Our front door
If you’ve known me for a while, you know I’m a total creature of habit. I’ve eaten the same breakfast for something like 40 years–crunchy cereal with yogurt, fruit and low-fat milk–do the same number of push-ups every morning (don’t be impressed; they’re bent-knee) and always pay my bills the day they land in my mailbox (mainly because I know they’ll get lost if I don’t). That kind of thing. Something else I do is take a picture with Olivia in front of the door of the house where we lived together in Antigua in 2003 while her adoption was being finalized. We do this every time we visit Antigua. Here’s our latest and some others from years past. (You’ll notice several years are missing. Keeping track of photos is not my strong suit ;-)) xoxo
Friends
One of the reasons I love visiting Antigua is that we often run into other adoptive families. Case in point: This week, we bumped into longtime friend Velvet Beard and her daughter at Finca Azotea and hatched a plan to share a meal at one of our favorite restaurants, Quesos y Vino. Velvet asked if she could bring Rebecca Center, who also happened to be in town, and of course I said yes, happily. I’ve “known” Rebecca for years from various listservs but we’d never met in person. Here’s a picture of that fun night. We’ve also spent wonderful days and evenings with Susan Brady and her twin sons, members of our Bay Area group who moved to Antigua four years ago. And of course Susan Hurst and Marisol, with whom we’re sharing a rental house and other adventures. Adoption has expanded my life in countless ways, including introducing me to cherished friends I’d never have met otherwise. I’m blessed and grateful.
“Hey 19”
“Hey 19.” It happens fast. HBD, Miss O! We love you! xoxo
Happy birthday, Maya!
A highlight of quarantine was the birthday celebration of our dear friend, Maya, formerly known as “Baby Maya,” daughter of my dear friend, Kallie. Maya is my daughter Olivia’s oldest friend–oldest meaning “long term”–with their relationship going on 18 years. Maya was an infant and Olivia 15 months old when Kallie and I met on the streets of Antigua, Guatemala, where we’d moved to wait out/finalize our adoptions, back in 2003-04. Over coffee and conversation, Kallie and I quickly discovered we both lived in California, less than 30 minutes from each other, and had a million things in common. Our girls and we have been fast friends ever since. Here are a few snaps from our days together, beginning at the famous Hotel Antigua (now the Porta Hotel Antigua), and continuing in an Antigua horse and carriage ride with matching purses, at a holiday festival and the Snoopy Skating Rink, and masked with Maya’s kitty and my son Mateo at the birthday event. Happy birthday, dear Maya! We love you!
“American Baby” book in NY Times
I’m posting a link to a recent NY Times review of a new nonfiction book about adoption: American Baby: A Mother, a Baby, and a Shadow History of Adoption by journalist Gabrielle Glaser. While American Baby focuses on harsh practices of the past–secrecy, shame, coercion–the reviewer notes that “[T]he shadows of the past cannot be easily dismissed as mistakes of an unenlightened moment. Today, the nearly half a million international adoptees in the United States do not have access to their birth records. And the tens of thousands of babies created from donor gametes are not legally entitled to identifying information.” If you’re reading this, you know that identity is a core issue–perhaps the core issue–for many of us who write, think, and talk about adoption and donor conception. The reviewer’s conclusion of American Baby seems to indicate work remains to be done. Read the review here.