Oprah, “the Secret”, and the Grace of God
Our Unique Adoption Story
While getting my tires rotated, I sat in a tire center waiting, something my husband and I had been doing a lot of lately. I flipped the channel to Oprah and caught the episode when she introduced “the Secret”. I thought to myself that this concept that she, along with a panel of prominent business men and women, presented was pretty much common sense. The gist of “the Secret” is the basic law of attraction. Our thoughts become our attitude thus becoming our actions. The creator of the book expressed that we tend to “place orders in the universe” and in doing so, the universe responds with a fervent “coming right up.” Throughout five years of trying to conceive, month after month of gut-wrenching disappointment, I had resigned to the fact that I would never become a mother. Even when we began the adoption process, everything seemed so uncertain, so I continued to deem myself a childless mother for the rest of my life.
A few months after seeing the episode, I had gone to my hometown to visit my family and celebrate pre-Mardi Gras festivities with some friends. While preparing to get in my car and make the two and a half hour trip home to my husband, our dog and our cat, my older sister and I had a small, but emotionally crushing scuffle. In the midst of trying to say my goodbyes with my three very precious but very loud nieces and nephew running around, I made a face that my sister translated as frustration or anger toward her children. She said that I should really think about whether I really wanted to be a mother if I couldn't handle screaming kids. Angrily, I drove away and I began feeling completely sorry for myself. How could my sister say that to me? She is fully aware of our five-year, unsuccessful journey to parenthood. I called my husband, but his words did little to console me. I decided I would have to calm down or risk wrecking my car. A thought came over me and I actually said aloud, for the first time in five years, “My sister is full of (PG censoring here) bull. I am going to be a mother: a good one”. A feeling of peace swept through me and I continued to drive, lost in a fantasy about motherhood in the same way I had fantasized about what I would do with my lottery winnings when I win. Thirty minutes later, my cell phone rang.
***
My husband and I were both teachers at the same high school in Louisiana where teenage pregnancy rates are notably high. Day after day of watching 15, 16 and 17 year-olds waddling down the halls with their pregnant bellies caused our frustrations to escalate. In August of 2006, a fellow teacher called me and told me about a student she taught the previous year who was pregnant and considering placing her baby for adoption. My friend told this student, Alexa, fifteen-years-old, that my husband and I were planning to adopt, and we were going through the same agency. Earlier that day, one of my co-workers told me she had visited the shrine of St. Gerard, the patron saint of mothers and women who want to become mothers, in Newark, New Jersey and she had prayed for me to have a child. She gave me a St. Gerard medal, which I immediately placed on a chain and put around my neck.
After getting up the nerve to call the phone number that my friend gave me, I learned from her mother that Alexa was expecting a baby boy on Christmas. During the conversation, I discovered that Alexa’s mother and I had taken a college course together and she had substituted long-term at my school the year before. Instantly, my husband and I began praying for Alexa and her baby. I kept feeling that there had to some miraculous connection that on the day I received the St. Gerard medal, I found out about this young pregnant woman.
Praying fervently one night, I felt as if I was given a message from God through St. Gerard. The message was to tell friends and family to pray that Alexa will make the best decision for her child. So my husband and I started doing just that in the quiet of our own prayers and when we prayed aloud together.
A few months passed and we hadn’t heard anything else about Alexa and her decision to place her baby. Finally, in November, another teacher told me that Alexa had decided to raise her baby herself. Oddly, we were not disappointed. We had prayed that her decision would be the choice that is best for this baby, and we accepted her choice as God’s will. Our friends and family were disappointed, but my husband and I were strangely at peace with it. Slowly, our own adoption process continued while we continued to pray for Alexa and on Christmas day, I thought about her, knowing that she would soon deliver her son.
In February, we had merely completed step three of our agency’s ten step adoption process. The next step was the home-study, which would ultimately result in our formal approval to adopt. We had been told that from that point, our wait would be anywhere from a year to many years, if we were selected at all by a pregnant mother, then there would be more waiting for her to give birth. Like the Magic Eight Ball always seemed to tell me, my outlook was not so bright, that is until that drive back home on February 10th.
***
When I answered my cell phone that evening, I heard a quivering teenage voice attempt to speak.
“Mrs. Wilson? This is Alexa.” My mind quickly scanned my current role book, and I couldn’t remember teaching anyone by that name. I hadn’t forgotten about her, but I never would have imagined that she would call me. “I was wondering where you and Coach Wilson were in the adoption process.” My heart turned to molten lava that beat a steaming hot liquid through my veins. The answer to her question came from my voice but was guided by a force other than myself.
