... and Baby Makes Two (5 page)

Jane didn't know what to expect from this CSM meeting, but her nonexpectation had a pink and cheery hue. This was not it.

The red-faced woman accepted comfort and tissues from the group. She lasered in on Jane.

“How old are you?”

“I'm thirty-six. I'll be thirty-seven next—”

“Don't wait. Don't wait until it's too late. That's what I did. And now I'll probably never get pregnant. I'll go bankrupt and still have no baby to show for it!”

She folded her body over and sobbed. This time, she accepted no comfort.

The woman with the extra sperm tearfully related the story of her second miscarriage, and Jane started to panic. She could handle sobbing, and she knew about grief. But so many of these sentences scraped against her skin. She was in the wrong place. Wrong place. Wrong place.

“Remember,” said the optimist in the group, “Susan Sarandon had babies when she was in her forties. So can we.”

“Fuck Susan Sarandon,” said the red-faced woman.

“Look, this is reality,” someone was saying to Jane. “I'm about to hit my two-year anniversary of trying to get pregnant. So far, I've been through about a dozen inseminations, I've shot myself up with God knows what medications, I've been through hyper-stimulations, PCOS testing, I had to go on the Atkins diet, and I had a laparoscopy for endometriosis. But I draw the line at IVF. No way”

“Hey! A lot of good people have used IVF, and they have beautiful families to show for it. Who are you to judge?” shouted red-faced woman.

Wrong place. Wrong place. Get out. Leave. Was a baby a prize? Was she willing to put her body through all this? What was she doing here? Jane rose and wandered through the room. She needed quiet now, but the room was noisy and felt more and more like the school cafeteria it really wanted to be. Jane should have left the noisy room and gathered her thoughts.

Instead, she sat sideways in the first empty seat she found and kept herself quiet. The quest for pregnancy was a logical topic here, so Jane couldn't justify her desire to escape. She had been so stupid: All her research had focused on raising children with just one parent. She had been thinking about children, but had forgotten about pregnancy. She was stupidly surprised at the high jump of conception, the dangers along the way, the trauma of birth, the obstacles against recovery. And that was the short list.

“And this is my daughter.”

Jane was sitting sideways in an extra seat in the Adopting circle. A petite woman in the chair next to her held up a snapshot of a three-year-old girl in a red bathing suit. The little girl was in midair, arms outstretched, mouth grinning. Nice shot. The little girl was Chinese.

The photo went around from person to person, and when it was handed to Jane, she turned her body around. The glossy paper vibrated with happiness. The petite woman, who was Italian by heritage, looked like her daughter, which made no sense to Jane at all. But there it was.

The petite woman was a lawyer, and her name was Maria. She handed out carefully formatted documents that described the process of adopting from China, in moderate detail. Jane started reading her packet before she finished handing over the balance to the rest of the circle.

She didn't look up to see who said, “Did you see that thing on the news last night? The couple who adopted that little boy when he was a baby and three years later the mother changed her mind and wanted him back? She won. They have to give him up.”

Various women in the group said:

“Oh, God. That poor kid. Those poor parents. Oh, God.”

After the Adopting group paid their respects to the Poor Family, Jane tried to steer them back over to China.

“You're single and they let you adopt?”

But the petite woman wasn't listening to Jane. She was on her cell phone, saying, “Mom. She's not allowed to have more than two cookies. Mom? Mom! Please don't!”

“I need some air,” said Jane.

Images and ideas camped around her in no orderly fashion: sperm banks, IVF, adoption, custody battles, labor breathing, miscarriage, postpartum depression, China, breast-feeding, ovarian cysts, and red bathing suits.

Jane was stuck on the image of red bathing suits. The picture stayed in her head. She went back inside to find the petite woman who was the mother of Little Red Bathing Suit, but when she returned to the Adopting circle, the woman was gone.

“Where did she go?” Jane asked. The women explained that the petite woman had to go home and intercept Grandma's cookie bonanza, and doesn't that sound like the most fun ever? And who wouldn't love to do that?

