8.05.2005
Breathe the Pure Air
I quit smoking yesterday. Can't say that I'm overjoyed or anything. I can only say it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it.
I know that I will stay smoke free because I quit in anger and disgust. I'm not going to give D. the satisfaction or opportunity to slather me with her pathethic whinings on the subject any longer.
On another note, a couple in my church just had a private adoption fall through. You couldn't want to meet a couple less deserving of this injustice. They have been trying unsuccessfully for over 10 years to have a child, and had finally turned to the private adoption option. After spending who knows how much money, renovating their home to accomodate a newborn, and going through all of the paperwork and anticipation, they finally brought a gorgeous little girl into their home.
This couple attends the same Sunday School class as us, and we've been getting regular updates on their progress. I don't really know them that well, so I was just, like, "Oh, that's so cool. Good for them." However, something was mentioned this past Sunday -- almost in passing -- that caught my attention. The prayer leader announced that they had finally taken the baby home. I guess there is some sort of waiting period, since she was at least two weeks old. The leader put out the expected, "pray for X and Y that they would have a smooth period of adjustment", etc. Then she mentioned something like, "and pray for them that everything goes through."
What? I thought it was a done deal.
Apparently not.
I saw them both (and the baby girl) the next night, at a church softball game. It was the league championship game. He plays on the team, along with several other guys from our group. I wanted to go cheer them on. Better than sitting around in the deep freeze that MY home has become.
I talked briefly to both of them. Ogled the baby a bit. She IS precious! You may not know this about me, but I am a huge sucker for babies. It embarasses me, actually. AND I'm good with them, which may surprise you even more. I don't let anyone know, however, especially since one of D's many dissatisfactions is that we can't have any. Like we need any more!
Anyway, I could see how in love with this wonderful child they both were, and this thing started going off in the back of my head. X (the wife) said to me, "Yeah, everyone keeps saying that she looks like Y (her husband)", and something in my mind starts screaming, "Warning! Warning! Danger in your vicinity, Drake!". After the game (we won. because we rock.) Y comes over, takes the little cutie in his arms, and just basks in the glow. I congratulate him, and he says to me, "Yeah, God has blessed multiple times over." Again, "Warning! Warning!" By this time, my heart is hurting, but I'm not exactly sure why. I initially thought that it had to do with the X's whole, "She looks like Y" comment, since there is no shared DNA and I am an anal retentive stickler for the truth when it comes to stuff like that. Plus, I just get uncomfortable with what I perceive as obvious denial. Someone always gets hurt. But I figured, "Hey, it's just the kind of silly stuff people do when they're happy. No harm." Y's exclamation was really more to the point. That little comment in Sunday school asking for prayer that 'everything would work out' just leaped into my mind.
Coming from a family whose major legacy seems to be being bitter over the fact that life is just more of a bitch than we'd like, I sensed a huge trap. "Careful," I was thinking, "The deal's not done yet. Are you still going to feel like God's been multiplying your blessings if this thing falls apart?"
Two days ago, I was at a restaurant with another guy from our group, when yet another guy who happened to be there with two other guys from the group, stopped over and said, "Hey, did you hear what happened to X and Y?" The friend I was with had, but I had not. My heart just dropped.
Oh, no. God, not this.
Sure enough, it turns out that the birth mother had changed her mind, and X and Y had to turn over their precious little angel to her that afternoon. Just like that. After months of praying, pursuing, hoping and investing their time, money and love -- nothing. Worse than that. Returning to a childless home after experiencing the inexpressible joy of having a new life under their roof for a grand total of less than 5 days.
Digging a little further with my friend, I discovered that the laws concerning private adoption require giving the birth mother a period of time (he said 40 days) to reclaim the child. He further told me that this was no teenage or single mother pregnancy, but rather a 40-year old, married woman with 3 other children. In my indignation at the injustice done to my brother and sister, I imagine little baby Z being yanked from a life of comfort and loving nuture back into some grim, trailer trash struggle for emotional and physical survival.
