And Baby Makes 2 : Unmarried Who Want to Be Parents Are Turning to Adoption in Growing Numbers

Even as a child, Jackie Charnley wanted a child. Yet by the time she turned 40 a few months ago, she had all but given up on that lifelong dream.

The fates just seemed to dictate against it. First, she and her husband delayed children for graduate school and careers. “Things kept coming up--until divorce came up,” said the Laguna Beach bank consultant.

At age 33, she found herself suddenly single. “My husband said, ‘I’m not leaving you when you’re too old to start a family with someone else,’ ” she recalled. But slow-moving reality did not grant Charnley another matrimonial mate with the snap of her fingers. So after a couple of years passed, she began looking into alternatives such as artificial insemination. That possibility, though, also would fizzle when medical complications prevented pregnancy. “I went through a lot of grieving,” Charnley said.

Next try, she followed her doctor’s suggestion that she adopt--but again met disappointment. Twice, pregnant women who had through private sources promised their babies to Charnley decided against adoption at the last minute. “I thought, obviously this is not meant to be,” she said.

The third time, however, was a charm. While on a business trip to Chicago, Charnley received a call from her attorney, Linda Nunez, who specializes in adoption.

“I have a mother in the hospital right now who chose you to adopt her child,” Nunez told her. The original adoptive parents had changed their minds about the baby hours before his birth. Charnley took the next plane out. Nunez met her at Los Angeles International Airport and drove her to a Van Nuys hospital at midnight. “The mother was awake, waiting for us,” Charnley said. “She was so sweet and beautiful. They rolled in the baby; I took one look at him and fell in love. I signed the papers in the parking lot.”

On the way to pick up her surprise package the next morning, Charnley stopped and bought a car seat--the only piece of baby paraphernalia to her name. “I didn’t have a bottle or a diaper in the house,” she laughed. But swarms of friends dropped by all afternoon with enough hand-me-downs to hold her for months--a bassinet, clothes, toys.

Jordan, the new mom’s new son, is now a strapping 3-month-old. Of Latino and black descent, he has olive skin, alert brown eyes and an easy smile.

Although she is a red-headed Caucasian and grew up with a now-deceased stepfather who “was like Archie Bunker,” Charnley had no qualms about adopting outside her race. “Oriental, black, whatever--I could love any child,” she said. Her mother and siblings all supported her heartily.

“I never imagined how wonderful this would be,” Charnley said as she cradled her gurgling baby. “Sometimes I still can’t believe Jordan happened to me; I keep pinching myself.”

Jordan’s adoption is not yet final; by law, the genetic mother has 6 months after the birth of her baby to reclaim the child. “I feel a little apprehensive,” Charnley admitted. “I mean, he’s my baby.”

In this decade, the number of babies adopted by single people via California agencies has almost doubled--from 10.5% of all public adoptions in 1980 to 18.5% in 1987.

“We are more accommodating to single parents than we used to be,” said Ron Anderson, adoptions program manager for Orange County Social Services.

“There has been an attitude change. In our society, it’s not unusual to have single parents raising children due to divorce. We’ve come to realize that the traditional family is not always (headed by) two parents.”

Many children adopted through state agencies have “special needs,” emotionally or physically. And in the past, singles wanting to adopt could expect children whose special needs were the most extreme.

Singles “were viewed as the last resort, but I believe that is changing,” said Jim Brown, chief of adoptions for the California Department of Social Services in Sacramento.

“They got children with substantial emotional problems who needed a lot of therapy. Ironically, though, single parents’ financial resources already are the most stretched,” Brown pointed out.

Because infants under the age of 2 are hard to come by through state agencies, many people--both single and married--adopt independently. Often with the aid of an attorney, parental hopefuls use private sources to scout out babies.

“I have my clients put together a biographical letter saying, ‘If you know of someone who is considering giving up their baby for adoption, let her know about me,’ ” said Tustin attorney Nunez. “They give those letters to friends, doctors, relatives--anyone who might have contact with a pregnant woman looking for adoptive parents.” Meanwhile, Nunez attempts to match prospective parents with her own clientele of birth mothers.

The vast majority of adoptive single parents are women, partly because men are not haunted by that infamous “biological time clock.”

“Options are greater for men--and longer,” observed Santa Ana attorney Jane Gorman. “And--although I’m hesitant to say this because it’s so antithetical to everything I believe--men traditionally have not had the nesting instinct to mother children that women have had.”

Typically, single women who come to him hoping to adopt “are getting up into their late 30s and don’t want to wait any longer,” said Fullerton attorney Ron Stoddart.

“There are some people who just plain want to parent; they want to help a child develop and grow,” he said. “They don’t think that being single should deter them from that deep-felt want.”

The total cost of private adoption runs, on the average, from $6,000 to $7,000. Stoddart said: “Attorney fees are usually around $2,500, medical expenses of the birth mother $3,000, (pre-adoption) counseling $300.”

“I’ve had people ask me, ‘How much did you pay for your baby?’--as if he’s some kind of a commodity,” Charnley complained.

No matter how much they are willing to “pay for a baby,” singles still face major obstacles in attempting to adopt. After all, the reason many birth mothers relinquish their babies is that they themselves are single.

“I would be very upset knowing that my child was adopted by a single parent,” said Cindy Shacklett, who heads the El Toro branch of Concerned United Birth Parents, a support group for people who have given up children for adoption.