The host of the meeting was standing at the center, announcing that the meeting was
over,
so would everyone please return their
chairs
to the
wall.
The women obeyed, but continued the conversations that had begun in their circles.

“I want to make Halloween costumes,” said someone who would turn out to be named Karen. “I want to read bedtime stories and set limits and go to school plays and find out how to get chocolate ice cream out of natural fibers,” she said as she folded her own chair and Jane's.

Karen was tall, with Lucy-red hair and an Irish complexion. She had an alertness, an energy that could have passed for a caffeine buzz. She wore a royal blue crinkly cotton sundress and comfortable sandals. Her voice was both vibrant and calm. She was snacking on sunflower seeds. She was up. She was awake. She had answers for Jane, who really wanted to talk to the petite woman.

“I really wanted to talk to that woman, Maria. Damn. I didn't see her leave.”

“She's coming back. Look, why don't you go to the Thinker's Workshop? She's one of the speakers there. You can ask her anything you want.”

“It's all full. I'll have to wait for the next—”

“Oh, you can have my spot. I don't need it. I'm done thinking. I've made up my mind. I'm going to adopt from China.”

“Just like that? Don't you want to think about it a little?”

“I've thought about this for eight years and one hour. I'm going to the FCC meeting next week to find out how to get started.”

The Federal Communications Commission? This was getting weird.

“Families with Children from China,” Karen replied to the confused look on Jane's face. Jane wrote down the FCC meeting details as Karen asked, “Do you want to go to the Thinker's Workshop?”

“Yes. When is it?”

“Now.”

Jesus, this was a little overwhelming. Did Jane have the mental energy for another noisy room full of weeping infertile career women? Here goes. She promised herself that she would sit near the door, and she could always leave.

Karen seemed to be reading Jane's mind.

“Look, you can go to the workshop or leave if it's not for you. You're just trying to find things out, right? I'm a little older than you. Okay maybe I'm a lot older than you. For me, I know I have to take this leap now or I'll spend my golden years all bitter with regret. I'm ready to do this. I hope. Go, find out what you want.”

…

Jane followed the parade of six Thinkers three blocks west and two blocks north to the office of a psychotherapist. The Thinker's Workshop was a much smaller gathering in a much smaller room. The Thinkers were joined by three actual moms, including Maria, the petite mother of Little Red Bathing Suit. It was quiet and almost claustrophobic. It felt like an intervention.

The psychotherapist hosted the workshop. A single mother herself, she had used donor insemination to conceive her son, who was now a teenager. Along the way, she founded Choosing Single Motherhood.

“If you're going to survive as a single mother, you need to be organized,” she instructed. Jane was almost puffing out her chest. What a promising start.

“And, in my opinion, you need to have a few things in place.”

Oh, boy! She was about to recite a list! What a good sign.

1. Financial stability: You need to pay off your debts, if you can, and have some kind of cushion, in case of emergencies. (Jane: check! She made a good living, and had zero debt. So far, so good.)
   

2. Career goals met: Maybe not all of them, but some of them. Because, for the first three years, you're not doing nothin' but taking care of your baby. (Jane: check! She had been promoted; she was in a good place for a few years. Yeah. Check on this. Two for two.)
   

3. A father figure: A brother, uncle, friend, someone who can fill that gap, and believe me, it's there. It's always there. (Jane: check? Were her brothers a good answer here? Maybe. She'd have to see how they react. And then there's Dad, and her good pal Ray. If this was a test, Jane was passing.)
   

After the opening niceties, each of the guest speaker moms told her story. Mom #
1
had an unplanned pregnancy that resulted in her delightful, chubby baby boy (photos, coos, aww). The older Thinkers in the room rolled their eyes. Accidental pregnancy, give me a break. The mom had sued her now ex-boyfriend for support and lived happilyish ever after on Long Island. She worked part-time now that her son was in school.

