Stay out of it

I think maybe the people who are against gay marriage don't really get what marriage is about. Also the people who think adoptive families aren't "real" families.

Maybe these are the same people who think your wedding is the best day of your life.

A wedding is one day. One. Out of your whole life. And while sex is an important part of marriage, it's really hard to spend a whole day doing it, especially when you've got jobs and kids and a lawn to mow. One of the reasons people like marriage is that when you get busy with raising kids and working and whatever other responsibilities you have, it's hard to spend time finding someone to have sex with. It's convenient to have your sex partner living in your house. (And for those who choose to reproduce, it's also handy to have the other person responsible for that kid's existence around to help with the work of parenting.) But most of your day is spent doing other things, like sleeping and going to work and changing diapers and driving your kid to school and doing laundry.

I believe it's generally better to have two people around and in charge if you're going to raise kids. Not everybody chooses to do it this way. I know some great single moms. But parenting is a job that runs 24 hours, seven days a week, and it helps to have another person around to share the work load. And I have to say, for that job, it doesn't really matter what genitals you have.

It's true that I don't want to marry a woman. But there are lots of men out there I don't want to have sex with, either, and I don't begrudge them spouses, so why would I stop two women (or two men) from marrying each other? It makes no sense.

Same goes for adoption. Giving birth is one day (hopefully less) of your life. Throw in pregnancy and I'll round it up to a year. Which is a significant amount of time, I'll grant you. But my parents have been parenting for forty-three years now, and they don't mention the part where my mom was pregnant very often. As far as my brother is concerned, I'm pretty sure his birthday was the parenting day my mom liked the least out of his whole life. My birth story comes up from time to time because it went a lot better, but mainly my mom talks about the getting me part more than the birth part. Guess what? I have a "getting her" story about Boo, too. And it's much more appropriate to tell at the dinner table.

Then there are people who say they have a special bond with people they're biologically related to. I don't really buy that one, either. I'm close with parts of my family, and not close with other parts. I'm a lot closer to my third cousins on my mom's side of the family than I am to my first cousin on my dad's side. You know why? Because I grew up with my third cousins in my life, but my dad wasn't speaking to his sister for parts of my childhood, so I didn't really grow up with my first cousin.

Which brings me back to marriage. I already knew I could love someone like family whom I wasn't related to before we adopted Boo. Because I had already done it with Hopper.

That's right: adoption and marriage are essentially the same thing. And that's the point. When you decide to make a family with someone, you do it. And then you get to go through life together, hopefully making happy times happier for each other and sharing the burdens during tough times. That's what marriage is, and that's what having kids is, except that in a marriage you try to shoulder the burdens equally, and when you have kids you start out with all the burdens and kind of ease your kid into the burdens she has to carry for herself.

To do that, you have to believe in it. You have to want to do it. That's all. Skills help. Love helps. A good sex life helps. You know what doesn't matter (beyond personal choice)? Gender. Race. Age. Health status. Cognitive ability.

So stay out of other people's choices. There is nothing more personal in this world than how someone chooses to make a family. Whether they choose to be single, to live in a commune, to get married, to have kids--as long as they're not in an abusive situation and they're freely choosing it--it's not anyone else's business.

Sad News from Russia

I'm devastated by the developments in Russia this week. One region has completely banned international adoptions, our friend Pavel recommitted to the ban on Americans adopting from Russia, and although I can't find confirmation of it, I'm told that a third orphan died in a Russian orphanage. This child was one of the 300 children who met prospective adoptive parents in December. Presumably, this child may have been saved by medical interventions available here in the US.

This morning, I thought I was getting depressed. I showed all the signs. Then I realized that I'm just sad. I'm sad for the children in Russia. I'm sad for my friend and the rest of the prospective adoptive parents caught in limbo as they fight for the children they feel in their hearts to be theirs. And I'm sad that Russia seems to be retreating from the world again, that Russians are once again being oppressed by a dictator, and that the weakest among them--the children and a picked on minority (Jews 100 years ago, homosexuals today)--are once again victims of a political tyrant.

I wanted to write more but I just can't.

Our Special Group

When Hopper and I decided to adopt, I started to do research, because that's how I roll. I looked at websites for adoption agencies and read about the differences between domestic and international adoption and talked to my cousin who had adopted from China and, once we settled on international adoption, read the State Department website for every country it's legal for Americans to adopt from.

And I found adoption.com.

I've heard that things have changed over there, but in those days (lo, these many years ago) there was a great community in the forums at adoption.com. I made a couple of internet friends with whom I'm still in touch online (Hi, Andy, Heather and Crick!) and then one day somebody noticed that everyone in the Russian adoption forum was from New Jersey.

Long story short, we started a support group. There are currently nine families in the group. Six of us were from that original group. One came along a couple of months later. One joined us a few years after that when her two boys came home, and one is a recent addition whose prospective daughter is one of the 300.*

Over the years, this has proved to be a priceless connection. Not only because all of these families have become dear friends, but because of the support the group provides. It is refreshing to be with a group of people who understand and value your family structure. I remember the first time I met these women in person, one of them asked me, "Why did you decide to adopt from Russia?" And I realized that she just wanted to know. She wasn't saying I shouldn't adopt, or should adopt from somewhere else, or should know this or that about Russia. She just wanted to know because she was also adopting from Russia. And I relaxed parts of my brain that I didn't know were stressed.

Since that time, we've been through babyhood and preschool and now most of our kids are in fourth or fifth grade. October marks the tenth anniversary of one of our kids coming home, and over the next year most of the children in the original group will mark their tenth adoption anniversaries. It's been fascinating watching this group of kids grow together. My favorite, now, are the pool parties, because Boo loves swimming so much and it's fun to watch all of the kids having epic water battles or teaching each other to do cartwheels off the diving board.

All of the kids are doing well. One, who was adopted at age five or six, has some serious psychological issues, but I imagine she was removed from her birth parents for a reason, and she has traumas other than an orphanage in her past. However, she has discovered a tremendous artistic talent which her parents have nurtured and her talent has gotten her into a specialized high school program where she is flourishing. Update: 9/23/13 This girl's mom points out to me that she knows about ten other kids in her daughter's grade who have the same psychological condition her daughter does, none of whom was adopted. And that with the help she's been able to get, her daughter has bonded with her family, learned English, worked hard at her talent--really hard--and is doing well in school. She also has normal friendships, age-appropriate levels of drama, and a good relationship with her brother who was also adopted from Russia at age 3 a few years ago.

And that is our "worst case scenario." Other than that, we've got a totally normal group of kids. Perhaps there's a higher than average rate of ADHD diagnosis in the group. A few kids are on medication for it and get special help in school. A few see therapists. Out of eleven kids we have six IEPs, including the girl I described above. We also have one child who is classified as gifted and who skipped a grade. But all of the children are in regular schools, mostly public schools. All of the children are in intact families. No disrupted adoptions. There have been no calls to the police or DYFS. No trips to respite care.

