Open Adoption Roundtable #27: The First Time....

.....evvvvverrrrrrr I sawwwwwwww your face.....

Ahem.  Sorry.  Was that out loud?

Remember way back here, when I told you I was joining this thing called Open Adoption Bloggers?  Well guess what, I'm finally actually blogging for the Roundtable post.  Only six months later!  I know, I'm proud of me too!!

Ok, ok, before you get all excited...technically I guess I'm not really blogging for this roundtable.  I already blogged.  They just finally picked a topic that I'd already written about, and I'm using this opportunity to jump on the bandwagon.

And, in a twist of literary (ok, bloggerary) fate, the first time evvvvvverrrrrr I blog for Open Adoption Roundtable, is about...first times. First meetings in open adoption, to be specific.

So, without further ado, and because summer is the time for reruns, here's a look back at our match meeting:

1000%

I've had job interviews and started new jobs.  I've had countless "first days of school" in my life.  I've been to hoity-toity professional conferences and political fundraisers with fancy pantses and big wigs. Hell, I've even had social workers probe the deepest depth of my brain, and the darkest corner of our house (which also functions handily as a tornado shelter when needed, fyi) for this adoption process.

I have had many occasions to fret over making a good first impression, and many opportunities to work my shy-old-self into a big ball of stress about whether I'd be able to let that "inner me" out to shine, or whether I'd end up sitting in the corner, staring at the floor, unable to come up with any of that elusive "small talk" stuff that seems to come so easily to other people.

I've never in my life been as nervous for something as I was for our match meeting.  Amber is the type of person who relishes human interaction.  (Weird, right?! I know!!)  She loves meeting people, is great in social settings, and will usually get your entire life story out of you in the first five minutes of meeting, before you even realize what has happened.  Truth be told though: Amber was just as nervous as I was.

I've been thinking hard ever since the meeting, trying to come up with a good parallel event that would allow me to explain to all of you who haven't been to a match meeting, or aren't on this adoption journey, exactly what the anticipation felt like.  I can't.  It's a thing unto itself.

The closest thing I could come up with was going away to college for the first time.  I moved across the country to go to college.  I had picked an amazing college that I was sure was going to change my life (it did), and I was so so excited to be finally grown up, and on this journey to becoming who I am.  But I was also pretty terrified.  I knew in the back of my head that this move from childhood to college was momentous.  I knew that for the rest of my life, things would be marked as "before" and "after" this particular point.  I tend to overthink and overanalyze (Shocking, no?) and get caught up in "moments" and "milestones" and what it all means.  So, I was hopeful for this new vision of my adult life, excited about this awesome future that I was foreseeing, but also anxious and scared of the off-chance that things wouldn't work out the way I had envisioned, or that I would somehow screw it up.

That's pretty much how I felt going into the match meeting.  Well, like that, and also kinda like I had the flu.

We flew in the afternoon before the meeting.  We were nervous that our "travel jinx" would rear her ugly head, and screw us mightily in some unforeseen way.  So, we planned for plenty of extra time in getting to the meeting.  If all else failed, we actually had enough time to drive and still get there in time.  But, despite all odds, everything went smoothly, we got there on time, and had almost 24 hours to spare before the meeting.

Twenty-four gut wrenchingly stressful hours, that is.

We had nothing to do but try not to think about it.  Which of course, just makes you think about it more.  We sat in the room and watched the Food Network until we couldn't take it anymore (Who knew so much programming could revolve around bacon?).  Then we decided we needed to actually try to eat, rather than just living vicariously through the people on TV.  We also decided, begrudgingly, that we should try again to look at the handout on match meeting questions we'd received months ago in a support group meeting.  We'd already looked at it once before, but we spun out with panic after being unable to come to any sort of definite answers on anything.

So, we headed to Longhorn for bloody steak (me), piles of veggies (Amber), and a much needed drink (both of us).  And we once again failed miserably at answering the questions.  Like broken records, all we could come up with was "Gah....I don't know....whatever she wants!"  The questions were really specific regarding things that will or won't occur at the hospital, and what role Amber and I will play during that time.  Then there were equally specific questions about what will happen, you know, for the rest of the child's life.  No biggie.    The kid is the size of an eggplant right now, mind you.  But yeah, let's totally sit down and map out exactly how many pictures, letters, visits, and phone calls will occur, and when they'll happen.  In fact, why don't I just get my Blackberry out, and we can go ahead and get some dates on the calendar.  Eye. Roll.

