The One We Lost

On Miscarriage and Adoption Loss

Note: For those of you who prefer listening to these longer essays of mine instead of reading them, just scroll down to the bottom of today’s essay.

The call came late one night early this past July, just days after our family returned from leading a pilgrimage to Italy: Toby and Ellie’s birthparents were expecting again.

The details of that call and the many calls that followed over the next several days are impossible to explain here. I can’t do it without sharing stories that aren’t mine to share. What I can tell you is that from the moment the first call came, Chris and I understood that a new baby might join our family come February.

I can also tell you that excitement was not the first emotion we felt. It wasn’t the second emotion either. Or the third. Or the fourth. I’m not actually sure how many other emotions I felt before any excitement began bubbling up in my heart. It was more than a few. And the first of those emotions was doubt.

From the start, we knew the chances of this baby surviving the pregnancy were slim. Toby and Ellie’s birthparents are not young. They are not healthy either. Ellie barely made it into the world, and the odds were soundly stacked against her birthmother managing to carry yet another pregnancy to term. So, there was doubt—great doubt.

There was also concern. We had hoped Ellie’s birth mom would never be in this place again. We were worried about her health, and we were worried about her heart. We didn’t know if she could make it through another pregnancy—physically and emotionally—never mind the baby making it through.

After doubt and concern, came fear. There was fear about many things: fear about walking once again through a difficult pregnancy with two profoundly broken people; fear of falling in love with a baby only to lose it; and especially fear that this time around I wasn’t up to the task.

Math is not my strong suit, but even I could do the calculations. When the baby was born, I would be two months away from my 50^th birthday. Chris would be 56. That would put me at 72 when the child graduated from college. Chris would be 78. This seemed insane.

But never mind 22 years down the road. Now—as in, the present moment—was my bigger concern. Could we still handle the sleepless nights? Could I go back to getting up every two to three hours for months? Could I go through the toddler years again? Did I have the energy? I mean, sure, we still had small children in our bed every night, we had yet to successfully potty train Ellie, and I was chasing her this way and that for every single diaper change. But the end was in sight. Suddenly, the goal posts threatened to move. Could I move with them?

There was also the money question. Because we had none. Adoption is insanely expensive, and Beautycounter had shut its doors just months before, taking more than half our income with it. We also had the new house, with the state-mandated lead abatement order, which we’d inherited from the previous owners, hanging over our heads. I was scurrying to make up for our lost income by taking on more freelance writing, but anything extra I managed to eke out was going towards lead abatement. How would we ever afford a fourth adoption?

More than doubt, though, and more than fear or worry about finances, I felt an emotion for which I don’t have a ready name. It was the same feeling, though, that I have when I get all settled into bed at night, lights out, head on the pillow, only to hear a child suddenly calling my name from across the hall. And I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to get out of my warm, cozy bed and calm a needy child. I like where I am. So, I feel irritated by the call. I feel inconvenienced. It’s a silly, immature, petty reaction, which I don’t like in myself when I feel it at night and which I didn’t like in myself when I felt it during that phone call. Through all those single years and then infertile years, I had hoped and dreamed and begged for babies. They were my dream. The more babies the better, I had always said. Now, here was the chance for another baby, and I felt inconvenienced by it? What was wrong with me?