The Sum of a Hard Truth
Posted: September 7, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »In the five or so months I tried to conceive with a sperm donor, a few years back, I had suspicious, niggling little fears regarding the process. Now a September 5, 2011 New York Times article has confirmed some of my deepest worries, making adoption seem even more of a blessing than before the beautiful Julia came into my life. Please view:
One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06donor.html?src=rechp
The Play Date, Date
Posted: August 16, 2011 Filed under: Childhood Development, Ethiopian Adoptions, International Adoption, International Adoption, Ethiopia, Single Adoption Leave a comment »Sunday afternoon, Julia had a sort of combo play-date-get-together with Theo, my friend Collette’s ( another single baby mama) son. Her beautiful little man, adopted from the same orphanage as Miss JT. The children were born, roughly, six weeks apart, a little over a year ago. After an introduction, followed by a few minutes of butt scooting and crawling across the wooden floor, murmuring between the two babies started up. Then they stopped. Julia and Theo slowly faced one another on the polished-parquet floor, each leaned forward from the waist, and kissed. On the lips.
Two old friends reconnect and share tales only they understand.
After the lip-lock, Theo and Julia moved on to more important activities—sorting through the toys littering the area rug in the living room, multitudes of stuffed animals, trucks, dolls of every size, weight and color then they set out to chase Molly the dog’s long, hairy tail, flipping-flopping across the surface of the thick, carpet patterned in soft watercolor-like light blues, pinks and purples.
Collette and I sat puddled on either side of the large rug, staring at one another, sharing a God smacked moment of silence.
“Ummm,” Collette mumbled, “do you think they remember each other?”
I moved my head around in a whirl of confusion that mirrored the calculations ripping across my brain. First to the left and right, no they couldn’t have recalled that they started life in the same place, the same Hossana orphanage, on the same play mat. No. No way. Then my head moved up and down, this time more defined, as I watched our children move and play in their connected bubble of bliss.
For the balance of the afternoon, I couldn’t help thinking of the essayist’s Robert Lynd, thoughts on coincidence, the perfect truth for this perfect moment. “It is only in literature that coincidences seem unnatural.”
And playdates.
The New View
Posted: July 29, 2011 Filed under: Homelessness, Infertility | Tags: Homelessness, Infertility, Miscarrige Leave a comment »This morning, like most mornings, my travel path intersected hundreds of other commuters, a hand full of them working the subways for spare change, spare food, and even at times it seemed, just a bit of acknowledgment from another human being that they too were still alive.
And this morning, like most, just after the one train pulled out of the Times Square station, a small, worn-looking brown-skinned woman set about a typical soliloquy of solicitation from myself and the other passengers. After a few minutes, over the edge of my book, under her extra-large-emerald-green- t-shirt, I made out her baby bump.
In the years that I’d tried to conceive, homeless women ripe with pregnancy, with a frightening regularity would find their way to me, our lives crossing paths. One memorable day, less than an hour after the stain of red had announced that we’d failed to conceive yet again, I spotted a middle-aged woman hugely pregnant excavating the trash can for dinning possibilities, a block away from my home. I stood in awe, bathed in tears, as a woman with less financial stability, no heath coverage, no access to a fertility specialist, manged to achieve what I could not.
Today, five years later, I saw, mostly, a sad broken soul bringing a new soul into the world. Today my heart cracked for her, and her alone.
The Agony of the Car Seat
Posted: July 21, 2011 Filed under: Single African American Mother By Adoption, Single Motherhood, Uncategorized Leave a comment »I’ll just get right to the point. Yes, I know car seats are important. Yes, I know they save lives. Yes, I know infants, babies, toddlers, and children up to the age of eight in New York State must use them when traveling. (And “if the child is eight years old and is under 4’9″ tall or weighs less than 100 lbs, it is recommended that” I “continue using a child restraint system.”)
Yup, got it.
But the big old fact is they’re one big pain in the booty. Bulky. Heavy. And let’s face it, ugly. And you need a PhD to install the damn thing in the car, that is, if I still owned a car.
About four years before I actually became a mom, I’d started thinking like one before Julia arrived. And one day after I’d driven to the fine state of New Jersey for the high-end, luxury shopping experience found in The Short Hills Mall (I still get missy-eyed at the memory of the Nordstrom’s shoe department) I came to the realization after —I’d survived alternate side street parking, made my peace with forking out some of the highest gas prices in the nation, toughed it out among the city’s fleet of Kamikaze taxi drivers— however my car and I ,must part.
