This blog is about the adoption I (Chris) and my partner (Eric) are undertaking. Someday it might be about something more, but for now, I think that's a sufficiently large mountain to disassemble brick by brick. I'll start out with the reasons why I'm even keeping a blog. I know I'm not the most interesting fellow to ever lay words to a page, but there is method to my madness.
Reasons to
1) Facebook just isn't cutting it. Seriously, considering this is, like, the super biggest thing that's ever happened in my life, I really think some folks have just missed it among all the flotsam on Facebook. Not that everyone is required to follow along or anything, but if you blink and don't log on for a day, you might miss the baby.
2) Since we "began" our adoption process (I'll talk about that next time), I've already had three people approach me wanting to know more for their own personal benefit. Those are long notes to write. I'm stoked to share all I know and experience, but writing a personal manifesto to every person who looks in my direction isn't going to be possible. One day I'll actually be a parent. I've heard it's time-consuming.
And I do want to inform others, especially same-sex couples like ourselves. 90% of what I thought I knew about adoption and its possibilities for us was wrong. Furthermore, if you're anything like us, you might start to think that since you don't know anyone who's done it before, that you might be the first people ever. You're not, and neither are we.
3) I introduced my mother to Facebook and now everything I post there comes back to bite me in the butt when she brings it up. Let's see her master this! Ha!
4) Really, though, a blog seems like a great way to keep everybody updated at their own pace without missing out on anything. Including my mother.
5) Okay, this is to be an emotional dumping ground, too. These are big feelings. I need a place to explore my thoughts. I'd keep a journal, but I'd just be writing for an audience anyway. I want to tell someone what I'm thinking. Nobody wants to be that person who can only talk about their baby, (okay, I don't want to be that person); here I can rant and rave if I want to without being a conversation killer in person. Plus, I think people want to know more, but think it's impolite to ask. (It's not.)
6) Maybe most importantly, I don't want to forget any of it. I want to remember every moment, so I can share it later on and hopefully instill in my son or daughter the sense that we wanted him or her so badly that we become professional hoop-jumpers to bring a child home. Having grown up with that sense of emotional security as a child, I can think of no greater gift for a parent to give.
So I promised the beginning of the story and here it is.
The way is clear,
The light is good,
I have no fear,
No no one should.
The woods are just trees,
The trees are just wood.
No need to be afraid there
The light is good,
I have no fear,
No no one should.
The woods are just trees,
The trees are just wood.
No need to be afraid there
Into the woods
Without regret,
The choice is made,
The task is set.
Into the woods,
But not forget-
Ting why I'm on the journey.
Without regret,
The choice is made,
The task is set.
Into the woods,
But not forget-
Ting why I'm on the journey.
Sondheim's Into the Woods. Hysterical, by the way.
Eric and I met in March 2007. Check that: we actually met once before that. I worked at the Banfield vet at Petsmart. Apparently, Eric used to come in and check me out. Any of you who know me well know that Jake Gyllenhaal could be on my front porch ringing the bell and I'd never notice. I didn't notice Eric. He even said hi to me once outside while I was walking a dog. I didn't notice. I definitely didn't ignore him purposefully. Anyhow, he found me anyway, on (gasp!) MySpace. He didn't even realize I was the same fellow at first. We went out and the rest is history.
We moved in together in June 2010. For those of you straight folks who aren't that familiar with gay relationships, for us, this was kind of like getting married. A quick aside: yes, we could get married in a handful of states, or have our own ceremony at home. For what it's worth, that's not good enough for me. When I can go to the courthouse in my own town and get a marriage license just like anyone else, then it will be the same. Hurrah to Vermont and all them for making it possible for their residents; there's still work to do.
Maybe it was the moving in together. Maybe it was turning 29 and realizing 30 was soon upon me and there were things I had meant to have done. Maybe it was just finding the right person. I started thinking babies. I had always wanted to be a parent. I think most folks do. When I was a teenager and coming out, I thought being gay meant I'd never have kids. Slowly, as gay rights became more visible to me, I realized that wasn't the case. Still, I thought having a family was one of those dreams like writing a novel: sure, I could do it, if I put my mind to it, but it wasn't likely to happen.