Update 9/23/13: Another mother in our group pointed out that we have three moms in the group who adopted/are adopting as singles. One of them got married after her first adoption and went back with her husband to adopt a second child from Russia. One has been a single mom for ten years. The third is the one caught in the ban. But my friend points out that some people find it hard to socialize in a mixed group of singles and couples. We never have. Sometimes we meet just moms, sometimes whole families. Whoever can come, comes, and we hang out.

I don't mean to suggest that adopting a child from an institution is easy, or that we haven't all had our moments. One of the great things about having a support group is having people you can say the horrible things to--the things you think at your worst moments--and know you won't be judged and your words won't be thrown back at you later, because your friends have all been there too. When one of us does have a problem or a worry about a child, it helps to be able to mine our collective brains which are chock full of information about post-adoption issues from attachment disorder to post-traumatic stress to every learning disability you can name. Whatever the problem, one of us has consulted a Social Worker or an adoption agency or a book or a website or a Teacher about it. Together, we know pretty much everything, and we can always come up with a plan of action.

But really, that's just that village Hillary Clinton wrote about, right? Because parenting, like life, is a series of problems you have to solve. And I'm glad I'm not in it alone.

-----------------------
*If you're not up on international adoption politics, Russia has banned adoption by Americans and about 300 children who already met their prospective parents are not able to complete their adoption processes. Sadly, my friend is one of the prospective adoptive parents who got stuck in this torturous limbo.

AAA's

I was reading an article about adoption, and in the comments, there it was: a post from an Angry Adult Adoptee (AAA.)

AAA's come in different shapes and sizes. Some are just angry at their parents. Some blame adoption for all of their problems. (My favorite of those was a 19-year-old woman who said that she heard you couldn't have a healthy relationship in your life if you didn't bond with your birthmother in the first six hours after birth, and that was why she was dating so many jerks. Hello? You're nineteen, that's why you're dating jerks!) But this guy was angry at the institution. He blamed adoptive parents for funding the adoption industry, and suggested that "infertiles" (there's a respectful word) could hold their heads higher if they used their money to help bio families stay together instead of funding adoption, which breaks families up.

I'm not trying to ignore the pain of adoption here. There is a real loss in the breakup of a family, even if the adoptee was too young to remember it. Some adoptees feel this more keenly than others. Some are interested in searching for biological relatives, others aren't. And of course any given adoptee can feel differently about adoption during different stages of life. Any adoptive parent should treat these issues with respect.

At our house, we talk about these things and check in with Boo to make sure she knows this is a topic we're not afraid to discuss. She hasn't brought up many issues of her own, so we make a point of talking from time to time about feelings that are common among adoptees--feelings of sadness around birthdays and adoption days, feeling different from other kids, wondering about biological relatives and so on--so that we keep a dialogue open. And I'm not saying we're perfect and Boo will never have issues about this, just that we're sensitive to the existence of these feelings in adoptees generally.

I also don't consider adoptive parents to be some kind of heroes. I don't expect thanks from Boo, or anyone, for being her parent. I don't think we did something selfless in adopting her, or that we're somehow better than people who parent their biological offspring. (Would they be "fertiles?")

But when I see this kind of anger, or the fake psychology that claims that all adoptees are damaged, fundamentally, by adoption, I don't know what to feel. I feel really sad for the person who's spouting, and hope he'll resolve his issues soon. It just feels so misplaced and unproductive. It's one thing to spend time processing your loss, but when it becomes anger of this magnitude, you have a choice to make. You can dwell on the biological family you lost, or you can think about the adoptive family who worked really hard to have you in their lives.

There has never in the history of law been an unplanned adoption.

It can't happen. As Dan Savage says, nobody wakes up the morning after a drunken escapade to find adoption paperwork completed and filed. And not only that, in most cases adoptive parents have to meet the child they're adopting before they can complete the adoption. So if you're parents adopted you, they didn't just want a child, they wanted you. In our case, we met Boo, then flew back across the Atlantic, returned to our childless home and our jobs (in my case, a job I was giving up to stay home with Boo) and then flew back to Russia because we wanted her so badly.

That's love, baby. And it's pretty awesome.

I'm not saying all adoptive parents are good parents: they're not. If your parents abused you, physically or emotionally, by all means cut them out of your life if you think that's the healthiest decision for you. But for everyone else, remember that your parents chose you, and that's pretty special. No, they didn't choose you like one chooses a puppy at a shelter, but they could have said no. They could have decided not to adopt you or not to adopt at all. Instead, they chose you. Don't hate them for it.

It's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it.

This guy is awesome. Let's just get that out of the way.

But reading about a manly-man loving his gender-creative son reminded me of another thing we talk about in the adoption community that maybe everyone should talk about more.

Let me back up a step.

When you're considering adoption, you're presented with lists of questions to consider to help you decide whether or not adoption is right for you. And that's a good thing. But when I was reading them, I kept wondering why they were for adoptive parents.

For example: Is it important to parent a child who looks and acts like me and/or my partner?

That's something we should really all get over before we become parents. Because if you have a biological child, she won't necessarily look or act the way you think she will. Now, sure, if you adopt transracially the appearance differences might be startlingly obvious to all who see you, and you have to be prepared to handle the comments and questions that come with that decision. But what if your biological child is born with Down's Syndrome, or is an albino, or has no legs? I once met Puerto Rican albino twins. You think that mom was expecting to have blond haired, blue-eyed identical twins?! But there they were, at a wedding I attended, salsa dancing with the best of them.

And then there's Matt Duron. He probably wasn't expecting to parent a gender-creative son. When he had dreams of having children someday, when he first found out he was having a second son, his daydreams were probably not about helping him paint his nails. But that's the son he has.

And we all have to parent the kid(s) we have. Not the kid we planned on. Not the kid we hoped for. Not the kid's older brother or sister. Not the kid we wanted to be. Not the kid we expected. Not even the kid we had last week or last month or last year.

You've got to look, really look, at the kid in front of you. And really listen to what she's saying. You've got to figure out what your child needs right now and find a way to give it to her. That's the job.

That's why it's so damned hard. We have our own problems, and spending a lot of energy figuring out who your child is and what she needs is tiring.  And sometimes our kids make us face the things we hate about ourselves, either because they bump up against them, or because they share them. (And sharing the qualities we hate about ourselves is the most frustrating thing a child can do, isn't it?)

But what I admire about Matt Duron isn't that he's able to love a child who is likely gay and/or transgender. There are a lot of really admirable and lovable gay and transgender adults out there, and they were probably pretty darned lovable kids. What I admire is that he sees his kid for who he is and provides what he needs, even when it's not the most comfortable thing for Matt. (And for those who didn't click through to the article, let me just be clear that what makes Matt uncomfortable is when his son tries to edit himself to avoid teasing.) And that's what we could all do better at parents.

So yeah, I guess most adoptive parents didn't plan things that way. Or a lot of us, anyway. So we're not parenting the children we thought we'd be parenting. But my point is, neither are biological parents. Nobody gets the child they wish for. They get a real kid, who looks like herself and acts like herself and makes her own mistakes. And that's hard for many of us to accept. But we have to parent the kid we have.

