(”Waiting for Baby” is a closer look at adoption and my family’s personal experience as we go through the process. It will appear every Wednesday in the aPARENTly Speaking blog.)

Until your life takes an unexpected turn, a lot of things go without notice. Babies and pregnant women never seemed more prevalent than when my husband and I tried unsuccessfully to have a baby of our own. Likewise, I was never more aware of how adoption has touched so many lives than when we finally decided to adopt. For the first time, the word “adoption” caught my eye on the Internet, in the newspaper and magazines, on the television and even in everyday conversation.

And what I’m discovering has surprised me (my husband, too). Case in point: My husband and I hope to soon follow in the footsteps of one of the greatest baseball players to ever step on the field. Giants legend Willie Mays is an adoptive parent. In 1958, he adopted son Michael with his former wife. My husband has written about sports for 30 years, and followed Mays’ career long before that. Even he didn’t realize Mays had adopted a child. That’s basically how this goes. Until you’re in the midst of it, adoption is just sort of there.
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(”Waiting for Baby” is a closer look at adoption and my family’s personal experience as we go through the process. It will appear every Wednesday in the aPARENTly Speaking blog.)

The idea of adopting initially played on a major insecurity of mine: What if the birthmother changed her mind? I wrongly assumed ‘closed’ adoption would provide a safety net against such a thing. Maybe sending the birthmom letters and photos once a year would be OK, I relented. But I didn’t want her having a relationship with my baby.

A year later, it’s hard to admit my naivety , ignorance, and yes, selfishness. As fortune would have it, our decision to adopt domestically eventually led my husband and me to the Independent Adoption Center (IAC) in Pleasant Hill. Its founder was among the first to practice open adoption — more than 20 years ago, when most adoptive families harbored the same fears that I had. My husband and I entered the IAC’s information session with wariness.

Could we really embrace an open adoption — and in essence, a lifelong relationship with a birthmother? Very quickly, the question became, how could we not?

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(”Waiting for Baby” is a closer look at adoption and my family’s personal experience as we go through the process. It will appear every Wednesday in the aPARENTly Speaking blog.)

Adoption looked and sounded scary when my husband and I first decided to begin this journey. As a TV junkie and avid reader, I’ve come across my share of stories: the birthmother changes her mind, taking the baby back from devastated adoptive parents; the birthfather suddenly appears out of thin air and puts a halt to the adoption proceedings; adoptive parents spend years on a waiting list. Fear and doubt usually accompany the start of most adoptions. It’s not that we don’t want a baby, but after years of disappointment — the natural byproduct of infertility — we simply don’t want another broken-heart.

On top of the misperceptions, adoption comes with plenty of questions: attorney or agency, domestic or international, open or closed? How do you pay for it? What about medical issues? Bottom line: where do you even begin? The only way to get answers, and put a little truth behind the misperceptions, is to do some homework. And so, I found myself in the bookstore staring at a shelf filled with adoption books.

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“Waiting for Baby” is an intentional take on the title of Peggy Orenstein’s memoir, “Waiting for Daisy.” I met the Berkeley author during a 2006 interview. Her story of infertility, almost adopting and the unexpected birth of her daughter resonated deeply with me. At the time, I was stuck on my own infertility see-saw.

No one ever dreams that infertility could happen to them. Denial is a nice comfort zone. Give it six months, the doctors suggest. No luck? OK, let’s run diagnostic tests. Still no luck? Then let’s try prescription drugs, invasive treatments, even old wive’s tales. Negative pregnancy tests, miscarriages, failed fertility treatments and a whole lot of tears and angry why-me’s later, I was left at a cross-roads: accept never having a baby or decide to get on an entirely different see-saw.

My husband and I decided being parents was more important than getting pregnant. So, after much soul-searching, we decided to adopt. Then came the hard part.

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