Adopting Another Pitter Or Patter?
By Jenny Newcomer, founder of LobotoME.com {goods to keep ME sane}Learn more about her products at www.LobotoME.com or at her blog www.LobotoMEblog.blogspot.com

We are a full family—alive, aware, and unafraid—with a life that includes bossiness at four that makes age 16 unimaginable; making room for everything, which leaves us feeling as though we have no time for anything; keeping up with and on top of two full-time businesses that operate within one full-time day, every day. We are not perfect. But we are perfectly three.

My husband Will, daughter Sam, and me like to spend our time traveling—or dreaming of traveling— hand in hand in hand. And two sets of adult eyes on a little one’s busyness makes crowded airports navigable, pools and water parks possible, and sifting through ocean’s sand for shells…memorable. Giggling from princess to princess in a land called Disney is even repeatable.

For every element of adventure in our life, there is also an element of predictability: in one year, Sam will attend school full-time; I sleep eight hours a night; and make it to yoga class every week. While we know that the pitter patter of life isn’t always so predictable, right now it is oh so manageable.

So, why are we thinking of adopting another pitter--or maybe it’ll be a patter—risking a skip in the rhythm that is so perfect for three?

Regret. 

I don’t want to regret not knowing four. I don’t want to regret not giving Sam a sister or a brother to tease, to tattle, to love.

Let me back up a bit. 

Seven years ago ovarian cancer and its treatment left me, left us, without any reproductive options.  So we—Will and I— opened our hearts, our minds, and adoption’s heavy door.

Whether it was our heart, our mind, fate, or a combination of all three, we adopted our daughter four years ago in what most would consider an ideal open adoption. We thank God for Sam, for her wonderful birth family, and, believe it or not, for the cancer that lead us to her.

Fear, however, did not abandon ideal. An emotional rollercoaster pulled up a chair and made itself comfortably uncomfortable in the months, weeks, and days leading up to the delivery: what if the birth mom changed her mind? Could we do this? How do we know? What if something, anything, goes wrong?

She didn’t change her mind—and the adoption went as smoothly as one could reasonably expect an arrangement that involves one woman handing a baby over to another woman to go. The emotions were many and multiple—and I vowed to cherish every moment—quiet, loud, overwhelming, and miraculous— with our little girl because I knew many of those I experienced waiting for her weren’t ones I could experience again.

Until now.

Sam’s health and happiness creates health and happiness in us. And she’s growing so quickly and so independently. The hours I spent teaching her are hours I now spend watching her: using the potty, swimming and splashing, eating and drinking, speaking and listening.

Every month I attend at least two baby showers. I find myself looking at double baby joggers in the store; I decorate a nursery again and again in my mind, then on paper, then in practice; I buy a new an infant car seat three years after giving away the one I never thought I’d need again.

The tearful exchange of a precious little miracle from woman to woman those four years ago isn’t as vivid as it once was. But the swell of love from and because of that little miracle certainly is. Nothing compares to that swell—and the space for love that Sam has carved out in us is boundless. More love makes more love.

In the six months since Will grinned at my mention of baby number two, it’s the social worker at the door, not the UPS man; pages and pages of application and verification documents stand in piles on the desk; fingerprints and background checks are complete; and we are number 37 on the adoption agency waitlist.

We are ready to become a family full of four. But we were not ready for the first two calls that might have gotten us there:

Call number one: a baby boy is born to a woman who has used lots of drugs and doesn’t know who the baby’s father is.  Too many unknowns and we decide the call isn’t for us.

Call number two: a methadone-addicted baby boy is born to a homeless methadone-addicted woman. Always prepared, we weren’t prepared for that.

Call number three hasn’t come yet. But since three has been perfect for us so far, we’re counting on it to be perfect once more.