That's the job.

Russia is pissing me off again

The most horrible thing has happened to a child who was born in Russia.

He wasn't exactly adopted, because it appears that a "gay" couple (it will become evident why I doubt their homosexuality in a bit) hired a Russian woman to be their surrogate. In the US, surrogacy does not involve adoption, as far as I know. In any case, the men-who-claim-to-be-a-gay-couple sexually abused their son in a whole variety of horrifying ways, which is an inexcusable crime and these men deserve to not only lose their son forever but also to rot in jail and then hell. (You know, if there is an afterlife, which there isn't but at moments like these I like to imagine one because there really is no way these men could suffer enough in one human lifetime.)

Russia has no jurisdiction in this case because the child in question was an American citizen at the time the crimes were discovered, the men involved were an American and an Australian, and the crimes happened in France, Germany, the US and New Zealand (I think. News reports are not consistent.) The American Judge who did have jurisdiction sentenced the men to 40 years in prison. The boy is now living with someone else, either a relative or another family (again, news reports are inconsistent.)

But here's why I'm pissed at Russia. If you have the stomach for it, read this story from an Australian news source, and then this one from Russia. For those who are easily sickened, I'll sum up: The Australian story gives us some details including the names of the convicted criminals, what happened, and what is going to happen now. The Russian story features our old friend Pavel Ashtakov, who claims the boy was purchased from his mother, that Americans sexually assault children all the time, and that the solution to the problem is to stop international adoption.

I'm not exaggerating. At all. He seriously said those things, and this guy is a major influence in Russian politics AND the principal man in charge of deciding what happens to the 120,000 children currently living in Russian orphanages.

This is the same country that just made it illegal to be gay in public. Because, you know, kids won't grow up to be gay if they don't see gay people holding hands on the street and there are no Russian pedophiles.

And they gave away my friend's kid this week in defiance of a request from the European Court that no action be taken until they heard my friend's case. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, my friend is devastated and I feel her pain. It's real pain, and Pavel can go to hell for causing it. (Note the above disclaimer about hell.) But I don't think Pavel was ever going to let those 300 kids go, and that being the case, it's better for the little girl to be in a family than in an orphanage, and hopefully my friend will be able to move on now and find a child she can adopt. I hate myself for feeling that way, because it feels like I'm letting my friend down, but this is just a hateful, horrible situation and there's no way to feel good about it.

I may even have to boycott the Olympics next winter, which would be really hard for me because I am a total Olympic freak, but that country has gotten completely bonkers and I'm afraid for the safety of gay Olympians, and afraid to seem to be endorsing anything Russia is up to right now. The human rights violations are just sickening and I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it.

Update 7/1/13:

I got this comment on Facebook, and thought I'd post it here for everyone to read:

Janine Beth Howard Gorell Of course Pavlov never mentions that orphans "graduating" from orphanages are REALLY ripe pickings for exploitation. And there are a lot more of those with adoption being unilaterally closed.

Running With Scissors

Boo is going away to camp, and I'm sad. Happy for her, of course, but I'll miss her. So I've begun to strategize about how I'll cope, and it reminded me of the time before Boo, when we were waiting.

In December of last year, Russia passed a law that said Americans can't adopt Russian children. Because of that law, about 300 families are stuck--waiting and hoping that they will be able to adopt the children they already met. They're doing all they can to make that happen through legal and diplomatic channels, but in the mean time, they're waiting.

And of course, lots of other families are waiting, too, for various adoption processes around the world to play out so they can bring their children home.

This is my advice to first time parents who are waiting:

Celebrate.

Prospective adoptive mothers have an advantage over pregnant women. We can eat what we want, drink what we want, and tie our own shoes. So go do all the things you won't be able to do when you have a child watching your every move and looking to you to be an example.

Swear loudly.

Walk around your house naked.

Ride a shopping cart down a hill in a parking lot.

Go out spontaneously and stay out late.

Get drunk.

Dress inappropriately.

Blast loud music in the middle of the night.

Watch the news.

Eat in front of the TV on a school night.

Play video games for hours.

Go to a fancy restaurant or a bar or an R rated movie.

Run with scissors.

I know waiting can be agony. And I appreciate that our wait was nothing compared to what many people go through, especially if you're one of the 300 stuck families. But it's important to spend some time each day enjoying now. Parenthood changes you forever, and this is the last bit of pre-parenthood you'll ever get. Enjoy it. You don't know how long it will last. Do what you can to achieve your goal, and keep your eyes on the prize, but when you start feeling down, go do something you enjoy that you won't be able to do once you're a parent. It helps.

There's going to be a whole lot of swearing and running with scissors at our house this week.

Adoption Day

Monday was our Adoption Day.

For those of you who aren't part of the Adoption community, Adoption Day is our anniversary. I've heard other families refer to it as Gotcha Day, Airplane Day, or Family Day, but it amounts to the same thing: a celebration of the day we became a family.

We have traditions in our family.

We eat vanilla fudge twirl ice cream. It symbolizes our family: we're stuck together forever, and you can't get us apart, and while you can still see the differences among us, we're better because we're together, just like the chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

While we eat, I tell this story:

Once upon a time, Daddy and I decided that we needed more love in our lives, so we went out and adopted a dog.

[Boo: What?!]

Yes, we adopted Darwin (of Blessed memory,) but that didn't do it, so we decided we should have a baby. We thought about all the different ways to have a family. Some people grow their babies in the mommy's tummy. Some find their babies in America, but we were looking for one special baby, and we didn't think we'd find her either of those ways.

We were looking for a special baby who would grow up to love music and animals and swimming. She'd be smart and funny and stubborn as a mule, and sometimes waiting for things would be hard for her, but we'd love her forever and her name would be Boo.

So we started our search. We asked advice from our cousins who had adopted before us. We checked out every adoption agency we could find. And finally we met a woman named Mrs. Mason. Mrs. Mason had met a baby in St. Petersburg, Russia who she thought might be the right Boo for us, so we got on a plane to go check.

We met the baby and she was just right, so we asked her if she wanted to come home with us and be our Boo and I would be her Mama and Hopper would be her Dad. And she said, "Booma!" Because she wanted to be Boo and she wanted me to be her Ma.

So we signed the paper saying we wanted to adopt her and we said goodbye and went home, and a few weeks later we came back and asked the Judge if we could be Boo's forever family.

And the Judge said yes, and that was on this day, nine years ago.

And now you're stuck with us.

Now, finish your ice cream and go to bed.

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl

That's the title of this week's Radiolab podcast. Got that?

Adoptive Couple

v.

Baby Girl

It's a court case. A case that's going to be decided soon by the Supreme Court, in fact, and it completely blows my mind. You can read background on the case here, but this is the summary.

A couple named Capobianco adopted a baby girl via an open adoption. The birth mother chose them, they developed a relationship with her, were present when she gave birth, and even cut the umbilical cord. The birth father signed away his rights, and the Capobianco's adopted the baby and named her Veronica.

