... and Baby Makes Two Page 8

  Tonight, there would be two speakers, both women. One was a married woman with two bio(logical) kids and a little girl she had adopted from China. The other was a single woman who had just recently returned from China with her baby.

  Married Mom spoke first. Her baby ignored the small audience and climbed all over her mother. She pulled at Mom's ears, clothes, and noisy necklace. Mom multitasked.

  “I take it some of you are thinking about adopting from China, and—”

  Karen piped up, “I'm not thinking. I'm decided. I'm definitely doing this.”

  “Oh. Kay”

  Jane missed the next few sentences. She studied Karen, but then looked away when her staring became obvious. Married Mom was relating her adoption experience:

  “We had a great adoption agency. They really held our hands and made everything easier. And the whole process is so regulated. You assemble this series of documents, called your dossier. If you're a reasonably organized person, you can do it. Then you get all your— honey, don't pull Mommy's earring—all your documents notarized and certified and authenticated. You send it off to China. You wait. You wait and wait and wait, and then you get a referral. That's when your agency calls you and tells you that China has matched you with a baby. They send you a picture and a medical report. You make travel arrangements, you go—you pick up your daughter, get her a visa, and fly home. And that's when the real fun begins.”

  Jane wanted the meeting to stop so that she could think about this for a minute. She wanted to stand up and say, Oh, come on! Does anyone honestly think that it's this easy to get a baby? If it were this easy, people would be doing it all the time.

  “Any questions?”

  Karen shuffled through her notes, almost frantic but not quite. She mustn't let this golden opportunity for questions pass her by.

  “Yes? In the back?”

  It was Teresa.

  “I'm new to the whole China adoption world, so please forgive my ignorance. Why are there so many babies? And why does it sound like they're all girls?”

  Karen's hand shot up. She was the girl in the front row at school and she had the answer. Married Mom smiled and let Karen take the floor.

  “It's an overpopulation thing. See, Chairman Mao told everyone to have big families—seven kids was the ideal. But China couldn't feed that many people, or house them or anything. Big overpopulation problem. So then they started the one-child policy. You're only allowed to have one child. That's the policy”

  “Okay. But why are all the girls up for adoption? It doesn't sound like they're planning ahead. Aren't they going to need some girls eventually?”

  Karen had no answer. She deferred to Married Mom.

  “It's mostly girls who are put up for adoption. In China, boys marry but stay with their parents and support them. Girls marry and move in with the husband's family. If you need someone to take care of you in your old age, you need a son.”

  You need a Sheila, actually. A Sheila would be better than any son because she was so obedient, and such a good cook. But then,

  China probably didn't have any Sheilas. They're very rare. This was not a good time to be thinking about Sheila.

  “It's almost unheard of for a woman to remain single in China,” Married Mom continued.

  “Not here!” Karen snorted.

  And then Married Mom described the act of abandonment.

  “The girls are left in public places, so that they will be found quickly, and then they're brought to an orphanage. Sometimes, they are newborn, umbilical cord still attached. Sometimes, they are weeks or months old. You hear stories about older girls left in a market or near a police station. But it's usually an infant that's found. It happens a lot. China doesn't tell us just how many babies are abandoned.”

  Jane pictured swaddling babes, like the Christ Child, nestled in a big box of ginger.

  “It is illegal to abandon a baby. So the government runs an ad in the paper, searching for the baby's parents. Are they ever found? Who knows. If they were found, they'd be treated as criminals. The women who do this, the men and women who give up their children, they're brave. They're risking a lot, they're facing heartbreak, all so that the child can have a life. A better life. Does anyone have any questions about the adoption process?”

  Some audience members started throwing around acronyms and terminology that Jane didn't understand. Even Karen seemed puzzled. She stopped taking notes. She had a glassy, overwhelmed look that Jane found comforting. Maybe glassy and overwhelmed is an appropriate response to so much emotional information.