Now, I get it.  It's very important for us all to sit down together, and get an idea of what each other is picturing for the future.  It's equally important to check in, and make sure nobody has expectations that are much different than what the other was planning or hoping for.  And, it's nice to just have a general idea of what will probably happen next.

I guess it's because Amber and I are so flexible and so open to whatever in this process, that the details became overwhelming.  Sure, we could come up with answers to these questions, if we were the only ones involved.  X number of pictures, Y number of letters, to be sent every Z days/weeks/months.  But, what matters most to us is truly what Kelsey is comfortable with.  We are strongly committed to giving her all the contact and support she wants and needs.  But we are equally committed to not giving her more than she desires or can handle.  This isn't an easy process for birth parents, and we are ever mindful of that.  So, pouring over those questions, we tried to put ourselves in her shoes, tried to imagine what she might want or need, and tried to think about the best ways we could give that to her.  But coming up with hard and fast numbers was still impossible.

After dinner we killed time with a movie (Bridesmaids...the bridal shop scene is NOT for the weak-stomached, btw), and then went back to the hotel, languished pathetically on the king sized bed, and watched  "COPS" and "Inside American Jail" (two of my favorite guilty pleasure shows) on truTV until we passed out.

The next morning, we pretended to eat breakfast, actually drank coffee, and watched the minutes tick by slowly on the clock.

Finally around noon, we realized we had to start getting ready, and needed to make some sort of effort to put nutrients other than caffeine (shut up, caffeine IS a nutrient, I'm nearly sure of it) in our bodies.  Like zombies, we showered, dressed, and did our hair.  Then we walked around SuperTarget for a half hour, trying to find something we could swallow without vomiting.  We spent most of that time wandering around the bakery, looking for some sort of cookies or cupcakes to bring to share.  Then we realized neither of us were planning on eating them, so it was going to be awkward-bordering-on-rude to force pastry eating upon others who were likely just as nervous as we were.  So we got my belly-comforting staple, bananas, and a pack of six Luna bars.  I ended up eating one banana.  Amber ate nothing.  Lunch FAIL.

The drive to the meeting was surreal.  We walked in, and were greeted by the social worker.  I stood there silently, staring in disbelief at Amber, who was somehow already halfway into a ten minute conversation with the social worker about the weather, where she was from, how she liked the office, the nice hospital across the street, and how we were liking our hotel accommodations.  My girl has mad chit-chat skillz.  It's kind of a superpower, really.

Then the social worker said "Well, they're here already, in the conference room.  I'll take you back and introduce you".  My heart skipped a beat.

We walked into a glass-walled conference room, and there they were, sitting at a small table.  Kelsey turned around and looked at us with giant deep brown eyes, and smiled.  It was a smile of nervousness, a smile of excitement, and a smile of "omg this is really happening".  It's a smile I'll never forget.  She looked exactly how I felt.

I also had this weird bit of being what I can only describe as starstruck.  I am easily starstruck, not necessarily by super famous people, but by people who are somewhat famous, but who I totally admire and respect from afar, and have on occasion been in close quarters with.  Amy Ray.  Jane Goodall.  Congressman John Lewis.

That's how I felt when we first met Kelsey and Aaron.  I had this overwhelming feeling of "OMG, it's THEM!!"  We've gotten to know Kelsey a good deal online.  We didn't really know Aaron, besides what Kelsey had told us.  We've seen so many pictures of both of them though, that it was entirely bizarre to finally be standing in the same room.

Amber totally and immediately set to work on the ice breaking. [If Amber ever for some reason becomes a professional wrestler and/or minor super hero and/or rap star, I hereby propose the name "The Ice Pick" as a moniker].  And then we got into the nitty-gritty of question answering.

In the end--shocking I'm sure to nobody but me--it wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated.  In fact, it was great, really.  Turns out, Kelsey felt pretty much the same way about the questions as we did.  She already knew that she didn't yet know exactly what she wanted at the hospital and beyond.  We got the chance to tell her we were open to whatever she wanted, and that we'd work with whatever she was comfortable with.  I felt good about getting that out there, and I think she felt good about hearing it.  We got a chance to get to know Aaron a little more, which was awesome.  We even got a chance to just laugh and talk a little like regular people, as opposed to "birth parents" and "adoptive parents".  It was really nice.

