# 45: JENNIFER'S LETTERS

PAGE # 45

Saturday
7/28/12
Late Afternoon


Dear Jennifer of December 2011,


I am writing from the future too late, but lost time is no excuse for further procrastination. And though this note cannot stop the events as they pertained to the adoption of Baby Lily, well then, perhaps it can prevent some other ignorant prospective adoptive parent from falling prey to similar grievances.


Jennifer!


You will not believe what I am about to tell you:  After so much worry as to whether Kendra was getting coerced into an adoption plan, YOU will feel coerced into an adoption plan.


A few hours after Baby Lily's birth, Kendra will tell you alleged stories about the birth father and you will become frightened of him.  You will believe these stories without question, at least for some time, because they will help you reconcile your own ideas about motherhood (how could anyone give up her baby?) with Kendra's decision (giving up baby equals saving baby).  Without Kendra's tale of terror, it will be near impossible for you to fathom Kendra's choice of adoption for her newborn.    


Unfortunately, as the tale of terror convinces you that Kendra has a valid reason for choosing adoption, the tale of terror will also terrorize you.  You will feel manipulated and lied to, as the adoption attorney certainly did not depict the birth father to be quite as threatening as Kendra will describe.


You will feel bad for both Kendra and her baby and want to help them, but you will also feel some resentment toward the whole situation--you, who have worked so hard to overcome a family history of abuse, will find yourself thrown into the domestic violence drama of total strangers.  You will want to run away, but because you made a commitment to Kendra and her baby, you will feel trapped.  A potentially dangerous and definitely volatile situation will collide with your otherwise quiet domestic life, and you will feel obligated to accept it into your arms, your home, your very heart.


You will be blindsided because you will have focused too much on Kendra's well being.  You will fail to consider your own vulnerability.  No--you will consider it, but far too briefly.


You will feel like you must take care of Kendra's baby, even though the situation with the birth father scares you.  You will feel like it's too late to back out.  And you will want to protect Baby Lily from any danger.  


You will take Baby Lily home and you will love her.  And even after that, the adoption attorney will victimize your entire family with more lies, manipulation, and emotional blackmail.  You will have to make very hard decisions without ever knowing the truth.  You will be morally tested and it will hurt.


You will wish it never happened at all.  


But it will happen.


And though it will be too late for this letter, you will write it anyway.


In fact, it will be too late for all of you.  At least one person will become lost.  And at least one person will not survive.  Your own brush with grief will be minimal, relatively speaking.


It will happen.


You must write of it.


Sincerely,
Jennifer of this very moment in time

# 33: THE HOME INVASIONS

PAGE # 33

Thursday

12/15/11
All Day Long

Christmas was coming and I was getting fat fatter.  


My thyroid and pituitary glands--the usual culprits--could not even be blamed.  Although my entire endocrine system seems to favor a roly-poly physique nowadays, my ass had widened beyond medical explanation.  My upper arms were busting out of my sleeves--and not in a superhero-transformation kind of way.  Oh how my face resembled a puffer fish!  The kind that inflates into a giant ball of fear if disturbed by a snorkeler or two.  I swear, even my ear lobes appeared twice their normal size.


This was one disgusting metamorphosis. 


I don't know if all prospective adoptive mothers gain weight.  I guess it makes sense.  Some women might develop sympathetic pregnancy symptoms, weight gain being the most obvious one.  If I were a less honest narrator, however, I'd forget to mention one other detail:  The Cookies.


While Kendra's home was infiltrated by child protective services, my home was invaded by dozens of gingerbread men.  They cluttered the kitchen:  men, women, boys and girls.  They did not come alone.  There were chocolate chip cookies, butter cookies, and others too. 


My mother baked for days:  she sorted through cookie tins, rolled dough, and even resurrected recipes from my own childhood.  I forgot that other food groups existed.  Well, except for coffee.  I ate cookies and drank coffee and ate more cookies.  I could not be stopped.


On this morning, my mother caught me in the gingerbread man tin before noon:

"Jennifer!  Don't eat those!  They're not even painted yet!"

My mother planned to paint the naked gingerbread men the next day.  She and TJ had bought food coloring and frosting ingredients.


I was out of control but tried to look on the bright side:  for every naked gingerbread person I consumed, I saved myself the frosting calories.  If I left them all to be frosted, well, that would be really unhealthy.  I grabbed gingerbread people by the handfuls when my mother wasn't looking.


I am certain it was on this day--the morning when I learned that Kendra was visited by child protective services--that I fully surrendered to the gingerbread army.  I was exhausted.  It was just easier to eat them than to locate food elsewhere.


The first thing I did upon waking that day (and every morning those days) was check my phone for text messages and emails.  I also happened to wake earlier than usual.  So, at approximately 6:30 am, I read this email from the attorney, who had sent it out after midnight:

Kendra emailed a little while ago. 

She said she’s trying to hang in there.  If she doesn’t deliver tonight, she might agree to an induction tomorrow night.

She had a visit from DCF [Department of Children & Families] tonight because of an “anonymous” complaint.  She said they told her it was obviously bogus and they might look into prosecuting whoever made it.  The children [her two boys] were clearly safe and well cared for.  She believes it was Bobby [the bio dad] who made the call, but she is only speculating.

I’ll keep you posted.

Tom was already at the airport trying to get home, so he had not only already seen this news, but had also sent me an email-reaction as follows:

I do not like any of this.  He called DCF for a reason and not because he wants nothing to do with the baby.  This baby is not ours until his signature.  We cannot for one second think otherwise or we will suffer like dogs. 

I read these two emails and ate through an entire family of gingerbread people--extended family and friends included.  And with each bite, I wondered less about who had called protective services on Kendra, and worried, instead, how a Freudian analyst might interpret my compulsive eating.

Was there ever (in the entire history of the world) a prospective adoptive mother (besides myself), who, on the day before her maybe baby's birth, filled her belly with boy and girl shaped cookies?  

Any reader who can cite a precedent for this disturbing binge behavior (regarding an adoption case), please comment below.