families looking to adopt. Do you have any conditions? Anything special you’re looking for in a child?”
“Oh, no,” my mother said. “We’d be happy with any baby, wouldn’t we, darling?”
“Rgghtd,” I said.
“As long as he’s white and healthy, we’re fine.” My mother continued. “And he should come from good stock. I don’t want to be raising some hillbilly trash conceived at the drive-in. I’d like him-oh yes, I’m looking for a boy, thank you-I’d like him to resemble us as much as possible, of course. More me, but that’s only because looks are so important, and why not give him every possible advantage in life, no? So, I’d say healthy, white, athletic, good- looking, with birth parents who have at least a college degree. If you could make him tall, that would be great. And, oh yes, green eyes. I love green eyes! Blue in a pinch, though, if supplies are limited.”
You’d have thought she was ordering from a catalog.
To me: “Am I forgetting anything?”
I turned toward her, remembering to get at least one shot of her with my camera tie. “Flrkk,” I said. “Nrffing.”
Ms. Peterson nodded. “I don’t see why we can’t make that happen.” If she had any objection to my mother’s list, she didn’t betray it. Nor did she seem the least unconfident in her ability to determine, at birth, if a child would grow to be athletic, tall, or handsome.
“But,” she said, resuming her fingernail drumbeat, “it is a… oh, I hate to make it sound like this… a competitive market out there. There are many, many loving couples such as yourself who are looking for the kind of child you describe. You have to find a way to make yourself stand out.”
“Anything,” my mother said. “My Murray here has been very successful. He’s what you call a real ‘on top of newer’ businessman.”
Ms. Peterson looked at me to elaborate. I was pretty sure my mother had been going for “entrepreneur,” but I was hardly going to start being helpful now. “Untrependerenter,” I said, with great certainty. “Intervestingstan.”
Ms. Peterson’s eyes stayed on me for another second before blinking twice, rapidly, like an iguana’s. Afraid I may have lost her, I slightly more clearly added, “Ova three hundred milzions. Fuzzbok. Twizter. Goggle.”
That seemed to ease her mind.
“Now, I can’t tell you what to do,” Ms. Peterson said playfully, her lilting tone at war with her pulled-back skin, perfect posture, and insincere expression, “but what we like to do here at Families by Design is put you directly in touch with the birth mothers. Through us, of course. You never actually talk to her. In fact, any direct contact is expressly forbidden.”
And thus, “directly in touch” took on a whole new meaning.
“On your behalf, we handle all the… negotiations. Now, the rules about this kind of thing are very strict. You cannot, under any circumstances, be perceived as trying to ‘buy a baby.’ ” For the first time, Ms. Peterson dropped her smile and looked serious. “That would cause me to lose my license and you to lose your baby. That must never happen. Are we clear on that?”
In the space of a moment, Ms. Peterson had gone from benevolent builder of loving families to mafia hitwoman.
“Who said anything about buying a baby?” my mother asked. “But surely there’s some way to… reward the mothers, yes?”
Ms. Peterson’s smile returned. “I see you’re every bit as clever as I thought,” she beamed. “Yes, according to state law, all you can do is provide basic support to the birth mother during and immediately following her pregnancy.
“But who’s to say what’s basic?” she continued. “For some women, ‘basic’ is a tenement apartment in the South Bronx. Those women require very little support to maintain the lifestyle. Of course, we all know what kind of babies they produce.”
“What?” my mother asked in a hushed and frightened whisper.
Ms. Peterson answered with cautious alarm, as if the very utterance of the next two words risked raising demons in our midst. “Puerto. Ricans. ”
My mother slapped her hand over her mouth and widened her eyes in mock horror. “No,” she gasped, “that would never do.”
For the first time, Ms. Peterson’s smile appeared sincere. Not friendly or warm, mind you, but sincere. The wide toothy smirk of a shark smelling chum in the water. She moved in for the kill.
“But the kind of woman you’re looking for is accustomed to a finer lifestyle. Park Avenue. Maternity clothing from Neiman Marcus. During her pregnancy, she’ll require pampering and services to ensure the healthiest baby possible. Massages, spa treatments, nutritional counseling. I’m afraid the costs can be… considerable.
“We keep track of everything, though,” Ms. Peterson said. “Every dollar passes through us so we can make sure they’re spent responsibly. Naturally, for your protection, we retain fifteen percent of the costs you reimburse to the birth mother to ensure proper bookkeeping and accountability.”
I bet. Fifteen percent off the top of what I’d expect would be thousands of dollars a week. Not to mention how easy it would be to fake receipts for services never received.
“Nothing,” my mother said, her voice heavy with emotion, “is too good for my little boy. Whatever it takes, we can afford it. Right, Murray?”
“Yarghh.”
The sawtoothed shark grin broadened. “Then, there are our fees.” She reached into our file and withdrew two glossy single-page brochures. She handed one to each of us.
A required Home Study cost $20,000 (I knew from the experiences of friends that they were usually in the $1,500 range). Three mandatory counseling sessions at $1,500 each. Preparation of the Family Profile (a file which is shown to prospective birth mothers) was $25,000 (a service offered free by some agencies; others encourage prospective parents to develop their own). Unspecified processing and administrative fees totaled another $50K.
“This is all so reasonable!” my mother enthused. “If, that is, you can promise us a kid real quick. I can’t wait to be a mother! I’m thinking a couple of months.” My mother’s voice dropped to what I’d always think of as her “pick-up-your-clothes-or-else” tone. “Tops. ”
“We guarantee placement within a year.” Ms. Peterson was serene.
My mother picked her purse off the floor and placed it in her lap. “That’s not good enough, Amy. You hear that ticking? It’s not my biological clock, just the regular one. Always running. Remember what I said before? Fish? Bait? This isn’t the time to dawdle, darling.”
Ms. Peterson placed her hands faced flat against the table, a poker player about to show a winning hand. “We do offer an… expedited process. For the small group of birth mothers who won’t be satisfied with anything but the best. They require an even higher level of service.” She spun her Aeron Chair around and withdrew two new forms from the top drawer. These were simpler menus of services. Black type on white paper. The agency’s name didn’t appear on them.
As for the prices, just double what I described earlier. Except for the “processing and administrative forms,” which skyrocketed from $50,000 to $250,000.
My mother noticed the same thing. “Listen,” she said, “I get it. If I want my dry cleaning back on the same day, it costs an extra buck fifty. I don’t see why a baby would be any different. But an extra $200,000 for paperwork? What, you go through extra secretaries because they keep breaking their fingers trying to type that fast?”
A patronizing smile this time. “I wish it were that simple. The sad truth is, not everyone is as committed to building happy, healthy families as we are. There are government agencies-faceless bureaucracies, really-whose sole purpose is to interfere in your private affairs. The only way they can maintain their existence is by making things more complicated and intrusive than they need to be. They live to slow things done, erect hurdles, and delay, delay, delay. They say they want to protect the children, but”-she sighed and turned her palms up as if toward God-“all they really want to protect are their jobs.
“Those extra fees help us… grease the wheels, if you will. Keep things moving.”
My mother looked at her blankly. “Huh?”
“You know.” Ms. Peterson arched an eyebrow. “That money… incentivizes those state employees not to look so deeply at everything. To accelerate the approval process.”