That day, as I had done so many times before, I came out of the mall, loaded down with bags in a post shopping hangover only to shriek“ Somebody stole my car!” then discovered a monster-SUV-gas-chugger had parked beside my mini ride. So after a six-year run of cruising with the top down, shifting like a pro, and sing a-longs to Prince, I sold my Miata, a vehicle easy eclipsed by SUVs, trucks, and sadly, most standard model cars.
Now, thanks to the car seat, I still experience car drama, without the convenience of having a car. So far, after getting a dark grey, super padded, Peg Perego back in April, the beast has been taken out of the house, exactly, once, to attend Easter dinner, otherwise it has collected dust in the corner of Julia’s bedroom.
Last Sunday I freed Godzilla to take Miss J to brunch at her Auntie Charlena’s house. On the subway. With the help of Aunt Carla, another brunch attendee, who helped wrangle baby and equipment, all went well. However, on the return trip things became dicey.
“ Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Carla asked as the subway slammed into her stop.
“Sure,” I lied. I wasn’t sure of much of anything, other that I didn’t want Carla to go out of her way anymore than she had. And that I had to get my kid home ,by any means necessary.
Thirty minutes later; at 103rd Street, we exited the train. I climbed the two flights of the stairs. Not too bad. I’d managed nicely. However I’d forgotten that the downtown train came into the station one full level lower than the uptown tracks I usually traveled to and from, home. Another two flights? Yikes.
So I set out, performing a steady climb like a Sherpa, first one set of steps, then the second set, trudging up the final angled levels, without the benefit of stopping or even pausing on the last few steps until I reached the cool, clean air of the street, covered in a warm lacquer of sweat. A wet shirt contest with a contestant of one.
As luck would have it, the one lazy doorman the building employees was behind the desk. He did not move from towards us. I did not open my mouth to ask for assistance. By then I could see the elevator, the salvation that it would deliver I, and my child to: the chilled air of the apartment. “Thank God I didn’t punk out and turn off the AC,” I thought as the lift doors closed.
The beast of the car seat in my left hand, a over stuffed diaper bag in the right, a twenty and a half pound baby strapped to my chest, if I did the weight calculation—even four days later—I’d probably weep at the total.
I pushed the door open, dumping the car seat in the hallway, dreaming of the glass of cold white wine to come, after Miss J’s bedtime, I remembered, a few weeks back to when Julia and I were at my Mom’s in Michigan. Inside the cool, musty interior of the garage in Redford, I’d nearly crumbled in a fight with that car seat. Today I’d powered on. I must have known, deep down, somewhere, it was just the beginning.
The Second Coming of Mothers Day
Posted: July 3, 2011 Filed under: Single African American Mother By Adoption, Single Motherhood, Uncategorized | Tags: International Adoption, Miscarrige, Mothers and Daughters Leave a comment »As the nation celebrated its birth, for me, it was a day of remembrance, realization and warm reality. Eight years ago, I, at a little over three months, miscarried a pregnancy, a common enough fact that affects 20 percent of women. My loss, discovered during a routine exam, became my personal 9/11. In short order, my relationship of three years died too. In many ways, like the towers that once rose above New York Harbor, the life I knew and the one I hoped to live crumbled within that black, idol sonogram machine’s screen.
The news set in motion a long, lingering, march towards motherhood, which on paper had ended on February 4th, the snowy day that I brought Julia to the United States. However, emotionally and psychically, the road ended today, Independence Day, the due date of the baby I carried long ago, a birthday we never celebrated. Together.
Today I look at myself with eyes I usual reserved for Julia, a glow of awe, honor and reverence, relieved to have arrived in the promise land of parenthood.
Let the cherry bombs pop, and the silver sparklers shimmer and the arching light flowers bloom across my heart.
And to think I came so close to missing it.
David Copperfield Goes to Hell
Posted: June 17, 2011 Filed under: Childhood Development, International Adoption, Single African American Mother By Adoption, Single Motherhood, Uncategorized, War Leave a comment »As the wait to bring home a child from Ethiopia became more and more elastic, stretching from six to nine months, to twelve, then eighteen, and finally reaching a whooping twenty-four months (two years for those of you who do not measure time in thirty day increments like waiting parents-to-be, and prisoners held in solitary confinement) the adoption agency, at one of those month juncture’s, suggested I move my application to their newly formed program in The Congo.