Of course, I don't know the details of the birth mother's situation at all, other than her decision to go the adoption route had to do with financial distress. She could be a loving and giving parent. She could give sweet little Z a wonderful life. She could actually be something other than the trailer-dwelling skank who is either too ignorant or too careless to take advantage of modern birth control methods to avoid being in such a situation.
But the fact of the matter is that her situation and actions have ripped the heart out of two people that I consider to be people of the highest character and moral standards, and who would be the most awesome parents. So I'd personally like to track her down and yank the windpipe right out of her throat.
This raises a number of issues that I don't really have the answers to, but I definitely have a strong opinion about.
First, the legal bias that places the mother's 'rights' over the child's best interests rears it's ugly head once again. From abandoning crack mothers to whatever this particular woman's story might happen to be, our legal system punishes children for the fact that all too many mothers simply can't get their shit together. My opinion is that the bias should swing the other way. Children need to be protected, even if that means that they lose their birth mothers. Whatever this woman's deal, she made the choice to turn over the fruit of her body to total strangers rather than suck it up and care for the child it was her choice to conceive. I think once you sign the papers, you should go to the hospital as if you were having a minor procedure, get it over with and get on with your life. Looking back only causes pain and problems for everyone.
Second, it is a great injustice that a woman with an 'inconvenient' pregnancy can have access to another couple's financial resources to obtain better prenatal care, hospitalization and possible other considerations than she would be able to procure on her own, then turn around and renege on her end of the bargain. Even though no one on either side wants to hear this, private adoption is a financial arrangement to 'buy' a baby. Affluent couples with resources who want a baby, but can't conceive, find someone in a jam and basically pay them (in medical costs, mostly) to have the baby and give it to them to raise as their own. Again, I don't know the details here, but it's not unheard of for the pregnant woman to receive some sort of financial compensation, structured so as to ease the burden of enduring the pregancy and ensuring the resulting health of the newborn. My opinion is that once such a woman receives such compensation from the private sector, she enters into a contract to give up that baby. Period. This 40 days to change your mind thing is bullshit. Is she going to pay back all the money that was spent caring for her and her baby? Is she going to be held accountable for pain and suffering compensation?
Yes, this sounds cold and harsh. It is cold and harsh. But it's the reality of the transaction taking place. It's the typical, politically correct denial of our liberal court system that causes the real pain.
Which leads me to my last point, which is hard for me to have to say. When in the world are we in the Church going to get real about God's Sovereignty? All of us have circumstances in our lives that we don't like, and which cause us pain. But they are God's will, people! This woman, for whatever reason, found herself 40, economically challenged, with 3 kids, a husband (of what sort I don't know), and pregnant. However she got there, whatever choices, sinfulness or outright stupidity she may have been guilty of, God orchestrated events and allowed these circumstances for one reason only: that she might come to Him in reliance and surrender and watch Him glorify Himself for the awesome, unique God that He is. This perspective assumes, of course, what even our legal system takes for granted: that it is best for a child to be raised by the mother who carried it to birth. This assumption is clear throughout God's Word.
X and Y are also constrained by their circumstances. Sigh. This is the painful part.
While some of us can seemingly go and take from the Tree of Life whenever we want (I'm convinced that before I got fixed, I caused a least one pregancy just by sneezing too close to my wife), others like X and Y don't have it so easy in the area of procreation. This issue is addressed on numerous occasions in the Bible, most notably in the story of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac. And Hagar and Ishmael. The teaching here is clearly to trust God in your circumstances, and to be very, very careful about trying to circumvent God's plan by pursuing other available, but questionable (i.e. - risky) avenues.
Oh Lord, please help me say this right. I certainly am not presuming sin on the part of X and Y's attempt to adopt, but it's clearly not God's will to answer their desire for a child through this avenue, at least not now. My personal opinion is that if God wants them to have a child, He will most certainly give them one or more. At the right time to serve HIS purposes.
My heart hurts for X and Y. I have nothing but compassion for them. I even have compassion for TTW (Trailer Trash Woman). Her situation, along with so many countless others in this world, deserves the attention, care and support of God's people.
But the one I feel for most is little Baby Z. May she never have to bear the hurt that's surrounding her now.
- posted by The Drake @ 8:23 AM