Fast forward to 2010. Just after Eric and I moved in together, I opened a bank account to start saving money. Baby wasn't going to happen all by itself. However we did it, it was going to be expensive. And if it never happened, if Eric didn't want a family after all, or if we weren't ready, then hey, I've just saved a little extra cash for a rainy day. I even tried to keep the account a secret at first. It had taken us three years to move in together; could we possibly be ready for a baby after just a couple months?
Yes, as it turns out.
My secret didn't last long. Still, we sat on our thoughts for a few months. Then, just before Christmas 2010 Eric gave me the best present ever: he said "Let's do it." I don't think I've ever been so excited.
At first, I was pro-adoption and Eric was pro-surrogacy. Eric had encountered a lot more prejudice in his life than I. He felt it was "safer" if one of us were the child's biological father. Then, at least, it would be that much more difficult for anyone to try and take our child away from us. (Hetero parents: be thankful you don't have to think about that.) We thought the whole world would be against us, so we had to be as close to what everyone else was as possible. We flip-flopped opinions several times before we finally got on the same page.
There were a few other positives to surrogacy, too. It did actually make us as close to everyone else as we could get. We'd choose the person with whom we'd be having a child, we'd know when the pregnancy test came back positive, we'd be waiting nine months and at the end we'd have a child in whose face we'd search for our own features. If we chose, the chance for multiples could be increased and there was even the potential for us to have two children, one fathered by each of us.
We found a clinic to help us. We requested literature. We almost made an appointment. I won't lie: the cost was prohibitive, and it kept rising. It seems pretty classless to talk exact figures, but as the cost of having a child approached the cost of purchasing a house, we got cold feet. We could never eat out again. No vacations. No new clothes. No new vehicles, ever. What kind of life was this?!
Eric and I compliment one another in a variety of ways. I can be too serious; Eric balances me out with his enthusiasm. Occasionally, this can run away with us both. Eric had gotten excited; reassured by his enthusiasm, I got excited, too. At more or less the same time, though, it hit us: this wasn't what we wanted.
I lay in bed one night and imagined my biological daughter. I'd always pictured a girl with my sister's light eyes and my thick, straight brown hair. She would be too serious for her own good, smart but ambitious, she would take no prisoners. She would have an opinion on everything and would tell them all to you. That night, I bid her farewell. I didn't think about what we would do that night. I tucked us both in and resolved to be okay with this decision in the morning.
And I was. I surprised myself. It was apparent to me immediately that I'd made the right choice. I'd returned to what I believed anyway. This had been my plan all along. I hadn't realized how much I'd tried to force the surrogacy to happen.
I thought of the money. I thought that we'd still have a child, we'd still love him or her just as much and with all that money we didn't spend just bringing him or her into the world, we'd be able to do so much more for him or her. Vacations. Private school. College. All the things my parents had given to me.
I thought, too, of the example adoption would set. Which was the better example to give to my children? To insist on a biological child at an extreme cost, or to form a family from disparate lives where a family was needed? I thought of our values, our desire to make the world a better place to live in. Adoption fit in so much more easily than surrogacy. To build a family based on love where no family had existed before. To teach that love to a child so he or she could take it out into the world and share it with others. That was what I wanted.
I thought of my legacy. What would it be? No, I wouldn't see my appearance repeated in children and grandchildren, but might there not be other things you pass to your descendants that are more important than biology?
Besides, it's not like I'm Jake Gyllenhaal. No guarantee of gorgeous, wildly talented babies with perfect smiles and endless charm here.
This is quite long enough, so I'll cut it short here for this time. I'll go ahead and throw this in: please understand that this is our personal journey and that our decisions and their description here are not meant to criticize anyone who might choose differently; like I said at the beginning, this is really just me sharing what's going on in my head.
I hope to update weekly on Sunday or Monday until I can eventually bring the whole story up to speed with reality. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll check back in with me next time.
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