You Don't Live Here

I won't pretend to know how it is in your home. Maybe your husband gambles or you secretly chat with an old boyfriend on Facebook or you fear your youngest is bulimic. I won't pretend to know anything about the shit that may be going on behind your closed doors. So, please, don't pretend to know about mine. Don't say, "Oh, teenage girls can be so awful!" or "Typical teenager!" or "This too shall pass." Don't say that crap to me, because you just don't live here.

The truth is, I'm filtering what I'm telling you anyway. You think I want anyone really knowing what's going on? The screaming, the throwing, the doors slamming, the pure venom spilling from my own daughter's lips... You think I really want you to know?

In our house, just as I once did with Emma, I cuddle with Ben and Becca every night, saying the Lord's Prayer and "God Bless..." Recently, after Ben fell asleep, Becca wanted to talk about the day's events. It had been another Sunday devoted to Emma's fits, demands, and manipulation.

"Momma," Becca whispered, "Why was Sissy yelling?"

"She was just mad, Boo. Don't worry."

"But, Momma, she was scary."

"I know, baby. But she was just mad at Mommy and Daddy. Don't worry." I pulled her closer to me.

"Momma, why did Daddy get her legs?"

"Well, you know how sometimes you and Ben-Ben have to go in time-out, when you're being naughty? Sissy just needed to go in time-out."

"But why did he get her legs, Momma? She was yelling."

"She, just, well, she didn't want to go in time-out. So, Daddy had to take her to time-out. Just like sometimes I pick up you or Ben-Ben and take you to time-out. She was mad and didn't want to go. She's just bigger than you or Ben, so Daddy had a hard time picking her up."

"And you took us out, Momma? You took us out of your's room? When Sissy was yelling, why you took us out?"

"Bec, just don't worry about it, okay?"

"But why did me and Ben-Ben have to be locked in our's room?"

"Daddy and I just didn't want you to watch. She was being naughty and we didn't want you to see, okay?"

"Sissy was mad at me and Brudder? Was her mad at us?"

"No, Boo, just Mommy and Daddy. Don't worry about it, okay? She was just being naughty today. It's okay."

She snuggled her little head deeper under my chin, closer into me, tighter in my security. I couldn't make it go away. I couldn't erase the memory. I couldn't ease the fear.

You don't live here. You don't have to tell Becca the same empty words, "It'll be okay. Don't worry." Words I've said time after time after time.

We've had to make choices, Is this rule worth a fit? Will this consequence bring about a change in behavior, or a temper tantrum that will last all day? This year, I don't take Emma to school in the morning. She has to ride the bus. She rides the bus because last school year, at least three times a week, she would chase my car, throw her body at the hood, stand behind me so I couldn't back up. She'd open the door before I could take off, throw her shoes inside, and run back to get more things. "I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm ready!" she'd scream, though she was still in her pajama pants, hair uncombed, pills still lying on the counter where I'd put them out for her.

I'd like to say that I stayed calm all these times, that I stopped the car and set her shoes out, then drove away. But, of course, I didn't. I screeched the brakes. I screamed, "You don't even care if you are making me late for work! You lie in your bed until I put my coat on, and then you want me to wait for you! I am sick of this! You cannot treat me like crap and expect me to wait for you!" All true words, but falling on deaf ears, as she and I both ran frantically around the car, tossing backpacks and shoes out and in the car, hearts aflame, lungs burning. So, this year, I don't wait at all. I tell her goodbye, and I hope she makes it out the door.

She makes it out, but often wearing things I've told her not to wear, often leaving her pills on the counter, often not taking food for her lunch. The difference is I am no longer in the scene; I've passed that on to her bus driver, a man who "won't even stop if he sees me running down the street."

I know what you're thinking. Didn't you sometimes wear stuff your parents didn't want you to wear? Didn't you sleep in and miss the bus? Yup. I certainly did, just like many teenagers. The difference is the extremity of the situation. The frequency of the number of times she is running behind, the intensity of her tantrums, the complete inability to learn the next day from the episode the day before. Tantrums with Emma are like Groundhog Day--repeated in the same sequence day after day--but she doesn't learn the lessons. She doesn't connect staying in her bed with running after the bus, doesn't see how throwing herself at my car and screaming at me might make me upset enough that I don't feel like saying, "Have a great day. I love you." Occasionally, she may apologize for the tantrums, but it always feels perfunctory, as though she's trying to unlock my "mad" mode, not truly understanding how she has had an effect on my day, my mood, my heart.

