THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 13, 1994 TAG: 9406130312
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON
DATELINE: 940613 LENGTH: Long
They still asked when the baby was due. Still asked whether she knew if it was a boy or a girl. And what she was going to name her.
{REST} Beverly could have answered the questions in the usual way mothers-to-be do. January. Girl. Hannah. No one would ever know. But her answer always stopped people in their tracks.
``This is not my child,'' she'd say. ``I'm giving her up for adoption.''
It was a line she played over and over in her mind, every since she first considered the idea of adoption four months into the pregnancy.
At the same time she'd made that commitment to herself, she also knew she could change her mind at any time. She could change it when she first felt the baby move. Or when she first heard the baby's heartbeat. Or when she first laid eyes on the baby after birth. She could even change her mind after the adoptive parents took the baby home.
And the further she got into the pregnancy the more she realized just how powerful maternal feelings were, how deep her emotions ran. To tamp down the warm thought of keeping the baby, she ran one line over and over the mental track in her head.
``This is not my child,'' the tall, slender woman would say when she saw the vague outlines of a baby on the doctor's ultrasound screen. ``I am carrying it for someone who can't have a baby.''
Beverly was 19 and working in a beauty salon when she dated a Navy man who had just returned from a six-month deployment. Several months after his return to Norfolk, he moved back to his home state of Washington.
A few weeks later, Beverly and a friend were at the beach when she confided to her, ``I think I`m pregnant.'' The two of them went to a Navy medical unit, since Beverly was a Navy dependent, to see if her suspicions were right.
Beverly started crying when the doctor told her the pregnancy test was positive. She was terrified. Her friend tried to console her.
She always thought she would have an abortion if she ever had an unwanted pregnancy. But the friend who was sitting here holding her hand had a strong conviction that abortion was wrong. Beverly didn't want to disappoint her. She still wanted to be her friend.
Even before she left the doctor's office, she told herself she would not have an abortion. A voice inside her said, ``Don't do it. It's something you can't handle.''
She was six weeks pregnant and didn't have a clue about what to do. She hoped the baby's father would provide some consolation. When she called him in Washington, it was 9 a.m. her time, 6 a.m. his time. He told her it was too early in the morning and that he would call her back later.
He never did. She called repeatedly over the next week, and finally told her ex-boyfriend's father why she was calling. When her ex-boyfriend called back, he told her to do whatever she wanted with the baby.
In that one lonely moment, she realized she was on her own.
A few days later, she told her mother she needed to talk with her. ``You're either pregnant or you're getting married,'' her mother responded. When Beverly told her she was pregnant, her mother suggested she get an abortion.
Beverly was dead-set against it.
``If I had an abortion I would be killing something. I'd be killing that something. That soon-to-be-someone. I couldn't handle it.''
She and her mother argued about it, and she began avoiding her mother just so she wouldn't hear anything more about it. Time took on new perspective as she went further into her pregnancy and the baby inside began to stir. Estranged from her boyfriend, and alienated from her family, she had never felt more alone.
She'd lie awake at night in her Chesapeake apartment and cry. She'd pray to God to take the baby away and save her from the pain she was going through. ``Just take her in the middle of the night, just take her. I don't want to go through this,'' she prayed as she tossed and turned in bed. She knew she couldn't afford to keep the child, knew she couldn't support the baby on a beautician's wages, knew that she wasn't emotionally ready to be a mother.
In the back of her mind somewhere was the idea of adoption. ``I don't think I'm strong enough to do that,'' she'd think to herself. ``It takes a strong-willed person to do that and I`m not that strong.'' But the idea came up again in a conversation with her mother. She desperately wanted her mother's approval. She wanted her to say, ``It's OK, you can do it.''
And her mother did, in her own way. She knew of a couple who wanted to adopt a child. ``You won't have to see them, you won't have to know them, we'll go through their lawyer,'' her mother told her. ``They'll take care of the bills.''
Beverly agreed.