  Single Mom spoke up. She was a very large woman who had some trouble making her way to the front of the room. She settled into a chair with her sleeping baby in a stroller nearby.

  “I've only been home for a month. This is my little treasure, Kaitlyn.”

  Sleeping children rarely appreciate the oohs and aahs that they generate. Single Mom's style was much tougher, much more direct than Married Mom had been.

  “First of all, you have to have a great agency. Ask them questions. You've got to really work with these people, so you have to trust them. You have to know who you're getting into this with, right? Am I right?”

  Karen nodded. Jane blinked a lot.

  “Second of all, like she said, if you're reasonably organized with paperwork, you can put together your dossier, no problem. The waiting is the hardest part, like the song says. I chose China because it was so clear and straightforward. And Korea doesn't let fat ladies adopt. That's right, I'm too fat for Korea. But anyway …”

  It should have been comforting to hear the tale of Single Mom. After all, she adopted this beautiful baby didn't she? Success, right? Jane struggled to keep up as Single Mom reeled off the list of documents that are contained in a dossier, as if everyone in the room were familiar with the list. Wait. What was that fourth one? How do you get it? She kept talking. She described a celebrity sighting that occurred when she was fingerprinted. Hold on. Who fingerprints you? How do you get that done? She made the audience gasp out loud when she told them that she lost her job a month after submitting her dossier to China. And finally, she described that day in China when her baby wasn't there.

  “They brought the crib in to our hotel room and told us that the babies would arrive that afternoon. Everyone in my group got ready. And then our facilitator came around and said that the babies weren't coming til tomorrow. I thought I'd die. I took pictures of the empty crib. I told my sister, I said, ‘Kaitlyn's never going to get here! I'm never going to be a mama!’ But the next day, she was there, and she was so beautiful. Of course, she was totally freaked out, but we bonded eventually. So don't worry about that part.”

  This led to a series of questions about children and their bonding habits: what to expect when the child is first placed in your arms, various reactions from children of different ages, and some disturbing health questions.

  “Look. Let me be the crude one in the room,” said Single Mom. “I chose China adoption because I knew that at the end of it, I would have a healthy baby girl. I didn't know how long it would take, exactly, but I knew—guaranteed—how it was going to end. That helped my stress levels a lot. A lot. And when I had trouble finding a job after I was DTC, I knew I could just pull the plug on this and do it again later. I could. I didn't want to, but I knew I could.”

  Jane was recording it all in her head. Later, when she understood more about China adoption, she'd play it back and say, “Oh, DTC means Dossier to China. So that's what she meant. She lost her job after she had sent her Dossier to China. What's a dossier?”

  If she had stopped there, Jane would have gone home happy and serene that night. But Single Mom had one more thing to say.

  “The paper chase may get complicated for some of you, but it's nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to motherhood. And I want to aim this at the women who are thinking about becoming single mothers. It's not about being organized or keeping track of lists of documents.”

  Jane won
dered if there was a spotlight on her. Single Mother continued.

  “It's about being a superhero, every day of your life. And it's forever. If you think you can't do it, you're probably right.”

  She may have said more, but Jane missed it. This was a sign, just for her: Don't do this.

  “Questions?”

  It was Karen, asking, “What's step one?”

  All heads turned, tennis match style, to Single Mom.

  “Call the INS and get an appointment for fingerprinting. Step two: find an agency, a good one. No, a great one. They'll hook you up with a social worker who'll do step three: your homestudy so you can get started on your I-171H. Then start working on your dossier and get it out there. And then, bring your daughter home.”

  “Bring your daughter home” was a loaded sentence for people who were experiencing baby hunger. And she said it with an angelic infant sleeping by her side. Karen continued her note taking through loud sniffling.

  If she had had time for it, Jane might have wondered how the Infertile Career Women group might have responded to that sentence. Jane was still stuck, however, at the way Single Mother seemed to know that Jane was simply not up to the task of single motherhood.

