Michelle Carter is a lover of music, mystical sounds and connector of the emotional magic of sound in film. She and her husband, Ben, are the adoptive parents to Baby Z, whom they affectionately refer to as The Wizard. Each week for the next 6 weeks, Michelle will take you down the road - ups, down, the passion and frustration of their two year journey to adoption with the help of Aviva Family and Children’s Services. Aviva is a nonprofit, non-sectarian 501(c)(3) organization that believes that every child and every family in our Los Angeles community deserves the chance for a brighter future.

Adoption was always part of my life plan since learning of my two grandfathers stories when I was a child. My maternal grandfather, Opa, was abandoned at an orphanage as a child with his brothers and sisters. He grew up there. When he was an adult, he went straight from the orphanage to fighting in the WWII. He never really had a full childhood, even as a little kid, and that breaks my heart. I have such loving, supportive parents, I couldn’t imagine not having a family - everyone deserves that. I knew that one day, I would really love the opportunity to adopt. Oddly enough even without a childhood of his own, my Opa became an incredible father and took on a father figure role to his niece and nephews after his best friend passed away, so he ended up being, from what I hear, a magical and fun dad to 11 kids! My paternal grandfather was adopted as baby but his story was a little different because he was raised in a loving home. Adoption was always an important part of our family story and I knew in my gut that it was something I wanted in my life.

I met my wonderful and hilarious husband, Ben, years ago. After being married for a few years we decided we wanted to start a family. I was always determined to adopt, but we also tried all of the traditional ways of conceiving… more on that later in this series. I didn’t know if adopting was my dream alone or if it would be anything that he would even be into but we both decided it was time to stop waiting. We secretly started the process of research into all types of adoption: private, foreign, domestic, foster care etc. to figure out what would be best for us. We started interviewing agencies and asking as many questions to figure out which place and people would be the best fit to find our future child. We decided there were so many kids right here in LA county in the foster care system and finally found the best supportive agency for us - Aviva!

We were both so so nervous - I called everyday and asked the same questions and Magaly (social worker/ foster parent trainer extraordinaire) was so patient and kind with me. She answered every question as the best she could because there are so many unknowns in the adoption process. It was scary and at the beginning I cried a lot thinking about all these kids and if we would even be strong enough to handle the rollercoaster of the system… but we just decided to take it one day at a time. It was terrifying but we both felt so strongly about wanting to adopt that we decided to power though our emotions. We barely told anyone (because everyone and their dog has an opinion) so we decided to keep this pretty private at first. We went along with the training which took about 6 months to complete. At this point, we were about 1 1/2 years since starting the research process and now we were certified and could get a call at any minute! We were so excited but equally scared. Magaly guided us through each step and told us to trust our guts when we got a call. We started to get a lot of calls... but none of the calls felt right yet… it was so hard to say no.

Then in May, after a couple dozen calls, we finally said yes for a little girl!!! Baby A - a little 6 month old. We were both so excited we actually started telling people… We got her room ready! Ahhh this was real! We were told there was a court date and she was going to be moving in with us on June 1st. The day came - we could barely breathe, we were so excited! We waited and waited and then at 3pm we got a call... it wasn’t happening. It was devastating. At that moment we questioned if we could do this. Maybe we weren’t strong enough. Through tears we packed up her stuff and decided to put this off for a while. Our parents had already booked trips. Bens family from NY and mine from Canada. Ben’s parents were arriving the next day and asked if they should cancel the trip but we said no and needed the distraction. They came. We laughed, we cried, we went to Palm Springs and had a great week with them. We thought maybe adoption wasn’t in the cards for us after all. This was too hard. On Saturday night when Ben’s parents left, my mother-in-law hugged me tight and said, “maybe I’ll be on the next return flight... you never know!”

Monday rolled around and I got back to work. My mom called to tell me about how a psychic (a very ‘my mom’ kind of call) told her on the weekend we were going to meet our baby soon. I told her it was a nice thought but I just wanted to focus on work and be distracted. And then, an hour later, Kelsey (our amazing and incredible social worker) called. I thought she was calling just so we could talk about what happened with baby A but instead...

“Hello! So there’s this little girl…”

I went to talk to Ben and he just stared at me. We went outside for a minute came back and then without a word we were driving to the hospital to meet the one we now call The Wizard… our Baby Z! We drove for over an hour without saying a word to each other and no music on. We knew nothing about her or her case we just said yes! Our guts said yes and thank goodness we did! We’ve loved her from the minute we met! We had no newborn clothes… nothing really for a newborn at all. My best friend, Christine, headed to Target and literally bought the entire store and her and her fiancé, Spider, showed up minutes after we got home with dinner and everything we needed for this new little wonder being! Now at about 6pm, we had a new life with a new baby in an apartment filled with stuff we’ve never even thought of or knew we needed. We didn’t have nine months to plan… our life changed within a matter of hours - and it’s by far the best decision we’ve ever made!!!

This is the beginning of a very long and sometimes complicated story... but we wouldn’t change a thing. The Foster Care system isn’t easy but it’s also not impossible. We have been lucky enough to have the best support, amazing social workers and our whole situation is very unique. We feel very fortunate to have the circumstances we have, surrounded by wonderful people on all sides.

The Wizard had a plan.

- Michelle

For families that are interested in learning more about fostering, adopting, volunteering, donating, or any of our other services with Aviva, please call (323) 876-0550.