But she felt troubled by the scenario. She didn't like the idea that she wouldn't know the parents. Wouldn't know where they lived, wouldn't know anything about them. ``I'll never see the baby again,'' she kept thinking.
She hoped the couple would back out. About the same time, Beverly told a customer at the salon about her decision to put her baby up for adoption. The customer said she had a friend who knew someone who wanted to adopt a child.
A few weeks later Beverly got the word the couple her mother knew had backed out. Her mother said she would find someone else. ``No, I`ve already found somebody, don't worry about it,'' she told her mother.
MEETING THE DONOHUES
That somebody was Ann and Steve Donohue. The Norfolk couple had been trying to get pregnant for seven years, going through fertility tests, and dispiriting procedures that never produced a child. They had just begun talking about adoption.
``We really didn't know where to start,'' said Steve Donohue, a 34-year-old logistics manager for the Navy.
It was a friend of a friend of a friend who first told 41-year-old Ann Donohue about Beverly. Ann and Steve were at home one evening when the phone rang. The friend asked if they were interested in adopting the child.
``How much time do we have?'' said Ann, who is a pediatric nurse practitioner at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters.
``Not much,'' the friend responded. ``She's looking and wants to know. You probably need to tell her tomorrow.''
It was nine at night when Ann got the call that set her heart beating wildly. Steve and Ann discussed whether they should. They knew an open adoption involved more risks than an agency adoption. Still, they couldn't contain their excitement. One thought reigned over all their doubts and fears: ``This could be it.''
By the end of the evening they'd already decided to name the baby Hannah. They looked at each and laughed at getting so ahead of the game. ``We don't even know if it's a girl,'' Ann said.
Once she had told her friend she and her husband were interested, Ann feared she would never hear from Beverly. Minutes seemed like hours, hours like days. But 45 minutes after Beverly got Ann's number, she called. By this time Beverly was six and a half months pregnant.
Any awkwardness melted away in the first few minutes. Beverly told her what she looked like, what the father looked like. Then she asked questions about them. Where did they live? What did they do for a living?
``I was so nervous,'' Ann remembers. ``No one can prepare you for that phone call. I didn't want to be too forward by asking who's the father, and all these questions we wanted to ask. I didn't want her to feel like I was coming on too strong.''
Her husband was bending over her with a note pad scribbling questions he wanted answers to. The Donohues needn't have worried. Beverly liked Ann right off. She answered all the questions the Donohues wanted to know without them even asking.
The couple arranged to meet Beverly at the Dumb Waiter restaurant in Norfolk a week and a half later.
The meeting reassured both birth mother and the prospective adoptive parents. ``This is it,'' thought Beverly. ``I don't have to look any more.''
Beverly's request of the prospective parents was simple. She wanted photographs once a year on the child's birthday.
The Donohues agreed.
At the end of the meeting, Steve asked if he could give Beverly a hug. She told him yes, and even asked if he'd like to rest his hand on her stomach and feel the baby move.
``This is your baby,'' she told them.
THE WAIT.
Once the adoption plans were settled, Beverly stopped her nightly prayer for the baby to die. ``A lot of times I'd think `Why is God doing this to me?' and he didn't answer me until I met Ann and Steve, and then it was like, `OK, OK. This is better than taking her away.' ''
Now that she had faces to pin on the adoptive family, the mental process of giving up the child became easier. Still, she wrestled with the wash of emotion that seemed to be growing along with the baby.
``When you feel a baby move inside and hear the heart beat, you get attached. You want to hold that baby, see that baby.''
But she knew she had to maintain an air of detachment. When she felt the baby move inside her, she'd think ``OK, it moved. No big deal.'' When she first heard the heartbeat at the doctor's office, she thought: ``OK, a heartbeat, no big deal.''
``I had to make it no big deal because if I did make it a big deal it would be hard. I had to tell myself over and over and over, `This is not my child.' ''
The Donohues were doing their own mental gymnastics. They tried to play the next three months by ear. Tried not to get too excited. Didn't tell too many people about the adoption. Didn't go overboard preparing a nursery. Only the basics. A bassinet. A changing table. A stroller made in Ann's native country of Sweden.
