The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant (23 page)

“We shouldn't give him my last name,” I said.

“Then let's give him Miller.”

But he shouldn't have Terry's last name either. I'd feel like the odd man out if there were two Millers in the house and only one Savage. We knew a lesbian couple with two kids; rather than choosing one name, or hyphenating both, they gave their daughter an old family name. So all three—mom, mom, son, and daughter— had different last names. Maybe we could do the same? There was a great name in my family—Hollahan—that was dying out; why not name him Daryl Jude Hollahan? Terry liked the ring of that, so it was settled: D. J. Hollahan.

But half an hour later, this scenario popped into my head:

“D. J. Hollahan? You must be Irish.”

“No. I'm French and Scottish and German.”

“But your last name, Hollahan, that's Irish, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“But you're not Irish?”

“No.”

“Then how come—”

“I was adopted by a gay couple, and one of my fathers is Irish, and his grandmother's name was Hollahan, so rather than choose one of their last names, or give me both, they gave me an old family name of one of my dads, Hollahan, which is Irish, like my dad. But I'm not Irish.”

“Why would they do that? Didn't they want you to have one of their names?”

“LOOK, I DON'T KNOW. OKAY? YOU WANT TO KNOW SO BAD, CALL THEM AND ASK!”

Considering how often people in America inquire about the ethnic backgrounds of people they've just met, and considering that a kiss-me-I'm-Irish name like Hollahan invites the question, D.J. would have conversations like this over and over again all his adult life. He would come to hate us for giving him such a green-beer-and-shamrocks last name. There were a couple of other family-name possibilities—Keenan, my middle name and also my other grandmother's maiden name; and Bunbaker, Terry's mother's maiden name. But Keenan presented the same “So you must be Irish” problem as Hollahan, and a name like Bunbaker could get a kid beaten up on the playground daily through grade school. With two gay dads and the name “D. J. Bunbaker,” he would never get out of junior high alive. We might as well name him Liberace.

I don't remember whose idea it was, mine or Terry's, but at some point, one of us tossed out another idea: give the baby Melissa's last name, Pierce. We wouldn't even have to give it to him; he'd already have it, we just had to leave him with it. When anyone asked about his last name, he could say, “It's my mother's name.” And if in adolescence, he got his panties in a bunch about his gay dads “taking away” the first and middle names his mother gave him—which I worried he would—we'd be able to point to his last name and say, “We left you with the most important name your mother gave you: the name you share with her.”

Terry nudged me; Laurie was waiting.

“We want him to have Melissa's last name.”

Laurie looked touched.

“Oh, that's really sweet, you guys,” she said. “We'll have to check with Melissa to make sure it's okay, but I'm sure it will be. I think that will mean a lot to her.”

“We figure he'll have a name I gave him—Daryl, for my dad, a name Dan gave him—Jude, for Dan's mom, and a name his mom gave him,” Terry said.

Laurie wrote down the name—Daryl Jude Pierce—and we signed the papers.

“Melissa wants to be alone with the baby in the morning,” Laurie said. “She has to check out by two, so if you guys came in around one o'clock that would be good.” Laurie would be available to Melissa all morning, in case she needed to talk, but otherwise Melissa would be alone with the baby.

“Adoptive parents usually present the birth mother with a small gift—a locket, a bracelet—and if you guys wanted to go out in the morning and get some pictures developed, presenting the birth mother with a small photo album of hospital pictures is always a nice gesture.”

Laurie suggested we bring in a few going-home outfits.

“Let Melissa pick the outfit and dress Daryl.” Hearing the baby called Daryl startled me. “And don't forget to bring your car seat up, because the hospital won't let you check out without one. At about one-thirty, we'll have a little placement ceremony.”

“A placement ceremony?” Terry asked.

We're not big on touchy-feely stuff. We're not huggers, and neither was Melissa. Even after all we'd been through in the last six weeks, we hadn't hugged Melissa, and she hadn't hugged us. Looking dubious, I asked Laurie what exactly a “placement ceremony” would consist of. Was it like a baptism? And who officiated?

“No, no. The ceremony is just what the adoptive parents and the birth mother want it to be. Maybe you'll say a few words, give Melissa her photos and a placement gift; maybe she'll want to say something to the baby,” Laurie explained. “It's a special moment, when the baby is given by the birth mother to the adoptive parents. Marking it, pausing to let the moment sink in, is good for everyone.”

