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2002-01-09 | 11:48 a.m.

Barbara and I have kids in the same class and we were there helping out during their classroom party, just before the school let out for vacation. We've known each other for about two years now. She said, "If I had the chance to adopt another little girl from Ch*na, do you think I should do it?" I murmured something noncommittal and she elaborated. An adoption had fallen through. The adopting mother didn't want the baby after all. Didn't like this particular child. Vehemently. Intended to sue the agency to get her money back. The agency pleaded with the woman to bring the girl back to the States anyway, because if she were returned to the orphanage, the child, who is not yet two years old, would almost certainly be left to die in the dying rooms. A kind of punishment for being unlovable. If neither returned to the orphanage nor taken home by the adopting mother, then she must be re-abandoned on the street in the hope that she would end up in another orphanage. The woman agreed. No one wants to look like a monster.

This child, like Barbara's three-year-old, Marissa, will come home to her new family with a severe attachment disorder. But other families on the waiting lists could take her. Someone else could be found to take her. The agency director---with whom the baby was currently staying---thought of Barbara first, because Barbara had brought Marissa through the darkness into the light.

"No," I said. "I don't think you should do it." Marissa, despite great strides, isn't ready to share her mother, and Barbara's son Caleb has his own emotional issues. Nothing serious, but impossible to ignore. Most of all, Barbara's relationship with her husband Josh isn't so good. They have communication problems. As in, they don't talk. She is a stay-at-home mom, late 40s, sharp as a tack. He'll drink five beers in his truck on his way home from work. She doesn't think they will split up, because of the kids, but it still doesn't seem like an optimal situation to me.

But that wasn't what Barbara wanted to hear.

"Everybody I've talked to has said no," she said grumpily.

"That's because it would be so haaard! It was really hard with Marissa! I remember times when you were so frustrated with her you could barely speak."

"Yeah," Barbara agreed. "But I know I could do this."

"No one doubts that. Everyone knows you're capable of doing it, and doing it well. It's just about whether it's good for you. And your other kids! They still need you! There are other couples standing at the ready, waiting for a child. People with no children. Let them have a turn."

"I keep waiting for a sign," she said. "Is this the right thing to do, or the wrong thing? I just keep thinking, maybe this is what I'm supposed to do. Maybe that's why it fell into my lap this way."

"You're not going to get any signs. You just have to decide what's best for Barbara." (In some remote corner of my mind, I wondered why I had suddenly switched to the third-person.)

"I made a list of pros and cons," she said brightly.

"It's not as if you'll make your decision based on which side of the list is longer," I said, smiling. "You'll still decide based on your emotions. It will be your decision."

"I don't waaaanna do that!" Barbara grinned. "I want a sign."

I called her up later that day and we talked about it some more. It really bothered her that pretty much everyone she talked to had urged her not to do it, so I spent a lot of time trying to reassure her that this didn't reflect anyone's lack of confidence in her, but rather loving concern. Which I fully believe. There was never any doubt in my mind that she could pull it off, only whether it was advisable under the circumstances. I also curbed my own negativity in favor of a pep talk. Of course she could do this--what mattered is that she want to do it for the right reasons. Not because she's flattered by the honor of being singled out by the adoption agency. Not because she admires those superwomen you read about in women's magazines who adopt throwaway kids in large quantities. No, she said, that wasn't it. She admitted to mixed feelings, and said she thought she ought to feel single-minded about it. "No," I said. "If you didn't have any qualms, you'd be an idiot. You're a smart person." She asked me if I had a twin stroller, and I said yes, she could have it.

"So are you going to do this?" I said excitedly.

"I don't know!" she shrieked.

A few days before school started back, I called and left a message. I was very curious to find out what had happened, and when she didn't call me back right away, I assumed she had gotten the new baby and was too busy to call. But when she called over the weekend, she revealed that no, it hadn't happened yet, and yes, they were going ahead with it. They had visited the little girl several times already. They had picked out a name, but were still debating the middle name (like Marissa, her second middle name would be the Chinese name she was given by the orphanage). Barbara called her a "peanut" because at 22 months she weighed just 19 pounds. Best of all, after two weeks with the agency owner's family, she was blossoming.

We arranged for me to give her the stroller at school the next day.

