get the satisfaction of seeing the baby at the end of those cries?

When I woke up the sun was still gray through the window, faint and just enough that I could see S.'s sleeping face nestled against my shoulder. He periodically moaned like someone was taking away his candy, and beneath his eyelids his eyes twitched all which ways, making bumps and rolls across the skin and stretching then relaxing the wrinkle across his lid. His stubble sat dark on pale white skin and he breathed gently. And I thought, "This is my husband. This will be the other father of my child."

It's a good morning. T-minus one week until our weekend intensive, and we've just finished a whole pile of forms and autobiographical questions and financials. I can't believe how many hoops are involved if you don't have a functioning uterus conveniently close by. But it shows how much we want it -- and we want it, so badly. A baby boy. A baby girl. Really, just a baby, in our arms, squalling in the night and waking me so that I can't keep those dreams straight. A ragdoll man waking after a long journey to snuggle his son or daughter close in the dark night and whisper sweet things. What a thing to want. What a thing to have.