Part 7 — Loving Her Didn’t Mean We Could Keep Her
Nothing magically became easy after that.
Love is not a legal document.
Wanting a child does not automatically make that child yours.
And Anna saying James’s name did not give us the right to bypass every rule designed to protect a newborn.
The process took nine months.
Nine exhausting, uncertain months.
There were interviews.
Background checks.
Home inspections.
References.
Court hearings.
Social workers asking questions that sometimes felt painfully intimate.
Our marriage was examined.
Our finances were examined.
Our parenting was examined.
Even our reasons for wanting the baby were examined.
At first, Clara remained in temporary care while authorities searched for biological relatives.
Anna’s husband formally relinquished his parental claim.
Eventually, a distant relative was located.
For several awful weeks, we didn’t know whether that person might want custody.
The relative ultimately declined.
Even then, our caseworker warned us not to assume anything.
“There are other families who may be considered,” she told us.
I understood.
That didn’t make it hurt less.
I went home that afternoon, walked into the garage, and saw the old box of baby things James had refused to let me donate.
I sat down beside it and cried.
Eleven years earlier, those blankets had represented a child I would never have.
Now they might belong to another little girl I loved but still might lose.
James found me there.
He sat on the concrete floor beside me without speaking.
After a while, I leaned my head against his shoulder.
“We can’t lose her.”
“I know.”
“But we might.”
“I know.”
That was the hardest part.
Loving someone while having no right to demand that the world let you keep them.