We walked into the hall and down to Melissa's door. Laurie knocked as she opened the door, and Melissa was lying in bed, TV off, looking at the baby sleeping in his crib. He was no
longer David Kevin, he was Daryl Jude. The baby was asleep on his side, Melissa was on her side, facing him, their faces separated by eights inches of air and a quarter of an inch of clear plastic. He was wrapped up, his little face poking out from under his knit hat. Melissa looked up at us as we filed in, then looked back at the baby.

Laurie sat on the side of the bed, and asked if she was all right. Melissa nodded, and sat up.

“Terry and Dan signed everything, so we're all set for tomorrow,” Laurie said gently. “They gave him your last name, Melissa. I wanted to make sure that was okay.”

Melissa look up at Terry, then at me.

“Really?”

We nodded.

“That's cool,” she said, smiling at Daryl. “That's cool.”

We left the hospital to run some errands and get a nap in back at our hotel. Before we left, we promised Melissa we'd bring her some decent chow for dinner—which meant steak. Since Melissa likes her steak well-done, the hotel restaurant was the obvious choice. There isn't a restaurant in the lobby of the Mallory Hotel, just a dining room, and everything from the food served to the decor reminded me of my dead grandmother's apartment. When we told them we wanted to take dinner to a friend at the hospital who'd just had a baby, the Mallory went that extra mile. The Mallory dining room doesn't do to-go orders, the manager explained, but for our friend, the new mother, they would make an exception. We ordered three steaks, and three pieces of chocolate cake. When we came down, not only had they boxed up three steak dinners, but also salad, rolls, butter, silverware, real plates, salt and pepper shakers, a tablecloth, cloth napkins, chocolate cake, and flowers.

We overtipped.

Melissa laughed when we came into her room carrying a box with flowers sticking out of the top, and when we pushed a table up to Melissa's bed and started pulling napkins and flowers out of box, setting the table for dinner, Melissa sat shaking her head. She would've been happy with some hamburgers, she said, but we had to make a big production out of dinner. We weren't the ones
who made a big production out of dinner, I told her, the restaurant manager was.

The baby slept while we ate, and the chocolate cake met with Melissa's approval. We watched TV, passed the baby around, took some more pictures, and didn't say one word about tomorrow. We were still behaving as if things would go on like this forever, the three of us living at the hospital and taking care of the baby, with no one calling him by name.

When we'd come in with dinner, Melissa said she was worried that David would show up and there wouldn't be enough food to go around. She was sure he'd come tonight. When eleven o'clock came and went, and David still hadn't shown up, Melissa's mood got darker. Melissa and David weren't involved, nothing romantic; she had taken him in, and spoke of him with the same weary affection with which she spoke of her other animals. Like the dog and the cat, David was her responsibility. Melissa had updated us on him whenever we visited: he had a job, he'd lost a job, he was on crystal, he was off crystal. Melissa had never introduced us to him, but we got a look at him when we dropped Melissa off after our visits: he was a skinny kid, good-looking, with intense blue eyes. He'd been living with Melissa since she moved into the apartment, eating her food, and she couldn't understand why David—or any of her other friends—would fail to come see her and the baby. Did her friends get busted? Were her animals okay?

The gutter-punk ethos is all honor and loyalty; the only real and the only dependable people on the street are other punks. Melissa romanticized street life. Her network of friends and fellow punks were her “real” family, she told us, and they were always there for her—unlike her biological family. They were the people she could count on, the ones who looked after her animals when she got busted or sick, the ones she spare-changed with and shared beer with. So where were they?

They were, I thought, drinking out of space bags, and they were used to people disappearing, whether they got busted, or decided to leave town on a moment's notice. Melissa was out of sight, and quickly out of mind.

I asked Melissa if we could stop by her apartment on our way back to the hotel, and see if David was okay. She looked at me for a moment, and gave us her apartment number.

When we left the hospital, we drove past places Melissa told us David hung out: Pioneer Square, Outside In, the downtown Safeway. The Mallory was only two blocks from Melissa's apartment, so the apartment was our last stop. We parked, and walked up to the door. I rang the doorbell, and a few seconds later a stoned-sounding voice said, “Yeah?”

“Is this David?” I asked.

“Yeah, who's this?”

“It's Dan and Terry, the guys adopting Melissa's baby. Can we come up and talk to you for a minute?”

There was a long pause.

“I'll come down.”

