When I think about meeting with Margot’s birthmother Peggy, I picture the last meeting we had with her… 16-1/2 years ago. The motel room, dark because the curtains were drawn. She was so young, only slightly older than Margot is now. Her parents were with her. They were good people, and very supportive. She had a close family.

I have to remind myself again and again that a meeting now won’t be the same. Peggy is almost twice as old now as she was then. She’s a grown woman. She probably has a husband, a family. She’s had so many more experiences. And, almost certainly, her mother and father won’t play the same role with the same importance for her now as they did then.

On the positive side, I believe she’ll want to see Margot, and that she will love her. I believe that it will be very good for Margot to know the real human being that is her birthmother, rather than mythologizing her. I believe that it will be very good for Margot to have the support network of a family of people that are physically and in other ways like her, that she won’t have to work so hard any more to make herself different from us. Because I believe she’ll find a family that isn’t all that different from either her or us.

I worry that Peggy will see Margot’s faults – her lack of manners at times, the chip that appears at times on her shoulder – and blame us. Why do I think she would *blame* the parents for normal teenage behavior? Do I blame myself? Well, yes, sometimes I think I could have done/ could do better with her.

I guess I have the normal adoptive parent fear fantasy that Margot might feel so much that she belongs with her birth family that she will drift away from us. That we will lose her to them. Part of me knows this won’t happen, that I have been a good parent to Margot, that beneath the teenage stuff, she loves me. But part of me is crying as I write this paragraph, so I know that somewhere inside this fear is only too real.

Anyway, afraid or not, I do think this is the right move for Margot, and that she won’t feel whole inside herself until she reaches a resolution with this. And I want this for her. The birthmother myth cripples her because she clings to the fantasy. But having a real flesh-and-blood birthmother could be a wonderful support for her in learning to engage reality. However it turns out.

Margot, Dan, and I went to talk with our adoption counselor this evening. Somehow, the conversation turned to the day that Margot came home.

The motel where we met Margot’s birth mother and her parents, and where we waited that interminable afternoon for her arrival, has been demolished and a shopping center has been built in its stead. Dan and I both feel the loss of a personal landmark. Maybe there is a Home Depot there now instead. Ugly thought. Maybe the motel was where the Olive Garden is now. This is more palatable (so to speak). Margot has been to this Olive Garden and likes it.

But the story of her arrival.

A nurse or case worker from the adoption agency was going to pick her up at the hospital in Rhode Island and meet us there at maybe 11am. Of course Dan and I arrived early. No nurse. But we weren’t worried; we were early. We settled onto the leather sofas by the fireplace in the lobby to wait. And we waited. And waited. And waited.

11am. 11:30. 12 noon. Maybe we should call. But we don’t want to appear paranoid. We don’t want to give the agency the wrong impression. 12:30. Okay, we’ll call. We do call. We make contact. Don’t worry, they tell us. Just a late start. She should be there by 1. Okay. 1pm. 1:30. 2pm. Maybe we should call again. Can they take the baby away if we appear too anxious, too neurotic? We’ll wait. 2:30. We call again. Oh, they tell us, there was some delay [I forget what]. She should be there soon. Really.

3pm. The nurse appears at the door. The car is just outside. She has our daughter. Dan and I rise from the couch. We are two feet from the floor. We float outside. In the back seat of the car, there is a baby seat. A tiny, tiny baby is strapped inside, sleeping. She is the most beautiful thing we have ever seen.

We are crying. The nurse takes the baby from the car and puts her in my arms. My baby.

My baby.