They tried to always keep in mind that Beverly could back out at any point, even after the baby was born. But they didn't dwell on the possibility, and never got any signals from Beverly they need worry.
Still, they couldn't help but ask Beverly, over and over, ``Have you changed your mind?''
``Every time I talked with them, that was their question,'' Beverly said. ``I'm glad they asked. It helped reassure me. It helped me keep up in my mind, `This is what I'm going to do.' It helped me to keep on track.''
They met every two or three weeks after that, with Beverly visiting their home once to see the nursery. She wanted to imagine the baby in their home. She wanted to feel what Hannah would feel. ``I wanted to feel the security.''
She did.
Beverly cut back her smoking during the pregnancy. She still ate at Burger King regularly. But she kept up her doctor appointments.
She felt an allegiance to the Donohues to have a healthy baby. She had a nagging fear that if something were wrong with the baby, the Donohues might not want her. ``I wanted her to be a perfect baby for them,'' she said.
She went about her life as normally as she could despite her ever-growing profile. ``The whole time I was pregnant, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't comprehend it and I was 19. I don't see how a teenager could understand.''
THE DELIVERY
Beverly went into labor Jan. 16, 1992. By this time she had met a new boyfriend. She couldn't decide whether she wanted her mother, her boyfriend or Ann to be in the delivery room with her. Finally she landed on Ann. ``You're the one who's going to be her mother, I want you in the delivery room.''
The birth experience is crystal clear in Ann's memory; foggy in Beverly's. Ann helped Beverly with her breathing exercises, applied pressure to her back when it came time to push the baby out.
Although Ann had seen many deliveries before, nothing came close to seeing the top of the head of her own daughter coming through Beverly's birth canal.
``It was unbelievable. I felt like I was delivering the baby myself. It was so exciting. I was so relieved and excited as soon as I saw her.'' She counted fingers and toes, and proclaimed her perfect.
Beverly doesn't remember feeling anything except exhaustion. ``No emotion. No feeling. I could not allow myself to feel. The emotions didn't come until months after.''
As the nurse was cleaning the baby after birth, the baby wailed. ``Please let her stop crying,'' Beverly thought. `I don't want to hear her crying.'' To Beverly, her crying meant pain. And Beverly didn't want to hear it. It might make her feel something for the infant.
The baby cried until the nurse handed her to Ann, and then the baby stopped. ``It was like a sign to me that this was the way it was supposed to be,'' Beverly said.
Ann, overcome with joy, tentatively asked Beverly if she wanted to hold the baby. She felt a little afraid Beverly would say yes. They had discussed this before she went into labor, and Beverly had said she didn't want to hold the baby. Still, Ann felt she had to make the offer. ``I didn't want to pick her up and whisk her away,'' Ann said.
Beverly said, no, but did look at the child. Only one thought about that seconds-long glance stays with her to this day: ``She looked just like me.'' Beverly looked at the baby and thought, ``You're OK now. You're going to be taken care of, and they will love you.''
Ann felt a depth of emotion she had never felt before. But accompanying that feeling of supreme joy was one of guilt. ``I couldn't believe I was holding her,'' Ann said. ``At the same time there was an almost physical pain I felt for Beverly. I felt guilty for being so happy and I knew it was only because of her I was so happy. It was like we had this wonderful child, and she had nothing.''
As soon as the baby was cleaned and wrapped in a blanket Steve came in to see her.
As soon as the Donohues left the room, Beverly started crying for her mother, who came in to comfort her.
Before Beverly and the baby could be released from the hospital, their identification bracelets had to be matched to make sure the right baby was released. It was hospital policy. A nurse asked Beverly to come into the nursery to match the ID bracelets.
Beverly pitched a fit. ``No, I do not have to see that baby,'' she told the nurse. ``Do what you have to, but don't make me go in there. I'm sitting right here. I'm not going in there.''
