“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”

-Zelda Fitzgerald.

The October afternoon is crisp and my energy crackles with anticipation and excitement like dry leaves trampled under running feet. I am on my way to meet my child. The changing colors serve as a symbol of my personal transition.  We pull into the parking lot and I observe the cinderblock simplicity of the concrete and glass building and yet, that cold exterior holds my warm beating heart.  I am already in there… with her.  I look at Tom and there are no words. We spent years hoping and wishing for our arms to be heavy with children, our ears to hear the twinkle of laughter, and to smell the sweetness of babyhood.  I exit the car, pregnant with passion for motherhood.  I am not in a hurry.  I savor my wild eagerness to get to that door and have it all begin.  We arrive and cross the threshold to parenthood. 

 
I would not wish infertility on any other woman (or man).  We met and we meshed and we married.  We moved to a new city, started new careers, and got pregnant.  A similar story to our friends and family, but our baby was a blighted ovum.  We were pregnant again by the next change of season. We saw a heartbeat.  And then, later,  I miscarried.  I couldn’t get pregnant.  I would not wish a fertility investigation on any other woman (or man) – yet I would not trade my journey to parenthood. 

My health education began with my desire to be a mother.  A year of gynecological tests and cycles of synthetic hormones taught me I had to take control of my own body.  My intuition reawakened and I vowed to never put my destiny in the hands of others again.  So I did what I do best.  I went to the books.  I hunted for my answers at my safe haven – the library.  
I began to collect personal health tools: yoga, natural medicine, aromatherapy, gluten-free and clean eating, and community.  In my pursuit of answers, I found a quality homeopathic doctor and an internet forum of conversation threading.

 Twenty five years ago, I managed to find, on the internet, a bulletin board of women who were experiencing infertility, miscarriage, heartbreak, and hope.  I found connection within the warmth and safety of my home office.   It was not the first circle of women in my life and it won’t be the last.

I would not wish multiple miscarriages on any woman (or man).  I dropped wheat, milk, corn, sugar, and alcohol and added Chinese Herbs to my diet. Months later, I was detoxed. I got pregnant and I miscarried. Then I got angry.  I found a therapist and Neurofeedback training and I got pregnant.  It was an ectopic tubal pregnancy, and another surgical miscarriage. Months later, I arrived at an infertility specialist consultation and discovered I was pregnant. The heartbeat was there… and then weeks later it was not. I found an acupuncturist, and I naturally miscarried. We did three IUIs and then one IVF and nothing happened in the petri dish. And then  I got pregnant naturally, with twins.   I miscarried. We then found New Hope Adoption Agency.  

I would not wish the adoption sign up process on any woman (or man).  As we waited for the mandatory training, I discovered I was pregnant.  I did not want to cancel our chance at parenthood, so I held this secret inside of me. As we sat through a weekend of education on the topics of: open and closed adoptions, the state laws and requirements, and the statistics and realities of choosing to adopt a child, I felt conflicted. I was hiding my pregnancy and didn’t feel that I completely fit the profile of the barren couple, but it was a good choice.  I miscarried the week after training.  

I would not wish the governmental and agency investigation on any women (or man). While waiting for fingerprinting, home studies, and background checks, I threw myself into creating the “Tom and Mary Color Brochure”.  My career experiences in marketing, publishing, and education guided the creative process. I produced the first impression handout that birthmothers would view, if they want to personally choose adoptive parents for their birth child.  I felt the hope of forward momentum, yet it was mixed with frustration.  At times, I found myself choking on the bile of  bitterness;  I had to jump through hoops to be deemed worthy to parent.  I interacted with women, in and out of my circles, who would never understand any of this process because many couples became pregnant easily and never had a complication. 

I would not wish my turmoil, my tornado of feelings, on any woman (or man), but I would not trade them for anything in the world.  

I came to accept that everyone had their pregnancy (and adoption) challenges regardless of their circumstances.  There were so many lessons I would gather up along the infertility journey. Like pebbles and shells on a walk down the beach, they were treasures to be pocketed and brought out later, for better examination, throughout the years to come. I became a gem cutter.  

I will cut facets and hone my jewels into bits of wisdom.  I will revisit many of these moments as I travel forward into the decades ahead as a wife, parent, sister, daughter, friend, mentor, and more.

