Instant Mom (7 page)

And I knew stepping away was temporary and necessary.

I was hired by several companies and studios to write, plus got to develop with Jonathan Demme. I opened my Final Draft and wrote six scripts—romantic comedies about unconditional love, dramas where things don’t turn out okay, stories about women who dared to be happy even if they didn’t achieve everything they wanted.

I highly recommend the checkout. It brings a clarity unlike anything I’ve ever known. I realized who my true allies are. I found out although it’s nice to get a good table at a trendy restaurant, I didn’t need fame. I’ll be totally honest: I liked being a known actor. It’s enjoyable to read friendly letters from all over the world, and receive gifts from clothing and purse designers, but I didn’t go nuts without it. I just made my living by writing, hung out with good friends, and didn’t act.

During my hiatus, I even stood up to that lifelong member of the Coven who made fun of me for getting acupuncture. Yes, the one who had called my body “defective” compared to hers because she could have kids. One day I called her up and told her to suck it.

But all this didn’t bring a grounded feeling or some purr of inner serenity. When the phone rang, I jumped, hoping we’d been matched. It just didn’t happen.

Grieving also means I finally let myself cry. A lot. It is truly embarrassing to let it all out like a bachelorette who didn’t get a rose. I didn’t want to feel sorry for myself when there are people with real problems. However, I told myself it’s essential to mourn. So I grieved for my unborn children, my mortality, and for my ever-understanding husband.

It was the feeling of failure that I was getting over. This was difficult for me. As an intractable person managing to have an acting career against all odds, it was humbling to come up against Mother Nature and get a poke in the eyeball.

There’s no way around grief. You have to go through it. You have to cry it out of your body, then wade through your own tears to the other side. Where there is cake. Moist cake. Have a piece. It will make you feel better. Have a second piece. Lick your fingers. You will feel better. I promise.

As time passed, I could now cope when a sweet stranger at the supermarket patted my cake-pudgy stomach and said, “Are you making a big fat Greek baby?” I didn’t burst into tears. Well, not in front of her. In my car, yep.

Once you get over yourself, you feel everything. You cry for every- one, knowing full well they’ve got it worse than you. I cried for victims of the tsunami, victims of Katrina. Soldiers in Iraq. I cried for unloved children. Unwanted children. I cried for the incredible inequality that comes with geographical birth. I discovered what really helps when you’re tired of thinking about you is that you think about someone else. I threw myself into charity work, donating and flying to cities to do fundraisers for rare diseases and Greek churches that sent money to the underprivileged. I recorded a lullaby for an album to get music into schools, taught screenwriting, mentored inner-city girls, spoke at AIDSWALK, and shot a magazine photo for the Until There’s a Cure bracelet. Occasionally, I was photographed for friends’ film premieres or charity events. My weight was up, my weight was down. I didn’t care. Actually, no one did. No one noticed.

No one was concerned that on the night of my Broadway debut I was crying onstage. My good friend
SNL
alum Rachel Dratch and I were cast in 24 Hour Plays together—a charity event that benefits inner-city kids. This is a process that takes place within twenty-four hours—the plays are written during the night, the actors are cast that morning, and the play is performed that night. For Rachel and me, being from the improv world of Second City, its fun recklessness is challenging. But that morning, I was stunned when I saw the subject matter of the play I was cast in: adoption. Rachel was playing a mom who had once placed her child for adoption. I was handed my role—a mom who has adopted that child and is urging him to call his birth mother.

My eyes distorted the text as I flipped through the script pages. Right away, my chest pinged with that familiar ache. I couldn’t look at anyone. All day during rehearsal, I kept a distance from the material. I learned the lines quickly and rehearsed them without emotion.

But then, that night onstage, I turned to an actor to say the lines and found that my face was soaked. I was weeping at how painful these words were and even though, sure, part of me wondered if I could get nominated for a Tony Award for this, I couldn’t believe it was happening. It was really painful to play this role.

I got back to L.A. and kept writing screenplays and doing charity work. And after a while, the tears were gone. I just felt spent.

So now, it’s 2006
and I’m on this Internet site at two o’clock in the morning looking at dogs. I look back at the friendly dog with the brown eyes and see he has been abandoned at the pound. Abandoned. On a whim, I fill out the form and press Send.

A few days later, a friendly volunteer brings the dog to us. She pulls into our driveway, opens the hatch of her car, and a big furry beast bounds out and pants up at me, like “I’m heeeeeeeeeeeere!”