You don't know this, though, because you don't live here. You haven't been here as we took her to a psychiatrist for the first time at age seven. This must be a medical problem, right? You haven't been here as we visited the esteemed counselor my dad recommended, who told us, "I don't think I can help you at all. Her intelligence level is so high, but her emotional interaction is so low. I think she's manipulating me when I'm talking to her." You haven't been to the countless visits to the adolescent behavior specialist. It must be a pattern of behavior, right? He's a fantastic guy who works and works and works with her, but sees the same rut of behavior that we do. You haven't sat with me as I've read the books, the articles, listened to the Total Transformation CDs. You haven't helped as we taped sheets to the refrigerator, the bathroom mirror, the walls in her bedroom, with plans and diagrams and lists and questions... all to return seemingly back to where we started years ago.

You don't live here, and so the Emma you see... She's the survivor. She's figured out how to function out there, how to look right, because you don't have to accept her. You don't have to love her. You could say, "What a bitch," and walk away, so she's got to follow the rules out there. The Emma you see gets all As, says hello to teachers in the hallway, will offer to help at Sunday School or take down your bulletin board for you. The Emma you see has a few friends, loves cheerleading, and is a fun babysitter. She may occasionally say something completely out of the social norm to you, but it's infrequent, and not hostile, so you can pass it off as a teenage mood. The Emma you see is the one her teachers call "a good kid," and try to give her second and third chances on things. I like to think of that Emma as the Katniss (see Hunger Games, one of Emma's favorites) of society, doing what she needs to stay alive.

But, just as you don't live here, neither does that Emma. She has to bottle it up, "white knuckle it," we say. So, at home, she doesn't have anything left for us. She can't take the mental energy to think "What did I do? How did Mom see it? What did Mom feel? How did Mom react?" Instead, we continue the same power struggles day after day, a tornado of Eric, Emma, me, and the Littles being slammed against the walls and ceilings of our home, crashing to the ground in agony.

We had to stop the storm. We couldn't keep doing it, putting everyone in our family through it, day after day. It had to stop. And so, on Sunday, we made the hardest decision of our lives that will be the best for everyone. We sent Emma to live with my parents, about an hour away. We'll still see her, talk to her, have her visit. But she no longer sits at our dinner table each night, or walks out with bedhead on Saturday mornings, or blares the radio in our kitchen inspiring a Hall family dance-off.

It will be good. It will be great. It will be the best for every single person in the end (except maybe for my parents, who now, in their 60s, are raising a volatile teenager.) It had to be done. This, or boarding school, it had to be done.

But, as my principal said yesterday, I am not myself. I am not okay. I've lost my child. My daughter is not with us. I feel like one of my limbs is missing, and the ache in my heart has spread throughout my chest, down into the depths of my belly. I keep picturing rocking her as a baby, holding her tiny hand as a four-year-old, pulling her onto my lap when she was six. How did we get to this? It's never been an easy road with her, I suppose I could have always seen this coming, but I still anguish nonetheless.

So, maybe you've got problems of your own, things I could never know about, because I don't live there. But, you don't live here. So please don't act like you know what we're going through.

Parenting in Progress

Okay, America, I guess it's time I get this out there: I parent my children. My husband and I both do, and we're damn good at it. But, I would like to point out--ignoring is an important part of parenting.

You know those little dream kids, the ones who are sweet, and shy, and just go with the flow all the time? Yeah, none of those children live in our house. Our kids are loud, and fiesty, and stubborn, and exuberant. In their defense, Eric and I are not sweet, shy, go-with-the-flow kind of people, either. We are loud, and fiesty, and stubborn, and exuberant. You will often find us dancing in the kitchen, or yelling at characters on the TV, or chasing either other through the house (he blows on my neck--it really tickles!). And so, those darling Precious Moments children we dreamed about... Yeah, no.

So, we parent them. We lecture. We take things away. We get in faces. We use stern voices. We use words like consequences and choices and getting on my very last nerve. However, we also ignore, when appropriate. We stay out of it, if we feel the kids are working through something on their own, or will end up with a natural consequence (keep swinging your Ninja Turtle around by its leg, eventually that sucker's gonna bust).

This week, we were trying to stay sane while cooped up in the house with these zany creatures. One of us had the brilliant idea to travel and shop--use up the gift cards people had gotten the kids, get a change of scenery, maybe have a meal outside the house. Sounded innocent. But, as I was telling my friend, we just don't have the kind of kids who can travel, or stay up late, or change their scenery. Our kids need their routine of school, dinner, bath, books, prayers, bed. When we vary the schedule, all hell breaks loose. So, as I was saying, we left the house. We took the kids to their first ever trip to Toys R' Us (Ben's mind is irreparably blown), where surprisingly few fits were had. But, dinner, that was another story.

