New Jersey adoption and the Jersey Shore – the two were linked improbably for me the day that my husband and I drove down the Garden State Parkway with anticipation, fear, and joy to pick up our three-day-old son at a hospital on the Jersey Shore. As I looked incredulously behind me at the soon-to-be-filled infant car seat, I knew that adoption was becoming my life, but I could not have imagined that New Jersey adoption (and New York adoption) would become my life’s work.
My husband and I both grew up in suburban New Jersey, where summer meant driving south for paradisiacal days at the beach. Following in our childhood tradition, our car seemed to follow an automatic GPS system when we became parents through adoption, leading us to Jersey Shore beach days with our young sons, who soon learned to be fearless ocean swimmers.
This Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I felt the pull of the Jersey Shore, where we spent a heavenly day walking for miles on the beach, languidly eating lunch at a favorite fresh seafood restaurant on a dock, and indulging in delicious soft serve Italian ices. Surrounded by families of all kinds, I thought of my twinned fate: New Jersey adoption and the Jersey Shore.