She was at school with Josh that day, because they were on their way to a developmental assessment for the new baby. Barbara and I had agreed that I would give her the stroller and she could clean it up, because if she waited for me to clean it, it could take weeks or even months to get it. Barbara understands me. But when I gave the stroller to her husband, I couldn't remember right away how to fold it up. There was a trick to it and it's been a few years. I don't keep this stuff in my head indefinitely. He sort of wrinkled up his nose and said they'd probably buy a new one in the next couple of weeks. I guess he didn't want me to think they were charity cases, which is a total guy thing, but this sort of pissed me off. The stroller wasn't that dirty, and anyway, the damn thing is Scotchgarded, and even though he didn't know the difference, this was a highly coveted Emmaljunga double stroller! Some people would be grateful to have it.

Barbara walked back then. "Wow, it's like a lounge chair," she said.

"Yeah," I said. "Well if you replace it, give it back to me and I'll give it to somebody else."

Barbara looked at me like I was crazy.

"If you replace it," I said, shrugging. I knew she had no intention of replacing the damn stroller. Why would she? She wanted it for Marissa and the new baby, both of whom were well over a year old. She wouldn't be using it long.

She told me the owner of the adoption agency would be dropping off the new baby the next night. I could tell she was happy.

The next day was also Marissa's first day of preschool. As we pulled into the parking lot, I reminded Jasper she would be coming and that he should be sure to say hello to her and maybe show her some of the fun things they do at school. He was all for it. Barbara's van was already in the parking lot when we arrived, so I just pulled in beside her. Before I was even out of the car, she had come around behind me and plunked the stroller down next to my trunk.

I hopped out and gave her a puzzled look.

"Did Josh freak out?" I figured he had put his foot down about the stroller.

"It's a long story," she said.

"We were going down there yesterday for the developmental assessment..." She was trying to tell me the whole story, and I couldn't figure out what it had to do with the stroller. Then it dawned on me that this was bigger than the stroller.

"What?" I blurted out, interrupting. "She's not coming?"

"In the car, Josh started saying, 'We can't do this, we can't do this,' and I said, 'Let's just go to this assessment, and we'll see how we feel afterward.' Because I knew that every time we were away from her for a while, the doubts would crop up, and then when we saw her again, we'd feel very strongly that this was absolutely the right thing to do.

"Then when we saw her at the assessment, I watched Pat and her husband interacting with her, and I realized, they love her. This baby already has a family. They are already her family. We can't take this baby away from her family!"

Oh no, I thought.

She told me about how Pat's husband had been sleeping on a mattress on the floor next to the baby. "It's really him," she said. "He's head over heels in love with this baby. I couldn't take her away from him."

On the drive home, she said, "I couldn't breathe. My chest felt so tight, I couldn't catch my breath." She told Josh how she felt, and he agreed.

"So you called them."

"I asked Josh to do it. I couldn't do it." He told them everything they were thinking, and at first, Pat protested: "No no no..." Then Barbara got on the phone and laid it out. She was still willing to take the girl, that went without saying. But she believed the girl belonged with them. Pat's husband got on the phone then. "I cried, he cried," Barbara said. She told them: "Think it over, then call us back."

"Three hours later, they still hadn't called back," Barbara said. "Clearly, this was no simple yes or no decision." But eventually the phone rang, and yes, they told her, they wanted to keep the baby themselves.

Pat thanked Barbara for being so perceptive, then said, "Thank you for giving me the greatest gift anyone has ever given me." Barbara's voice broke on the word "gift" and she started to cry. Then I started to cry. Marissa circled her mother, holding up her arms, and calling "Mommy, Mommy" over and over again until Barbara picked her up and squeezed her tightly. "I think I did the right thing, but now I feel this huge grief and pain," she choked out. "It would have been wrong to take her after so many separations--first the orphanage, then the adoptive mother, and now this--when they clearly loved her, and she was already a part of their family."

I nodded, gave her a big hug, and tried to say a few encouraging words. She said they had offered to do another adoption for her, "as close to free as we can get it," but she said she didn't even want to think about it right now. I loaded the stroller into my trunk and we walked the kids into the school. Marissa, the little girl who has scars where her legs were rubbed raw from being tied down to her crib in the orphanage, who spent the year and a half after being adopted crying and screaming pitifully if Barbara so much as walked out of her sight, plunked herself down at the Play-Doh table and shot her hand up in the air to wave at Barbara.

"Buh-bye, Mommy!" she squealed exultantly.

Barbara chuckled. "She can't wait to get rid of me," she said, bending down to take a picture.

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