When Veronica was two years old, the Court decided that Veronica should live with her birth father, Dusten Brown, because he is a member of the Cherokee Nation and a law called the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) says that Indian children should live with Indian parents whenever possible.

Now, the Capobiancos are going to argue at the Supreme Court that ICWA shouldn't apply in this case, and possibly that it's unconstitutional.

If you don't know anything about ICWA, you should really read the article I linked to above and listen to the podcast. There are a lot of details that are relevant to this case, namely that before ICWA, up to a third of Indian children were routinely taken from their parents and tribes and raised by white adoptive parents. Also, Veronica's birth father now claims that he never intended to sign away his rights to Veronica.

There are all kinds of possible implications of the Supreme Court case for American Indians. Big ones. But that's not what I'm writing about today, so I'm going to just acknowledge that the case is important for many reasons and move on. Here's what interests me:

If the Capobiancos are successful at the Supreme Court, their case will go back to a local court and the Judge there will need to decide what's best for Veronica now.

Veronica lived with her adoptive parents for two years, and by the time this case gets back to a local court (if it does) she will have been living with her birth father and stepmother for about the same length of time. It will be someone's responsibility to decide whether or not to uproot this little girl again.

I can't even.

I believe that the ICWA is a good thing, on balance. It's not okay to take children away from their parents unless their safety is in jeopardy. I can understand why it is in the Cherokee Tribe's interest that Cherokee children should be placed with a Cherokee family when adoption is necessary.

But this kid was placed by her birthmother with a family that she chose. They had an ongoing relationship with her and she had a relationship with Veronica. The fact that Brown is Cherokee didn't come up at all in the original adoption proceedings. The article I linked to says that Veronica was "reunited" with her birth father by the court. She wasn't. You can't be reunited with someone you've never met. She was taken from the only parents she had ever known by a stranger. Yes, this stranger shared 50% of her DNA, but so what? A two year old cannot understand that.

Dusten Brown was incredibly selfish in suing for custody of Veronica in the first place. Was he in agony when he found out that he had signed away his custody of Veronica? Possibly. He certainly sounds sincere on Radiolab. But it is not Veronica's responsibility to resolve her father's pain. She is an innocent child. She must have been terrified when Brown came and took her away from her parents. I can't even comprehend what that would be like for a two year old.

And now, she likely doesn't remember the Capobiancos, and they are fighting to take her away from Dusten Brown.

The selfishness of the adults in this case overwhelms me. We do not have a right, as parents, to our children. We have a responsibility to protect our children and to keep them safe from harm. That means finding a situation in which the child will experience as little trauma as possible, hopefully none.

Brown could have tried to arrange an open adoption agreement with the Capobiancos. He could possibly have negotiated a shared custody agreement of some kind--perhaps Veronica could have spent summers on the Reservation to learn about her Cherokee heritage. I don't know what might have been, had the adults in this situation been humane and thought of Veronica's best interests first. Why hasn't Veronica seen the Capobiancos in the past sixteen months? That question is not addressed in the Radiolab report. The obvious assumption is that Brown does not want them to see her. Why would he do that to a child he claims to love? First, take her away from her parents and then cut her off from them? What must Veronica have thought, and been too young to express? And why do we think biology trumps everything?

This whole case upsets me enormously. I can't see a good solution. I can't tell you what would be best for Veronica now. I just feel so sad for her.

Garbage

A friend of mine just made a forced adoption joke. This friend is an improv actor who frequently uses Twitter and Facebook as a way to throw out random thoughts he has to test reaction, and the joke was a completely unrealistic one about talking ducks. I'm not going to hold this against him, but it did annoy me.

There's a lot of crap about adoption in our culture--baggage about wicked stepmothers, stories about adopted kids whose "real" heritage comes to light in adulthood, and the general idea that biological parents are always better than adopted parents.

I'm not suggesting for a minute that children should routinely be taken from their birth parents, and I've learned a lot since meeting Boo about how much of a child's personality is innate from birth. But it's also a fact that all this baggage in our culture is damaging for adopted kids. It's not good for a kid to grow up believing that her family is somehow second best, that her parents would have preferred to raise another kid instead of her, or that her biological family rejected her. It's also not healthy to live your whole life thinking that there's somewhere out there where you would fit in perfectly and everything that confuses you about yourself would suddenly make sense if you could only meet those people you were tragically separated from when you were too young to do anything about it.

Adoption happens for so many reasons. Any reason you can imagine that birth parents (and extended families) couldn't raise a child has happened, from death to youth to mental illness, and many, many scenarios exist that you or I have not imagined. Each case is complex. One doesn't place a child for adoption lightly. Adopted children wonder about this ALL THE TIME. It's one of those questions that can hover under the surface your whole life, becoming more important at times and less important at others, but always there. Most adoptive parents these days will share what details they have with their children (hopefully in age-appropriate ways and doses) and many adoptive children in America know their birth parents and can ask questions. But in many other cases we just don't know and will probably never know why our children were placed for adoption.

Because of that, the idea that a child could be forcibly taken from a parent and placed for adoption is terrifying to adopted kids, and to adopted parents, for that matter. I would hate to think that I was complicit in a crime like that. What kind of sick people would knowingly adopt a child under those circumstances?

As I think about it, I think that it would be even more terrifying for Boo to think that she could be taken from us. After all, we're the only parents she remembers. This is the only real home she's ever had, and our extended family is the only family she has ever gotten to know. I guess this means forced adoption jokes just aren't funny because they terrify all children, adopted or not.

Before you go to drop that next adoption joke, to refer to someone's "real parents" or the way you love your friend so much she's really your "adopted sister," or joke about your parents treating you badly because you must be adopted, think about the ideas you're spreading. Families are made by love and by law. Biology is important, but it isn't what makes you a good parent, and it isn't what makes you love your relatives. Boo is just as stuck with me and Hopper as she would be if she was born to us. Her adolescence will be confusing because adolescence is confusing, not because she was separated from her birth family.

Let's just get over this crap, okay?

The best way

Hopper went out tonight, so I couldn't watch The Guild. As I often do when Hopper goes out and I'm spending an evening alone (since Boo is in bed,) I went on YouTube and entered "Dan Savage." I found this conversation about adoption, which is excellent if you've got an hour to kill and want to learn about adoption.

Many things they talked about were familiar to me, but what inspired me to write tonight is the notion they mentioned that many people assume adoption is "second best" or "a last resort."

It's not.

Oh, sure, there are many, many people who come to adoption because they have tried every possible treatment for infertility and it didn't work. I'm not denying that.

But if you were to ask around (and you shouldn't--it's none of your business) you'd find a surprising number of people who, like me and Hopper, just wanted to adopt.

We wanted to adopt for many reasons. Personally, I could never understand why anyone would endure infertility treatments. I understand more now, but when I first learned about the idea, I was somewhere between twelve and fourteen and watching a story unfold on a soap opera. A couple was trying everything to conceive, and it made no sense to me. I simply couldn't understand why, with so many children in the world, anyone would go to extremes to get pregnant. I decided then and there that I never would.