  “Here's the number,” said Single Mom, and she read out the 800number for the INS. Karen wrote it down. Everyone wrote it down, except for Jane. She seemed to be the only one not writing the ten digits. She noticed Karen noticing her not writing it down.

  Jane, Karen, and Teresa left the meeting together. The rain had slowed to an active mist. No one remembered who initiated it, but they decided to have coffee and talk about this whole single mothers adopting from China situation. First, they did a pulse check.

  Karen was already rolling up her sleeve for the fingerprinting. She was go-go-go ready. She painted a picture of three cherubic Chinese girls singing “Ring Around the Rosie.” She had already started a college fund. It had only $12in it, but it was a start.

  “You know what my mother said?” Karen asked. “She said, All mothers are single mothers.’ Now, okay that's really cynical, but then she's a very damaged person. Still, she thinks I can do it. And she's so stingy with praise and support, forget it.”

  “What do you do for a living?” Teresa was fact-finding. Jane could appreciate that.

  “I teach soft-skills.” Blank stare. “Management development. Time management, stress management, things like that. I see a lot of single parents in my work.”

  “Have you chosen an adoption agency?” Teresa pointed her question at Karen.

  “No, but I've been doing tons of research. It's a key factor. There has to be a chemistry there, a reaction. Something. Hey, I couldn't find Mr. Right, but I'm going to find Mr. Right Agency. Or Ms.

  Right. Right?” No more coffee for Karen. The more she giggled, the quieter Jane became. She wasn't going to go through with this. No.

  Teresa must have noticed Jane's quiet when she said, “There are a million ways to get this motherhood thing wrong. And without a husband to help share the load, well, it all sounds kind of selfish, doesn't it? Still. I want to find out more, and I can't explain why. So I won't try.”

  The active mist had retreated. They exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Jane felt separate from them. Different. They were already walking down this road. She was standing still. She didn't see herself joining them. She didn't see anything. She was not going to do this. It was crazy. Irrational. A phase.

  …

  You have two new messages.

  “Hi, this is Peter Mandell. Your friendly neighborhood … neighbor. I seem to recall you know how to do lots of fixing-up kind of stuff. Well, I just bought a bureau-type item from Ikea, and I can't get past the first page of instructions. Is this the sort of thing I can ask you to help me with? Am I totally out of line? Anyway, I'll buy dinner, and who knows, it could be fun.”

  Beep.

  “Hey Jane, it's me.” It was Sheila. “Look, I take back about eighty percent of what I said the other night. I was PMSing big-time, and the boys were really on a tear. It was just bad timing. Call me. Please don't hate me. I'm sorry”

  Beep.

  …

  Sheila. I'm not going through with this. Probably. I mean. Okay yes, I want to have a baby. I've always wanted to have kids, but then, after Sam died, it just wasn't going to happen. It was too hard and— wait. I'm getting off the topic. Sheil, I've been doing all this research and looking around, and I was thinking about adopting from China.

  But I can't do this alone. I can't. I'm not strong enough. I met these women, and they're strong enough. Or, at least, they think they are. And good for them. But I'm not. I'm pulling the plug on this whole crazy thought process. Forget I ever said anything.

  She thought it sounded lame and needy. Jane kept trying to polish the speech before she dialed Sheila. In the end, she dialed the phone and said, “Never mind. I was just kidding.”

  “You don't have to be. Oh, Jane. I've always pictured you with kids. You could do it. If anyone could, you could.”

  “No. I'm not doing this. Forget I ever said anything. Okay?”

  Chapter Five

  Dutiful daughter Jane phoned her mother nine days after their joint birthday party.

  “Sorry, honey. Your mother isn't feeling well. She picked up some kind of stomach bug,” said a very weary Howard.

  Great way to turn seventy-two. Poor Betty.

  “Is she still upset? I mean about the card? From Sheila?” Jane wanted something hopeful to report on her next Sheila call.

