NONFICTION ​          

"Struggling with uncertainty, I called my adoption class instructor,
a single woman who had adopted a child from Peru two years before."
                           Photo by Weebly                                   

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Destiny's Child *
by  Joan Westley

A fork in the road. One path taken. Is it fate?
​Is it destiny? Or is it simply happenstance?

As I peered at a grainy 4ʺ × 6ʺ photograph, my heart skipped a beat. Here was a little human who needed a home. This adoption thing could really happen. And the infant was adorable, with a shock of thick black hair and dimples in her chubby cheeks. She was obviously healthy. Plump, even.
 
When the required trio of classes ended in February, my agency invited enthusiastic parents-to-be to meet with a counselor about possible adoption paths. I was eager to know what countries might be open to a single woman my age and how long the process might take. I didn’t expect a referral right away. If anything, I imagined that I might be put on a waiting list for a Guatemalan adoption, a country I knew accepted single parents.
 
Instead, the counselor advised me that Guatemalan adoptions were temporarily on hold. “Maybe you would be interested in Peru?” she suggested after seeing my dejected face. Although my agency didn’t have a Peru program, she had received a packet from a lawyer about a baby available for adoption. That was the infant in the snapshot.
 
With only 24 hours to decide, I paced up and down the length of my home that evening, adrenalin pumping. Yes, I was tempted, but the price tag was high, more money than I could possibly afford. Could I borrow money? Would my mother help out? Struggling with uncertainty, I called my adoption class instructor, a single woman who had adopted a child from Peru two years before.
 
“What if this is my one and only chance to adopt a baby?” I asked, explaining my dilemma.
 
“Don’t worry,” she said calmly. “There’ll be other options. Hundreds of Peruvian babies need forever homes.”
 
I told her about the photograph. “I looked into her eyes,” I moaned. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”
 
“She’ll be fine and so will you.”

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Even though I turned down the referral, one thing seemed perfect—the country. I was inexplicably drawn to Peru, even though I had never been there. I had heard about its many tourist attractions—the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, the mysterious Nazca Lines along the coast, Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon basin. The country is extraordinarily beautiful, but many of its people are extremely poor.
 
Peru required potential parents to establish residency and assume guardianship of the child they hoped to adopt for the duration of the judicial process, which could take weeks or even months. As an independent contractor, I could take that kind of time off from work, a freedom not available to everyone. My travels in Mexico and Spain over the years meant my grasp of common Spanish phrases would suffice in a pinch, an advantage over places like China or Brazil.
 
Despite my usual reticence to divulge anything personal in my work world, I let a few colleagues know about my interest in international adoption. Soon my networking paid off. A friend of a colleague had adopted a baby in Peru. When I called, she described her experience striking up a conversation in a Lima courtroom with an adoption facilitator. “If I adopt a baby again,” she told me, “I would definitely work with Hilda Ramos.” That endorsement was all I needed to hear.
 
A Norwegian married to a Peruvian, and the mother of two adopted children of her own, Hilda was an adoption facilitator, not a lawyer. She was professional and welcoming on the phone, and her fee was far less than quotes from my adoption agency in the Bay Area. “I’ll be in touch,” she promised.
 
Within a few days, she phoned with a referral. A boy! Before I could get too excited, that prospect fell through. It turned out the baby was abandoned and it would take several months for the adoption to be approved, if ever. Mercifully, my disappointment lasted only a few days. The next call from Hilda was about an infant girl born at the end of January. Her name was Yessica. No time to send a photo. I needed to get on a plane soon. “Bring a suitcase of diapers . . . they cost a dollar apiece here,” she advised. 

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Preparation for the trip to Peru included a memorable stop at a Wells Fargo bank. My friend Margo offered to come with me. A CPA, she had always been fascinated with what I jokingly called my bundle. “I know you’ll go to Peru anyway,” she said. “But I worry that you don’t have adequate financial reserves.”
 
At Wells Fargo, I handed my passbook to the teller and said, “$9,500 in small bills, please.”
 
