Adoption Jitters
By Glenn Maynard-Palmer
For two years, my partner and I had been working with Friends in Adoption (FIA), an amazing agency in Vermont that doesn't specialize in gay and lesbian adoptions but is very successful with them. We were living part time in the Bahamas and New York City when the agency called on Dec. 19, 2001, about a birth mother who wanted to speak with us. The next day, our son Aidan Isaiah was born. We caught the first available flight that and made it to the hospital by 7:30 p.m. Aidan was placed with us a few days later.
FIA is an open-adoption agency, so we have contact and visits with his birth mother. She is a great young woman who wanted more for her child than what she was able to give. What we found daunting and interesting about working with FIA is that the birth mother chooses the adoptive parents. The adoptive parents are required to present a profile of their lives, complete with stories and pictures. Then the birth mother looks them over and contacts the agency about which prospective parents she would like to meet. After an unnerving interview session, she decides to accept, reject or ask for more information or time. It is not for the faint of heart. But the entire process made us better people for knowing his birth mother, and it made us better parents for being able to share her with him.
Having Aidan has been the most fantastic experience of my life. He is sitting in my lap as I write this. He is perfect. Aidan has not made our lives simpler, but he makes every day an amazing gift. He is the most smart, gorgeous and, of course, advanced child ever to have been born. There is remarkable stress in raising a child, and I know it will continue over the years. But watching him grow and develop compares to nothing I have ever experienced before.
We hope to have the adoption finalized in the next few weeks. Until then, there is always a hidden fear that this all could go horribly wrong. But those are just jitters, and I am sure every adoptive parent feels that way until it is final. For now, we just move on as if it were finalized. He is our son, and we couldn't love him more; but that's also what I thought yesterday, and somehow I do.
June 3, 2002