And then in college and during my twenties, I started to think about the state of the world, and the number of people on this planet, and I wondered why I should ever want to bring another person into it.  (I'm going to leave my personal feelings about pregnancy out of this, because that's enough for another post, or maybe a book.) I simply don't understand why a biological child would be preferable to any other child--why anyone would think of adoption as "second best."

Of course I'm able to reason out why people would feel that way, but it doesn't resonate with me. To me, what makes a family is love and a shared story. If those things aren't there, then it doesn't matter how many genes you have in common--you're not really family. And if they are there, you're family forever, genes or no genes. I didn't figure out that my Uncle Phil wasn't actually a relative until I was about nine or ten, and then later on, I realized that he's more a relative to me than some of my biological relatives are, which is why my parents told me to call him "Uncle" in the first place.

I guess that's why I have so much faith in my marriage--Hopper and Boo and I are a family, so divorce isn't really an option for us, any more than I could divorce my brother. Yes, there are circumstances under which I'd throw my brother out of my life, but they are few and kind of hard to imagine. So the same goes for Hopper. Whatever happens to challenge our marriage, we'll just have to work it out. Unless he starts beating me up or something, he's stuck with me.

It's also why I don't really understand people who search for their birthparents relentlessly. I understand the basic impulse--to find out more about oneself, one's history, or a medical problem. And I love meeting family members I never knew before. A couple of years ago we were reunited with a branch of the family I had never met before. It turned out I had a cousin who lives about a mile from us who has two internationally adopted children about Boo's age. That was really cool, and I enjoy getting to know that branch of my family. If an adult adoptee finds her birth family and makes a connection like that, great! More people to love is always awesome. But I don't understand the need to search for people who don't want to be found. In my book, people who don't want me around just don't matter. [Update: 4/4/13 I am specifically referring here to birth families who don't want to be found or who reject the biological relative once contacted. I do not mean to suggest that birthmothers relinquish their children because they don't want them around. Placing your child for adoption when you cannot care for him or her is possibly the most loving act a parent can perform, and I would never want to belittle that or make adoptees feel like they were rejected at birth.]

All of this is really opinionated, and I want to make clear that I'm not judging other people's decisions and life choices. I'm just giving my perspective, and talking about what resonates with me and what doesn't. I have empathy for someone who wants to conceive and can't, or wants to make a connection with a birth family and can't, or feels the need to divorce. Putting myself in their shoes, I can understand what they feel and why they make the choices they do. I've had dear friends in all three of these situations and I support the decisions they've made because those are their decisions. But they're not the decisions I would make, and in this post, I'm only trying to talk about me and my feelings.

To me, adoption isn't second best. It's just another way to make a family. There are lots of ways to make families, and they're all good. (Well, you know--the legal ones. I'm not advocating kidnapping or rape or incest or whatever other horrible ways there are that families come to be.) For us, international adoption was the right way. I always tell Boo, "You're the best kid in the world. We know--we checked." And it's true. She's the best kid in the world for us. Our family just wouldn't be the same if we had come together any other way. For us, adoption wasn't second best, it was (and is) just right.

So please don't feel sorry for adoptive families you may know. And if you are an adoptive parent, make sure you express to your child that your family is just right the way it is, no matter what you thought would be the way you'd make your family when you started. Looking back, could you really imagine it any other way? Adoption isn't better or worse, it's just different. And different is cool.

Protesters

Every month I go to a meeting at Planned Parenthood. It's part of my job. I work on a research project that deals with People Living with HIV/AIDS, and I have to report monthly to the Ryan White Part A Steering Committee, who funds our study. The Committee has its meetings at a Planned Parenthood office because it is centrally located and has a nice meeting room that is big enough.

Today, for the first time, there were abortion protesters outside.

The first time I went to a meeting at Planned Parenthood I wondered whether I would see protesters, but it's been a year and I'd never seen any, so it was a bit surprising. I wasn't scared because there were only a few of them and because of the way the building is situated, they can't come near the door. Mostly, they looked pathetic, standing on the other side of a snow bank holding their signs.

Signs that said, "Choose adoption, not abortion."

That made me mad. I was tempted to approach the protesters and ask them not to protest in my name. But then I started thinking about the birthmothers I've known and I realized how really stupid that sign is.

Anti-choice people like to bring out women who were traumatized by abortion all the time, but they never talk about birthmothers.

In adoption, we speak of the triad. Every adoption consists of three parties: the child, the birthparent(s) and the adoptive parent(s). The general public (adoption protesters included) likes to think of the pretty part of the triad: the happy adoptive parents raising the grateful child. When people do think of the birthparents (which isn't often) they like to think of them as unlucky teens who get a fresh start now that they are absolved of parenting responsibilities. Sometimes we talk about adult adoptees who search for their biological families and face mystery or rejection or bad news, but we don't worry about them too much because after all, they've got parents.

When we were in process with Boo (that's an adoption term: "in process." It means we were going through the process of adoption) I was very active on an online support group for adoption. This support group was for people in all parts of the triad, and although there wasn't a whole lot of mixing, I got to know a few birthmothers. Now, I realize that these were birthmothers who chose to join an online support group, so they aren't a representative sample of all birthmothers, but I'm not trying to generalize. Many women choose adoption and go on to live happy, productive lives. Most probably think about their children from time to time (or every day) and wonder how they are, and where they are, and feel sad as we all do about people who are no longer in our lives, but are able to resolve their feelings and move on in a healthy way.

But some do not. Some birthmothers feel a connection to the children they have placed for adoption that is overwhelming. When I was active on this website, one birthmother killed herself because her child's adoptive parents would not let her see the child even though they had a written agreement that said their adoption would be open and she would have a relationship with the child.

She died. Not from complications during her pregnancy (which can happen) or domestic violence (which happens to pregnant women too) or poverty (which happens all too often.) She died because she chose adoption and she couldn't handle the reality of it. And because the law does not give birth parents any rights. Even with a written adoption agreement, this woman had no legal recourse when her child's parents decided to change the rules.

So when I see people suggesting that adoption is a good alternative to abortion, I think, "Maybe. For some." I don't know if the woman I knew would still be alive if she had chosen abortion. There's no way to know. But every time I think about abortion rights, I imagine myself making my own choice. I can't imagine having an abortion. I can't imagine placing a child for adoption. If raising a child was not an option (as it wasn't say, when I was a teenager) then I would find myself in an impossible place with three terrible options. I would have to choose one of those options, though, and live with that choice.

That's why I can't stand these people blithely suggesting that they know which choice is better. A triad is a complicated place to live, and shouldn't be entered lightly. All three corners can be painful at times. So stay out of women's bodies and women's choices and leave adoption out of your argument.

What's wrong with Pavel now?

