I Hear This Will Be a Real Event This Summer in London

I missed a day of blogging yesterday. My excuse is that I was sick, and I spent the day rotating between napping in my bed, and reclining in the big chair, doing a TV marathon on Netflix and crocheting this little cutie:

I thought I'd make it up to you all by doing two posts today, but I am still sick and I doubt I'll actually write two complete posts. So I thought I'd share something from the archives. "Farina Endfen" is an anagram of a dear friend's name. When I wrote this, she had a son 14 months older than mine (she still does), and I thought of her as infinitely capable and also much bolder than I am (I still do). "Senna Spun" is an anagram of a real name of mine that I rarely use; there is little less satisfying than anagramming "Su Penn." Our personae in this little vignette seem very true to our real characters to me.

I wrote this back in 2001, when I was the mom of a single six-month-old. Of course, we didn't call him the Lego Savant back then, but I thought I'd try to be consistent with my recent, belated, half-hearted attempts to protect my children's privacy.

Here we go:

I was just changing the Lego Savant's diaper and reflecting happily on how much quicker and more efficient I am at it than I used to be, and I thought, "Hey, this would make a great event in the Mom Olympics." It would look like this:

BOB: Welcome back to the Mom Olympics on ESPN2. I'm Bob Smith, your host, and with me in the booth is Vera Bera, mother of six and three-time gold medalist. Vera, what's our next event?

VERA: Bob, we've got the poopy diaper change, and you can almost smell the excitement in the room as the event technicians bring in the babies. And there's Senna Spun, our first contestant, just entering the arena.

BOB: Vera, can you tell us a little bit about the event?

VERA: Sure, Bob. I see that Spun has chosen a fairly simple change, Compliant Bottle-Fed Baby on Home Changing Table. That change is only worth an 8 out of 10 at best; it's a conservative move for this newcomer from the midwest. Wait; I see she's opted for cloth diapers. We'll see some inflated scores there from the Natural Parenting and Attachment Parenting judges; clearly Spun is counting on that.

BOB: What kinds of things can the judges deduct points for?

VERA: Well, Bob, Excessive Use of Wipes is a common penalty, as is Poop In Unauthorized Locations. For instance, if she lets the baby's heels get in it or has any on her hands when the change is done. Oh, she's started. I see she's removed the baby's socks. Again, a conservative move--she would lose points if the baby needed new socks or a new outfit, but it will cost her in time.

BOB: She's done! She's putting the socks back on! That was quick!

VERA: And done well. I didn't see any major deductions, but she'll have a hard time taking a medal if she can't be a little bolder than that.

BOB: And here are the scores... that's got to be a disappointment.

VERA: Well, the quality of the sport just isn't what it used to be. In my day, every serious competitor at the national level had at least four children in at most six years; now it's all mothers-of-one. In 1978, I had to perform a near-perfect Simultaneous Bowel Movements of 8-Month-Old and Two-Year-Old in Car With Light-Colored Upholstery While Running Late to Pick Up Four-Year-Old From Preschool to win my second gold, but the multiple-child events have been completely phased out in recent years.

BOB: Here's the next contestant. What can you tell us about Farina Endfen, Vera?

VERA: Well, Bob, this Montanan and former social worker is known to followers of the sport for her risk-taking tendencies. Rumor has it she's been working on a new change that could set the bar higher than it's ever been before in single-baby competition. But will she risk it? She's the favorite to win this event, and with Spun scoring low might not want to take unnecessary chances....Oh, my God!

BOB: Vera, the crowd is just exploding out there as Endfen's change is announced.

VERA: Yes, Bob, I can hardly believe my eyes. Endfen has opted for Non-Compliant Toddler with Stomach Complaint in Public Restroom with No Changing Station. It's the four-minute-mile of the poopy diaper event. We hear she's achieving a 50% success rate with it in practice, but no one has ever seen anything like it at this level of competition before.... They're bringing out the baby. Listen to him howl!

BOB: Spun's looking a little shaky on the sidelines, there.

VERA: And well she should be, Bob. She's got to be kicking herself for not trying at least Clean, Well-Lit Public Restroom, Forgot to Re-Pack Diaper Bag After Tuesday's All-Day Shopping Trip, a change she's had good success with in regional competition. I'd say she's lost her chance of medaling here today unless something goes terribly wrong on Endfen's change.

BOB: And what would that take? I assume Endfen's change is worth a full 10 out of 10.

VERA: Yes, but the risks are enormous. She'll be on her knees on a damp floor, remember, and the baby is non-compliant and has loose bowels. She's risking Baby and Mother Both Need New Outfits, the second-largest penalty in the sport after Baby and Mother Both Need Bath.

BOB: Will Farina Endfen make Mom Olympics history? Stay tuned--we'll find out right after this important message from Huggies.

