Finalist, Adult Category
When my husband, Anthony, and I set out to adopt, there was much we didn’t know. We could’ve never predicted that, in spite of all our research and diligence, our adoption agency would declare bankruptcy a couple years after leading us down an arduous approval process and bankrupting us of $26,000 in upfront fees. We could’ve never known that we’d then scramble to get re-approved through our local county’s foster system, only to have our paperwork (containing such sensitive information as our SSNs) stolen one evening when our social worker’s car was, incidentally and almost comically, broken into. And finally, we could’ve never foreseen the outbreak of COVID-19.
In spite of all this, there was one fact we grasped with utter confidence: We were not willing to take on twins. Of all the boxes checked on our adoption forms, the looming, life-altering decisions we needed to make (What races were we open to? What level of maternal substance use? What ages?), the question of multiples was never open to discussion. It was a definitive no.
But what did we actually know about starting a family? For one thing, the allure of pregnancy never hooked me the way it seemed to enrapture approximately every other woman I encountered. They’d speak wistfully about birth, even elevating it to a spiritual experience, as if the act itself set you on a higher plane. Sure, the ability to procreate is a marvel; but did I personally want to subject myself to hoisting around an internal bowling bowl for months, only to push it out of a disproportionately-sized opening?
“But it’s so natural to love my kids when I see myself in them,” my sister-in-law sighed.
My pregnant friend prodded, “Don’t you wonder what it’d be like to create a human in your likeness, like a mini you?”
I didn’t, actually. Mini me was sullen and withdrawn in spite of the comfortable circumstances my well-meaning parents toiled 9-5 to provide my brother and I. We enrolled in all the extracurriculars we wanted (figure skating) and were unwilfully cajoled into (abacus), lived in a single-family home near swimming pools and parks, and attended well-regarded schools in what was literally the safest city in America at the time (Irvine, California).
Yet I never felt completely settled in my own skin. Every teacher articulated the same observations at every parent-teacher conference: I excelled academically but was mute as a mouse in class, even appearing disinterested.
Why? I was painfully shy. I applied the same nervous, restless rigor that scored me straight A’s to every other aspect of my life, which invariably meant I examined every social encounter under such a critical lens that I paralyzed myself with self-doubt.
In Girl Scouts, I balked at my troop mates who confidently strode door-to-door hawking boxes upon boxes of cookies. Instead, I sheepishly handed my order sheet to my mom, who dutifully took it to her office to collect orders from eager and unwitting coworkers. During recess, I meandered in loops around the playground, peering at my classmates playing gleefully and plotting in vain how I’d join their ranks. Even in Chinese school, amongst swarms of peers who looked like me and likely had similar upbringings, I brooded alone behind my desk.
When puberty hit, I channeled that anxiety into angst. I locked my door and blasted alternative rock because I believed it to be the anthem of misfits like myself; I perfected the death stare and directed it at anyone within eyeshot; I railed at my parents when they requested simple tasks of me, like could I give them a three-sentence report on how my day went or help pick up my brother just once from school?
I pictured my offspring embodying my petulant, miserable likeness. Why would I want to retrace my upbringing in such a sinister way?
What intrigued me, on the other hand, was the curiosity of meeting a tiny human who was fundamentally, biologically distinct in every way, of unraveling who they were at their core without the prejudiced ties of bloodlines, of discovering and honoring them as a separate being while still finding a way to fold them into the contours of my life so that we formed a family. That, for me, was spiritual.
That’s why it was so uncharacteristic of me to declare to Anthony that it was perhaps time to try for a biological kid, weeks after we were trapped at home since shelter-in-place orders were announced and years after we were approved to adopt. The entire process—the mountains of paperwork, mind-numbing training sessions, calls that lifted our hopes but petered out in disappointment—had deflated me. We were in limbo; the world was seemingly on pause; and I was ready to seize the reins on our family planning. I pictured myself in hushed desolation, growing in girth, then popping a baby out once society at large resumed its normal state of affairs. If we were ever to try this pregnancy thing on for size, what other time would there be other than perhaps one of the most bizarre moments in history?