I feel something go
spro-oi-oi-oing
in my chest. Like when you’ve swallowed a too-big chunk of bread and it’s been lodged in your throat forever, and then it suddenly goes down a pipe. That’s what I feel when I look at this yellow Lab with the giant paws. I love him. I love him immediately. Ian loves him, too, and we sign the papers and officially adopt him. We decide to pick a name for Ian’s birthplace, Manhattan, and mine, Manitoba: so we name him Manny. Because nothing says yellow Lab like a nice Jewish accountant.

Being with Manny simply makes me happy. We go for long walks around the neighborhood and I beam with pride when people stop to pet him and tell me he’s handsome. We get him only the healthiest dog food. Ian takes Manny into the shower and bathes him with special dog shampoo. He’d been left at a pound. We had our hopes for parenthood chucked under a bus. It’s a second chance for everyone. We all have cartoon love hearts popping over our heads. Ian and I pet Manny, kiss him, and pick up his poop. We call him our “son.” He is. We are delighted with every trash can he overturns, every bone he chews.

And we are aghast to discover ourselves talking about him at parties. Yes, we’ve turned into Those People Who Tell Pet Stories. Realizing it’s a slippery slope to a Christmas card with the three of us in matching sweaters, Ian and I make a pact that we’ll stop each other at the next party, with any signal from a light press to the forearm to a taquito in the neck. This works for a while. But sometimes, I hide and show our hostess a few pictures of Manny. What I find sweet is how many women are patient with me during this period. They take the time to marvel over Manny’s thick fur and sweet face. They let me ramble about his poop. I have nice girlfriends. Even if they are privately discussing an intervention, I appreciate their kindness.

My best friend, Kathy Greenwood, and her family come to visit from Toronto. As her husband, John, and Ian put their girls to bed, Kathy and I sit in my backyard and drink red wine with Manny at our feet. Point-blank, as only your best friend can do, Kathy asks me why I have abandoned pursuing adoption. I tell her I have not. But she makes me admit I have not worked on it. Because she knows me. Whether I’m hosting a dinner party or directing an indie, I work hard. I’ll be up all night researching, investigating every fact, planning every detail. I’m not doing that with adoption. I’ve stopped checking in with any of the agencies. And Kathy says it out loud. We sip more wine and I am peeved on this summer night in the way you can get annoyed at your best friend. I tell her, “I’m done. Done. I cannot try anymore when clearly it will not happen for me.” She asks, “So you’re not going to be a mom?”

And I can’t answer.

The very next day, I get a call from my mom. My niece has been born prematurely and we’re terrified for the baby. It is an uncertain and helpless feeling for my entire family.

An eerie feeling starts swirling in me on this day. I start to think about a little girl. I tell myself it’s just daydreams and thoughts of my premature niece. But, within a few days, I start to believe again that it will happen for me. In the next weeks I tell Ian I think we’re going to get matched with a girl.

When I get to hold my new little niece who has passed the point of danger and is growing strong . . . I am now feeling something that could be described as both disturbing and insane. If you’re going to make fun of me now, know that I’m already doing it for you: I have started to feel more certain that there is a little girl out there. A little girl with blond streaks in her hair. And, when I say it out loud, Ian stares at me as if I’ve lost it, and Kathy Greenwood tells me to keep it to myself in that way your best friend can tell you that you sound crazy. So I know it sounds deranged that I’m telling you now and as I write it, I’m pretty sure I’ll cut it from the book before it goes to print. But then again, I kinda don’t care because it’s true.

By 2007, the grieving
period is over and there’s no denying that I am feeling more like myself, the buoyant upbeat idiot. I go to movies, out for dinner, on walks with Manny . . . it’s better.

When Ian and I are sitting around with Manny, we talk about how we adore him as if he came from our bodies. We both know since we could love this furry animal so much, of course we would love a child who didn’t come from our chromosomes. But we don’t pursue it. It’s just been too painful. It’s a shelved project; the phone doesn’t ring anymore. The system just didn’t work for us, and I wonder if I have accepted it.

One evening, I go with a group to see our friend’s daughter play volleyball at her school. As I sit in the bleachers, I watch these amusing teenaged girls interact and be good teammates on the court; they’re so rambunctious and funny . . . and . . . ah, here it is . . . that anxiety creeps in. It’s back. My chest hurts. I put my head in my hands and sigh. Watching these girls, I have to admit I just want a daughter. I just do. And, I know, I just know she’s somewhere waiting for me to find her. I want to be a mom, I am supposed to be a mom. I can’t deny it any longer.