While we waited—in the rain—I got pissed. Why hadn't he come to see Melissa at the hospital? She'd named the baby after him, for Christ's sake; he was living in her apartment—which we were paying for—and he couldn't get his ass to the hospital?

When David came to the door, he looked a little surprised to see us. He wasn't wearing shoes, and either he was stoned or we'd awakened him.

“Remember Melissa?” I asked.

He knew it was a trick question. He smiled a stoned smile— his eyes were very big and his pupils very black—and told us that, yeah, he remembered Melissa.

“She's upset that you haven't come to see her at the hospital. She wants you to meet the baby.”

David looked down at the ground.

“Oh, yeah, I was planning on going up to see her, but I got real busy, I'll go up tomorrow.”

“She has to be out tomorrow at two, so you better go up early,” Terry said.

He nodded, but I wasn't sure he'd even remember this conversation in the morning.

“Tell you what,” I said, “we'll come over at nine, pick you up, and drive you there. Be outside.”

“Okay, thanks, that would be great,” David said, as we turned to leave. “Hey, what did she name the baby?”

“I think Melissa wants to tell you the baby's name,” I said.

“Okay, cool. See you in the morning.”

W
hen we drove up to Melissa's apartment building in the morning, David was waiting outside, saving us the trouble of kicking down the door and dragging him out to the car by his neck. He was appropriately sheepish, and thanked us for reminding him to visit Melissa, which made it hard to stay angry. We headed up to the hospital, David telling us about his new job— landscaping—and us filling David in on the birth and the last couple of days.

After we dropped David off, we had three hours to kill before meeting Laurie and Melissa for the hand-off. We needed to get photos developed, and find a gift for Melissa—which wasn't gonna be easy. What do you get for the woman who has, and wants, nothing? We didn't think Laurie's suggestion, a locket, would go over well: it might work for your average birth mom, but it was a little girly for Melissa. We knew Melissa needed a new backpack, but something practical didn't seem right either, given the occasion. We needed a keepsake, something slightly sentimental, but Melissa wasn't—or tried not to be—a sentimental person. Somewhere in the vastness of Lloyd Center we hoped to find something we could present to her with straight faces, something that said, “Hey, thanks for the kid,” without too much mush.

Walking into the mall, I was seized by a sentimental impulse, which was very unlike me: I'm not a terribly sentimental person either. But whatever else we did this morning, I wanted to skate.

Terry wasn't interested in skating; there was too much shopping to do. We had to get photos! Blankets! Something to eat! A gift for Melissa! I put my foot down: we didn't have to spend all
morning on the ice; just a couple of spins. And since skating had brought us good luck at the seminar, maybe skating on the day we were bringing the baby home would bring us good luck all his life. Skating might prevent him from ever falling off a swing and cracking his head open, running with the wrong crowd, becoming a Christian, or taking a gun to school and shooting his home-room teacher. But when we got to the rink, thirty little girls in flouncy outfits were learning to skate, and the rink wouldn't be open to the general public until one, the same time we were supposed to arrive at the hospital for the hand-off.

We dropped our film off at the one-hour photo place; meanwhile we checked out the jewelry stores, hoping there might be such a thing as a butch locket. No one had a locket we could picture on Melissa, but we spotted something else that was perfect: a man's ID bracelet. Heavy silver, it would go perfectly with Melissa's other chunky-punky jewelry. We had “David Kevin Pierce: 3/14/98” inscribed on the bracelet, ate BLTs, and shopped a little, and before we knew it, the three hours we had to kill were dead.

Feeling dazed, we headed out to the van with our baby blankets, a couple of outfits from Baby Gap, and some more black-and-red toys we picked up at Toys “R” Toxic. Still feeling superstitious, I insisted we head to the car by way of the skywalk, which took us past the conference rooms where we grieved our infertility so many months ago with the infertile straight people. We'd left that seminar convinced that no birth mother would ever select us, and that we were wasting our time even considering adoption.

Laurie was waiting for us at the nurses' station when we walked into the maternity ward. She told us Melissa was doing okay; she'd spent the morning with the baby, and she was “really touched” that, as promised, we'd dragged David's ass up to the hospital that morning.

“Melissa said you guys always do what you tell her you're going to,” Laurie said, “and that's really important for building a trusting relationship with your birth mother. I don't think Melissa's had many people in her life who did what they told her they would.”