Kelsey and Aaron are both such wonderful people, and sitting down and getting to know them just felt so right.  For all the nerves, the worrying, and the panic ahead of time, once we got going it felt quite comfortable, natural, and normal.  The agency tells prospective adoptive couples time and time again, "When you find 'your match', it just feels right."  This truth is further echoed by the many couples who have already adopted and say over and over that they can't explain it, but when they finally met their child's birth parents, they just "knew".  Sitting here days later, I can't explain it either, but I can tell you that it feels like we just "fit together" in a good way.

We have been excited about becoming parents for so long now.  Ever since February, when the agency called to tell us Kelsey wanted to match with us, that excitement has become all the more real. And now, after having met Kelsey and Aaron in person, the excitement has shifted again.  We are no longer just excited to have "a baby", we are now even more excited, thrilled, and honored to hopefully become parents to this baby.  If his or her birth parents are any sign--and I suspect they are--this baby will undoubtedly be one amazing kid.

x's&o's,

Michelle

On the plane, heading to our match meeting.  

The Anthropologists' Daughter

My dad is an anthropologist.  His profession now is college dean, but he'll always be an anthropologist.  I'm a nurse and Amber is a director of a university office, but we'll always be anthropologists too, deep down. My mom is a retired speech pathologist, but after being with my dad for over 40 years (they started dating when they were sixteen...awwww!), she's pretty much an anthropologist too.  She's certainly logged enough hours on archaeological sites, organizing artifacts in the labs, and attending my dad's talks (both the formal and the impromptu ones that occur when he reads something interesting and just has to share...), to have some sort of honorary degree conferred.  Oddly enough, we have also discovered that some of our closest friends in adulthood were once anthropology majors way back when, too.

Playing in the dirt at one of my dad's archaeological sites.

Anthropology is more than a career, a college major, or a degree. It's a paradigm that has affected the way we see the world.  It's about recognizing humanity's connection to other living things, and how close we are to our evolutionary kin.  It's about recognizing people's connections to one another, celebrating our differences, but highlighting the many more ways in which we are all the same.  It's about accepting the fact that what your society, your religion, or even your parents tell you isn't any more "true" or "right" than what the society, religion, or parents of some child on the other side of the globe is telling him.

Some people are raised Baptist, or Jewish, or Italian, or even UGA Dawgs fan.  We all have something that underlies the core of our family identity. I don't know whether they planned it or not, but my parents raised me "anthropologist."  They taught me that religion helps people feel safe and comfortable in an unpredictable and sometimes scary world.  They taught me that people who do things or see things differently than we do aren't better or worse, they are just simply different.  They taught me that our culture shapes the way we see the world, whether we realize it or not.

Some of my favorite days of the year when I was a kid were the ones I spent tagging along to work with my dad.  Even at 9 years old, I was convinced given the right outfit and a stylishly carried purse, I could blend right in with his college students.  I'd sit in the front of the classroom and color in my notebook while my dad lectured.  I'd nod along as he told stories I'd heard before at the dinner table, and know the answers even before some of his students did.  We'd get Pepsi's and Hershey's with Almonds from the snack machines, and I'd marvel at the dusty books and artifacts lining his office walls during his office hours. We'd walk across campus, hand in hand, to the dining hall where we'd eat lunch with the other faculty members.  At the end of the day we'd drive the hour back home together in the blue Mustang, listening to Billy Joel or the soundtrack to Top Gun.  From a very young age, I was sold on being a lifelong learner, and these day trips to college life only cemented my plan to become an egghead.

My dad is dressed in traditional Balinese clothing for a lecture.
I have no excuse, this is just what I looked like in the late 1980's.

But life as an anthropologist's daughter came not only with day trips to college campuses, it came also with summer-long trips to the other side of the world.  I spent the summers after my 7th and 8th grade years in Tianjin, China.  My parents were teaching English to Chinese college professors who would soon be coming to the United States on foreign scholar exchanges, and I was along for the experience.  And what an experience it was.

