Adoption, Injured Geese and the Patience of Publishing

This weekend, I celebrated the twelfth anniversary of our failed adoption. You may think

better words to describe the anniversary of such a time would be honored, commemorated,

mourned. All are good and true, but I’m a person of words and I chose “celebrated.” Before I tie

in this sad anniversary with my recent experience trying/hoping/praying to get my debut novel

published, let me go back in time twelve years.

Twelve years ago, my husband and I were deep into the international adoption process.

It had been a lot of time, a lot of work, and a lot – I mean, A Lot (capitalized and italicized) – of

paperwork. We had started first with Russia, but they closed their US adoptions when an

unhappy mother sent her child back to Russia with a note pinned on her backpack. We were

then talked out of adopting from Kazakhstan by our agency and persuaded to try Ukraine. So

Ukraine it was! We knew, statistically, we would get a little boy between 12 and 24 months old.

We also knew that the Ukrainian agency would try to force us into taking a child we were not

prepared to care for (think: severe special needs). Our agency was clear with us – if you cannot

handle a child, you are not “saving” him by adopting him. We were to be firm. Hold our ground.

This time, twelve years ago, we had finished our paperwork, been approved by the

government of Ukraine to adopt, sent over a lot of money, and were now just waiting for our

travel dates to go to the agency and be introduced to our child. We should have our travel

dates in just a few weeks… Instead, we received a call from our agency saying Ukraine had

suddenly closed US adoptions (still thanks to that mother who adopted from Russia). What that

meant for us was a few things: 1. We were not going to Ukraine in a few days. 2. We had to

start all the paperwork over AND we would not be getting our money back. (Apparently,

“grandfather clause” is an American thing, or at least not a Ukrainian adoption agency thing.) 3.

IF (again, capitalized) Ukraine opened adoptions to the US, it was believed that families would

only be allowed to adopt children over the age of five, unless they were part of a sibling set.

Cue: Devastation. I’m not one to handle disappointments, rejections, failures, etc.

stoically, or even well. (I’ve chosen a wonderful profession as writers never experience any of

those things…) This weekend, twelve years ago, was not my best. I believe at one point I may

have tried to fit myself into a kitchen cabinet to get away from the real word. See? Definitely

not stoic.

Then, why, you ask, do I celebrate this day so many years later? Because just a few

months later (September 29, to be exact) my daughter was born. We found out we were paired

with my daughter’s birth mother on September 27. It was obviously a whirlwind of 36 hours to

prepare for a baby, travel to Utah and be present for the birth of our child who was meant to

be part of our family.

In hindsight, I see that our failed adoption wasn’t a big fat NO; it was a big fat NOT YET. I

love the cliché: if the train doesn’t stop at your station, it wasn’t your train.

I see now, first, that our daughter is the most perfect child for us. She was the one we

were meant to have. I also see now that the situation in Ukraine was not a good situation for

us. As confident as I sounded above about not being strong armed into taking a child I really

was not fit to care for, I’m too tender hearted. Case in Point: I’m currently trying to convince my

husband to let me domesticate the injured goose by our dock. He looks so sad with his broken

wing dragging around behind him. I’ve already named his Cassius after Pierce Brown’s Red

Rising series. No spoilers here but Cassius may or may not be without an arm at one point.

How does this all relate back to publishing? Since as clearly established, I’m not good

with rejection, disappointment, failure, etc., I’ve been spending a lot of time reminding myself

that my train hasn’t come in yet. Patience is not a virtue I have in excess, but I look at my

daughter today – this daughter who is the perfect one for me at the perfect time – and know

that those stacks of NOs from publishers that I am collecting are not really nos, but just not

yets.