So our friend Pavel is claiming that adoption is an American plot to take the oil from Siberia. This is not really a surprise--well, the level of crazy is, but not the intent behind it--because Astakhov has been vehemently against intercountry adoption his entire career. But I'm gratified to hear that he may not succeed.

Some of the American families who were in process when the ban was enacted have filed suit in the European Court of Human Rights. I heard a rumor today that the local courts in St. Petersburg have removed all of the children previously referred to American families from the list of children available for adoption. If that is true, and if other regions follow suit, then Pavel's plan to place all of the children with Russian families will at least have to be put on hold.

I really do wonder what the Russian government is hoping to achieve with this law. Perhaps they just feel ashamed that Russia has so many children available for adoption. Maybe they are living with a Cold War mentality, and the idea that Americans can offer a better life to these children just galls them.

Honestly, I hope that there is some explanation that involves corruption or manipulation, because if they really believe the garbage they are spouting, then they are insane.

I never added up the cost of our adoption because I don't want to think about it. As far as I'm concerned, we had the money, it's gone now, and the important thing is that Boo is part of our family. The money we've spent on Boo since her arrival would I'm sure come to an astounding total, were I to add it up. Just from a financial perspective, the notion that we could have adopted Boo for any reason other than parenting her is fundamentally nonsensical. And that's just the financial perspective.

Of course I am insulted by Astakhov's accusations. I'm also afraid that Boo will hear them and have to process that information--no child should hear accusations like that. But mostly I find it shocking that an adult who is in a position of power could spout utter nonsense like that and keep his job.

We're not immune--we have birthers and the Tea Party and Sarah Palin. But for us, that's part of diversity. In the Russian government, being crazy seems to be part of the dictatorship.

Hopefully, the European Court of Human Rights will come to a decision swiftly and Russia will abide by it. At least the local courts seem to be on the side of the children. Hopefully the central government will come around.

My thoughts are with all the families and especially the children who are stuck because of this outrageous law.

Online Friends

I have plenty of friends that I made the regular way--at school, at work, in the neighborhood, through Hopper, through Boo--but I also have online friends, and I'm old enough that I find this a bit odd.

There are two kinds of online friends. I have a few--readers of this blog, even--whom I've never met in person. That's the strangest, I think--people to whom I feel very close, although I have no real proof that they are who they say they are. But it's not what I want to write about today.

Today I'm writing about my Adoption Friends.

When we were in process (waiting for Boo) I became very active on a popular adoption chat-room that I won't name here because nobody I know likes it anymore. At some point, someone on the Russian Adoption board noticed that almost everyone commenting there was from New Jersey. A meet-up was scheduled, and four brave souls met at a mall (of course) for lunch and became fast friends. I thought that was way too weird, so I didn't go, but then they reported having a great time, and invited us all to another meet-up at Skiboo's house.

So I went.

It was a revelation to meet people involved in the same stressful, life-altering process I was going through. It was so relaxing to be able to talk about adoption without having to explain myself first. These people knew all the terms, how the process worked, and what it was like to have your life's dreams in someone else's hands. Also, I liked them.

And so, I kept going to meet-ups, and the meet-ups became baby showers, and birthday parties, and eventually moms' nights out and First Communions and Bat Mitzvahs. Now, I can't imagine life without these women (and their families) in my life, and somehow these strangers from the internet have become old friends with whom I've shared many of life's ups and downs: adoptions, marriage, deaths, natural disasters, emergencies, joblessness, families growing and shrinking.

These days we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like, but we still keep in touch on the internet, and when we do get together, it's the way old friends do--we pick up where we left off, and catch each other up on the trivial things or personal things that don't make it to Facebook. And then we have fun.

Russia vs. USA

I was just reading this article (Here a Gun, There a Gun, Everywhere a Gun by Paul Waldman) which is very interesting and worth your time, and it got me thinking.

But not about gun control.

It got me thinking about the differences between the US and Russia, and the comment made by Miss Muffett on my blog yesterday. Miss Muffett proposes a number of alternate explanations for the Russian Adoption Ban in her post--explanations which come from the Russian media, yes, but which are in direct contrast to what the Russian government has been saying since the ban passed. (The Russian government has consistently said that the Adoption Ban is a response to the Magnitsky act.)

I responded to Miss Muffett's arguments in a comment last night, which you can read by following the link above, but what I want to talk about today is the American idea of freedom--an idea that makes little sense to Russians.

When I see someone asking the questions Miss Muffett asks--why doesn't the US track Russian adoptees better? Why doesn't the US give Russian officials access to adoptive families accused of abuse? Why doesn't the US close boarding schools that are really dumping grounds for adoptees that nobody wants? (This last is an allegation for which I have found no evidence, but for the sake of argument, let's suppose it's true)--I realize that the person asking doesn't really understand the US and how we work.

We can't track Russian adoptees better because we don't track our citizens. This is less true in the age of the Patriot Act, but it's still essentially true, especially of children. Yes, the FBI now has my fingerprints on file (this is part of the international adoption process) but unless I commit a crime, or apply for a job in a school or with the police, my fingerprints aren't checked, so those fingerprints do not allow the FBI to track me.

As for the case in Florida that Miss Muffett references, in which a couple was arrested for alleged abuse, and then the charges were dismissed in court, because the charges were dropped, the US Government does not have the right to enter that person's house. They gave the family's phone number to the Russian officials, but unless the parents consent, nobody can go into that house.

Finally, there is a boarding school in Montana that advertises itself as a place that treats children with post-adoptive stress disorders. It is a Christian boarding school that has no therapy license. Miss Muffett contends that people dump their adopted children there when they can't handle them, and while I can't find any evidence to support that theory, it may well be true. I am no friend of mysterious Christian schools that seem to be indoctrinating children. However, it is a parent's right to send their children to boarding school, and the US Government can't do anything about it unless there are allegations of abuse at the school.

All of these things are protected rights in the US, and while I am ashamed to hear that some people do not complete their post-adoption reports to Russia, horrified to think that people could abuse their children and retain custody, and shocked at the notion that anyone would send an elementary school-aged child to boarding school, the alternative is a country that doesn't protect individual rights, and I value the rights of individuals, so I accept the trade-off.

A big part of the miscommunication that goes on between Russia and the US has to do with the differences in our cultures. We start from different assumptions about how the world works, and that can make negotiation difficult. Russia has one set of assumptions about how a government takes care of its children--when we adopted Boo, we had to notify the local police that she was no longer residing at the baby home and get a paper that said we had permission to relocate her, because the police are responsible for keeping track of who lives in their district, even babies. After centuries of totalitarian rule, Russians are used to the idea that government officials can enter their houses at any time. And a school that the government of Russia doesn't like is closed. But that is not our way.

Until both sides understand each other a little better, these misunderstandings will continue.

Let's do the math on Russian adoption

I haven't posted about Russian adoption in a while but I've been thinking about it daily, and following all the news. A couple of things have me wondering, so I'm going to do the math.

Let me say up front that most of the numbers I'll be using are widely documented and easy to check on Google, so I'm not going to cite them unless I think I'm using something hard to document or controversial.

