“Father’s” Day

On our way back to Minneapolis from Fargo on Sunday, we decided to make a stop at St. John’s University to visit an old friend of ours who we haven’t seen in years.  Father Burton had retired from the Priesthood several years ago and lives at the Abbey of St. John’s.  Although we were a week late to celebrate “Father’s” Day , we felt that we needed to check in sooner than later considering Father is pushing 90 years old and is now in the care center.  When we arrived at his room, we found that he hadn’t aged a day since we saw him a few years ago.  His heavy Swedish accent and hearty laugh were still the same.  Father Burton laughs easily and loves to tease.  I’m willing to wager that he still prefers tequila shots over beer.

After spending 10 minutes with him, we came to the realization that Alzheimer’s has set in.  He must have asked Mark 5 times where he’s working now even though it’s the same as it was when they worked together years ago.  He asked the boys at least 7 times what grades they were in.  I was really proud that they didn’t get smart with him about repeating himself.  Each time they answered his questions politely. 

It was sad to see this vibrant, tenacious, bull-headed man begin to fade.  A man who had been so domineering and strong was now so frail and vulnerable.  He barely remembered the child who is his namesake, although he has several pictures of him in his room to this day.  I’m glad that Father’s legacy will be able to live on through what he did for us. 

The story is long but it is one of my favorites.  It still makes the hair on my neck stand up when I recount it.

……………………………………………………………………………….

It was a hot June evening 10 years ago when Mark came inside from his obsessive compulsive diligent session of lawn maintenance.   His t-shirt was drenched in sweat, his face was flush from the heat, and he reeked  of that familiar gasoline and freshly mowed grass smell.  

I kept wrapping the gift I was working on for my niece and casually acknowledged his arrival. 

“Father Burton got a fax today…”  he mentioned casually. 

“Oh yeah?”  I replied, half interested in such a non-newsworthy tidbit. 

“The nuns have a baby for us if we want him,”  Mark continued.

I looked up quizzingly forgetting that Father Burton, the Chaplain that Mark worked closely with, had taken it upon himself to inquire about adoption some year and a half earlier.  Father’s old friend, Mother Javier, happened to run a bunch of Orphanages and Schools in Central and South America and had helped Father Burton find a child for his niece to adopt several years prior.  Mother Javier’s response to his inquiry was that they don’t “do” adoptions, and especially don’t do adoptions to the US.  Their mission is to take in girls and provide them with a home and education. 

We left it at that. 

Mark had to repeat himself, “The nuns have a baby boy for us if we want to adopt him.” 

It still didn’t register. 

I had so completely put all the infertility tests, treatments, IVFs, miscarriages, surgeries, and desperate thoughts of abduction behind me, that this whole suggestion of parenthood fell on unprepared ears.  I had refocused my purpose toward building my career and becoming involved with kids through different means than motherhood.

Honestly, I wasn’t really interested in having this conversation.  I wasn’t interested in having my heart ripped out one more time.   The thought of having another dream violently crushed was way more than I could bear to even consider.

Then the sales pitch: 

“But Karm, it’s a BOY!  He’s OURS if we want him…  It’s a BOY!”

I wasn’t biting. 

“I don’t know.  I just don’t think I want to do a foreign adoption.  I don’t think I’m up for this.”  After 5 years of infertility battles, we’re finally moving on with our lives.   

What I was really thinking? 

I.  CAN.  NOT.  TAKE.  ANOTHER.  EMOTIONAL.  BLOODBATH.  And you are scaring the shit out of me right now!

Finally, I asked,  ”So.. how old is this baby?

“One week.”

My heart stopped.  Or did it race?  I can’t remember.  It was all too surreal.

“You mean…. he was born, like, a week ago?”  I stammered.  Then I began to do the math.

Suddenly my thoughts shifted to the events of the previous year.   A late summer cycle of IVF had promises of parenthood.  The pregnancy results were positive and we anxiously awaited our first ultrasound to determine if we were having one or two babies.  I was convinced it would be twins as the HCG numbers had more than doubled after 2 days.   I started shopping!