She realized she was at one of her most vulnerable states. To see the baby could derail the whole plan. ``I had to keep myself on that track. I had to make myself stay there or I'd be in so much trouble emotionally I would be dysfunctional. I could not let myself feel those emotions. I don't think there's any way possible to give up a baby and have those emotions.''
Finally the nurse agreed to have Beverly sit outside in the hallway in a wheelchair while Ann took in the ID bracelet. When she came back, Beverly was crying. Tears soaked the papers she had to sign.
Again Ann was troubled by that sense of guilt. But as Beverly was wheeled out of the hallway to the front door to be released from the hospital, she whispered something to Ann that lifted her guilt:
``Thank you.''
Ann watched her go out the door, and felt freer to bond with her new daughter.
``It didn't dawn on me until after she left that we did something for her too,'' Ann said.
THE AFTERMATH
Beverly hoped she was through the hardest part of the experience, but she wasn't.
Three months later, she broke up with her boyfriend after he moved to another state. The breakup left her feeling alone.
One night she started thinking about the baby she had given up and started crying. She missed her baby. She wanted her. She wanted to see how she was doing.
She knew it wasn't too late to change her mind. She hadn't yet signed consent papers for adoption. She called a friend, who talked her through that crisis, but a week later she saw a TV program about adoption.
She couldn't stop thinking about the baby. Couldn't stop crying. It was late at night and she couldn't think of anyone to call. Her friend was out of town. It was too late to call her mother. So she called Tidewater Psychiatric Institute. She drove there in tears, and ended up spending the night there.
``I was afraid I would never see her again. That was my main thing. I was afraid I would never get to see her again.'' Yet she knew if she saw the baby, she would want her back.
The rational part of her recognized she still wasn't financially able to care for a child. The counselor asked her three times if she wanted to admit herself. ``All I wanted was for the pain to stop.'' After talking with a counselor, she went home.
The next month Beverly went to court to sign legal consent forms for the Donohues to adopt Hannah. After this point, she would have 15 days in which to change her mind.
When she arrived at the courthouse she was crying. ``Please let me see her,'' she said to the Donohues when she found them in the courthouse. ``Please let me see her before we go in there. I need to see her today.''
The Donohues were startled. They had never seen Beverly in such emotional turmoil. ``I didn't want her to be hurt,'' Ann said. ``I didn't want her to see Hannah. I thought it was the worst possible time. I didn't think she was ready. It worried me she was asking this as we were going into court. I wondered if she had doubts.''
They told her they didn't think it was a good idea for her to see the baby that day. ``We need to know you're OK, we need to know you will not be hurt by seeing her,'' Ann told her.
Beverly was afraid she would never see the baby again. At the same time, she believed if she saw the baby, she would want her back. The Donohues and Beverly went into the courtroom, and Beverly signed the papers. She only remembers the judge asking if she was pushed into the adoption, and if she was paid to give the baby up. ``Other than that I don't remember what was said.''
They all went to lunch after the papers were signed. The Donohues told her she was welcome to see Hannah whenever she wanted. ``We want you to be OK emotionally with seeing her,'' Ann told her.
Ann and Steve were pretty sure that Beverly would not change her mind, yet the episode in court disturbed them. It made the next 15 days more difficult than they expected. ``I knew she was not going to change her mind, but I had to keep the knowledge that there was still that possibility in my mind,'' Ann said. ``I needed that as protection, as a guard in case it happened.''
When Beverly called, they'd still ask, ``Have you changed you mind?''
``No,'' she'd tell them. ``You have her don't you?''
While the Donohues felt a sense of resolution once those 15 days were over, Beverly felt a steep rise in anxiety. ``I was afraid they'd say, ``Adios, see you later.''
Beverly started seeing a counselor, who helped her work through the pain of the adoption. ``Four months after she was born was the worst. I cried every day. I had a hard time working. It was really hard.'' Once she started seeing a counselor, the pain eased. Then she'd cry once a month about the adoption, then once every two months. ``Then it was seldom, until I was able to talk about it without crying.
