Playing God

My husband and I have spent over a year preparing to bring


two children from Ethiopia into our family. In September we received a referral for a baby boy named Temesgen Tesfaye. In our homestudy we were approved for two children under five. We assumed we would receive a toddler and an older child sibling set. Assumptions are trivial things in the world of international adoption. Here was a baby needing a home. We were a family thrilled to have a baby. We became adjusted to the fact that we would be bringing home our baby first and later receiving a referral for an older child. They were not going to be Mikaela’s biological siblings so we were not so concerned that they were not biological siblings either. We would be growing our family in stages, settling in with a new baby and later adding another child. And then things changed again and our second referral arrived before we have a travel date to pick up our first.
I was not expecting it so soon. The email came through from G: “Are you ready for your girl referral?” Just that. Nothing else. Michael was out running errands. I call her.
G. whispers when she speaks because her baby is down for a nap. She is shuffling papers. “I’m looking at three girls”, she says “and trying to decide which one to give you”.
The best one, I think but I don’t say anything. All I can think of is this person, possibly sitting drinking tea in her kitchen while her babe is sleeping, is about to make a decision that will affect the rest of my family’s life. She is playing God, creating families casually at home. She could be in her slippers. The arbitrariness of the whole thing is all I can think about.
“I think this one”, she says, “because her last name is your son's first name”. (In Ethiopia a child’s last name is the father’s first name) Yaebsera Temesgen becomes our daughter. So, a name in common equals a lifetime together. It is a sweet connection, but is it enough to determine a child's fate for the rest of her life? Then G is speaking so softly I can’t hear what she is saying. Even after I ask her to repeat things I can still hear only every other word. It feels so important that I hear exactly what she is saying. She is going to email me a picture. “I think this is her”, she says. I am lost, imagining looking at a photo that may or may not be my daughter. When her older daughter gets home, she tells me, she will send me Yaebsera's medical information. Her daughter is the only one who knows how to work the scanner. We hang up the phone.
I am caught in the enormity of what is transpiring. My family has increase in an instant once again. Ask me how many kids I have? A few months ago I would have said one, a six year old girl I got the old fashion way. (Getting pregnant and marrying the sperm owner after the fact: alias The Damn Husband) Then in September I would have said two when I became the mother of a seven-month-old baby boy. Now I will say three and not quite believe it myself. No one has asked me how many kids I have lately so I haven’t had the chance to try any of this out to know how it feels. I just say it to myself.
I have three kids. I have three kids on two continents.
Our first referral came through an email on our agency’s adoption yahoo group on September 18th. Our dossier had been in Ethiopia for three days: “Who is left, that has their dossier in Ethiopia, waiting for a baby boy over 6 months? G.”
I emailed her that we were open to a baby boy.
Her email response came shortly after:
“Well, then Temesgen could be yours!!!! I don't have a profile yet, maybe this week the families will bring it back. I will go through and find pics of him. He is cute and around 7 months old I would say. Healthy, I am assured. G."
If I hadn’t been on the computer that morning it would have been someone else that emailed back first and he might not have become my son. I picture a game show where the contestants who have the correct answer race to push the button down first and win. This is not the way I had anticipating international adoption protocol. Our agency is small. I think it lets its hair down a bit at times in a mom and pop kind of way but the arbitrariness is just as present in the big agencies also. They tend to polish it up more with formal manila envelops and introductory letters. We were with a bigger agency in the beginning with a very good reputation. The woman in charge of the program never remembered me when I called and I was a number. When my number came up I would get the next available child in my age range. I prefer the woman sitting in her kitchen who has met the children she is referring and has gotten to know me at least a little. International adoption is still about bringing a child you know nothing about into the middle of your life and holding the belief that this is what was meant to be.
And so I became a mother of two, a mother of a baby along with being the mother of a six year old.
And a few days ago I became a mother of three. I waited until Michael got home to check my email. Mikaela, Michael and I sat on the couch and I opened up G’s email with the picture of our daughter, Mikaela’s sister, Yaebsira Temesgen. I looked at her picture and was speechless. "She looks fun to play with", says Mikaela. She is beautiful and I am petrified. There she is this sad little person staring back at me. This little person with her own life and her own thoughts, her likes and her dislikes. And more than her share of hardships. Michael and I decided that we were up for the challenges of creating a transracial family. But here she was staring at me from a photo. She hadn’t signed up for this and neither for that fact had Mikaela. But this was going to be her life, our life together. Not her decision, but her life. Who was I to make these decisions? What if she doesn’t love me? And she won’t in the beginning, how could she? (This question with the pronouns reversed is unthinkable)
Later I was sitting in the kitchen trying to get my bearing and drinking a cup of coffee when I look up at the pictures of both of my Ethiopian children we have hung on the wall. They were staring at me. The look on their faces seemed to be saying,
no way is this fat white woman my mother.

They are the baby bird in the book, Are You My Mother? and I am the Snort that says, yes, yes, I am your mother.