The pluses were numerous: the wait far shorter. The fee quite smaller. The children just as needy, just as brown-skinned, and almond-eyed as me.
A few days later, over drinks with my good friend Beryl, under a veil of tears weighing me down I listened as my news producer pal—way more plugged into the world and its woes than a heartsick writer who’d give just about anything to finally, at last, become a mother— spoke flatly over her glass of chilled Pinot Gris.
“The Congo is different than Ethiopia. The children are orphans not because of famine, not AIDS, but war. And that makes them very different.”
Now a year and a half later, I am so grateful that I listened to her with my mind, not my heart.
Please click on the link below and read the heartbreaking tale of orphans in The Congo from The New York Times courtesy of Nicholas Kristof’s blog featuring Amy Ernst.
Notes From a Young American in Congo:
Orphans on the Edge
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/notes-from-a-young-american-in-congo-orphans-on-the-edge/?scp=5&sq=adoption&st=cse
The Slippery Slide of the Sippy Cup
Posted: June 14, 2011 Filed under: Childhood Development, Single African American Mother By Adoption, Single Motherhood | Tags: Child Delevleopment Leave a comment »The text arrived in the middle of my work day. An innocent click, and it launched. And, in second. A sea of woe and excitement rose from my heart. The image was clear. Julia, lying on her back, drinking from a cup, a lime green sippy cup. And just like that, she’s growing up. (Just this morning she ripped the long, rectangular, wooden, hand-painted plaque of colorful, folksy Ethiopia angels from her bedroom wall, hung within reach of her tiny arm’s because of Julia’s new big girl bed.) Well, bigger girl bed. And now the sippy cup had landed.
The Sippy Cup has Landed
It’s official I thought studying the image, she’s leaving babyhood.
Sure ,I realize of the few jobs babies have other than eating and pooping, growing is an 24/7, dedicated proposition. But as a single baby mama, there a slight, bitter coating of sadness over such highlights, the updates that come from your nanny regarding your child, your very own natural wonder.
I wanted to believe that my role as Julia’s mom was to serve as top guide, the chef introducer of all things new. Yet, as a new world voyager, like Columbus, I didn’t always arrive where I’d planned, on my schedule. As a single-baby-mama-wage earner I give and get all the glory, and all the responsibly. And as much as I would like to believe I am the Mistress of the Universe, the universe does not work on my schedule. And neither, it seems, does my daughter’s developmental progress, which often first appears, outside the office hours of 10 to 6, Saturdays and Sundays.
Confessions of a Single Baby Mama #5
Posted: May 31, 2011 Filed under: Single African American Mother By Adoption, Single Motherhood, Uncategorized, Writing 2 Comments »Of the many shifts of focus required to become a mom, for what you gain, there was much you let go of. Typically, non-parent-people think of going out on the turn of New York minute first. But in truth, for me, I still believed in the words that Sandra Bernhardt said to David Letterman as she discussed her newly minted motherhood, “By the time your thirty-five you’ve had all the going out fun, you’re going to have. I was ready to become a mom.” I nodded in agreement back then and now, a good ten years later. What Sandra didn’t say was the real challenge that came with motherhood… dare I say, the baby clothes.
The first rumble my mom and I had over Julia regarded the matter of undershirts. She deemed them necessary, I saw them as an extra layer, extra work, not required for life indoors. Since I brought Julia home in early February there were many undershirtless days, and many fish-eyed, sly glares from my Mom from across the living room, over her book of crossword puzzles. Always the same edict. ” It doesn’t look like Julia has an undershirt on. Does she have an undershirt on? If not, she’ll catch cold.”
Then came the nanny, the fabulous Miss Dee, that makes all the difference for me as a working, single baby mama. A every working mom needs an A- team, “the village” spoken of in an African proverb famously quoted by Hillary Clinton. With my mom living out of state, Miss Dee heads mine ( with an amazing assist from Zia Carla and Aunts Sheila and Charlena, who have been called to babysit in the clutch and have.) Then there’s Ronda, and of course, my mom.
My mother, I realized as I prepared to wing my way to Louisville some weeks back was the only person I trusted to watch over my daughter with for ten, whole, long days and nights. I was grateful that she was ready, willing and able to come to New York and keep watch over Julia, Dee and the household. What I hadn’t calculated in, what I missed entirely was the notion that Miss Dee, Julia and my mom would go shopping. Together. For my child.