“Why should a single birth mother want her child to be raised by another single?” Shacklett asked. “I would think that would make her have all the more regrets about choosing adoption; she could have been a single parent herself.”

Why, indeed? In some cases, the birth mother herself grew up in a single-parent home and feels comfortable with the idea. In other cases, she simply “clicks” with the adoptive mother.

For Christopher Hicks’ birth mother, race took precedence over marital status. “She is black and wanted a black adopting family,” Stoddart said.

That family turned out to be Brenda Hicks and her mother, Olivia--albeit by default for the elder Hicks. The three generations live together in a spacious and warm La Palma home.

Brenda Hicks, 39, made a career out of her love for youngsters; she has been a children’s librarian for 14 years. But circumstance never presented her children of her own.

“I’d done all the things I wanted to do as a single--I’d gotten my master’s, I’d traveled, I’d lived on my own,” Hicks said. “Now I am ready for parenthood.”

At first, her mother did not quite approve of Hicks’ decision to adopt. “She was a typical parent,” Hicks said. “She wanted me to take the more ‘normal’ route.”

When Hicks telephoned her mother--also a librarian--at work one afternoon to announce that she would be bringing home a baby, the new grandmother reacted with disbelief.

“I said, ‘This is not something you can just take back to the store, you know,’ ” Olivia Hicks remembered with a laugh. “Then I came home to this little doll.”

As Christopher toddled about with a 17-month-old’s endless energy, his mother and grandmother oversaw him with the quiet patience of, well, two librarians.

The serenely vivacious new mother still feels that marriage is in her future. But until then, she’s content with her extended family.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Brenda Hicks said. “Dirty diapers, throw-up, chicken pox--it’s all wonderful.”

She drops her son off with a cousin on work days. “I have friends who take advantage of their parents, and I always said I would never do that,” Hicks vowed. “Mom only baby-sits when she wants to.”

“Mom” or “Nana”--depending on who’s talking--clearly adores every moment with her grandchild. “He’s been a gift,” she said.

Olivia Hicks, a widow, wishes her daughter had a husband with whom to share her child-rearing experiences. “There’s that male companionship that’s missing for both of them,” she said. “But then, I was a Navy wife, so Brenda and I spent a lot of time alone too.”

Toni Gartner, adoptive mother of 9-month-old Beth, agreed that solo parenting can get lonely. “Sometimes, I wish I had someone to bounce opinions off of: ‘Do you think I should call the doctor about Beth’s cough?’ ” she said.

Also, single motherhood means double work. “If I had a husband I could say, ‘Honey, could you watch Beth for a second while I run out to the store?’ ” said the La Palma teacher. “Beth goes with me on every errand.”

Like Brenda Hicks, Gartner’s affinity with children determined her career. “Still, as much as I love teaching, they were always somebody else’s children,” she said.

As she approached her late 30s unmarried, Gartner--now 38--started to consider artificial insemination. “But I had trouble with the ramifications and explanations of being ‘Miss Gartner’ at school and being pregnant,” she said.

So she pursued adoption instead. And a few months after her mother’s death, the cycle of life brought Gartner a baby.

At the genetic mother’s request, she was present for Beth’s birth. “The doctor told (the birth mother) congratulations, and she said, ‘You need to congratulate both of us,’ ” Gartner fondly recalled.

The fledgling mom briefly worried that her father would not accept her Latino daughter into their Caucasian family. That fear was put to rest when he offered Beth her late grandmother’s favorite necklaces.

“I said, ‘Dad, do you know what you just told me? How much you love Beth.’ And he said, ‘Of course I love her--she’s my grandchild.’ ”

As is common among adoptive parents, Gartner admitted that she occasionally feels under pressure to be a “super mom.”

“With my three sisters, who all have children, it’s like: OK, Toni made this choice so let’s see if she knew what she was doing,” Gartner said. “For instance, there’s the pacifier issue. They’ll say, ‘I remember when you swore that no child of yours would use a pacifier.’ I tell them I’ll make mistakes too, like any parent.”

Between her job and her baby, Gartner gets a lot less rest and relaxation these days. “But all Beth has to do is give me one of her hugs, and I think, ‘Who needs sleep?’ ”

“A single parent can suffer burnout,” said Sharon Kaplan, director of the Parenting Resources counseling firm in Tustin. “You don’t have someone saying, ‘You look tired, honey; let me take over.’ Nor do you have someone saying, ‘You’re doing a really great job; you handled that really well.’ ”

Adoptive singles require a strong support system of family and friends, Kaplan said. “You need someone to give you time off,” she said. “Also, you need opposite sex role models who will be in your child’s life on a consistent basis.”

Social life will suffer, Kaplan warned: “Singles need to think that through. Will you go forward with relationships? How will you get away for a weekend? What will happen to your sex life? Many people will no longer be interested in dating you once you have a child.”

Perhaps most important, singles considering adoption should weigh their motives. “Are they doing it because they’re lonely or bored?” Kaplan said. “Those certainly are not good reasons to parent a child. Children are not Band-Aids.”

Before adopting, Gartner carefully sorted through her plan with the help of a counselor--a step that Kaplan urges.

“I didn’t adopt a child just to fill a void in my life,” Gartner said. “My life was already full; I wanted to share it.”

Besides, she said, “I can meet Mr. Right when I’m 60, but I can’t become a mother when I’m 60.”