Unmomentously, I discovered I was pregnant six weeks later. We’d left our home in Oakland and were camped out indefinitely at my parents’ in Orange County, which was surrounded by a circuit of wide trails where one could meander at a safe distance from others. To mark the occasion, which also coincided with our sixth wedding anniversary, I brandished an old Chinese
postcard my mom had stashed inside a dusty laundry closet shelf featuring a watercolor rendition of a tiger. On it, I scribbled some brief sentiments and signed off as “Emma and the tiny fetus growing in her belly” with the postscript: “This card illustrates the tiger mom I plan to be.” I handed it to Anthony as we were passing each other in the stairwell. Then we burst into tears.
I have about as much to recount about pregnancy as a toddler would have to say about organic chemistry—that is, the entire experience went over my head. My typical diet of salad, fruit, and the occasional (whole wheat) carbohydrate was upended for fried chicken sandwiched in fluffy, buttery brioche; slabs of crackly, thick steak shimmering in their oils; fettuccine coated in translucent Alfredo sauce with a heaping of sharp Parmesan; Klondike ice cream bars encased in a thin layer of chocolate that shattered messily and satisfyingly with each bite; an indiscriminate assortment of French fries dunked in ketchup. I couldn’t even cast a gaze on something fresh, nourishing, and unprocessed without being seized by the desire to spew up the contents of the Oreo McFlurry I had inhaled moments earlier. I wandered the sidewalks of my parents’ neighborhood in a pair of chunky orthopedic Hokas and my mom’s boxy castoff tops from the 80s, trying in vain to walk off my discomfort and the unsettling sense that my formerly dependable, strong body had somehow betrayed me for the new life growing inside my womb.
Then one evening in early July, as Anthony and I settled down with my parents for dinner, Anthony rose suddenly to take a call. Before excusing himself, he glanced at me with some knowing look. A static shift passed between us, and I knew everything was about to change.
This is what we were told: A baby boy had been born two days ago. He’s half Filipino, half white. His parents are no longer in the picture and he’s now in a stable condition in the Oakland NICU. Could we come get him?
This is what I remember: I resumed eating my dinner. As if I’d just heard a report on the weather. As if we weren’t about to pack our bags and depart at dusk for the six-hour journey to Oakland. As if tomorrow we weren’t going to become parents.
It had been over five years since we first set out to adopt. And I was four months pregnant.
We reached our friends’ home in Oakland the next morning, bleary-eyed and buzzing with trepidation. We’d told them the news; and they’d told us they had a car seat for us, which we heaved into the back seat of our SUV before departing for the hospital.
I’ve turned the memory of this day over so many times that it plays like a film in my head. In it, we don crepe-like hospital gowns and snap masks on our faces before skimpering behind a pair of nurses. Two steely doors open and whoosh as they shut, sealing us in.
The NICU hums with activity. It is a cavern of endless wires that attach small bodies to convoluted machines emitting steady beeps. A flock of nurses attend to the room and all its medical (infants’) and emotional (parents’) needs with calm, purposeful knowing.
One of them guides us over to a plastic bassinet. Tentatively, I gaze inside and am greeted by a pair of wide, bright eyes. He’s lived three days but these eyes look like they contain three lives; they seem to hold innocent curiosity and unfathomable loss in tandem.
He squirms noiselessly and purposefully. He’s hungry, the nurse remarks, checking his feeding chart. It’s been nearly four hours since his last feed.
My heart slumps at the realization that he hasn’t been fed, much less held, for hours. Why did we not begin making our way immediately in the evening when we received the call? I burn with regret and shame that I prioritized our own sleep over the urgency of this moment.
After what feels like hours of explanations and during which I feel their silent deliberation, the nurses finally ask the question I’d been anxiously awaiting but was still completely unprepared for:
“Would you like to hold him?”
Yes. Yes, of course.
I motion for Anthony to take him first. His eyes glint and mist as he gingerly cradles him. It’s here that I first glimpse Anthony as a dad. And it’s here that I first glimpse Michael, this impossibly tiny boy that overcame impossibly colossal circumstances, as our son.