“We’ve completed the autobiography and the group counseling sessions. We are waiting for our home study to begin, then, once we’re accepted, we’ll be placed in a pool with other couples hoping to adopt and wait to be chosen.” And then the big question, “Why do you ask?”
Her voice filled with tears, Alexa explained that her son was six-weeks-old and she tried but she wants better for her own life and his. Although it was 8:00 on a Sunday night, and grades were due the next day,—for a teacher like me, the night before grades should be turned in is always very busy—I asked her if she would like me to come over so that we could talk. She gave me her address and I said I would be there in a few minutes.
My stomach undulated while dialed my home phone number. Although my insides were burning with the hot lava, my voice came out smooth and unaffected by the potential chain of events that would occur after the conversation that just took place.
“Anthony? Ummm…I just got a phone call…from Alexa.”
“Really? What’d she want?”
“Uh. Well, I’m on my way to her house. She said she wants to place her baby with us.”
Absolute silence.
Finally, “You’re lying.”
After relaying every breath that was shared during my conversation with her, I asked Anthony what he thought. Emphatically, he urged me to hurry up and get to her house, but to call as soon as I could. I can only imagine what he must have done, alone with our dog and cat at our house, during the two hours that I talked with Alexa.
While at her house, she told me exactly what was on her mind: that she wants to go to college, she wants her son to have a father and a mother, she wants to have the opportunity to be a kid, she feels terrible that her mother has been taking over much of the maternal responsibilities, and that she was afraid that if she “gave up her baby” that her peers would judge her and consider her a failure.
I am so thankful for the group counseling sessions we had to complete for our agency. Through reading assignments and role playing activities, I was able to gain insight into the heart of a mother who decides to place her child with another family. We discussed the openness of the adoption and she asked me a few questions about our lifestyle. When our conversation started to fade into discussing what she had missed at school while she had been out for maternity leave (she would be returning to school the next day), her mother asked me if I would like to hold “Julian”. His almond-shaped eyes opened and he looked up at me and, although I did not show this to my audience, “the secret” that I believe brought me to this place had evolved into an entirely different secret that we whispered to each other through our eyes. You are my mother. You are my son.
On Valentine's Day, Alexa's mother called and asked if we would be ready to bring him home on February 21st. We had a week. ONE week! We hustled those few days to get everything in order. I've heard of unique situations when people who were in the pool to be matched with a pregnant mother learned of their child within a few days, but this was different. We weren't even approved yet. We still had the home study to complete, paperwork to fill out, and physical exams. I gave my principal a one day notice of my maternity leave. And our house! The days of arguing about which room would be the nursery were over. Friends came in town to help to paint and cook dinner and provide emotional support. Family opened their attics to recover a cradle, crib, and changing table. Coworkers delivered garbage bags full of baby clothes. Surprisingly, known for being quite the crybaby, I had not shed a tear. On the other hand, my husband, whom I had seen cry twice in our ten years of couple hood—once when his Grandfather died and once when we watched The Notebook-- had been an absolute basket case. I needed to have a clear head in order to have my home prepared for a baby. I was nesting.
That week was filled with nervous excitement, anxiety and fear: fear that Alexa would change her mind again. Fully aware of every single breath I took and every miracle that God was bestowing, His tapestry of our life, which had been apparently covering my eyes to blind me, started to become revealed. I had called my sister, the one who had hurt me so badly, once we were sure that this was really happening. Through guilty tears, she said that she was glad that she said what she did because it wouldn't have prompted me to whole-heartedly apply “the secret” to my life. Okay. She was off the hook. She called me back a few days later and informed me that she had gotten a phone call from a friend of her's from church. Her friend congratulated her on becoming an aunt and knew a lot of details. When my sister questioned her, she responded, “your sister is adopting my sister's grandaughter.” Now the tears began to fall. Now I was completely sure that this was going to happen for us. Oh. My sister's friend, Alexa's aunt, sang at our wedding five years earlier.
The week bounced by as abruptly as it had bounced in. It was Mardi Gras day and we would be meeting the next day at our agency to sign papers and bring home our son. Life was changing already. At 29 years old and from Southern Louisiana, Mardi Gras day usually included a fight with some stranger over a pair of plastic beads but this year, I was fighting with a crib mattress to put on Dreft-scented fitted-sheets—by far the most difficult part about being a parent...crib sheets!-- Alexa suggested that Anthony come by her house to meet Julian, and she wanted to give us all of his clothes, toys, car seats, strollers and other baby items she had accumulated from her baby shower. Although he kept his cool in front of Alexa and her friends---reminder! We are both teachers at their school.---, I saw in his eyes when he looked at this stranger that he was looking at his son.
