Baby Steps

Lucy needs to make room

We were all there together: the suburban couple who both wore round wire-rimmed glasses; the very big blonde with the creamy skin and lovely handmade glass jewelry accompanied by her mother; the two young guys who looked like they were on break from boy-band rehearsal; the unapologetically late lesbians; the empty-nesters.

We came to hear Sheri, who stood before us, a tall OC specimen with clear blue eyes, hair to the middle of her back, surfer tan, toenails painted like watermelon slices. She was funny and confident and cool and immediately trustworthy. As she should be. She's been doing this kind of thing for 15 years. She's done it herself a couple times.

We rifled through our packets as Sheri gave us a crash course on all we'd need to know. The money part. The logistics. The timing. The emotions of it all.

There will be many emotions. So far I've been in puddles of tears and soaring like a super hero, and quite a few stops in between since I began having the dreams. The dreams are of babies. I am holding them and playing with them and wake up feeling sweet and like I miss someone. The last one involved two small cherubic African-American twins, I didn't want to let the girl go and told her adoptive parents, who in the dream were friends of mine, that I would take one if it got overwhelming. They laughed and said no, but you can go get your own, and gave me a number to call. And the babies vanished when I awoke.

So why, you may wonder, was I in this room last night, with these other people, munching on pretzels and licorice from Costco?

It is because we are all beginning our process of adopting a child.