From a January phone call I placed to an adoption lawyer, until a crisp day in October, nine months passed in 1998. My intuition told me during that summer, to start getting ready.  I planned a fish theme and made a baby quilt and sponge painted the nursery walls, but I could not bring myself to buy a single baby item. I was optimistic and practical, but I was reserved.  Patience was never a virtue of mine, so I would not call this hesitation a moment of discipline, but rather an anticipatory hold back.  I grasped tightly to the rollercoaster bar as it made its first climb up the steep incline. I knew the minute it crested the top, for that momentary pause, I would gleefully throw my arms in the air and scream with joy the entire ride.  

On Friday, October 9, 1998, I dropped Tom at the airport for a football weekend in Arizona. I had the day off from my PhD studies and met my best friend for lunch. She was to arrive with the gender results of her ultrasound and I was equally excited since she had asked me to be in the delivery room of the birth.  After we celebrated her daughter-to-be, we giggled in a hair salon and later picked up items for a friend’s upcoming wedding shower.  I saw a stuffed kangaroo and remarked that “when we bring home a baby”,  I would come back for that Mama, and her baby joey.  I had transitioned to readiness, and did not know that I was suspended at the top of the coaster climb. I parted ways with my friend, and in less than an hour, I would have the wind in my face on an exciting amusement park ride. All weekend long, I prepared for parenthood. 

We were told in training that we would receive a call asking if we were “together” to receive news that we had been “chosen”.  In the state of Nevada, there is a 72 hour window from when the birthmother declares she wants to give the baby up for adoption and when the state allows her to sign off and terminate the parental rights.  During this time the baby stays in a state trained and approved receiving care home.  When I hung up the phone, I bubbled with the news that we were to pick up our daughter on Monday afternoon.  My husband, my sister, my mother, and the friend I just left, are not available to answer the phone. This is not the kind of news I can leave on an answering machine so I grabbed my keys and headed out to shop. 
I arrived at the doors of the Baby Superstore and it felt  like I was on a game show episode, where the contestant is timed to see how much can fit in the cart before the buzzer ends.  I zoomed to the left, and I encountered “Nipple Wall”. It was an enormous arrangement of pacifiers and bottles in all shapes and sizes. Overwhelmed by the choices, I bypassed that for a later time, and went in hunt of a car seat to bring her home.  It takes only a matter of seconds for me to choose the gender neutral denim (because, of course, this is the first of many babies to come and there might be boys).  I encountered a salesgirl and she is the first to get the news.  Word gets out and the whole store buzzed with excitement for me.  The cart is filled quickly with diapers, wipes, various formulas, bathing necessities, swaddling blankets, gowns, beanies, and booties.  I paused in the middle of the store, for only a moment, to savor the glow that warmed me from head to toe: I am a Mom.  

Tom and I connected and concluded that I would continue to nest and he would be home on Sunday afternoon to put together the crib.  The word got out and my circles from near and far were in celebration mode.  After a full day of shopping and gathering at the specialty boutique, I threw that wedding shower, and got word that a baby shower brunch is planned for me the next morning.  It hit me like a giant steamroller that through seven years, we have gathered an enormous support network of friends and family that were equally eager for us to have this moment in our life.  The joy was abundant.  

That Sunday night, we put various names in a brown sack lunch bag.  We both drew out: Abigail.  I do not think it was luck or coincidence.  I believe the Universe already had her named.  Tom has a sister named Gail.  I have a brother named Joe.  Abigail Jo was born on September 24, 1998.  She weighed 6 pounds and 6 ounces. We were only given a small amount of information about the birth parents and their background.  Her name was Gail; his name was Joe.  She was a single parent with twin boys under the age of two. She had an emergency C-section and named her Joey.  Our baby would have names linked to the birth parents and her new family, but she will become her own unique Abbie.  

I awakened with a start early on that pick up morning and remember the stuffed Mama Kangaroo with the baby joey in her pouch.  It was never for our nursery, it was to be  a gift for the birth mother.  I was flooded with a rush of feelings – of awe and wonder at the love of a mother for her child.  I had only experienced this minuscule moment of motherhood and my love is already so deep for a child I had yet to see.  I suddenly experienced an abundance of compassion for the courageous choice she made to give her daughter more than she could offer at that time in her life.  It would be many more years before I could embrace the anguish of her decision,  but I had clarity of  mind to write her a letter and leave the door wide open for her to be part of Abbie’s life when she was ready.  

I will not wish seven years of infertility on any woman (or man), but I will wish everyone the power of knowing that children can never have too many people loving them.