Adoption: LIfe in a Maternity Home

Luckily it is a semi-open adoption which means I get letters, pictures, cards, gifts, emails, videos; etc. and I send the same.

I have even gotten to see my daughter twice a year starting a few years ago.

I remembered when I moved in to the maternity home how I’d never seen so much food in my life. It was like the Garden of Eden, I joked to myself. For the first time ever I didn’t have to worry about where my next meal was coming from. It was an awesome feeling, one that I got to have for nine months.

I remembered the house parents took me and my fellow birth moms who lived there out for ice cream on the 4th of July and to Trinity Park to watch the fireworks and how everyone stared at us as always.

At the ice cream parlor one of the residents who’d had her baby in June made a face in the window as we were leaving and tried to scare the people who were staring. All the residents laughed. As obnoxious as the resident was, I had to laugh.

For once we had the last laugh when gawked at.

When we got to the park to watch the fireworks, there were no nearby bathrooms so a group of us had to walk across huge boulders from one end of the river to the other than hike up a steep hill to a restaurant to use their restroom.

We weren’t too happy about it but took it all in stride as we headed across the slick rocks behind the crowds of people doing the same thing. The difference was we didn’t have much balance because we were pregnant and had to hang on to each other while kids played and splashed around beside us and adults just merely stared.

I, however, was completely furious about the whole thing and silently cursed the male house parent who didn’t take into account when parking the van about the location of the rest rooms and the fact that we residents were hugely pregnant and didn’t have much strength to walk far.

When we made it back to our seats and settled on our blankets on the steep hill overlooking the river, a group of people gawked at us and whispered for what seemed like an eternity.

I started doing what I saw a resident do once and some other residents now joined me. Every time the crowd would stare I’d stare them down. Once I did this, they quickly averted their eyes.

Then the residents followed suit and made sure that every time some onlooker whispered something about us that they knew we could hear every word.

They managed to run off several people this way. Anything not to be gawked at like some science experiment. I hated that aspect of being a birth mom.

They were able to get rid of the rest of the gawkers when Amy, the one who made all the baby blankets, lifted her shirt so as not to flash her breasts and drew a smiley face on her stomach complete with hair. Never one to balk at a challenge, she proudly thrust her stomach forward unbeknownst to the house parents who would’ve reprimanded her, and smiled at the gawkers who quickly gathered their things and moved to another area.

But not before Amy and another resident made sure they could hear them say, “See that guy sitting next to us? (Motioning to the male married house parent who sat next to his wife, also a house parent) He’s the father of all of our kids!”

It was great. A real victory for us.

Luckily the house parents knew nothing about it, just teased him about it later by implying that they should have said something like that to the crowd.

He would’ve been so embarrassed, particularly since he and his wife were Mormons.

Then when the fireworks finally started we all realized we were in a bad spot and wound up barely able to see them.
Towards the end of the display, several residents had to go to the bathroom but couldn’t find one close and started urging the male house parent to pack everyone up so we could find a bathroom by car.

By the time we finally got out of the parking lot the residents were very uncomfortable and about to burst their kidneys.

He stopped at one store and the bathroom was out of order. Another store wouldn’t let us use the facilities. And another store had a long line.

He wouldn’t stop anywhere else, just drove the long way back to the dorm with several angry pregnant residents in tow.

He’d barely pulled up in the drive when we piled out and ran into the dorm.

I was glad I didn’t have to go because I would’ve jumped out of the van a long time ago.

“No man is going to keep me from going to the bathroom,” I said to myself.

Here is an Adoption Glossary of terms that you might find yourself coming across if you ever deal with adoption:

APs – Adoptive Parents
BP – birth parent
FOB/birth father – biological father of baby
Birth mom – biological mom
HP – house parent
Legal – Legal Department
Waiver – relinquishment of parental rights
Subpoena – order to relinquish parental rights
Resident – new client at maternity home
Caseworker – assistant to a resident who serves as her guide through the process
Transitional Care – where some babies live while legal is completed or so birth mom can have nursery visits with them until Placement Day
Placement Day – the day baby goes home with his/her new parents
Finalization – when the adoption is made totally legal
Waiting period – in Texas a time of 3 days for a birth mom to change her mind about placing her baby for adoption before signing papers relinquishing her rights.