Part of the problem with dinner, was that it was occurring during bath time. In a place that wasn't our house. With on-lookers. And a new Hulk toy.

So, Minimus (Becca's new horse from Sofia the First) thumped Hulk, and Hulk head-butted Ben. Much to the chagrin of the other five people eating in this place, Ben threw a massive, high pitched, owl-summoning fit. Now, I would like to point out that we were not in a Ruth Chris Steakhouse or anything. We were at a Mancino's (loved the pizza!). And, also, did I mention there were FIVE other people eating there? As in: a mid-aged husband and wife, a father and pre-teen son, and a single man. But, oh, geez, it was like we were interrupting a wedding. So, ignoring was NOT going to be the method of parenting we were going to be able to utilize.

Eric tried talking quietly near Ben. I scooted over and tried to cuddle him. Unh-unh. Not havin' it. So, I grabbed the perpetrator--and the stupid Hulk--each under an armpit and hauled them outside. Eventually, we got cold enough that Ben's brain froze, and we were able to shove what was left of his food down his throat. It was a beautiful family moment, and I appreciate the Mancino's patrons' support in our time of need. Jackasses.

Here's the thing. Sometimes, it's just gonna look like I'm ignoring the kid. But, if I'm at the front of one of those "should have a CDL to drive" carts with the two parts, holding the two-year-old in my arms, pulling the groceries and the four-year-old is strapped in the back, screaming his fool head off, something about "I waaaaaannnnnnt my guuuuuummmmmiiiiiiiieeeeees!", just LOOK AWAY. I don't need your help. I don't need your condescending looks. If you want to walk up and give me a high five for great parenting (notice that I am NOT giving him the gummies, or giving into the attention seeking behavior), that's great. Otherwise, just go about your business.

Okay, soapbox done.

The Door Was Opened

And, so, I pursued as if God was calling me to adopt. Which, in fact, He was, but that's a later story.

I called the woman from the shelter who was advising Lee with her baby's adoption. She let me know that Lee was involved with a local agency and was reviewing parent profiles, but that she would pass on a letter, if I was so moved.

I was so moved.

I wrote Lee a letter, explaining how I couldn't imagine the pain she was experiencing, and that I was so impressed with her selfless decision to put her baby's needs before her own. I told her about my mother, about my obsession with kids, about my job and my house, about this baby-shaped hole in my life.

She didn't respond.

Unfortunately, Lee was unable to go through with the adoption. The baby's father, who was in jail at the time, would not sign off his parental rights. If she put the baby up for adoption, the birth father wanted custody, and the baby would go live with his mother until he got out of jail. Given the choice of trying to raise THREE children or allow her son to be raised by his father, Lee was forced to keep her son and lose the beautiful dreams she had laid out for him. I still pray for her often, for her baby (now 15!), and thank God for her role in my daughter's adoption.

Meeting Lee opened the door to the idea: I didn't have to get married. I didn't have to wait to find "the one." I honestly wasn't even sure I was cut out to be someone's wife. Ever. None of my romantic relationships had lasted more than a year and I couldn't imagine living with someone else EVERY DAY. But thinking about adopting Lee's baby gave birth to the idea that I could adopt, or something. That I could bring a baby of my very own into my home. Suddenly giving baths at night, reading books in the rocking chair, singing lullabies, guiding first steps--all of these dreams seemed within reach.

This very same month, in Massachusetts, an egg was released. A woman was making rash decisions, looking for comfort, seeking someone who could calm the storm in her mind. The egg found its mate and fertilized. My daughter began.

After school started, I began to look on-line at adoption agencies. The local Catholic Human Services would not even discuss single parent adoption. Mostly, I received a half-cough, half-laugh when I told the counselors that I was a 25-year-old teacher, looking to adopt a baby. Like my mother, I think they all thought it was, well, sweet. But not particularly realistic. When women could choose from so many other married couples, many of whom could offer a stay-at-home mother, why would they choose a single-working mother, who was only 25? Adoption just didn't seem like the road I would travel.

Financially, adoption seemed out of reach as well. Most domestic adoptions were $30,000 or more... I just didn't see how it would be possible. But, still this idea had taken root in my mind, and I couldn't let it go. At the time, there was an Elton John song that kept playing on the radio, and it wouldn't let stop haunting me.