Laurie asked where our car seat was. We'd left it in the van, assuming we would carry the baby out of the hospital in our arms, like in the movies, and strap him into his car seat when we got to the car. But the hospital's policy was not to discharge an infant until he was strapped into his car seat. While Terry ran down to the car, I asked about the hospital's policy concerning actual cars: what if we didn't have a car to strap the car seat into? Could pedestrians have babies?

“All we have to do is make sure the baby leaves in a car seat,” the nurse said. “The assumption is made that if you have a baby and a car seat, you have a car.”

When Terry got back, we all walked down the hall to Melissa's room, and Laurie softly knocked on her door. The shades were drawn, the lights were off, and Melissa was lying on her side, the baby asleep in her arms. We said our heys; Laurie sat on the edge of the bed, and Terry and I retreated to separate corners of the room, Terry in a chair next to the table, me on the window seat. Once again, we were hanging back, not wanting to appear too anxious to snatch the baby away.

It was one, and Melissa was supposed to check out at two o'clock, so we had an hour. We sat chatting as if nothing special was going to happen, telling Laurie stories about the last two days: our mad dash down to Portland, the nurse who wanted Melissa to leave right away, that first poopy diaper, getting peed on, last night's steak dinner. Melissa made observations about the baby's eating habits, criticized my diapering, and showed Terry the right way to hold a bottle. We talked about the mall, our hotel, and David's visit. We were all acting as if Laurie had come to pay us a visit, and once she was gone the three of us would go back to lying around, watching TV and taking care of little David Kevin/Daryl Jude Pierce-Miller-Savage.

The first sign that things wouldn't go on like this forever came when a nurse appeared with a case of formula, a few days' supply of diapers, and a gift baby bag filled with diaper and formula coupons. Melissa got up and changed into her street clothes— boots, baggy shorts, sweatshirt, and Guinness T-shirt—and when she came out of the bathroom her hair was down. She was transformed: for the last two days, she'd been the picture of a young mother, but now she was herself again, the Melissa we met six
weeks ago at Outside In. She smelled like her old self, too; her clothes were gutter-punk filthy when she arrived Saturday morning, and for three days they sat ripening in a plastic bag on a shelf under the TV. When she sat back down on the bed, Melissa asked the nurse for something to wear over her clothes. She didn't want to get the baby dirty.

Melissa told us some more about David's visit (“He figured out the baby's name when you guys wouldn't tell him what it was. He's not stupid, you know”), about her breakfast (“I couldn't eat it, it was terrible”), and about her last visit from her doctor (“She's cool”). Terry, Laurie, and I weren't saying anything now; we were just listening to Melissa, who sat on the bed with the baby in her lap, filling the time with her own voice, putting off the moment when Terry and I would leave with the baby. When Laurie met with Melissa yesterday, they discussed who would leave first. Some birth mothers prefer to leave the hospital first, leaving the adoptive couple in their room with the baby. Melissa wanted us to leave first with the baby; then she would leave with Laurie, who would drive her back to her apartment.

Two o'clock came, and at Laurie's prompting we gave Melissa her I.D. bracelet and a small photo album full of pictures. Laurie said a few words, but none of the rest of us rose to the bait. We were all very quiet. Melissa asked about baby pictures, the kind taken at the hospital immediately after a baby is born. Laurie explained that these cost money and that you had to request them; they weren't taken automatically. Melissa shrugged, disappointed.

“Well, we better get the little guy dressed,” Laurie said, falling in with our avoidance of names, but she didn't say why we should get him dressed. Melissa changed the baby's diaper and, with Terry's help, dressed him in the going-home outfit the three of us picked out a month ago: a brown terrycloth jumper and a matching hat. Terry and I put our coats on and gathered up the diapers, bottles, and bag.

Melissa buckled the baby into the car seat the three of us picked out at Toys “R” Toxic, and the room got very quiet.

Laurie sat down on the bed next to Melissa, and murmured, “It's time.” Terry rose from the bed, put his hand on the car seat's handle, and looked down at Melissa. Melissa didn't look up at us; she
looked at the baby, who was wide awake, blinking at the incomprehensible world, blissfully unaware of what was transpiring in front of and because of him. David Kevin squeezed his mom's finger, and Terry and I stood there, like fools, not sure what to do. Should Terry pick up the car seat and walk out? Should we wait for Melissa to draw back her hand? What should we say?

Time stopped, and we stood frozen, until Laurie put her hand on Melissa's shoulder, and Melissa pulled her finger out of David Kevin's hand. Laurie looked up at Terry, and nodded. Terry carefully picked up Daryl Jude, and Melissa's eyes followed her son as he was lifted off the bed. Laurie raised her eyebrows, indicating that this might be a good time to say something, anything.

