Rumors in the Hen House

The day after our court hearing, we were sitting in our living room, opening the release valve on our tension. In short, we were arguing. Something healthy couples do. And then the phone rang.

Dina, our translator, was whispering into the receiver. She said that she had arrived at the Baby House soon after we left, that she was there still, and had something very personal to ask.

“Yes…” we said, because secrets can’t be kept from anyone in the adoption process.

“Have you two been fighting?”

Had Dina detected something unsettling about the way Jane answered the phone? Or is she freelancing for the KGB?

Dina said there was hearsay at the Baby House that Steve had yelled at Jane and Jane had been seen crying in response. She said that a rumor like this should never reach the Baby House’s director, Dr. Alma. That it could compromise our case. She said we really needed to manage our behavior during our visits.

We were stunned.

We do little other than talk baby talk for the entire time we’re with Jem. We certainly don’t argue there. At the baby house we use our mouths to blow raspberries. We make clicking and whooping and kissing sounds. The idea that any of these things we could be misconstrued for an argument seemed utterly absurd.

Had aliens with our faces visited the Baby House and misbehaved?

We replayed the events of the last couple of visits obsessively. We thought it through on the phone with Dina. Over dinner. In bed, right before we went to sleep. We replayed the movie of our visits, repeatedly, to determine who might have seen us and mistaken our adventures with Jem and Mr. Froggy, or our singing of the Mexican Jumping Bean song, as a potentially threatening situation.

This seemed far beyond a language barrier, and we were frightened to hear that this misconception could have any bearing on our adoption process.

Our ruminations led us to hypothesize that Jane’s cold must have been the culprit. Her nose was red from unrelenting blowing; her eyes, watery. For two days she wore a surgical mask to the Baby House, just to follow the custom of containing her germs, which were Jem’s germs to begin with. (Steve thought she looked sexy. Better than any of the doctors on ER.)

We explained this to Dina. We wrote letters to the adoption agency in the States. We waited. An email came back telling us not to worry, but that we should be cautious. We were told that Dina would join us on our visit with Jem the next day, to let us know if anything that we’re doing should be, let’s say, toned down.

The next day Dina didn’t come to the Baby House, and we were…ourselves. Who else could we be? Even so, we scanned the rooms we entered to try to figure out who might have fingered us as “the bad parents.” We formulated some theories.

In truth, many of the people at the Baby House are icy by Western standards. A month into our daily visits, they still don’t smile or nod hello when they see us. There’s a big sour puss in the front office who, most days, scowls as we walk by. Just a week ago, three doctors conspired to ignore Steve when he asked them to call a taxi for us; they just did their work and pretended he wasn’t there for a good five minutes. Then there are the women who deliver Jem to us each morning. They appear to be good-natured caregivers, but they rudely shoe us away from the doorway when they’re feeding. They’re brusk, to say the least, in the daily hand-off to us. And they repeatedly let us know, without speaking, that we don’t always clothe Jem with enough arctic weather wear, as we take her hot, over-dressed body outside to play.

We’ve wondered if someone might have overheard us making embittered comments about the way that WE’ve been treated? Could that have sounded like an argument? We have come to enjoy the strange liberation of being able to talk about absolutely anything—because we’re never understood—in the presence of people who treat us like intruders. There’s quite a bit of national pride here, and our plans to take away a small national treasure isn’t, it often seems, accepted. Sometimes we wonder what kind of future Madame Sour Puss wants for Jem, and the other babies being adopted by foreigners. Even so, we haven’t raised our voices to exchange the kinds of barbs we conjure in defense of our presence and our intentions.

* * *

Two days later, Dina came to the Baby House with us. She witnessed the “hand off” from Jem’s caregivers to us, her future parents. The caregiver took a moment from her busy morning to tell Dina how much more lively Jem has become since we started visiting. She stood there smiling at us, as she spoke to Dina. It was quite a sight. We immediately crossed her off the instigator list.

Later that day, when we were still feeling stung by a stranger, we asked Dina if the perpetrator had been the other morning caregiver. We noticed that she didn’t make eye contact with us. Dina said no, she didn’t know exactly who it was, but that it was someone outside of our adoption group. One of the women who watches the older children had seen us walk by—Jane’s nose and eyes enflamed while Steve flexed his kissing muscles—and came to her own conclusion.

We were relieved that it wasn’t someone closer to us. Someone who spends time with Jem every day, and who might feel attached enough to try to prevent her from leaving.

We’d like to believe that we’re entitled to a rumor that we’re the most loving parents ever to come through the Baby House doors. But instead, we know that we’re really just blessed, like all the other couples who cross the threshold into this country to find the baby who’s waiting for them.