Kicking the tires before you buy (p. 71)

Just as one would take a car off to one's own mechanic before purchasing, some potential adopters take the baby in for testing before final papers are signed. in a thoughtful and wide-ranging panel discussion on the ethics of genetic testing in adoption...a number of issues arose. One, of course, was the parity with prenatal testing: if parents by birth can test for and avoid a particular condition, then surely adoptive parents have equal rights, too?

... One participant in the discussion...compared this kind of testing with kicking the tires of a used car, or... taking a used car to one's own mechanic before buying it.

I don't think I know anyone who subjected their baby to extra testing or genetic screening before an adoption. But I do know that when our adoption agency called us with a possible match with Yehva's birthmother, they were honest with us about K.'s drug use. "She denies drinking," the director said, "and I'm inclined to believe her. Most people tend to choose one or the other--pot or booze. Of course, you don't have to make a final decision until after the baby is born; you'll be able to get medical information then and see how she's doing."

I got off the phone feeling a bit uncomfortable with the idea that we could change our mind about this baby after she was born and we were able to find out whether she seemed "defective" or not. A friend of mine described to me, a few months ago, one of her conversations with her daughter's birth mother, saying, "we told her we were committed to the baby, so long as it didn't have any disabilities we felt we couldn't deal with."

That sounds crappier than I mean it to--I don't mean to pick on my friend at all, only to say that this is one of the realities of adoption: that you get to meet the baby before you make a commitment. It's a luxury biological parents don't have.

I didn't want to face that decision, and was glad we dodged it by virtue of Yehva being perfectly healthy and sound. I did not want to discover that I was a person who would discard a baby for imperfection. And yet, at the same time, I recognize the many forces that would go into the decision, and sympathize with any parent who chose not to proceed with an adoption. Let me tell you a story.

When I was pregnant with Eric, I could not imagine terminating the pregnancy for any reason. I had an acquaintance who'd carried a baby to term knowing he wouldn't survive long past birth; he spent his entire short life outside the womb cradled in her arms and died peacefully there. I could see myself making that choice, too. I could not imagine myself terminating a baby for having Down Syndrome, or even more severe disabilities. David and I are committed to disability rights and generally comfortable with disabled people; we, especially David, would be good parents for a disabled child.

And then I got pregnant with Carl, and I felt differently, for a couple of reasons. One was that I was 38 years old and really wanted a second child. If I waited out a doomed pregnancy, and then waited to recover enough to try again, I might significantly reduce, or lose, my chance for a second baby. The second time around, I probably would have terminated a pregnancy if had I learned the baby could not survive past birth.

But the disability question became more vexed as well. I had a child already, and a responsibility to him. What if I found out my second child had a disability that would require extraordinary care, a hugely disproportionate measure of our resources of time, energy, and money? Again, with Eric in the picture, the equation shifted. I didn't know what I would do--I didn't think, "Oh, I would definitely have an abortion in those circumstances." But I didn't think anymore that I definitely wouldn't either. A family that learns the baby they plan to adopt is severely disabled has similar factors to weigh, as well as listening to their hearts. This doesn't make them bad people.

No one is allowed to make a binding commitment to adoption until after the baby is born; in most states, there's a waiting period after the birth before the birthmother can surrender her parental rights. And adoptive parents aren't committed until later than that. Even after we'd taken legal custody, when it became clear that problems with our home study were going to delay our clearance to bring Yehva home to Michigan (she and I spent two weeks and about $3000 correcting the problems, during which we had to stay in Illinois), the director of our agency asked me, "Do you want to give her back?" I was affronted. "We didn't promise to be this baby's parents only as long as it was convenient and didn't cost money," I fumed to friends.

But we could have. At some point--finalization, maybe? I don't really know-- the commitment is irreversible, it becomes the same commitment biological parents make. Of course, the commitment becomes irreversible in our hearts long before it reaches that point legally. But the gap between the birth and that point of no return introduces the possibility for adoptive parents to look for perfection, for the baby who is not inconvenient and doesn't cost money.

Both prenatal testing, and the evaluation after birth of babies placed for adoption, cut two ways. On the one hand, they allow parents, both biological and adoptive, to opt out, at least some of the time. On the other hand, they make the birth or the adoption of a disabled child, or one with a genetic predisposition to disease, a choice.

Rothman goes on to say, "In other words, it's not just that parents can choose not to raise a disabled child; it's that they can be judged for doing so."

I have seen this in action second-hand, in the community reactions to a couple who had a third child while their first was in treatment for leukemia. The new baby was severely disabled, and there seems to have been little compassion in many people's responses. Rather, there was a mix of "what business did they have having another baby," and "they got what they deserved." I have actually heard people say, "How did a baby like that get born, in this day and age?" about disabled children. That thought actually went through my own mind when I met a family at the park whose youngest son had no arms or legs.

This has gone all over the place, as so many of these entries seem to. But you see how tangled the skein is--pull on a thread and you don't know what you're going to get. I thank you for thinking about this with me.