I don’t want to lose it in front of my friends, so I go outside to get some air.

I’m standing here outside the gymnasium wishing so much that I had just been watching my own daughter play volleyball. Just wishing so much that I had a daughter at that school. I lean against the railing and try to breathe. I want to take control of the situation. And I realize I can.

I decide right now to try one more thing: to learn more about the options that facilitator had told me about. I decide to learn about adopting from the American foster care system.

• 7 •

Almost There

Now I want to
write that it gets really easy. But, no. No, it doesn’t.

The next phase takes a while because the information on how to adopt from foster care just isn’t out there either. I can’t comprehend the term “fos-adopt” (sometimes referred to as “fost-adopt”) because, like many, I think it means you foster; you take care of a child until they’re reunited with their family. I admire the people who do that, but we’ve been through a lot. Ian and I don’t want more loss. We want a family, forever.

Not sure who to approach, I go directly to the State of California. I know there are amazing social workers who work for their states, but I sure don’t meet them today. Instead, I’m taken to a room without a chair, where a woman hands me a loose, ungainly binder called
Waiting Kids,
looks at my designer purse, and smirks, “You want to do this?”

There is nowhere to sit, so I lean against the wall and begin to flip through the heavy binder . . . and see the kids. Imagine several hundred faces looking at you wondering if you want to be their parent. I defiantly snap the binder shut and say, “Yes, I do,” and that I am “open to any sex, age, and ethnic background.”

Oh goodie, they goad, because they can place an at-risk multiple-sibling set in my house on a trial basis, and an adoption might come out of it after the parental rights are terminated in court in a few years.

My mouth goes dry. As in, just-licked-a-pumice-stone dry. That sounds . . . complicated. But I really, really want to be a parent. So I say, “Okay!”

I do ask about the 129,000 children I’ve heard about who are already legally freed and am told there is a process and I have to be patient. I explain I thought I would be connected with a legally freed child who is waiting for a home. Again, they explain I have to trust their procedures. Huh. We all know there is a certain type of government worker who enjoys his or her teeny amount of power. I now feel apprehensive, thinking I might get lost in yet another situation that won’t resolve in a positive way.

At this point, it has been over eight years of trying so many methods, too many routes, of waiting on so many lists. Then I remember . . . when I was in the cast at Second City, we used to improvise in front of an audience. That’s a trapeze without a net. In this same way, I feel I just have to jump in. So I repeat, “Okay!”

I am sent away with a thick packet of fingerprinting forms and a daunting Home Study kit. As I sort through the mounds of paperwork, I do more online research and find out about FFAs.

That’s when things finally accelerate. An FFA—Foster Family Agency—helps individuals navigate the state system. The social workers (I like to call them super-pretty angels) at the FFA we work with are helpful, compassionate, and organized. I discern an FFA is a free service in every state to guide potential parents through the paperwork plus the necessary and thorough background screening process. I learn the fos-adopt route includes a child’s full medical and health record. In terms of a child’s lifelong medical care, full disclosure can help. American foster care welcomes families of all income levels and, unlike private adoption, is virtually cost-free. The fos-adopt system doesn’t discriminate financially, on religious or ethnic background, or in any way—single parents, older couples, gays and lesbians—all may apply.

I wouldn’t discourage or disparage anyone who goes outside their own country to adopt—of course every child deserves a home. So if you want to adopt from anywhere—any country, any planet—do it. I decide fos-adopt is the route I want to take. I’m feeling energized because the FFA social workers tell me they can connect us to the network of 129,000 children who are already legally freed and available for adoption. I tell Ian I feel like I have finally found the key.

We fill out the paperwork and take the parenting classes, which are interesting and valuable in terms of finding out what your spouse feels about bedtimes, religion, music lessons, etc. We must complete a first aid course too. Again, I see nothing wrong with these requirements and view it all as useful information. A nurse comes over to certify us in CPR, and Ian and I practice giving first aid to a bunch of dummies in our TV room. Even though I get an annoyed look from the nurse, I make sure to take several pictures of Ian doing mouth to mouth on a dummy.

