By AMY SHANKLAND
Perfectly Imperfect
I only brought up my biological parents to my mother one more time, and this was right after I graduated college. For some reason, she told me that if I were to ever search for them it would break her heart.
At the time, this wasn’t a big deal to me. I figured I had my wonderful family and a good life. I didn’t need to learn anything about the people who gave birth to me. I had even told my brother the same thing once during a walk when I was a teenager. Mark was surprised to hear this because he had assumed I would be curious. But I felt confident that I didn’t need to do any digging into that part of my life.
All of that changed, however, after I had my first child years later.
I had some great experiences after college, and some not-so-great ones. The latter category included my first marriage, which lasted only three years. Some people are mature and ready for marriage at age 22. I wasn’t one of them. I had yet to understand the challenges of living with someone who was less than perfect. And my ex-husband’s way of dealing with someone who was also less than perfect – me – was to be verbally abusive.
Thankfully we didn’t have kids and were able to go our separate ways fairly easily back in 1996. That’s when I went on to have many adventures. These included skydiving, white water rafting in West Virginia, dating a man who loved motorcycles and riding all over Indiana on one, playing the lead in an Agatha Christie play in a local community theater, and simply experiencing life as a single 20-something. I had a decent career as a customer service representative, played volleyball in a nearby adult recreation league, and lots of friends.
Volleyball, in fact, helped me find my best friend and current husband, John. We met on the court when I was 27, dated for a year, bought an old Victorian house in Noblesville, and got married in it in the fall of 1998. Unlike my first husband, John was positive, easygoing, and ready to have children right away. He was a hard worker who drove many hours in a tow truck for a living. In fact, that’s where we planned our wedding. If I didn’t ride along with him in the tow truck at times, I would have rarely seen him.
God had other plans as far as the timing of our children. I imagined getting pregnant right away and having my first child at age 28. But a whole year went by with no luck. My OB-GYN put me on a medication to help with my fertility. As we approached the 18-month mark, John and I decided to stop trying. We didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars on infertility treatments and have our marriage torn apart by constantly focusing on trying to get pregnant.
“I just want a baby to love and raise,” Jack said. “We can even adopt one if you want.”
Obviously I agreed with him. How amazing would it be if we adopted a child much like my own parents did 29 years ago? The thought of giving an unwanted child life with two loving people who desperately wanted to be parents thrilled me.
But of course, adopting a child involves money. John and I made an OK living, but we lived paycheck to paycheck like so many other people. While looking at our options, we were surprised to discover that adopting a biracial baby was less expensive than a Caucasian baby. When we asked our contact at the adoption agency why this was the case, she replied, “That’s because people don’t want them very often.”
That information broke our hearts. John and I didn’t care what the baby looked like. We just wanted a little one to love and to raise. So, after talking with family members, friends, and neighbors, we decided to sign up to adopt a biracial baby. We paid the adoption orientation fee, went to our first class, and waited for the next step.