“We'll see you soon, okay?” Terry said. We'd agreed yesterday to come back down with the baby in two weeks, so Melissa's friends at Outside In could meet him. “Bye, Melissa. Thank you so much,” Terry said, and then he picked up the car seat, walked past me, and very tentatively stepped into the hallway with the baby. As soon as the baby was out the door, Melissa looked down at her bed and started to breathe in and out, trying to stay in control. Melissa didn't look up at me, and I wasn't sure what to do; was I supposed to say something now, too? Laurie nodded toward the door, and I started to go.

Melissa crumpled into a ball sobbing, I could see Terry standing in the hallway, waiting for me. I looked at Melissa, and stepped up to the bed. Not once in the last six weeks, not even over the last two days in the hospital, had Melissa and I touched each other. I walked over to the bed and placed a hand on her shoulder. She stopped sobbing, either from the shock of my touch or from the sudden realization that I was still in the room.

“We're not the hugging type, you and me,” I heard myself saying. Melissa nodded. “But thank you, Melissa, thank you so much. You will be a part of this baby's life, he's going to know who his mother is. You'll get to see him, and you'll get to love him, and he'll love you. You'll always be his mom, his only mom.”

Melissa's shoulders started to rise and fall. She didn't look up, but Laurie nodded at me, as if to say, “Nice try, amateur, now beat it.” As I crossed to the door, Laurie gestured that she'd like me to close it on my way out.

As soon as the door was shut, Terry and I locked eyes for an instant and then looked away. We couldn't look at each other, or we'd both start to sob. We had to make it at least to the car before we let ourselves get sloppy, and there was a whole busy hospital to navigate. We stopped by the nurses' station to say good-bye and thank you. The nurses wished us the best of luck, and beamed at us in a way that made me uncomfortable. We smiled, but all we could think about was how Melissa was feeling in her room, alone with Laurie, waiting for us to leave. We walked out of the maternity ward and over to the elevators. When the doors closed, we were alone. We looked at each other again for a split second.

“That was so hard—” I said.

“Shut up, don't say anything.”

The doors opened on another floor. We were doing all we could to hold ourselves together. We weren't alone on the elevator now.

We walked through the lobby, across the street, and over to the parking garage. Terry opened the van; we locked the car seat in place, shut the side door, and climbed into our seats. Then we both folded up, sobbing, heads in hands. No one warned us about the moment when you pick the baby up and walk out of the room, leaving the birth mom sobbing in her bed. We were unprepared for all the planning and check-writing and seminargoing to end in a moment of such blistering pain. Sitting in the van finally a family, we felt no joy at having become fathers.

“She looked so miserable,” I choked out between sobs.

“I know, I know . . .” Terry sobbed in response.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that Laurie's car might be parked near our van, and that if Melissa came down and saw us sitting there, her pain would be compounded. I told Terry to drive, and slowly, sobbing, we made our way down the hill.

North Americans feel too much, latching on to grief that isn't our own, drooling over Princess Diana's all-star funeral or the televised memorial service for the dead in Oklahoma City or Littleton, Colorado. No one's allowed to grieve in private anymore, and pain has become one of the performing arts, one that the simpleminded and the talentless can excel at. We open up and let it all out for Oprah or Sally or Diane or Barbara, and private grief is public property. But to see Melissa's pain at the moment she
gave up that baby, and to feel pain ourselves at that same moment, drove home the logic of open adoption, its absolute necessity.

In a closed adoption, we wouldn't have witnessed the moment our son's mother gave him up. That we saw what we did, however painful, is to the ultimate benefit of the kid in the car seat. The idea of starting off as his parents without experiencing what we did was suddenly unimaginable. One day, D.J. may worry that his mother didn't want him, that she didn't care about him, that she didn't love him. Because of open adoption, we'll be able to sit him down and tell him about this day; we'll be able to describe the moment Melissa gave him to us, and how it hard it was for her. We won't have to guess at what it was like, or tell him that we're sure his mother loved him. We know she loved him; we saw it.

And seeing how hard it was for Melissa to hand us her baby, and knowing that we would never have been a family if she didn't trust us with him, how could we even think of denying her the right to see her baby as he grows? Having seen what we did, how could we begrudge her visits, pictures, or phone calls? After what she'd just given us, how could we deny her anything?