We keep hearing that nineteen Russian children have died after being adopted and taken home to America. I wondered how that stacked up to the general population. Fortunately, Slate.com published this article, which explains that those 19 deaths add up to about 1.5 deaths per hundred thousand children per year, whereas the national average is 2.2 deaths per hundred thousand children per year. So the death rate for children adopted from Russia is lower than the expected rate.

Also, I've been hearing Pavel Astakhov, the Children's Ombudsman, quote a variety of numbers. First he said there were 46 adoptions in process in Russia, then 52, and now 150.

I should say that I feel progress has been made. Today, Astakhov said that families who have been through court already will be allowed to take their children home when their 30-day waiting periods end. And he's talking about families in all stages of adoption, and says he's getting reports from around the country to find out how many children there are in process. This makes much more sense than his original number of 46. After all, there are 87 regions in Russia. It's a big country. And most of the adoption records are kept by hand, so it would take a while to get the numbers. It's plausible.

But I'm wondering if 150 is close to the right number. So here comes the math:

There were 906 children adopted from Russia to the US last year. Assuming that number is fairly consistent, then that means

906/12=75.5

So about 75 children per month were adopted from Russia last year. (I'm choosing to round down so as to give Astakhov the benefit of the doubt wherever possible.)

It takes at a minimum, 2 months from the time of referral to the time a child comes home. The referral happens on the first trip, then it's about a month until court and then the 30 day waiting period. So

75 children per month x 2 months = 150

It sounds like Pavel's math is checking out. He also mentioned another dozen or so families who had submitted applications but not yet received referrals.

I like the sound of this. It seems like Russia is actually thinking this process through, instead of slamming the door like they were in December. So hopefully my friend and the rest of the people waiting for children to come home will be able to bring their children home soon.

Now, there are in reality probably more than 150 people waiting, because some regions of Russia can take much longer than two months to complete an adoption, but I would estimate (with my limited knowledge) that the actual number is somewhere between 150 and 200. But I'm glad that Russia's estimates are now in the right ballpark.

Of course, the next step is to repeal this law so that international adoptions of Russian children can continue until they are no longer needed. But at least this first step seems to be in the right direction.

The unseen tragedy of the Russian adoption ban

Pavel Astakhov, Russia's Child Rights Commisioner, was quoted in this New York Times article as saying, “The children who have been chosen by foreign American parents — we know of 46 children who were seen, whose paperwork was processed, who came in the sights of American agencies,” Mr. Astakhov said in his statement. “They will not be able to go to America, to those who wanted to see them as their adopted children. There is no need to go out and make a tragedy out of it.”

He's right, I suppose. As we all learned from Dirty Dancing, a tragedy is twenty men trapped in a mine, or monks burning themselves in protest. These children are probably not going to die as a direct result of this decision. So in that sense, it's not a tragedy. 

But that is a very limited interpretation. 

Anyone who has read the post I wrote yesterday will know what Hopper and I went through when we adopted Boo. Intercountry adoption is not something to be taken lightly or done on a whim. The people who are currently in process (somewhere between 46 and 250 families) have been through a lot to get where they are. I grieve for those families. But I cannot speak for them.

But what about the children who are already here? 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by American families since 1992. On Friday, I told Boo that Russia has made it illegal for Americans to adopt Russian children. In the same breath, I assured her that this will have no effect on us: she is safe. We are a family. Nobody can change that. But she keeps asking me, "Why?" 

Boo has no memory of Russia because she was 8 months old when we adopted her. She has photos of our trip, guide books with pictures, and a book I made her about our adoption journey, but no memories of her own. Yet she is intensely proud that she was born in Russia. Her schoolmates know that fact about her. She wrote a report in first grade about Russia, and proudly brought in artifacts that we have in our home. When she had to bring a piece of art to school that hangs in our house, she chose a watercolor painting of the famous statue of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg. And she dreams of one day visiting Russia so that she can see it herself.

But that was before.

Now, Boo is hurting. She feels, I think, that our family has been seen as wanting. Her happiness, her sense of safety, her feeling of belonging in America has been judged as wrong by the Russian government. And they wish to deny those things to future children. This makes no more sense to a nine-year-old than it does to her mother.  

When I first heard that this law was pending, it was last Tuesday. It was shocking because I didn't hear of it from an adoption contact, but from a friend living in Moscow. I knew, because of that, that this wasn't a rumor like so many I have heard over the years. It was true. It was particularly painful because I have a friend who was scheduled to meet her baby the following Monday. And it was agonizing because only four days had passed since the massacre at Newtown, CT. 

As the day progressed, I read as much as I could find about the pending legislation. I spoke with my friend who was desperately trying to find out whether her adoption would continue (at that time, it seemed that it would, so my friend traveled to Russia and met a little girl whom she may now not be permitted to adopt.) And as the day progressed, I began to feel weak. While I was teaching that afternoon, a headache began. By the time I got home, it was a full-blown migraine. I vomited the pain and the anger most of that evening and had to take the following day off from work to recover.

I didn't get the connection until this week when I thought back on it. This law is punishment for the death of Dima Yakovlev, who died when his father accidentally left him in a car all day. The father in that case had a nervous breakdown when he realized what he had done. It was a tragic mistake, but it was a mistake, and this father has suffered greatly for it. Jail, a conviction, would have done nothing to add to his suffering. It would have done nothing to protect children: this man will not adopt again. This man will grieve until the day he dies, just as the parents in Newtown will. 

But because of his tragic mistake, now thousands of other children will suffer. Some will die in Russian orphanages. Many will lose out on life-saving, and certainly life-altering, therapies that are available in the US. Most will be cast out of the orphanages when they turn 16 to an uncertain future with no support and little education.

That, I think, is why I became physically ill from hearing this news. It felt like a punishment for being a victim. Every parent's greatest fear is that a child will die. There is nothing worse anyone can imagine than losing a child. But when you are an adopted parent, there is an added fear. If I lose my child, I will be judged. I will never be given another. To have that punishment visited not only on the neglectful parents, the violent parents, but on parents who have not even begun to parent, and to have that punishment visited on Americans just days after twenty of our precious children were murdered in cold blood was too much for me to handle. 

You see no tragedy, Mr. Astakhov, but I see many tragedies. The tragedy of loss that would-be parents will suffer over the next few months if your scheme is allowed to stand. The tragedy of lost potential among the thousands of Russian children who will be stranded in your inadequate orphanage system. And the loss of pride in their country of origin among the 60,000 Russian orphans who have already become Americans. 

Is that not a tragedy too, Mr. Astakhov?

Becoming our baby

Even before Hopper and I were engaged, I told him I wanted to adopt a child. Becoming a parent was important to me, even essential to my identity, but I never felt that biological relationship was an important part of the equation. He needed to know that if we were going to get serious.

Really, I had decided on adoption when I was fourteen. A storyline on a soap opera I enjoyed featured a couple who went to the ends of the earth to conceive a child. Even at that age, I couldn't relate to their decision. Even at that age, I knew I'd be a mother.