I truly can't remember what we did the night before. My mother would drive down the day after we brought him home. I do remember taking pictures each room of my house, which now should go into the world's most “before” before picture in history. The next morning, we woke early, went to McDonald's on our way, and bought a newspaper with the headline: “THE FUN IS OVER!” marking the end of Mardi Gras season. We couldn't resist.
We waited for my cell phone to ring. Alexa would be there at 9 am to sign papers and when she had signed them and received counseling, they would call us. 9:00...9:05...check the phone, no missed calls...9:15...9:30... “call my phone and see if it's working.”... 10:00... 10:30... my Bon Jovi ring tone echoed in the truck. They were ready. (Of course, it was then that my husband decided he needed to make a rest-stop. Nerves.)
We spent about an hour visiting with Alexa, her mother Sheri, and her sister Bethany. We have Alexa a Circle of Love pendant with December's birthstone and a letter from each of us. We informed her of our decision to name him Alexander, after her. I walked away from our vehicle as she put him in the car seat in the extended cab of our truck and kissed him. My happiness switched to guilt and sadness for the pain she must be feeling, but she was so strong. She is so strong. We all hugged and said that we'd see them at our house in a few hours.
Ours is an extremely open adoption. For the first few weeks, Alexa called and came to visit whenever she wanted to. It was actually her idea to choose a more specific schedule. Then it was on Wednesdays and Sundays. Now, it has been six months and they come to visit on Sundays only, but I see Alexa at school everyday. She has babysat him for us and she and I are able to talk openly, especially about the numerous rumors about our situation that circle our high school.
Looking back on our journey over the past six years, I am reminded of the story, “Footprints in the Sand” where a man notices two sets of footprints when his life was going his way and only one set of footprints when he was enduring painful moments. The man talks to Jesus and asks why Jesus wasn't with him during the difficult times, and Jesus responds that He was with him. It was then that Jesus carried him. I felt as though God had been ignoring me. I now know that it was I who was ignoring him. When Anthony and I prayed that Alexa would make the best decision for her child, and when we learned of her initial decision to parent him, we were at peace because God had to put us in that place. I've heard people say to “let go and let God”, but I never knew how to do that. Now I understand that God is the one who has to tell us, “Peace. Be still.” Only for us, it was more along the lines of “SHUT UP and be still and watch what I have done!”
I am touched every time I see Alexa or think about her. She is our angel. Her selfless generosity has answered our every prayer. “She gave more than just a life when she made of this man and wife a father and a mother, when she gave the gift we could not give each other.”*
Lyrics from Michael McLean, “The Gift We Could Not Give Each Other”.
Carin
September 10, 2007
your story is very touching, and proof that God watches over us all. I too have tried and failed for five yrs to get pregant, and now my husbands 17 yr old sister is pregnant and asked us to adopt her baby. and we have also felt the need to pray for her to make the best descion for the baby, even if it means she keeps it. and the adoption will also be a very open adoption. its nice to have another story to relate to. so thank u for sharing it.
Quoting suunysideup:Wow. How close of a story! I will also pray that your s.i.l. makes the best decision. And remember, Alex's firstmother changed her mind and then we were blessed just a short time later. Everything in God's time. I don't even know why e have to have clocks or calendars, b/c they really don't matter.
Hi
your story is very touching, and proof that God watches over us all. I too have tried and failed for five yrs to get pregant, and now my husbands 17 yr old sister is pregnant and asked us to adopt her baby. and we have also felt the need to pray for her to make the best descion for the baby, even if it means she keeps it. and the adoption will also be a very open adoption. its nice to have another story to relate to. so thank u for sharing it.
By choice, we have become a family, first in our hearts, and finally in breath and being. Great expectations are good; great experiences are better.~Richard Fischer
~Carin~ Proud owner of CIRCLE OF LOVE (Open Adoption Group) and honored administrator of ONE GOOD DEED 
Circle of Love: (Open Adoption) http://www.cafemom.com/group/23217
ONE GOOD DEED: http://www.cafemom.com/group/26809
Quoting spitting_image:Thank you. I just LOVE talking about it.
Bless You! I am a birth mother and have a open adoption. You write your life and it is so beautiful. Thank you for all the memories of that day. It was hard but I knew it was what was best for her.
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Quoting mcelmo:Simply wonderful!
ok so now I don't feel so alone. If only my daughter-in-law and daughter would read that. My 18 year old daughter had a baby girl on Halloween and gave her up for adoption to my oldest stepson and his wife. They have their one and only baby girl. Everything is very open. We have even sat down as a group and talked about when she should be told and ultimately the decision is theirs. She will always know she is adopted and I am sure that she will even be told who her birth mother is.
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- alexmomma2007
on Sep. 30, 2007 at 11:52 PM