Page 69 of The Facilitator: Part 3
“Yes. The social worker, her name is May, is coming tomorrow. Oh my bloody Lord, she’s coming tomorrow!” Lauren could hardly contain her excitement. She bounced on her high heels and I worried for them, sure they’d snap and she’d tumble over.
“Calm down, you’ll twist an ankle,” I said, smiling broadly and walking around my desk to her.
“I can’t believe it,” Lauren said. She wrapped her arms around me.
“Neither can I,” Mary said, and she wrapped her arms around the pair of us. Mary sniffed and I worried she’d wiped her nose on my shirt sleeve. “You two are going to be amazing parents. Well, you more than him, Lauren,” she said. She chuckled and we knew she was joking.
Lauren insisted on cleaning the house from top to bottom, vacuuming under the chairs and sofas, taking every book of the shelves to dust, and filling all the plug sockets with covers so small people couldn’t stick their fingers in.
“Lauren, I think the house will pass inspection,” I said, chuckling at her as she weaved around with the vacuum in one hand and a feather duster in another.
“It doesn’t hurt to go over it again,” she said.
We had a cleaner who came three times a week, onethat was fastidious and would be mortified that Lauren was cleaning. She’d take it as an insult, or a sign we thought she hadn’t cleaned well enough, I was sure.
By the time she started to rearrange the cans in the food cupboard in height order, I was tearing my hair out.
“Sit. I mean it,” I commanded. Thankfully, she did. “Now eat your damn food and forget about the cupboards.”
“I’m nervous, I just want something to occupy my time,” she said.
I sat next to her. “I know, I am, too. But lining up tin cans is probably a waste of that time. Work, fuck me, let’s go for a walk, there are plenty of things we can do.” I smiled, hoping she’d choose the middle option.
By the time the day arrived for our meeting, I had no idea where half my things were and every cupboard in the house had been rearranged. Oh, she had fucked me, multiple times, so I wasn’t complaining.
May wasn’t what we expected at all, not that we had any idea what to expect, of course. She was short, even shorter than Lauren, a Glaswegian with a strong enough accent that I had to concentrate to understand her, and was probably the nicest and friendliest person I’d ever encountered. She was so helpful with all the documentationneeded, our financial assessment, health assessment, and even called us after the obligatory workshops we had to attend.
Neither Lauren nor I had any idea just how involved the process was and we are only at stage one! We had e-learning and met some amazing adoptive parents to chat with. I began to realize the system in the US was so fundamentally flawed in my state, it was no wonder some kids ended up worse off.
Stage two was more assessments, and these were, for me, uncomfortably in-depth. Although I answered every question, talking about my parents and my vehicle accident was hard. Lauren sat holding my hand the whole way through. And in turn, I did the same for her when she spoke about the IVF failures.
The hardest question we were asked was, “Why do you want to adopt a child?”
I took a deep breath in before I answered. “I don’t want to be the last one, the last Mackenzie Miller, and that might sound selfish, but it’s not the only reason.” I started to stumble, not knowing if what I was saying was thecorrectanswer. “I had resigned myself to never being a parent, but when I met Lauren, that started to change. It became important to me that wecompleteour family. We are very fortunate, we have wealth and stability, and I know we can offer a child, or children, an environment that…Jesus, I’m rambling, aren’t I?”
“Mackenzie, there’s no real right or wrong answer to this. Well, if you said you wanted the child to sell for body parts, I guess that would be wrong,” May said.
I stared, openmouthed at her, and her eyes shone with mirth.
“Bloody hell,” Lauren said, then burst into laughter.
“We want a family. We can’t have one naturally, and we have the environment, the money, the passion, and desire to give a child an amazing upbringing,” I said, finally just saying as it was.
“I can’t add anything more to that,” Lauren said, squeezing my hand.
We had another two workshops to attend before we were then presenting our case to the adoption panel.
“That’s it. We’ve done all we can,” May said, as we left the panel meeting.
“Did we do enough?” Lauren asked, her nerves had gotten to her in the meeting and she’d shed a tear or two.
“I’ve seen adoption granted to couples who have presented way less than you guys did today.” May smiled kindly at us. She certainly championed our cause.
It was three or so weeks later that, with a scream of delight, Lauren read the decision letter out loud. We’d been approved. However, if we thought the hard part was over, we were very mistaken.
Sitting and meeting children, or learning a littleabout them and the circumstances that led to them needing adoption had Lauren in tears and my heart wretched.
May held our hand all through the tears when we lost out to another family for one child and the joy when we were approved for a one-year-old girl. Before the process would be completed, however, Lauren and I had to attend more ‘school.’