So after we were married long enough, when Hopper finally said he was ready too, our adoption journey began.

Being me, I researched. I read about every country on the State Department database. (I just tried to count the countries on the State Department database. I stopped at 40. I was still in the C's.) I joined an online support group. I tried (and failed) to create an in-person support group. I spoke to relatives who had adopted. I went to a conference. I researched.

We narrowed it down. Only countries where we have ancestry or relatives. (That limits us to the northern hemisphere.) Only countries with more than 1000 adoptions per year. (China, or Russia?) I don't want adoption to be the center of our family. We don't want that to be the first thing other people see when they meet us. We would adopt from Russia.

When the time came to make the first thoroughly-researched phone call to start the process, I crumpled in terror. The reality that my dream could finally come true--that after all these years of assuming I'd be a mother someday, I could just pick up a phone and make it happen--scared me. It was the beginning of a journey that would change my life forever.

But I did it. I made that call, and the next one. I got the letters of recommendation we needed and processed the paperwork. We got fingerprinted, interviewed, home studied, background checked and examined. We had shots and answered questions about our pasts, present and future. We analyzed our capacity for love, our style of discipline, and how we would raise a child in an ethical framework.

Every one of these steps cost money. It was a lot like buying a house, really. Just keep signing checks and don't think about it too much. I never added it up, because I don't want to know. We had the money. That's all that matters.

I am not a romantic. I knew that any adoption process would be out of my control, so I protected myself. I never imagined that this far-away baby was the love of my life. I always called her by her Russian name. I reminded myself at every step that she was not mine and would not be mine until the Russian judge said so.

The day we met her, all I could think about was a woman who I knew from my online chat group. She said that when she received her first referral, she and her husband spent 45 minutes trying to make eye contact with the baby. There was no response. They had to refuse the referral.

So my one goal for the day was to make eye contact with this baby. That was all that mattered.

Now, usually, I'm pretty good with babies. Boo was seven months old that day, and the best way to make "friends" with a seven-month-old is to carry her around a room and talk about whatever catches her eye. Eventually, that seven-month-old will become interested in the sound of your voice and follow the sound to your face.

I knew this from good instinct and a lifetime of being the person who held other people's babies at parties. From at least the time my cousin was born, when I was twelve, I had received compliments on my ability to amuse a baby in stressful circumstances for long periods of time.

But all that mattered was eye contact. And someone put us in a room with a mirror.

Anyone who knows Boo knows about her little mirror problem. She can't pass one. There are a lot more mirrors in the world than you think. I know. I live with Boo. If there is a mirror, she will find it and get stuck in front of it. A trip to Ikea is fraught with moments where one second Boo is walking beside me, and the next second: gone. I look back, and there she is. There was a mirror. She got stuck. I grab her by the hand, and we move on together. Until the next mirror.

The day we met, I cared only about eye contact. And Boo cared only about the mirror. It took up an entire wall. It might have been the first time she saw her whole body at once.

Finally, I got the idea of making her fly. I actually remember my mother flying me. She would lie on her back with her knees tucked to her chest, and I would lie with my belly on her shins. She'd hold my hands and I'd fly above her.

You have to modify it a bit for a seven-month-old, but only a bit. She loved the flying. She laughed, she smiled--and there was nowhere to look but into my eyes. At last, we made eye contact. My baby was okay.

But she wasn't my baby yet. We signed a form, played with her a few more times, and had to return to New Jersey to wait for court. They told me not to cry in front of the baby when we left. It makes it harder for the babies if they see their parents cry, they said. So I had to run out of the room before the translator was done conveying my thanks for the excellent care not-yet-Boo was receiving.

At work a few days later a woman came to visit. She was on Maternity Leave and had brought her baby for a visit. Everyone surrounded the baby, cooing and asking questions. "My baby is doing that already," I thought. (Not my baby--not yet. Not until the Judge says so. But she is--she's doing that. Even in the Baby Home she's big, and she's fat, and she's developing just fine.)

When we got back to Russia I couldn't believe that Boo recognized me. A big smile came over her face when we walked into the room. (Not my baby. Not yet my baby. She isn't my baby until the Judge says she is.) We went to Court and presented our case to the Judge. Then we waited.

It takes about 20 minutes for the Judge to render her decision. She has to type it before she comes back and announces it. So we waited in the small courtroom with our Translator, the Director of Boo's Baby Home, the Social Worker, and the Prosecutor, who was there to speak for the interests of the State. Finally, the Judge returned and said that Boo was ours. Finally and forever Boo.

When we arrived at the Baby Home that afternoon, a caregiver asked me in stilted English, "What is her name?" She had obviously practiced this phrase for use with new parents. It would be my first act as Boo's mother: to introduce her by her newly given name to the women who had cared for her all her life.

I balked. Could I answer such a question? Did I have the audacity to tell them that her name was no longer what it had been for all her eight months of life?

I looked back at our Translator, who looked back at me, baffled. The question had been asked in English: there was nothing to translate.

Finally, I blurted it out, "Boo," I said. The Caregiver beamed, and immediately Russified the name. "Boolashka," she cooed. Babies in Russia are never called by their given names. There must be a diminutive added. And there she was: my baby, but not-yet-my-baby. We left her again, for the last time. For us, the Mandatory Waiting Period had been waived. That was common in those days. We would be able to pick Boo up the very next day and bring her first to Moscow, then home.

I remember feeling as if I were floating down the street. Nothing seemed real. Still, sometimes, I wonder that we went to Russia and they gave us a baby. Also, the 8-hour time difference and the things we had to do--get her re-issued birth certificate, get permission from the Police for Boo to leave the district where she was born--made it impossible to call my mother until 6PM local time. If my mother didn't know I had a baby, then I didn't have a baby.

We shopped and bought formula and diapers and baby food and spoons and cake and tea for Boo's caregivers. I carefully packed the outfit I had purchased a few days before with my mother and Hopper: an adorable overalls set. I also grabbed a fleecy romper in case it was cold.

Friends of mine who gave birth to their babies are always shocked about what happened next. They handed me a naked baby, and then watched to see what I would do. There were no lessons in diapering or feeding or how to hold the baby. But that was okay. I was, after all, the person who held everyone's babies at parties. My aunt had taught me to change a diaper when I was twelve. I had friends who would hand me their crying babies. I deftly put on Boo's diaper, the adorable little shirt, and then tragedy struck. The overalls were shorts!

There is no greater sin for a Russian mother than underdressing her baby. Boo had been dressed in three layers and a hat to go from one room in the Baby Home to another. And here I was preparing to take her outside. OUTSIDE--where it was only seventy degrees! In shorts. I was horrified. The Caregivers were unsure what to do. So I dutifully took out the fleece romper and stuffed her into it. Everyone relaxed. (Except Boo, who had to ride home in the car in her fleece romper, sweating mightily.) We stepped out into the sunshine, and Hopper took a picture. Boo leaving the Baby Home forever.

Becoming our baby.