In a recent interview comedian-writer-actor-director Mike Birbiglia spoke of becoming a new dad on the heels of a work project, how he timed things in a way he thought he could stay in control, and then—like all brand new babies do—his infant daughter completely upended his best-laid plans while she successfully upstaged him. He’s a funny guy. The bond between mother and child is like no other, of course, and he artfully described it as the beautiful thing it is. And then added he was just kind of there, this third wheel whose main job was to go get coffee.
He described this life-changing event as an interruption. That’s a perfect word to remind you you’re not in control, even with the best-laid plans.
I can trump his interruption story. My own child was handed to me in a grocery store parking lot a few moments after my (now ex-) husband and I had decided it would not happen at all, with about a half-hour’s notice. It’s the truth—you can’t make up this stuff, as they say. We had been trying to adopt for a while through conventional channels, and then were put in touch with a local woman whose life had taken some unexpected turns—interruptions, if you will—that now made it impossible for her to parent a new baby. The connection was through a friend of a friend, more or less, an employee of one of my husband’s clients who was trying to help in this crazy eleventh-hour search for adoptive parents. It is the kind of thing that never happens—a healthy infant landing in your lap—but happened to us in a Kroger parking lot in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The day before that our priest had visited the infant’s beautiful young mother in her hospital room at her request. And the day before that we had visited her, less than 24 hours after our son was born. I sat in the rocking chair by her bed and gently rocked the tiny newborn—hers and ours—as he slept, unaware of the events unfolding around him, while the young woman spoke softly to us. She gave us some phone numbers before we left; hospital staff said the child could not be discharged directly to us, even though we had made an agreement with his mother.
The next day we called her room to finalize our plans only to find she and the child had checked out and were gone. The first number she gave us had been disconnected. We dialed the second number—the mother’s sister and her husband’s; they were not up to speed on the situation and declined to speak with us. We assumed there had been a change of heart and this beautiful boy had slipped through our fingers.
And then hours later on that cold Monday in March our phone rang, an edgy male voice urging us to meet him in a nearby parking lot so we could finally take our new baby home. The whole thing felt sketchy. We had been warned about this man, the baby’s dad, how he might attempt to extort money to support his drug and alcohol habits. While we drove our attorney advised us by phone of the legality of what we were doing (it was legal) but cautioned us about offering any kind of assistance to this man or the baby’s mama (pick up child in parking lot, okay, offer money in exchange for child, not okay). We’ll sort it out later, she told us; you can pay the portion of her hospital bills not covered by insurance, for counseling if she wants it, and offer some temporary living assistance to her. That’s it.
It was the longest 20-minute car ride ever.
The couple was waiting for us as promised, the first thing to go right all day. The exchange was tearful, emotionally charged, really terrible and joyous all at once. The baby’s daddy cradled him for a moment against his idling car’s steering wheel, delivering some unknown message to him while his mother quietly wept in the front seat. We stood between the two cars and watched.
In the end the infant child’s father never asked anything of us except to be good parents to his son.
It was the most loving and selfless action the young couple could have taken, people around us would say later—it was meant to be. But that sentiment, well intentioned as it is, diminishes this monumental thing, the surrendering of a human child, to a silly T-shirt slogan. I could never begin to understand this mother’s agony—nobody who had not lived it themselves could (many years later we would learn a family member near and dear to us in fact had lived it). But standing in that parking lot and bearing witness to what was happening, I felt it now on her behalf like a sucker punch to the gut.
And in the midst of this huge life-changing moment a wisp of strange humor: tucked away in the corner of the grocery store strip mall was a popular eatery, a cafeteria frequented by octogenarians going to and from their starchy 5 o’clock suppers with canes and walkers in tow, now observing an affluent young couple in a Volvo being handed a baby by another young couple in a borrowed clunker. Moments later the pair would peel out of the parking lot throwing up a plume of white smoke in their wake, the whole world’s attention (canes, walkers, and all) now diverted to them. The scene had all the makings of a grotesque cartoon.
Meanwhile the infant continued to sleep. In fact, he slept quietly on the ride home and for a long time afterwards before he finally had something to say.
Home, where our house was in disarray after the busy weekend, dishes piled high in the kitchen sink, dog hair from three inquisitive Siberian Huskies everywhere, an unmade bed, laundry in the basement. And now a new baby.
That’s some kind of interruption. I settled into the beauty of motherhood and my husband brought me coffee.
There have been many more interruptions in the intervening years, and there is also this: if you think your life will begin in earnest after you regain control in the wake of an interruption, not only are you dead wrong, you’ll miss living your life. My life with my new infant will truly begin when the house is spotless (wrong). My life will resume only when this ungodly and untimely retina disease finally goes into remission (wrong). My life ended with my marriage (really wrong). In the face of losing my job and financial security, my life can never mean anything except panic and hard labor from now on (probably wrong).
It’s tough to wrap your head around when you’re a control freak as I am but it’s the truth: navigating the interruptions—that’s life. I wish Mike Birbiglia and his new family a lifetime of beautiful interruptions.
