My Gay Adoption Day 236 :: Time to Play Dirty

I've been patient. I've been kind. I've even been supportive of the journey. But after three months waiting for "the call," I've decided to subscribe to that old adage, "mothers-making-an-adoption-plan help those who help themselves." And I'm taking action.

No doubt you've been following this blog since I started sharing our adoption story; you know, therefore, about the agonies of finance, paperwork, and hitting our families up for everything from photos to Xanax. You know that Kevin and I have been live in the Friends in Adoption system since March. And you've heard me wax on about the waiting game we've been suffering since then.

Well, no more, dear reader. This weekend, Kevin and I went with friends to Six Flags New England and Kevin petitioned a woman point blank, "You have six kids; surely you don't need all of them." I was cosmically embarrassed, and after squirting Kevin with water and giving him an hour-long time out, entirely served on the Bizarro coaster, I wiped off his vomit from my "Biological mothers to gay adoptions go right to Heaven" t-shirt and resolved to take matters into my own hands.

We're determined to continue on the adoption route; we've invested a lot of time and money in it, and we love our agency and we're convinced that some beautiful mother-to-be out there will choose us to be the wonderful parents of her baby. The problem, of course, is the wait. If I cannot hasten this process, it increases the possibility that Kevin is going to do something drastic - like lock himself in a room with Chloe, our precious little kitty, and make a YouTube video in which he threatens, "Give me a baby or the kitten gets it."

It seemed readily apparent to me that the problem is not our agency, or a lack of birth mothers. The problem is all those other people competing with us in the queue. It may seem "fair" and "equitable" to give everyone an even chance, dear reader, but try telling that to the last-place team in the NFL which has to suffer the ignominy of nine innings of embarrassment every time they strap on their skates and take to center court. Mixed sports metaphors be damned: the only way to progress, clearly, is to take aim at the 45 couples ahead of us in the FIA system!

I've therefore been consumed, over the last few days, with methodologies for making these 45 obstacles... er, disappear. Herewith are the top ten suggestions.

1) Mail a cabbage patch kid to each of the waiting families. This plan has lots of merits; everyone loves those dimpley little faces, and parents are likely to grow so attached to them they'll forget it's not a real baby. It's also cost-effective (you can get these toys for practically nothing on Ebay) and doesn't smell funny when you change its diapers. However, it could also backfire: after four years or so they'll wise up when the kid isn't progressing quickly enough in kindergarten.

2) Hypnotize the Friends in Adoption staff. This tactic involves hiring an experienced hypnotist to dangle a pocket watch in front of each and every staff member and convincing them while under his or her influence that there's been a grave mistake and David and Kevin are supposed to be at the top of the list. The main drawback is that every hypnotist I've ever seen can't help themselves from forcing their subjects to bray like a donkey when the word "baby" is uttered, which would result in most bio moms simply hanging up the phone before they get matched.

3) Door-to-door begging. I'm convinced that when Kevin and I show up at the home of every waiting family and tell them how much we want a child, they'll readily offer to take position behind us in line. The 128oz. gift bottle of Absinthe has nothing to do with it.

4) Hack the FIA website. This one is easy; if the "News of the World" can hack every cellphone in England without anyone the wiser, how hard can it be to simply rearrange the order of waiting couples on the website? Of course, it's likely that FIA will simply correct the issue the next day, meaning we'll have to hack it once they do, and they'll correct it again, and then we'll have to hack it again. This sort of back-and-forth is just the type of thing that erodes trust between an adoption agency and their clients.

5) Hand out "2 for 1" coupons for a competitive agency at the annual FIA picnic. Kevin and I will be attending the next one; how hard can it be to print a handful of fliers? We've already chosen the agency we'll advertise: "Adoption for Childless Homes Of Oregon (ACHOO)."

6) Provide detailed breakdown of costs for college educations in 2029. Current estimates are $3.4 million per semester. This option provides the added benefit of forcing just about every Mom and Dad in America to rethink their parenthood.

7) Offer free pumpkin pie for an even swap. We figure there just isn't that much difference between being #44 in line and being #45 in line - a pie might just swing a couple's interest enough to just drop down one number. If we subsequently make this offer to every couple up the line, we'll have reached number one for the measly price of a few dozen desserts.

8) Challenge the top couple to a game of kickball - winner takes all. We like the fact that this contrivance engages the human competitive spirit. What we can't figure out is what happens if we lose, especially since the last time we played kickball I lost a contact lens and Kevin suffered a sprained eyebrow.

9) Infiltrate the FIA home office and add an insert to each outgoing adoption profile that proudly announces the couple's home has recently been named a Killer Doberman safe-house. While covert operations such as this was my strength for years (I interned at the CIA and my first job was at the Republican National Committee's "Operation Moneysmarts"), I'm pretty sure the FIA offices employ the latest in security technology. I met her during our first meetings there, in fact. YOU try to get around Penelope the Pug.

10) Assume the likeness of FIA's founder, show up for work, and order us to the top of the list. Unfortunately, while I'm a big fan of Dawn Smith-Pliner's hair and I can put the best wigmakers on the job for this effort, I'm unconvinced I can pull off that adorable chick-swagger she has. The best I can do is, I'm afraid, is Director of Finance Tara, whose taste in clothes I share and whose snap-snap attitude I can emulate flawlessly. But nobody is going to bump a couple to the top of the list for her - she cut the weekly pizza party out of the budget last spring.

I turn this exhaustive list over to you, dear reader; please comment or write in and tell me which strategy you think has the best chance of success. I'd invite you to call me directly with your thoughts, but I've recently caught Kevin calling up FIA every half-hour and asking, "Are we there yet?" and so I've had to remove all phones from the house.