” We all went to T.J. Max today,” my mom announced as I dragged my can from school back to The Brown Hotel, after a long day of lectures, readings and constant rain. ” We picked out some shoes for Julia.”
” That’s great mom” I said, as the tall, elegant doorman swept open the door of the historic hotel with a flourish.” And we bought a holiday dress.”
” Holiday? What holiday?” Easter, the classic roll your kid up in crinoline moment had come and gone months ago.
“We picked out a dress a Memorial Day for Julia.”
A pair of stars and stripes shorts I had as a ten-year old, running through sprinklers on lawns of Detroit, came roaring up from the depths of my memory.
Surely, she did not. Surly she could not.
“It’s a cute dress, small, white stars along a navy bodice, red and white poke-a- dots along the middle, and ruffles of white stars start again along the bottom. Ties in a bow at the shoulders. Cute.”
I thanked her, clicked off the cell, jumped into the shower, and into fresh clothes to meet my scholar friends for cocktails and dinner. The vision of that star-spangled dress follow me throughout the evening. It trailed me throughout the week, until the last day, on the Delta flight home, back to Manhattan.
“Here it is!” my mom said, not long after I put my bags down and picked my daughter up, lassoing the baby into my arms. I dipped my nose into her neck, her heavenly scented skin, composed of baby lotion, baby powder, and organic carrots.
” Now you’re all ready for the holiday!” Mom said. So happy to come home to my daughter I left the matter of the dress for later.
Now, five days has come and gone, Memorial Day has arrived. The dress started up with me this morning. So I when it came time to dress Julia, I slipped it out of the drawer, and over her crown of dark curls. Whether or not it will leave the house, well, that was still uncertain. I now understand, more than ever, when we have an opportunity to make those we love happy, we should pick up the reins, or the crazy dress, and as the Nike tagline goes, “Just Do It.”
Back in the Writer Game
Posted: May 30, 2011 Filed under: Single African American Mother By Adoption, Single Motherhood, Writing Leave a comment »Writing is about the only activity I love nearly as much as being the mom of the lovely Miss J. So two weeks ago, I stretched the silver cord of connection between Julia and I all the way to Kentucky. As the spring term rolled towards me I decided to register, keeping my steady march moving toward completing my MFA. My wonderful mom came to Manhattan from Michigan, I booked a flight to Kentucky, packed my bags, books and black Mac laptop, and ahead to the airport.
“How are you feeling?” the nanny asked as she trailed me from the apartment, from my daughter, from my home, to the elevator.
“ My stomach is in knots… This is hard,” I said, hoping she’d ignore the sight of my eyes, shiny with tears.
The next morning I woke up at The Brown Hotel, between the cool, luscious, high- thread count sheets to the sound of, well, nothing. No Julia morning chirping, no baby music songs. Solemnly I showered, dressed and checked the time. I bolted from the Brown with my binder of writer selections pre-selected for class discussion by the workshop leader, my workshop sample, ball point pens, highlighters, cell phone and work Blackberry. My clog clad feet sprinted along the two blocks that stretched to my classroom, my cell phone jammed under my left ear, my purse dangling from my right shoulder. Binder jammed under a pit. I hurried past a gnarled, curled tree whose strong bows held pom-pom sized magnolias, spraying out two stories high. The heavily scented air punche my nose. hard. I was far from New York City in so many ways.
“ Hi, Mom,” I said passing the public library, “How are my girls doing?”
“ Julia it’s your Mommy on the phone!” my mother said with enough volume so I could hear. And with that my stomach formed into a French knot, another loop, and another warm, exquisite torture.
“Say hi Julia! Say hi!”
Heavy breathing followed. Some days, when lucky , a BA ba, BA would rise into the receiver.
A week after Julia and I came home, back in February, Ronda gave my this advice. “When you’re working Mom, whereever you are you think you should be in the other place. Home? Work? You are constantly wishing things were different.”
I thought I understood her edict back in February, and again after I’d returned to work during the last dregs of March. Only now I really did. So, after two days of living solely as a writer, mothering by remote control, dialing in between lectures, and swimming in the warm waters of creatively and literature, I let go. I let grandma, be grandma. I trusted.
I’d forgotten how much I love the company of writers. Grad school, for me is a Petri dish of warm riches. A gift I can’t wait to share with my daughter.
“