``The mind is the strangest thing. The most extraordinary thing any one can ever have,'' Beverly said. ``If you let yourself not get attached, you're OK. But the minute you let yourself get attached in your heart and you feel that baby move and hear that heart beat, then forget it. It's not going to happen. Not without a fight.''
GETTING ON WITH LIFE
Beverly would call Ann every month or so after she signed the consent forms freeing Hannah for adoption. She needed to be reassured that they were not leaving, that she could see Hannah if she wanted. Most of the time, they didn't even talk about Hannah, but about one another. Beverly just wanted to know the connection was there. She was still afraid to see the baby, worried she might have feelings for her.
``Sometimes we wouldn't hear from her for months,'' Ann said. ``I knew when she was happy; I wouldn't hear from her. When something went wrong, she'd call.''
Six months after Hannah was born, Beverly met a Navy man, Scott Trumble, whom she married in January 1993. A month later, she found out she was pregnant for the second time.
It was the first time, though, she could feel excitement at a positive pregnancy test, at the sound of the heartbeat, at the sensation of a baby moving inside her. When she got ultrasound pictures, she showed them to anyone who would listen. ``This is my baby,'' she'd say proudly.
This time she could make a big deal out of all the little milestones that go along with pregnancy.
The experience of her second birth in October 1993 was completely different from her first. ``I cried so hard. I was feeling the emotions for both of them. It was like it was OK to feel those feelings for Hannah that I wasn't able to have when I had her. It was the best feeling in the world.''
Rather than the single glance she gave Hannah, Beverly cradled Shellby for an hour after she was born. As she looked at the baby, a sense of peace came over her. ``I felt like God was saying, `It's OK, now you can go see Hannah. Your life is on track. You are emotionally able to handle seeing her.' ''
A week later she saw Hannah for the first time. Ann and Steve brought Beverly a baby monitor and some other baby items. They told Beverly they were bringing Hannah but that she would stay in the car if Beverly didn't want to see her.
When they pulled up, Beverly could see 2-year-old Hannah sitting in the car, but couldn't see her face. ``If I pass this up it will have to be planned and it'll be worse. I have to see her.''
She walked out to the car to see the blonde-headed girl with blue eyes and big smile. Beverly couldn't believe how big she was.
``It was like seeing a niece for the first time. I was afraid I would feel emotions for her. But I didn't feel the things a mother feels. I felt good about that.''
AN ONGOING RELATIONSHIP
That was the last time she saw Hannah. But she still keeps in touch with the Donohues. They still send birthday photos of Hannah. Beverly keeps a photo book of Hannah, and one for her daughter, Shellby. In Hannah's book are photos and letters from the Donohues. ``Without you, this would not be possible,'' reads one letter. ``You will always have a very special place in our hearts. Hannah is a wonderful little girl. She is a week old today and she is our pride and joy.''
Beverly and the Donohues probably would have never crossed paths otherwise - the Donohues live in a stylish Ghent townhouse; Beverly in military housing at Oceana - but there's mutual concern.
``We want her to know her,'' Ann said about the relationship she hopes Hannah and Beverly will have. ``We don't want it to be a mystery or something repressed. By raising her with love she will be emotionally stable enough to handle it.''
The Donohues try not to worry about whether such a relationship will confuse Hannah, or whether she'll play birth parent against adoptive parent.
Mostly it's a matter of taking one day at a time. ``We play it by ear and do what's best at each stage,'' Steve said. ``It's worked so far.
Beverly, now 22, has a hard time describing the relationship she has with the Donohues. ``No one knows how I feel toward them, and how they feel toward me,'' said Beverly, as her 8-month-old daughter played on her lap. ``I don't think anyone knows unless they go through it. There are no words to describe the feeling we have for each other.''
{KEYWORDS} OPEN ADOPTION ADOPTION
by CNB