The Mothers A Novel - By Jennifer Gilmore Page 0,69

you crying, honey?” There was another brief pause. “I know,” she said. “I know. Aren’t we just the luckiest people in the world?”

_______

This is the way in which we were lucky: our birthmother letter, our home study document, and our online profile were finally approved. Shortly after this our profile went up online with our toll-free number and our special designated e-mail. The day it went “live,” my ob/gyn called to tell me that my results were normal, in regards to my extended cycles. I had thought perimenopause, she said, but that’s usually when the periods get closer together, but you’re good, she’d said. And I see you’re thinking of fertility treatments. Any more thoughts on this?

Set the stunned rage aside, I thought, hanging up. Because now we have pre-menopause to consider. I was in a new state of alert and so the day our profile went online, I took my phone from the shower to the bathroom to the coffee shop to the grocery store. This must happen now, I thought, before I go into menopause, and so I resolved I would not leave my phone’s side; I pledged myself to it. Until we were matched with a birthmother, I vow, Phone, I will never leave you.

We were told this process could play out in one of several scenarios. One scenario was we could get no calls, until, several months or a year or so down the line, we would be contacted by a birthmother who would be the right match for us. In scenario number one, there is a lot of waiting without any calls, which can be stressful. Or, in scenario number two, we could get several calls and e-mails from several birthmothers, who might, in the end for any number of reasons, end up choosing other prospective adoptive parents. Whatever the case, we were told that this process could take a year, on average, but for some it was much quicker, for some far longer.

Since when did average apply to me? The one time I came home with a C—in algebra!—my father nearly lost his mind. When I told him a C was average, this made him more distraught. Let me tell you something, my father said to me, a fury in his eyes I had thought previously saved for my mother, I will not have mediocrity in this household. Average, he’d said, incredulous. I will not have it, he said.

When it came to adoption, Ramon and I were not really a C couple, I reasoned. For one we were heterosexual. In the South and the middle of the country, the red states, where many of the birthmothers seemed to hail from, where our agency had offices, it seemed, heterosexuals might have an edge. Though my Jewishness might wear that sharp blade smooth, we did have what I had begun to refer to as the Ramon Advantage, his Spanishness. Our letter was translated into Spanish. Queremos agradeceros por vuestra valentía y generosidad en su consideración de la adopción abierta, he wrote. Thank you for your bravery and generosity in considering open adoption.

And while some in these parts had the false impression that New York was where people got shot, many people living outside of cities might find our lives rich and exciting. In this way, we were told, adoption works in the same manner genetics might. A birthmother who wants her child to live in diverse, culturally-minded Brooklyn is likely to be more similar to Ramon and me, who struck out for the city and all its rewards and frustrations.

Why didn’t anyone call the first day? Was it New York, or that we lived in an apartment, or that I was Jewish? Could they tell that we were not wealthy? That we were renters?

In the beginning of the second week, though, we did get a contact. Someone at the agency office in California—Allison—called to tell us there was a Carmen, a twenty-year-old in community college who lived with her parents in Los Angeles. I was told she was shy, and so she didn’t speak with me directly, but, Allison said, from her experience, as long as she’d been doing this (from her high, seventeen-year-old-sounding voice, how long could that have been?) she could tell Carmen was serious—the real deal—and though it was quite early in her pregnancy, she would be contacting us soon.

I intensified my relationship with my phone and did little else but sit and wait and watch it. I thought of Los Angeles, where