Adopting Emily
Amy Laura Hall
April 1, 2002
Awkward and grateful beyond words, I stood before Tiffany, this previously nameless woman for whom I had been sending up holy petitions for months. Given that mothers sometimes speak nonsense during labor, perhaps my babbling when we met Emily's birthmother is understandable. "I will pray for you every day for the rest of my life," I said, through sloppy tears. She looked at me warily, a bit afraid I would hug her.
Our first daughter was conceived swiftly during a moment stolen from graduate study. But after years of skydiving without a parachute (so to speak), my husband and I couldn't seem to make another baby. We found the reproductive technology racket morally dubious, and we suspected that our marriage would not do well under the pressure of the infertility blame-game. So, around the edges of caring for Rachel and teaching at Duke, we slipped into conversations about adoption. Could we be good adoptive parents? Should we adopt a little girl from China? Should we try to adopt a baby or a toddler from North Carolina? Could we be good parents to a bi-racial or African-American child, given how many need homes? I eventually tore into the matter with all the virtuous passion of a convert. If I could not quite master the conceiving-a-baby thing, I could, gosh darn it, birth righteousness itself through adoption. We would adopt an African-American baby with multiple special needs!
For the next six months, I was a flurry of efficient and intense activity. The paperwork was relatively easy; the relative work was terribly hard. "You really never know who you are going to get when you adopt," one beloved family member said.
"I expect we will receive a child of God!" I replied indignantly. This was not the low point, which I hit by ...
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