Waiting for Baby
By Bruce Covey

I've had two dreams about our daughter. In the first, I'm waiting in our room in China with Kate's mother while Kate has gone around the corner to pick up some aspirin. The babies arrive and I think about running to get Kate, but it's too late--our baby, wrapped in a pink blanket, is placed in my arms and I laugh and cry simultaneously and am afraid I'll drop her. I tell her I'm her father and talk baby talk, stumble through bits of lullabies, tell her that her mother will be here soon. Then I wake up.

In the other, we're going to the park when she's three, but have to stop at Target first to get something (a sun hat?). When we arrive at our destination, my daughter jumps out of the car and starts running around the basepaths of the park's baseball field, then maneuvers toward the silver slide as I wake up. I've also dreamt about receiving her referral in the mail, a hefty manila packet. I haven't seen her face in any of the three dreams, but her presence is always soothing, making me realize after I wake up that she actually will arrive one day, that the wait will finally be over.

I keep thinking, if time is relative, how can we speed it up? Right now it slogs along like a clumsy dream in which my feet are encased in iron. Midway through last month, every day began to feel like two weeks. We've kept busy, digging deeply into our jobs, teaching prep, writing, preparations for the house, Chinese studies (how spectacular that "star"-xìng-is composed of "sun" and "to give birth"!). But so much is still intangible: Will it really happen? Will she really come? How old will she be? What will she look like?

Two weeks ago Kate bought a crib, a beautiful white one from our next-door neighbors, whose daughters had outgrown it. We've bought clothes, guessing at the size or saying, "well, we know she'll be three years old someday." But we're waiting on purchasing some things until the referral makes her more real to us; the car seat, changing table, stroller, and high chair all somehow seem hopelessly impractical and optimistic without the specific face of our own daughter visible in our minds.

We've never been superstitious before (and aren't really now), but despite that we find ourselves looking for clues for when our referral will come. We look for ladybugs everywhere (an APC listserve superstition) and collect bits of red string (a Chinese folk legend). For the first time we've begun reading our fortune cookie messages. The highlight of Kate's lunches at Doc Chey's Noodle House is selecting her own fortune out of a small tub of cookies. After "Good things are coming to you in due course of time," we impatiently ask "when?" "The current year will bring you much happiness" narrows down the timeframe, but we want something more specific. Could "The weather is wonderful" be a metaphor? "Very often you cannot help thinking of somebody" is an understatement. "Although it feels like a roller coaster now, life will calm down" and "You will win success in whatever you adopt" lift our spirits, as does "Your whole family are well" and "Your present plans are going to succeed."

I hate to quote a cookie too closely, but the wait really is like a roller coaster, where we've so far only achieved the first stage, the long, lethargic rise to the top of the biggest hill. We creep up slowly, full of anticipation, distracted by the minutia of the wait: the sounds of the chains pulling us up to the top, the starts and stops, the whole chaotic motion. What's most difficult is that so much needs to be put on hold and we can't see very far ahead. What size clothes will we bring for her? Where will we be this Christmas? Will we be packing microfleece or CoolMax?

As agonizing as this slow climb can be, we've still managed to become enchanted by parts of the process, particularly the ones that signal our future. We went to a picnic of expectant parents sponsored by FCC Atlanta last month, and this weekend we'll get to see lion dancers at Asian Cultural Experience at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. At the same time, after the relative intrusiveness of the home study and all of the paperwork, we're working on rediscovering our true selves - who we really are as a couple and a family. In other words, in all of the choppy, discontinuous motions, we're seeing elements of something that will become the roller coaster of our new lives with our daughter, the new continuous flow.

Of course we continue to distract ourselves with preparations for the trip, as well as indulgent things that we won't be able to do as easily after she arrives: going to the movies, sleeping in on Sundays, nice dinners out. But more than anything, we want the real ride to begin as quickly as possible. Many parents tell us to "enjoy it while you can," trying to prepare us for trials and difficulties; we, on the other hand, can't wait for the tears and spit-up, diaper changes, earaches, and tantrums. The moment I understood that I really wanted to be a parent was the moment I realized that I was actually looking forward even to the bad times, with the good times just icing on the cake.

Not long ago, for Kate's birthday, I found a giant ladybug Beanie Baby named "Lucky." Our daughter must be getting closer.

(Editor's Note: We are thrilled to inform you that the Covey family was united in China in October 2000)