Tonight, a Home Study social worker is coming over to evaluate Ian and me. As I’ve mentioned, I am not a grown-up. The more serious the situation, the more likely I will do something dumb. Even when I had dinner with the (name-drop) Queen of England, I had to push down my immature impulses. After I was first invited to attend the dinner to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, I received a call from a Protocol Secretary. He warned me there were guidelines I would have to follow. For example, I would have to curtsy in a certain way (eyes forward but lowered, one foot behind the other, hands at sides), then wait for the Queen to extend her hand before I extended mine. Also, to not speak until Her Majesty spoke. Wait there’s more: do not bring up a new topic of conversation, no hugging, no fist bumps. I took notes, practiced my curtsy in the full-length mirror behind my bathroom door, bought a beautiful blue silk Alberta Ferretti suit and Louboutin slingbacks, and Ian and I flew to my hometown, Winnipeg.

Before the dinner, I waited alone but surrounded by six members of security in a corridor of the Parliament building. The Queen was arriving at any moment. My husband, parents, and family were in the balcony about ten feet away, watching me. I looked up at them, wondering if this was really happening when I heard the Protocol Secretary ask if I had practiced The Curtsy. I informed him indeed I had. He paused, then said, “May I see it?” With everyone watching, I had to do it for him. Of course I did it wrong, teetered, leaned on his forearm, almost fell off my slingbacks, was instructed to do it three more times, and . . . suddenly there was a hush in the hall. The Queen was announced and was walking toward me. Me.

As a Canadian, I was stunned at the sight of her in person. As the immature moron I am, I wanted to say, “Hey, you’re the lady on our money.” But I didn’t, only because my mom was watching from that balcony. As the Queen approached, someone whispered my name to her. I curtsied, she held a hand out, I held mine out, and we shook once. She then asked, “Did you write the movie as well?” I said, “Yes. I wrote it about my husband and family. And they’re right there.” I pointed up to the balcony, and my husband and family smiled big, very big, and waved. My mom and I looked at each other and squirted the ethnic eyeball lotta-tears gush. The Queen smiled at them and then me and just like that, Her Majesty advanced into the room for dinner. The Protocol Secretary leaned in and whispered “good job” to me, but I didn’t get a Milk-Bone.

Inside the hall at our dinner table, the Queen was warm and witty as she guided the conversation from fine wines to Manitoba bison. Again, I just acted the part of an upstanding member of society as I fought the urge to yank off her giant diamond brooch and bolt off just to see the look on her face and how far I could get. I mean, it was going so well, so well that I wanted to do something ridiculous. Something crazy. Because a small part of me thought the Queen would be amused by it too. Hasn’t she had enough boring dinners? Surely she’d welcome a bit of wicked outrageousness. It’s not as if I was expecting a high five for trying to steal her brooch, but I thought it would be entertaining. I really did. I wanted to do it so badly, I squeezed my hands together in my lap.

I looked over my shoulder to see if I could spot Ian and my family at their tables when I heard Her Majesty’s voice. I turned back: I was being addressed. I leaned in to her, and she said, “Philip is Greek, you know.” I nodded. Like an Irish person can recite the Kennedy family tree, all Greeks know Prince Philip was born into the royal family of Greece. Then the Queen winked: “He converted to Anglicanism for our marriage.” And I winked back: “My husband converted to Greek Orthodoxy for ours. I guess with Prince Philip leaving and Ian coming in, it was sort of a Free Trade agreement.” Then there was a pause. In that interlude, I knew the guards were coming for me. I knew it was over. I should probably snatch that brooch now since I was going to prison for treason anyway. Then . . . Her Majesty chuckled. Yes, really. I grinned back, then ultra-quickly looked at my hands in my lap so I wouldn’t blow it. I knew if I kept talking I would say something stupid. I could feel her still turned toward me, but I wouldn’t look up. Eventually the Queen turned to her right to begin a new conversation and I exhaled. So to this day I ponder if the Queen of England wonders if I blew her off, or am narcoleptic.

Okay, I got through
that, and the whole experience was exhilarating bordering on terrifying. But meeting this Home Study social worker tonight at our home is even scarier than that, because she will determine if we would make good parents. And here’s the thing—Ian is even more immature than me. This is a man who picks me up at the airport—standing among limo drivers who are holding signs with names of businesspeople—with his own homemade sign: Mrs. U-Smell.

