A Valentine Story

The process began with a conversation. We wanted to adopt but didn’t have a roadmap. Twenty-five years ago gay adoption was more a dream than a reality. Closet doors had to be opened, a facilitator with even the barest experience in gay adoption needed to be found and a birthmother willing to trust we’d make good parents needed to appear. It was daunting. There was hurdle after hurdle to jump over. The process stretched into a long road with little light at the end of the tunnel. Heartache was a constant companion on our journey until one day after having almost given up luck stepped in.

Rick had been working with a couple on designing their apartment. It was during the planning stage while sitting around the client’s dining table spread out with drawings, fabric swatches and inspiration boards that her son came racing into the room. Holden was around six and anxious to show his mother what he’d created in school that day. Marcia held the drawing he had handed her “That’s lovely Holden”. A smile as wide as the ocean ran across his cherubic face.

Rick picked up where Holden's smile ended, “He certainly favors Richard”.

Marcia’s gaze went from the drawing back down to Holden and then up to Rick. Her eyes smiled, “Funny you should think that, Holden’s adopted”.

From there the conversation went into a description of how we’d been trying to adopt to how they’d gone about adopting Holden to the name of their adoption lawyer to the lawyer’s phone number and business card.

It couldn’t have been more than a day before we had an appointment with Suzanne. Like most adoption lawyers her experience with gay couples was thin but her attitude was inclusive: be honest, be nonjudgmental, expect some rejection but never give up. We never did.

At her direction we set up a dedicated phone line. We wrote ads for two men looking to adopt and placed them in penny shoppers, university newspapers and classified sections of local small town newspapers. Then we sat by the phone and waited. There were crank calls from prisoners with their one daily call and no one else to have a conversation with. There were vicious calls telling us we should rot in hell or they had our number and we should be watching our backs. There were calls from desperate teenagers in the middle of the night that would make us cry. Our job was to not be judgmental but compassionate and then to direct them to Suzanne who would handle investigating the validity of the call and answering any questions about legal and monetary concerns. On our first attempt we got a few leads but no success. On our second attempt we connected but it didn’t last. We quickly found out it wasn’t only the birthmother but an extended network of family and friends that had input on a woman’s decision to put her child in the care of two men.

And then it happened. She was older. She had one child but he was in the care of a maternal grandparent and with this new pregnancy she felt inadequately prepared for motherhood. She was hesitant but willing to cautiously move forward. The courtship began. There were daily conversations about nothing and then everything without judgment or recrimination. Only laughter and support and kindness, and that’s how Emmy came into our lives.

Maybe the biggest part of being a parent is the desire to be one. We wanted parenthood with all the pain and joy it would take to get there. Families now come in all sorts of combinations and they are all beautiful. Emmy clocked in at 11:30am on a hot summer morning. She swam out of the birth canal like a little dolphin into the arms of the attending nurses. Rick and I stood there in the birthing room. I cut the cord and then Rick asked, “Can I hold her?” I held my breath. The attending nurse looked up from the swaddled bundle she held in her arms. Her face gave little expression but her eyes gave just a slight hint, “Of course you can. She’s your daughter”.

Every year since has been marked with over the top birthday celebrations; a cake Rick makes from a Martha Stewart recipe that takes two days to prepare. Holidays always find something special. Come on she’s a girl with two dads willing to spoil her endlessly, but perhaps Emmy and my favorite day is Valentine’s Day. No matter how much I love her nothing can show my love’s full extent but this is as close as I’ve come. With scissors and a sheet of red paper in the fashion of old silhouette artists I cut out a heart shaped design. I might attach it to the outside of a wrapped gift, dangle it from a string like an ornament or mount it on a board like a piece of art. It may only be a penny’s worth of red paper cut with scissors but it’s my heart and it means a million to me, a final conversation that begins and ends with “I love you”.