Oogy_ The Dog Only a Family Could Love - Larry Levin [19]
“Trust me,” Jennifer said. Her mascara was streaming down her face again. “They’re beautiful.”
I had no idea how she could tell that, but she proved to be right.
I was not sure what we should do next. They were asleep, so there was no sense in rocking them.
“Okay,” I said to the one I was holding. “Who are you?”
There was not a lot of talking to be done. We were simply awestruck at the sudden sequence of events. We sat on the couch and placed the boys between us and stared at them. Then we switched boys. After that, we each experienced holding both of them. We must have used the word amazing eight times. They did not open their eyes, so we had no idea what color they were. They did not wake up. It was inconceivable to imagine the power they now held over us. And there had been a subtle but critically important change within me, although I was not to realize it for years to come. I was no longer afraid of being a father — now I was afraid of not being a good one.
Then Susan and the agency’s director returned to fill us in on the boys’ family history. A brother of theirs, who was three years older than our boys, had been adopted when he was several weeks old and was living in New England.
This time, the birth parents had contacted Golden Cradle three days before the due date to arrange for adoption. At the time they contacted Golden Cradle, however, they did not know that they were about to become the parents of twins. In the sonograms, one of the boys was in front of or on top of the other, and no one appeared to have paid much attention to what was really going on in there. After the first boy was born, we were told, their mother said, “I don’t think I’m done yet.” She was rushed into surgery, and the second boy was delivered by C-section twenty minutes after she had delivered the first.
We also learned that the birth parents initially asked for the twins to be placed with their brother in New England, but the couple who had adopted the boys’ brother responded that they were not in a position to adopt twins. Shelly discussed other adoption possibilities with the birth parents, then flew to their home state a day before the births occurred with the files of several prospective adoptive couples in whom the birth parents had expressed interest. Then, after we were selected, and after the twins had been delivered, Shelly had to scramble to call Golden Cradle to see if Jennifer and I had preapproved twins. The agency would not place twins separately and would place them only with a couple who had agreed ahead of time that they would accept multiple siblings in the event that occurred.
We had been fascinated with the notion of twins for years, ever since an old friend of mine had visited with his three-month-old twin sons. Watching their similarities and the way they interacted with one another even at so young an age revealed a special bond that seemed to add another dimension to their relationship with each other as well as with the overall family dynamic. As a result, we had preapproved twins, but we had never expected that the adoption process would yield such a result.
On the way out of Golden Cradle that morning, Susan gave us a black-and-white copy of a photograph of the boys’ older brother at six months.
“Here,” she said. “This will give you some idea of what your sons are going to look like.”
As it turned out, it really didn’t. Their brother has dark hair and dark skin. Noah and Dan are strawberry blonds. Both are taller than their brother. The three do share gray green eyes, however, and similar builds, lean and muscular.
The boys’ birth mother had flown with them to Golden Cradle and was still there the day we went to pick them up so that she could nurse them until the surrender occurred. She wanted to make sure that she would give them the best possible