We’re both so immature; when we have to write a check for a parking ticket, we hide a tiny “C.O.I.” within the loops of our signatures (it stands for Choke On It). So before this evaluation we have a gritted-teeth talk with each other about acting like grown-ups. We pinkie-swear: no poop jokes, no wife-swapping jokes, no stories about theater days when we stayed up until four
A.M.
playing poker and drinking. No jokes at all, we agree. But we say we will act natural, be ourselves. We nod and woodenly practice how real parents might act, as we keep changing our clothes. At first I try a dress—too fancy; the Home Study worker might think I’m full of myself, I decide and yank it off. Ian tugs off his tie, too. I ask him if he’s got a vest, maybe? Somehow, I see the dad from
My Three Sons
as the prototype. As I flip through more of our clothes looking for what Mary Tyler Moore might wear, the doorbell rings. The Home Study worker is here.

I change quickly and run downstairs to greet her in the most prim and diffident “mom”- like manner I can muster.

As I put out refreshments I realize both Ian and I are wearing sensible black slacks and white shirts. I have no idea where we found these clothes but in an attempt to look respectable, we now look like census takers.

I am fake-smiling so hard I have a sharp pain through my right eye and suspect it’s oozing blood. I have never tried harder to appear so normal. Anything Ian says, for example, “Would you like some wine?,” makes me exclaim, “We never drink. I mean rarely. I mean, sometimes, but not a lot. I mean, what’s a lot right, heh, heh . . .” Ian looks at me; what’s with my fake laugh? I wish I knew. I keep “heh, heh”-ing and then we trail off into thunderous silence.

Later in the visit, Ian tells a fun story about a high school classmate who got him in trouble, and says, “Oh, I coulda killed him.” I pounce, “He’s kidding! Ian does not have a temper, heh, heh . . . hey, do you like pizza? Look, I made us a . . . have I mentioned I like to cook? And home-make.”

Home-make? Ian looks at me. I’ve never said this before. Or since. He knows it and I know it. His mouth twitches. Oh no, we’re going to laugh and blow this, I just know it. We both quickly look away from each other and try to sober up similar to what we often did onstage to not laugh. I now think of terrible images like a sandwich of rotting mayonnaise and writhing worms. It works.

The Home Study worker makes notes about us I cannot see, no matter how hard I bend over pretending to wipe the counter and “home-make.” She then asks Ian and I what we see in our future as a family. We reply we see ourselves with a child. She asks us to be more specific. I want to be matched and say we are open to any sex, any age, any ethnicity. The Home Study worker waits, head down, listening. She is patient.

Ian then says quietly . . . he sees us with a little girl. I am surprised at this revelation. This is the first time he’s admitted he has visualized someone too. I then loosen up and tell the worker about the girl I see, the girl with blond streaks. The worker smiles and makes a note of it, and I peek to see if she’s checked a box that says “crazy.” We are worried we won’t be matched with the available waiting children, and we say again and again, we are open to any sex, any age, any ethnicity. We mean it. We want to be parents. We want to scream: we know there is a child out there that we could be good parents to. Just match us, dammit.

But we just smile hard, really hard, at her as the kitchen clock ominously ticks.

Weeks later, we get her evaluation. She has deemed us kid-worthy. We’re ecstatic.

The social workers at the Foster Family Agency don’t give us any special treatment because we’re known actors. Their job is to help potential parents through the system. Even though we’ve advised our social workers we want to wait for a legally emancipated child, rather than foster a child waiting to be freed of parental rights, we still have to be cleared as a foster home first. It’s not that we’re heartless and don’t want to only foster, it’s just that we don’t want to fight anyone in court for a child. Also, although it’s rare, we’d heard about cases where a child is raised by foster parents, then placed back with a member of the child’s birth family. Again, it’s rare. But we’d been through a lot and aren’t looking for trouble. We trust this FFA and the process. We know there are children in foster care who are emancipated, waiting for a family to adopt them, and that’s the situation we feel drawn to.

The next step is to schedule a Home Visit with the two social workers. They have to be sure we have an available spare bedroom with a window and closet. They need to see if we’ve installed a gate at the top of the stairs. They come over, and Ian and I silently follow them around, watching them walk through our home with a checklist to be sure we’ve baby-proofed it. I don’t feel it’s invasive. I feel they’re trying to make it safe and I appreciate their knowledge. They now say of course they don’t know what age of a child we will be matched with, so they advise it’s best to be completely ready. Because it could happen at any time, they say.