"Blessed"

Hey you, you're a child in my head
You haven't walked yet
Your first words have yet to be said
But I swear you'll be blessed

I know you're still just a dream
your eyes might be green
Or the bluest that I've ever seen
Anyway you'll be blessed

And you, you'll be blessed
You'll have the best
I promise you that
I'll pick a star from the sky
Pull your name from a hat
I promise you that, promise you that, promise you that
You'll be blessed

I need you before I'm too old
To have and to hold
To walk with you and watch you grow
And know that you're blessed

In my internet searching, I began to think about artificial insemination. Why not? I had a womb, I could grow one of these things on my own, right? I talked to my best friend again, spending an afternoon talking about the process when we were supposed to be "off" and relaxing before evening parent-teacher conferences. I had found a cryogenic lab that would send the samples, had even selected some donors I preferred. Was it crazy? "Of course not. You're a girl. You want a baby. Make it happen," she said. Good friend.

What stood in my way, interestingly, was trying to find a doctor to do it. I first went to my own doctor, kind of a stick-in-the-mud, bland man, and got an exam. I had been taking depo-provera (an injection that stops your periods) for endometriosis since my freshman year in college, so I wanted to wean my body off that. I also wanted to get all checked out and get the clear. I wasn't thrilled about the idea of Dr. Oatmeal implanting my donor's seed, but I felt like I couldn't be real picky. After the exam, I told him what I planned. To say he was a little taken aback is an understatement. And then, he said something I would hear hundreds of times in the journey to find my daughter, "Oh, you don't want to do that. You're so young. You'll find someone."

If you've read my other writing, you know a little about my Grandma Hendricks. I am proud to say that my stubborn streak came directly from her. So, at 25-years-old, in a paper-thin gown, freshly released from the speculum, I looked Dr. Oatmeal in the eyes and said, "Of course I want to meet someone! I want to meet my baby."

Where My Baby Came From-The Beginning

I love babies. Obsessively. I always have. I love their rolls of leg chub, their tiny chicklet toes at the end of smooth, kissable feet. I love the stage where their stubby fingers point at something and look at you expectantly, "Wha's dat?" I will answer the name of endless items--bird, tree, boy, cloud, car--and wait while they repeat the word in sweet babyese. I love the smell of newborn--a mixture of milk, fresh diaper, baby lotion, and sleep. I love the way babies fit in the crook of my arm. I love when they copy facial expressions. I love to hear them belly laugh.

Teaching is a fantastic career, but I know my favorite job ever was working at a day care center in the toddler room. Kids came to us as babies, little bundles of energy who were just beginning to get vertical. They'd toddle around, going from the leg of a highchair to the shelves, gripping tightly. Then, one day, they'd try it out, "Maybe I could let go and get over there quicker?" Their faces of glee when one step led to ten led to running everywhere. When they entered our room, they'd have very little speech, but enormous vocabularies. They'd know what we were saying, but not be able to vocalize it yet. It was almost like they were still in-utero when they'd come to our room, because they were just breaking their way OUT of the baby phase. So, we'd sing songs, go for walks, push them on the swings, read books, build with blocks, change about 68 diapers each day, and watch them turn into little human beings. When they left our room, they'd have begun to string words into short sentences. "What doin', Warwa?" a little girl named Haley asked me once when she arose from her nap, and that memory has framed all of day care for me. I knew she'd leave soon. The kids would gain an awareness of the bathroom and begin trying it out. They'd insist on feeding themselves, sometimes even wiping their own faces and hands. "My do it!" was very popular as a method of determining that someone was ready to move to the next room at day care. It was crushing to me, to see them travel up to the next room, move on without me, especially knowing they'd never remember me. I was in there--with my Winnie-the-Pooh march and my funny story voices--but they'd never recognize that piece of me inside themselves.

I had this job at 23, prime "I want a baby" age. My poor mother had tried for YEARS to have a baby, only to miscarry before we'd even be able to see the babies on an ultrasound. I had been consumed with baby envy since I'd been old enough to fake feed a doll (Rub-a-Dub dolly-age three), and my mother's barren plight had only fueled the fire. My mom and I were those ladies in the store that new mothers hate (I say "were," but it really should say ARE), We would come up to any baby and talk, wave, coo, play peek-a-boo. If mothers made eye contact with us, we'd ask, "How old?" "Are you getting any sleep?" "Looks like a keeper!" and other horrid phrases that I know new mothers dread. But we couldn't help ourselves (still can't). We wanted our own baby, and there was nothing we could do about it.