Some of the officials from Tianjin Normal University, visiting  us in Ohio

Junior high can be a rough time for puny, smart girls with a penchant for glasses way too big for her face.  (Or, you know, so I've heard...) Elementary school is warm and safe, with only thirty kids per class and always at least one teacher looking for a pet.  Things in junior high get complicated.  Social orders are thrown into upheaval as the various elementary school cliques break apart and form anew.  A new super order of coolness is created.  Suddenly, everyone is whispering about which girls are wearing bras, and who's allowed to wear make-up.  Your gym clothes absolutely have to be carried in a blue plastic Gap bag. Status is measured by the number of tattered ski lift tickets on your J. Crew jacket zipper.  And if you don't know how to make those little knotted coils at the end of your Eastland's shoelaces, well, you might as well just go barefoot (Where the eff was THIS when I was in junior high?!  The internet solves everything.)

I'm not a big one for 'counting blessings', per se.  But among the fortuitous things that have shaped the very core of who I am, I rank spending my most angst-y, gangly, awkward pre-pubescent summers in China up there at the top.

My parents and I lived together in a dingy two-room dormitory suite.  I slept on a cot, all of our water had to be boiled, and the pillows were actually sacks of rice.  We rode borrowed one-speed bicycles everywhere.   I spent afternoons playing on old gymnastic parallel bars in a dusty field, and we ate in the dormitory dining room most nights.  It was not glamorous, but I loved every last minute of it  (Ok, the first night I cried.  But after that....every. last. minute.)

I also attended my parents' English classes, and served as an example of American youth.  Everyone was fascinated by me, and I was fascinated by them.  We visited their homes, shopped in their stores and markets, and enjoyed evening visits together to beautiful gardens and amusement parks.  I even tutored one of the college officials' son during the day, teaching him the English words for numbers and colors using my home made flashcards and lesson plans.  Although we did visit all of China's great historical sites and tourist attractions, this was not your typical tourist sightseeing trip.  This was cultural immersion at its best.  This was my chance to finally experience what my parents had been telling me all along.  At the core, we're all just people.  Our differences make us interesting, not weird or wrong.  Things are just things, and money certainly doesn't buy happiness.

With my sassy friend, Chen.
(note recurrent theme of my interesting outfit choices)

Neither Amber's job nor mine is likely to require us (and pay for us...) to head off to far flung corners of the globe anytime soon.  And, neither one of us is tasked with teaching college courses.  Although, I can't promise that yakking endlessly about things I'm passionate about ( e.g., nursing, women's health, health policy, public health) to a captive audience of young, malleable minds won't someday be a part of my career trajectory.  But, if we have any say in the matter (and, um, I'm pretty sure we do) education and travel will definitely be two of the cornerstones of our daughter's childhood.

Amber works on a large university campus, and we take full advantage of all the benefits that come with that.  From the university swim club, to the free cinema showings, to cultural and political events and lectures, and even the occasional college football game, we use that coveted staff ID of hers every chance we get.  We can't wait for our child to get to experience all those great things along with us.  Our daughter will also go to pre-school right on the campus where Amber works.  Amber will be able to visit whenever she wants throughout the day, and can also steal her away for some "Take Your Daughter to Work" time now and then.  I can't wait for our little one to marvel at the excitement of a college campus the way I once did (ok, let's be honest, "still do").

Travel is another thing that we can't wait to share with our child. Seeing the other side of the world changes you (for the better).  Amber's been to Italy, France, Switzerland, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.  Besides China, I've also been to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Spain, and Borneo.  But lately, we haven't had a chance to travel much.  Life, and home ownership, and jobs tend to get in the way.  But when our child is old enough to enjoy it, we can't wait to get back on the travel horse.  We'd love to take her to Italy to see where Amber's family is from, and to meet some of her relatives who still live in Sicily.  I also can't wait to show her the rainforests of Central America, to teach her a few words of Spanish, and to introduce her to the haunting mystery of the little monkeys I used to chase through the forest.

Even though anthropology isn't a part of our careers anymore, it will always be a part of who we both are.  So yes, we too will raise our daughter "anthropologist".  College campuses and trips to far off lands are a part of that.  But, the most important part is the most basic part. It's the everyday things we'll do in little ways to teach her to appreciate (not judge) people, to acknowledge (not fear) difference, and to celebrate (not denigrate) uniqueness.  Because in the end, as my favorite childhood book about anthropologist Margaret Mead proclaimed, there is no greater value than simply understanding.

x's & o's,

Michelle