Cathy - A Single Mom's Story
My adoption journey is different from many others you may read on this site. For me, adoption was not exactly a second choice. I have not experienced any fertility issues. I have always felt moved by the special stories I would hear of children who, by various circumstances, come to need a home and a family. Adopting as a single parent though was not my Plan A, i.e. not the way I had envisioned starting my family. However, despite being single, I always felt a calling to motherhood. I felt very blessed in my life, and I wanted to pass those blessings on to a child who may not otherwise have many opportunities. Of course, as it's turned out, in God's infinite wisdom, my child has been an even bigger blessing to me!

Of course, I had many concerns and some fears and even some doubts along the way. I did wonder at times about how I would juggle work and parenting too. What would be the best childcare situation for my child? And I wondered if I could parent a boy or a girl more easily. I wondered if it would be fair for my child to be in a single-parent home instead of a two-parent home. I think that many of these concerns are normal whether one is expecting a child by pregnancy or by adoption. Certainly, though, some things are different for adopting parents including writing a biography for the birthparents, homestudies, lots of paperwork and then, "the wait."

In my class at ASC there were six adopting families, two of whom had adopted before. Both had met their children's birthmothers in advance and even had some ongoing contact, such as attending doctor visits or prenatal ultrasounds. But we were told that a small percentage of ASC placements are emergency placements and that we should always be available. I somehow knew then that I would have one of those.

So, after my initial meeting with ASC, my class, and my homestudy, I began "the wait." There were a couple of calls about situations that did not lead to a placement. Then one morning, just after arriving late to a conference, my pager went off with a number that I did not recognize. I was hesitant to get up and answer it right away, as I had just barely been seated. But because it was not a usual number, I felt I should probably check it out. It was Amanda, an ASC case worker calling from her home to tell me my son, Noah, had been born just the night before. His mother had not made an adoption plan prior to his birth. She really wanted to leave the hospital and did not want to meet me. Amanda told me his height, weight and that, by exam and preliminary labs, he appeared to be healthy. Then she asked if I was ready. Well, for all the planning in the world, I'm not sure one is ever really ready for the moment it happens. I said "yes", but it all felt very surreal. It must have been meant for me to have a boy, as the only certain name I had decided on was a boy's name!

There was an initial period after his placement that it seemed pretty incredulous that he was home with me, for good. But that didn't last long at all. Now it's pretty hard to imagine anything else!