And then the nurses begin their evaluation of our parenting aptitude, which I can’t say was preeminent. They park us in front of a video on infant CPR—“a requirement for all parents,” we’re told. They observe us unskillfully change Michael’s diaper, correcting us when we had it backwards. They ask us to feed him again, just to confirm we understand how to properly sustain his appetite. They search their inventory and produce a onesie in his size (preemie), then watch us tuck him into it and snap each button in place. Three hours later, we are at last deemed fit to parent. We sign some papers, fumble to strap Michael into his car seat, and are released.
With Michael, we tallied up our firsts:
The first time we brought him home and watched him survey his surroundings with those knowing eyes, I bit my lip and prayed he’d like it here with us.
The first time we took him to dinner and parked his stroller on the patio of our favorite burger joint, I peeked inside to find him fast asleep.
The first time my parents met him, I watched my mom, who was staunchly opposed to the idea of adoption, scoop him up and coo, “Oh, he is so beautiful.”
The first time we had a video visitation with his biological mother, who told us she wanted to make sure he was alright, I wrestled between the urge to assure her of his safety and my reluctance to wake our slumbing newborn. In a blink, the call froze and cut out. And that was the last we saw of her.
The first time I hoisted him into the carrier for a stroll, I realized that I was literally carrying two babies at once.
The first time we attempted to bathe him and he emitted an anguished cry, I pleaded to a helpless Anthony that I never wanted to subject this child to that again.
And one morning in November, I stepped into the shower and my water broke. I didn’t expect it to happen that way. What exactly had I expected? Anthony anxiously strode up and down the living room as I sat Michael on my lap. I didn’t want to leave for the hospital yet. I wanted to savor our five-month firstborn. I wanted things to stay this way a little longer.
At everyone’s urging, we eventually bid our farewells to Michael and my parents and climbed into the car. Then I erupted in sobs.
Anthony panicked. What was the matter? Was I in pain?
“I feel bad for Michael,” I hyperventilated. “It isn’t fair. He doesn’t know what’s happening.”
Here’s what happened thirty hours, three epidurals, and one final, arduous push later: Rosa was born. The nurses laid her on my chest as Anthony sighed, “She’s beautiful.” Our Rosa, with her shiny, black hair and curled up fingers. Our Rosa, who made her arrival two weeks early just shy of 6 lb, just like her brother, Michael.
In the postpartum suite, nurses filed in and out at predictable intervals, taking vitals, showering us with congratulations, praising Anthony as he did skin-to-skin. When they witnessed me strain to nurse, they offered to take Rosa to the nursery so I could catch some sanity and sleep.
Nobody confirmed whether we knew infant CPR or drilled us on our ability to change a diaper. It was like birthing permitted us an automatic rite of passage into parenthood, one we certainly never earned or deserved.
Once upon a time, I didn’t believe in the sanctity of childbirth. But watching Rosa grow into her namesake shatters every premonition. Like a rose, she’s a striking beauty with a prickly but endearing edge. At five years old, she is already everything I wish to be—self-assured, unafraid, gracious, and unabashedly happy. Once after school, she bore her eyes into a fellow classmate’s mom as we stopped to chat and butt in mid-conversation, “You’re going to be late to pick up your daughter.” According to a report from her teacher, Rosa is the only girl the boys allow in their circle “because she’s nice.” And she’ll order Michael around in a heartbeat but ferociously defend him if others try to do the same.
Once upon a time, I also assumed I could predictably navigate my parenting journey through deliberate planning and preparation. But nothing could’ve surpassed the awe of witnessing our polar opposite kids grow in awareness and friendship with one another. It is like beholding a physical embodiment of yin and yang.
One facet of yin and yang emphasizes interdependence, the idea that neither exists without the other because each half contains a fragment of the other. Though Michael and Rosa are distinct in every literal way, we can’t see either of them without one or the other. They are, for all intents and purposes, the twins we could’ve never conjured even in our most far-fetched imaginations—our yin and our yang, incarnate.
Emma Tzeng is a Taiwanese-American mother, wife, and writer from Los Angeles, CA. She believes that storytelling has the power to transcend cultures and supersede long-seated stereotypes. She makes a yearly pilgrimage to Taiwan, where she reconnects with extended family and eats her fill of Taiwanese breakfast and shaved ice.
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