My best friend, Cindy and her husband had also conceived at the same time and our due dates were a week apart.  The dreams were swirling.  Our families would meld and our kids would grow up being best friends.  I was busy planning our future… Our future as a family.  

Seven weeks seemed like a lifetime as we anticipated the ultrasound.  Would I be setting up a nursery for one or two babies?  Putting the cart before the horse was a practice that I had employed forever and this situation certainly wasn’t going to be any exception.   Mark and I got to our appointment early and were seen right on time.  The Dr. did the ultrasound and it seemed to take him forever to find the heartbeats.  Finally, after several years minutes had passed, he muttered the unthinkable,  ”I’m so sorry.  There is no heartbeat.”  I made him check again.  And again.  He showed us the sac that was visible but no heartbeat was present.  

 I was in a state of suspended disbelief.  This.  Could.  Not.  Be.  Happening!  He apologized again and presented me with my options. 

Neither was acceptable. 

Mark and I went out for lunch.  I had nothing to say.  Mark was already talking about doing another round of IVF in a few months.   His desire to be a father was intense and he was willing to do whatever it took and spend whatever it would cost to become a dad.   Besides stuffing my face with chocolate, I comforted myself by thinking of worse things that happen to people, like losing a child you’ve known and loved, or going through the pregnancy only to have the baby be stillborn.  Those were the people who had a right to be sad.  I was just pissed that I didn’t get my way.  There were a million people in a worse predicament than myself.  That’s what I focused on.

My OBGyn is an amazing man who had become my ally in the whole infertility war.  He would do whatever test and arrange appointments for me whenever I needed them.  He was also bold enough to tell me what nobody else dared.  As I sat on the edge of the table in his office waiting for my follow-up exam, he moved in close to me, took my hands, and looked me square in the eyes.  “Karmen, you NEED to grieve this loss or it WILL come back to haunt you,”  he warned. 

Damn!  He was on to me.  He saw right through that ever-chipper exterior and not only punctured a hole in it, but he cracked it wide open exposing an abundance of raw emotion that had been so tightly and successfully stored away. 

For the first time in my life, I had been given permission to be sad, to hurt, and to be angry at what was so  incredibly unfair. 

That day spawned the hardest, saddest, darkest time in my entire life.  I had failed.  I had never failed at anything that I wanted to accomplish.  For once, I was not in control of my destiny and I hated it.  And I saw no way out. 

There was no light at the end of the tunnel. 

Depression took ahold of me, and each day required every ounce of energy I had just to get out of bed.  I spent every night that winter and spring tethered to my online support system.   I had checked out of my life.  Mark and I were managing the same pain in very different ways.  He moved on and I dwelled, which was not my typical M.O.  I was always one to believe someone else had it worse, crack a joke, and move on without letting things get me down.  I was the freak while everyone else on the planet (including every skanky crack hoe in the city) was managing to have children.

Cindy had dragged me out of my self-imposed exile long enough to go Christmas shopping with her one Saturday.  While we were out, she told me that she and Jon had talked and wanted me to be in the delivery room with them if I was up for it.  I was.  No, I wasn’t.  Yes, that would be cool.  But it would be so hard.  She let me think on it and I had 5 months to decide.  My biggest fear was that I would feel like even more of a loser walking out of the hospital empty handed.  Eventually, I decided it was a risk I was willing to take and in late May, Cindy and Jon had a beautiful and healthy little girl.  The oddest part of the whole event was that when I left the hospital that evening, I didn’t feel sad.  In fact, I nearly skipped out of the building knowing that I didn’t have to go through that.  Cindy’s labor and delivery was not traumatizing for me, it was cathartic. 

That day I realized that I didn’t need to give birth to feel complete. 

The next several weeks were spent seeing as much of the baby as possible and enjoying holding this tiny miracle.  She was beautiful…

“Yeah.  He’s a week old,”  Mark repeated. 

“So… He was born on our due date?”  I asked.

“Yes,”

“Well, I guess this really isn’t OUR decision to make, is it?”

 It was then that I knew I had to take a chance.  As much as I wanted to resist, I had to allow myself to be vulnerable.  Again.

Joseph Burton, was indeed born on our due date. 

And he was meant to be ours… 

 

 

~ by karmental on June 25, 2008.