We "adopted" several families with babies. I babysat for a couple down the street, practically LIVED at the home of a family from our church when I was 14, latched onto a Michigan State Trooper in the grocery store parking lot when I found out her daughter was 18-months-old. I shared these babies with my mom, but they grew, and, really, they weren't ours. Again, they'd move on, and we wouldn't necessarily be there as they turned into leading characters in other people's lives.

So, as a new teacher, at 24, I was baby crazy. I admit it. A few of my friends started to have babies, and it made me nuts. Of course, they were married and ready and socially acceptable. So irritating. At the school, I'd make friends with all the moms lugging around baby carriers. I even baby sat for a friend's baby in the mornings the year I taught part-time in the afternoons. Once, as I was chatting up a baby in its carseat, making it giggle and kick those little legs, a fellow teacher said, "You know, you really should get one of those." I knew she was right. But, not really something I could pick up at the store. Or could I?

It was Labor Day weekend, the weekend before I began my third year teaching. I was four months away from turning 26. I had spent the whole summer thinking about first grade and how it would go, so I was more than ready for school to start. My parents were volunteering at a local homeless shelter, helping with dinner and night programs. Would I like to go? Honestly, I couldn't come up with an excuse, and so God drove me to the Nehemiah Project.

While we were dining, I met Lee. She was probably a year or two older than me, with two daughters under school age, and a belly brimming with baby. The whole evening, I played games with her daughters, combed their hair, read them stories... and stared at that belly. Every other occupant had constant advice for her, "The girls should be in bed by now." "They shouldn't be eating that." "My mother never would have let me do that." I was so impressed she didn't punch anyone in the face. As we left, Lee's girls gave me hugs and I tried to hug Lee with my eyes. I just felt so awful for her, stuck in this situation, wondered what she was possibly going to do.

"I feel so bad for Lee, Mom," I said in the car as I drove my mom back to her house. "Those two little girls, and now a baby coming! What is she going to do?"

"Oh, honey, she's giving that baby up for adoption." My mother's words slapped acoss the car, rolled my eyeballs back into my head.

"I would love to adopt that baby." I said the words before I thought them, even. But, once they were out, I knew I'd never said anything more true. I had a "dad" who wasn't my biological father, what did I care how a baby came into my life? I knew, I knew, I knew, I was ready to be a mother.

My mom patted my leg, "Oh, sweetie, that's nice," like I'd said I'd have her and dad over for dinner that night.

I stopped my car in her driveway. I looked at her with a burn behind my eyes. "No, Mom, I am completely serious. What would I need to do? Do you know? I always thought the hardest part of adoption would be finding the baby. I would love to adopt that baby!"

Mom tried to look away from my stare, but I wouldn't let her break eye contact. "Well, honey, I guess... I guess you should talk to Pastor Ward about that. It's just, honey, it's such a serious thing to say."

I didn't blink. I felt like my heart had woken up when she said the words, "She's giving that baby up for adoption." It all finally made sense in my head. Why I had been engaged, but never could go through with a marriage. Why my thousand first dates had rarely led to a second. Why buying my own home had been the first thing I did when I received my full-time teacher contract. It all led me to this moment, to this conversation, to adoption. It all made sense.

My mom hugged me, then got out of the car and went into her house. I'm fairly certain she thought that was the end of the conversation. That I'd go home, and realize that raising a child alone was nuts. That I'd look at the rooms of my house and think, "A baby? Here? That's crazy!" That I'd be too shy to call Pastor Ward and tell him of my insane scheme.

Instead, I went home and called my best friend. Thank God cordless phones were the new thing, or I'd have been tied up in my phone cord. I paced back and forth from my living room through my dining room into my kitchen and back. "Listen," I said, "What would you think if I said I was going to adopt a baby?"

"I'd say it's about damn time." Did I mention she was my best friend?

We talked and talked, and everything that made sense to me made sense to her. "It's a God thing," she said. "You know how I feel about God things." She had this theory that God would put things in your way when they weren't according to His will, and that He would slide things into place when they were according to His will. "You just gotta call that Pastor. I mean, jeez, it's a Pastor. How much more of a God-thing can you get?"

So, I did. Much to my mother's dismay, the very next day I called that Pastor. I told him about our conversation about Lee, and how the words, "I'd love to adopt that baby" had exploded from my mouth. I waited for him to say, "Oh, sweetie, you're too young for that!" or something similar. I waited for him to say something that would make me feel silly, immature, unrealistic. Instead, Pastor Ward carried on with "the God Thing."

"Well, Laura," he said, " I think we should proceed with this by assuming that God has called you adopt."

And, thus, my journey to adoption began.