  “She has a stomach bug. She'll be okay. I'm taking her in to see Dr. Crosby today”

  “Can I help? Do you need me to bring crackers or ginger ale or something?”

  “We have all that and more, Janie. Right here in New Jersey.”

  And Howard had to go. A man who only drives fifteen miles per hour needs a lot of lead time to get to a doctor's appointment. The strain of taking care of Betty was beginning to show on him. If only they still had a Sheila.

  The Irishness in Jane made her good at loyalty, with the occasional desire to argue, and a careful observation of signs (from God, the Universe, Somewhere). Jane's

  Irishness also gave her a healthy dose of guilt. This was free-floating guilt, which was the worst kind. Hey, it's not as if Jane were responsible for Sheila's elopement or her upsetting birthday card. Okay so she had been toying with the idea of single motherhood. But she wasn't following through. It was just a phase. She dropped it. So it wasn't her fault that her mother caught a virus. Was it?

  Of course it was! Oh, Jane was a terrible daughter. She tried to remedy that with a call to NutraWorld. They sold diabetic sweets. She sent a one-pound Nutra-Sampler box with a get-well card. She checked her reflection. Yes. She was still a terrible daughter—and a foolish one who was sending chocolates to a woman with a stomach flu. Maybe she should follow her mother's advice and hook up with Peter. Maybe that would make Betty happy. Maybe Jane should ignore that little alarm/warning/danger-danger sign in her gut and call him back. And besides, the notion of yet another date gave her an adolescent sense of smugness. The smugness was amplified by the fact that she could help him solve his Ikea problem.

  “Hi, Peter. So you went Ikea, did you? I'll help you put it together. And then you'll have it. All put together. And I guess that's all. Call me when you get this. Bye.”

  She was still a terrible daughter, but she had run out of ways to fix that.

  …

  It's not easy to dress for a date where you'll be assembling furniture, but Jane found a way.

  Peter lived in Vincent van Gogh's apartment, if Vincent had lived in a Manhattan studio. It was spare. Very. He had bare parquet floors, a bed, a chair, a table, a big box that said IKEAin bold blue letters. There was a photograph of his parents (aww) on the table, but no other personal touches. Pretty much the height of spare. There was nothing here to help her figure out who this Peter guy was.

  “Come on in. Can I get you something
? All I have is water. But it's filtered.”

  “I brought my own tools,” Jane said brightly. And she held up the screw gun and the wood glue. As she entered the vacant apartment, she was relieved that she had thought to bring them.

  “Oh, good. I don't have anything like that. I use this old computer battery for a hammer.” He proudly displayed the battered battery. Jane smiled and wondered if she should have brought her own chair.

  “So,” said Peter. “Um. What can I get for you?”

  He may have meant filtered water vs. not filtered water, but Jane said, “Bowls. I'll need some bowls or plates or something. To sort the hardware. That's the best way to start. It looks like I'll need about seven bowls. Okay?”

  He only had two plates.

  “Sorry. But, hey, I can fix this. I'll order dinner and ask them to send extra plates. Sorry, I don't have real food in the fridge. Just bachelor food. Oh, wait, there's root beer. And all my take-out menus. Would you prefer pizza, Indian, or Chinese?”

  She Mona-Lisa-smiled and said, “Chinese.”

  They sorted hardware, ate mu shu, and started to work on assembling his bureau-thing. Jane took charge, all the while trying to figure out that danger-danger feeling in her ribs. She failed. No one can assemble Ikea furniture and divine the secrets of a Mystery Man at the same time. Everyone knows that.

  “Here. Put this part—this is the back—put it over here. And hold it steady. No, steady. No. Don't let it move around.” Jane was trying to hammer it to some wobbly side pieces, but Peter kept letting it slip, and Jane hammered at the air.

  “Oh. You mean, steady. Got it.”

  The first thing they did was put the back on backward. The second thing they did was assemble the drawer fronts upside down. The third thing they did was lose the crucial hardware under Peter's bed. Jane cringed. Peter laughed.