Mom #
2
had endured the painful and expensive infertility treatments that had tortured the Trying circle. After eight months, she got pregnant and had her delightful, chubby baby boy (photos, coos, aww). She had a tough delivery, a C-section that refused to close for an extended period of time. But eventually she recovered and returned to work. She spent several minutes describing the importance of having a good nanny and a nanny cam. A topic Jane had researched!

At last, the group turned to Mom #
3
and her adoption story. And Jane got to ask, “You're single and they let you adopt?”

Yes, they did. Each adoption agency is allowed a certain number of single parents.

“How do you know if you qualify to adopt?”

There are a few things that you must have: a steady job, a decent income, a home, no criminal record, and the ability to handle the paperwork involved in international adoption.

Most of the Thinkers wanted to know about Mom #
2
's infertility treatments, why she had a C-section, and how she chose her sperm donor. But Jane was not the only one drawn to Mom #
3
's story. There was a woman who would turn out to be named Teresa. She
was wearing a pencil skirt, a silk blouse, panty hose, and heels. Rather buttoned-up for a Saturday, in Jane's view. Teresa had cropped, light brown hair and looked like old money. The pearls were probably real, and her teeth were perfect. She sounded authoritative, and the muscles in her face were taut. But Jane saw the spark of fear and worry in her eyes. That was the only spot where Teresa couldn't stop it from showing. She kept her legs crossed at the ankle.

As the group talked about hormone levels, Teresa said, “Look. I have a very senior position in the public relations industry. I can't just start … blossoming.”

“But how can you miss out on creating life—the greatest experience of all time?” cried one of the Thinkers. This was someone who felt certain that her C-section would close properly, no problem.

Teresa explained: “I lived with Victor for twelve years. He and I started the firm together. We're partners. Everyone there knows about us. Way back then, he told me he didn't want to have children. Neither did I. But then something changed. Call it the biological clock, or call it what you will, something changed. I walked around feeling empty, and nothing could fill me up—not work, not friends, not shoes. I was empty because I needed to give … I don't really know what I'm saying here. Let's try again. When I met Victor, I was thirty. When I turned forty-two, I told him that I wanted to have a child. He packed his bags and moved out.”

Frightened silence from the Thinkers and the Moms.

“Which is fine, because it's a great apartment, and now it's mine and I'm going to sell it for a pile of money. But everyone at work knows that we split up. And our clients know it too. We still work together, for the time being, anyway. And we're okay. We're mature adults. But I can't burst into the office with a big belly and milky breasts and say, ‘Guess what?' ” I can't. It's simply out of the question.”

She turned to Maria.

“I never thought of adopting from China. I had thought, maybe

Russia. Maybe get a child who looks like me. But who cares about that? How can I find out more about China adoption? Oh. And I think this young lady wants to know too.” She nodded toward Jane. Jane nodded and said, “Please.”

…

After all that Thinking about Choosing Single Motherhood, Jane joined Ray for an evening of
Alice in Wonderland
staged in a parking lot, which he was reviewing for
Big Apple Parent
magazine. In this version, a grown-up Alice was reading the story to her little girl. But the story came to life and the characters kidnapped mother and daughter and took them to Wonderland. Mother Alice had to stand up to the Red Queen in order to win her daughter and their freedom. Mother Alice won, of course, but then it all turned out to be a dream … or was it? The little girl fell asleep as the Cheshire Cat's neon grin glowed above her bed. Blackout. Applause.

The cast included several young children, because everybody works in this town. And Jane couldn't help wondering if the kids were staying up too late.

After the show, Jane and Ray had their traditional postmortem martini. Ray found the show creative, but too predictable. The child actors annoyed him.

“They're so trained and so cute in that ‘sing out, Louise!' way. I can't stand it. As soon as I see that there are children in the cast, I can feel a black cloud spreading from the back of my head to the front. And did you see the fake crying that little girl was doing? She probably works her own mother better than that.”

Jane put down her drink and said, “I've seen you around kids. I thought you liked them. Didn't you say you liked them?” Jane's voice was a few notes too high.

“I like real kids. I don't like professionals.”