Free Instant Mom by Nia Vardalos Page B

like myself, the buoyant upbeat idiot. I go to movies, out for dinner, on walks with Manny . . . it’s better.
    When Ian and I are sitting around with Manny, we talk about how we adore him as if he came from our bodies. We both know since we could love this furry animal so much, of course we would love a child who didn’t come from our chromosomes. But we don’t pursue it. It’s just been too painful. It’s a shelved project; the phone doesn’t ring anymore. The system just didn’t work for us, and I wonder if I have accepted it.
    One evening, I go with a group to see our friend’s daughter play volleyball at her school. As I sit in the bleachers, I watch these amusing teenaged girls interact and be good teammates on the court; they’re so rambunctious and funny . . . and . . . ah, here it is . . . that anxiety creeps in. It’s back. My chest hurts. I put my head in my hands and sigh. Watching these girls, I have to admit I just want a daughter. I just do. And, I know, I just know she’s somewhere waiting for me to find her. I want to be a mom, I am supposed to be a mom. I can’t deny it any longer.
    I don’t want to lose it in front of my friends, so I go outside to get some air.
    I’m standing here outside the gymnasium wishing so much that I had just been watching my own daughter play volleyball. Just wishing so much that I had a daughter at that school. I lean against the railing and try to breathe. I want to take control of the situation. And I realize I can.
    I decide right now to try one more thing: to learn more about the options that facilitator had told me about. I decide to learn about adopting from the American foster care system.

• 7 •
    Almost There
    Now I want to write that it gets really easy. But, no. No, it doesn’t.
    The next phase takes a while because the information on how to adopt from foster care just isn’t out there either. I can’t comprehend the term “fos-adopt” (sometimes referred to as “fost-adopt”) because, like many, I think it means you foster; you take care of a child until they’re reunited with their family. I admire the people who do that, but we’ve been through a lot. Ian and I don’t want more loss. We want a family, forever.
    Not sure who to approach, I go directly to the State of California. I know there are amazing social workers who work for their states, but I sure don’t meet them today. Instead, I’m taken to a room without a chair, where a woman hands me a loose, ungainly binder called Waiting Kids, looks at my designer purse, and smirks, “You want to do this?”
    There is nowhere to sit, so I lean against the wall and begin to flip through the heavy binder . . . and see the kids. Imagine several hundred faces looking at you wondering if you want to be their parent. I defiantly snap the binder shut and say, “Yes, I do,” and that I am “open to any sex, age, and ethnic background.”
    Oh goodie, they goad, because they can place an at-risk multiple-sibling set in my house on a trial basis, and an adoption might come out of it after the parental rights are terminated in court in a few years.
    My mouth goes dry. As in, just-licked-a-pumice-stone dry. That sounds . . . complicated. But I really, really want to be a parent. So I say, “Okay!”
    I do ask about the 129,000 children I’ve heard about who are already legally freed and am told there is a process and I have to be patient. I explain I thought I would be connected with a legally freed child who is waiting for a home. Again, they explain I have to trust their procedures. Huh. We all know there is a certain type of government worker who enjoys his or her teeny amount of power. I now feel apprehensive, thinking I might get lost in yet another situation that won’t resolve in a positive way.
    At this point, it has been over eight years of trying so many methods, too many routes, of waiting on so many lists. Then I remember . . . when I was in the cast at Second City, we