Lydia SueAnn

“Can we see some pictures?” Those few words changed my life.

I had just walked into the teacher staff room, hands cold, still holding onto late winter’s chill. A small purple note lay in my mailbox, barely noticable with first glance. On a double-take, reaching my had into the small wooden slot, I pulled it out, straining to read the scripted words, “Call Cathy St. Martin”.

I had to reread it because I could not believe my eyes. Our county social worker had never called me at work before. “Paul, it’s Cathy. She called,” I said as I held up the note. His eyes filled with alarm as he paused his morning teacher tasks of getting ready to start the day.

My heart started racing. What could she want? Did I make another mistake?

Just the other week I had to drive down at a moment’s notice to the San Bernardino office to correct a mistake I had made. “If you are willing to consider an infant exposed to ‘alcohol’, you should have also checked the ‘drugs’ box.” I felt stupid. Of course, exposure is exposure, and I made my way down that same day so I could correct it as quickly as possible. My job was to make their job easy.

By the time I made it to the phone attached to the wall beside the mailboxes (just a few steps away), I had already tried my best to pinpoint anything I might have messed up on.

This is the heightened awareness of “needing to be perfect” that trails every prospective adoptive parent. The social workers must like you (because they are the ones who pick the books to share with the birth moms). I wanted so desperately to bring home a baby, my baby, and I would do anything within my power to make that happen. First to bring snacks, have homework done, hand-raised to answer questions in class, and a home so baby-proofed not even we could get in.

My hands were shaking so badly, I could hardly dial the number. Taking breaths in the nose, out the mouth, I tried to steady myself before she answered. Ring, ring, “Hello?”

Trying to sound calm, inquisitive, and obliging all at the same time, I tried to cut to the chaste.

“Good morning, Cathy. This is Renee Longshore. You called?”

It's a Girl!

“Oh, hi Renee! It was just here a moment ago. Now where’d I put it?”

The line went quiet except for the quiet breath of a social worker as she leafed through piles of paper on her desk. Paul stood staring, palms faced up, eyes questioning. What’s happening? Trouble is, I had no idea.

“Oh yes, here it is.” Cathy’s voice leveled out and I readied myself for a quick and affirmative response. “We have a little girl for you, caucasian, blond hair and blue eyes.” A lump caught in my throat, then fell with a hard thump in my stomach. My face must have said it all. Paul inquired with an intense look, trying to get my attention.

Placing my hand over the receiver, I mouthed, “A girl!” You see, we had been expecting a boy. So many adoptive parents wanted a girl, and it did not matter to us. We would have been happy either way. “Three months.” It was older than we were expecting, but we could make do.

The rest of the conversation was pretty much a blur. I tried to collect the important points: in a couple days we would be sitting down to hear more about her. Were we interested? With an eager, “Yes, absolutely!” we set the date and hung up the phone. Paul and I still had to get through a day of teaching. We could hardly wait and, at day’s end headed to Target to pick out a soft, pink blanket.

A Rough Beginning

Just a couple of days later we drove down to the county office to hear more about her. You see, for us, it wasn’t a matter of considering whether or not we would bring Lydia home. She was our daughter, chosen before we had even heard about her. If her birth mom or a social worker picked us, that was it — she was ours. Going down to hear about her life up until this point in time was just a informative session. At the end of it all, we had decided ahead of time, we would say, “yes.”

We entered the room, made introductions, shook hands and sat down as quickly as we were able to. The birth mom’s social worker didn’t miss a beat — this wasn’t her first rodeo. Lydia was a “drug baby.” Her birth mom took methamphetamine and hard alcohol every day since Lydia’s conception. Lydia was born with stiff shoulders and legs turned inward, both evidence of her extensive in-utero exposure. She had been going to physical therapy to help correct the issues, but there was a possibility that she may never outgrow the deformity, and might require corrective braces at some point in her future.

Good news is that she did not have to go through withdrawals. Birth mom was in prison when she went into labor — she had just been picked up on a repeated shoplifting offense. This gave her time to sober up. When Lydia was born she would have been removed from her birth mom due to child endangerment. This was the first child she was choosing adoption for; the other 9 had already entered the “system” (a term for “court-dependent children”).

Paul and I could barely sort it all out before she went on to tell us about Lydia’s birth father. He was incarcerated for vehicle theft and facing a stiffer sentence this time. Originally he had expressed an interest in raising her, so they placed Lydia in a neutral foster home, and waited until he got out of jail to give him a chance to get back on his feet. Unfortunately, he re-offended soon after he was released, which now allowed them to move forward with the adoptive placement.

An Unlikely Response

My feet had gone numb. I do not think I even moved an inch as I sat listening, my mind reeling with the information. With my mouth draped slightly open I sat staring, speechless as the room grew quiet.

“Can we see some pictures?” Paul’s voice pierced the thick, stale air, and startled me back to my conscious mind. I pressed my lips closed again and leaned forward to grasp the book that was being handed to us. Holding it in my lap, I turned each page slowly, trying to take it all in. This is not the story I pictured when we first talked about adoption. But this was our story, and I had to wrap my mind around it. This was our daughter and we were going to make it work.

Lydia is an amazingly-artistic young lady (she designed my site icon) who is passionate about being an understanding ear, support, and voice for those on their own mental health journey. Entering her senior year of high school this year through Options for Youth and concurrent enrollment at Victor Valley Community College, she’s hoping to attend California State University at Fullerton in the fall of 2021. Her goal is to major in Psychology, with the goal of becoming a high school counselor for at-risk youth. I could never put enough words on a page that could adequately describe how proud I am of this girl. For the journey we’ve shared, and the road ahead — she’ll always be my blue-eyed baby!