“Small bills?” the woman asked, wide-eyed, clearly wondering if she was dealing with a narco-queen. The bank was located on a dicey corner of the Mission District. Shady characters lurked in passageways. Scruffy vagrants crashed out near the ATM. Drug dealers pawned their wares with subtle gestures and nods.
 
“I am going to Peru to adopt a child,” I explained, trying to put her qualms to rest.
 
“Oh, that’s great,” she said. “Are 20s okay?”
 
“Yes, but we’ll need to check the bills for tears and markings.” Hilda had warned me that Peruvian money changers accepted only crisp new banknotes.
 
After we examined our quarry in a back room, I stuffed the wad in a money belt under my clothes. “You look pregnant!” Margo laughed, referring to the conspicuous bulge. “A little suspicious, too.” To be on the safe side, she persuaded a guard to accompany us to my car.
 
Margo dropped me off at SFO’s International Terminal on May 3rd with a newly purchased stroller and a suitcase filled with diapers and cans of Enfamil baby formula. At the boarding gate, I found myself holding back tears as I took my place in line. Everything was happening so quickly! The next day, I was 4,500 miles from home at the Hostal Casa Grande in Miraflores, an upscale neighborhood of Lima, Peru. Time slowed down to a crawl as I waited for Hilda to arrive. 

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Then, suddenly, my wait was over. Hilda appeared with her German assistant, Irma Klein. In Irma’s arms was a tiny infant. For some reason, I didn’t realize that the baby she held was Yessica until she placed her in my arms.
 
Hilda and Irma were gone before I had a chance to catch my breath. Alone in my room, I couldn’t get enough of simply gazing at Yessica. She was inconceivably small. Skin the color of cinnamon. Ebony hair. Luminous eyes. I was mesmerized by her doll-like lips and miniature fingernails. Perfect in every way. I had never been one of those women who goes “goo-goo” and “gaga” over every infant they come across. Yet when Yessica’s eyes locked on mine and followed my every move, I was as mesmerized as any new mother.
 
Soon her O-shaped mouth and murmurings let me know that she was hungry. Now what? With Yessica bundled in a baby sling, I hurried down to the hostal’s small kitchen to prepare a bottle with the formula and plastic linings I brought from home. I had no experience being a new mom and it showed. The water I boiled was too hot. When I poured it into the plastic liner, the bag broke, splashing water and formula on the floor. Rosa, the cook at Casa Grande, came to my rescue, patiently cleaning up my mess and showing me the proper way to prepare a bottle. Then, in the morning, she offered to hold Yessica as I ate the huevos and drank the café con leche she served me. I was in capable hands.
 
Eventually, I met the adoptive mother of the baby I had seen in that 4ʺ × 6ʺ snapshot months before. Our families have been friends ever since. The two girls’ birthdays are only a week apart. Both are beautiful Peruvians, yet they could not be more different in personality, physique, and interests. As the girls grew up, I have often reflected on how close I came to adopting a different child. Had this other baby ended up being my child, my life would have been different in many ways. Not better or worse. Just different. 

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A fork in the road. One path taken. Is it fate? Is it destiny? Or is it simply happenstance?
 
I have never been inclined toward the spiritual, but I had the sense that the universe had mystically brought Yessica and me together. Somehow, the baby girl had called out to me, and I had heard that urgent SOS. This was the first lesson I learned from motherhood: beautiful things happen when you trust in fate.

*  Author's Note:  This is the second chapter in the memoir I’m with Them: Lessons from My Children by Elizabeth Eastwood (my pen name). Available early October 2025. “A Wake-Up Call,” the first chapter of the memoir, was published in the Spring 2025 issue of Vistas and Byways. 

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​​Joan Westley is a retired editor, developer, writer, and publisher of curriculum materials and textbooks for elementary school students. A former teacher, she produced teaching guides and authored articles and newsletters about best practices. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in Madison with a BA in Psychology, she moved west to San Francisco, where she lived in various neighborhoods for the better part of 20 years. During that time, she earned a teaching credential and MA in Education from San Francisco State University and spent a year in London, England on a teacher exchange program. In the early 1990s, she adopted two Peruvian children as a single woman and raised them in a suburb south of San Francisco.

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