At last, a family of her own

THE PARENT: Nancy Pierson, 55, of Woodbury, N.J.

THE CHILD: Anya Margaret, 2, adopted May 13, 2022

A FAMILY TRADITION: When her mother was alive, Nancy used to take summer Fridays off for a mother-daughter day in Sea Isle City. She looks forward to days like that with Anya.

The baby was screaming. Still in a fog of anesthesia following her second surgery to repair a cleft palate, Anya lay amid a cluster of nurses and doctors in scrubs, all trying to soothe her wailing.

Then Nancy approached. “Mama’s here,” she said, and the baby turned her head, searching for the familiar voice.

“That still gives me goosebumps,” Nancy says of that day in February 2021 at Cooper University Hospital. “In that moment was when I realized: She knows I’m hers.”

When Nancy was growing up in Oaklyn, N.J., the only daughter sandwiched between two brothers, she assumed her life would unfold in a conventional narrative: marriage, then children.

“That didn’t pan out,” she says. “I did have several long-term relationships that I thought would result in marriage and family, and they did not. Having my own biological children wasn’t in the cards for me.”

Nancy’s mother, Peggy, worked for many years at the Philadelphia-based National Adoption Center, and Nancy used to accompany her to the agency’s annual fund-raiser and to “match parties,” where waiting children could meet potential adoptive parents.

At one point, she looked into becoming a foster parent and attended an orientation in Gloucester County. “But something just didn’t feel right, timing-wise. I never pursued it.”

Nearly six years ago, Nancy’s mother was diagnosed with advanced lung and breast cancer. She lived for nine more months, and Nancy was her primary caregiver.

“In one heart-to-heart discussion I had with Mom before she passed, she let me know that she knew how much I wanted a family of my own,” Nancy recalls. “I never gave up hope on becoming a mom. It was always something I wanted. My mom said to me, ‘You need to make that happen.’ ”

After her mother’s death and some time to heal, Nancy became serious about getting licensed as a foster-to-adopt parent: the training and the home study, the references and background checks. She hoped for a girl and was willing to take a child up to age 7.

In March 2020, she became licensed. And two weeks later, a caseworker called: A 6-month-old baby, born in October at just 28 weeks, an infant with a cleft palate and medical needs due to substance exposure in utero. She had weighed only 3 pounds at birth. Was Nancy interested?

“I did not in any way indicate on the [foster care] paperwork that I was going to take a child with medical needs,” she says. “However, you get a call that this little nugget needs you and … absolutely. I didn’t hesitate.”

She had about 90 minutes to race to Target for baby supplies; the caseworker ordered a crib to be delivered to Nancy’s home that afternoon, and employees were still assembling it when the baby arrived.

“I was thrilled and elated,” Nancy says. “She was terrified. She was in a little snowsuit even though it was mid-April. I remember they placed her in my arms and the child services worker took our picture. I was smitten. I fell in love immediately.”

Her employer granted her a three-week maternity leave, so she stayed home — it was still early in the pandemic — and cuddled Anya as much as possible. The baby was still underweight, so for the first four or five months, Nancy had to weigh her daily and report the number to her caseworker.

There were three surgeries — September 2020, February and July of 2021 — to repair the hole in the roof of her mouth. It was a lonely stretch; because of COVID-19 cautions, no one else could come along to medical appointments or visit Anya in the hospital.

“What was hard was lack of sleep from having an infant who woke through the night, and having someone dependent on you 24/7. I wasn’t used to that. What was great was the bonding.”

Then, the week before Christmas, Anya was diagnosed with autism. She will need therapy for “the three S’s — sensory, speech, and social,” Nancy says. She’s an organizer, detail-focused, so it’s easy for her to track Anya’s medical appointments and therapy sessions.

But she doesn’t want Anya’s life to revolve around health needs. So Nancy takes her to a gym in Audubon, We Rock the Spectrum, designed for kids who have autism. She enrolled her in equine therapy. They go to the zoo. And she looks forward to the kinds of adventures her family had when she was a girl: trips to Crystal Cave, the Delaware Water Gap, and the Jersey Shore.

Sometimes, just before falling asleep, Anya will flash a quiet smile, and Nancy wonders whether the baby is recalling her father, who died of an overdose at age 22. “Are you talking to Daddy?” she’ll murmur. “Is that Daddy?”

“I will be honest with her about her adoption and her birth parents. I just don’t know how and when that story will get told.”

She’ll also tell Anya about her grandmother, the woman who knew how much Nancy yearned to be a mother. “My mom was so in love with her grandchildren when she was here. The part that makes me sad is that Anya will never have known her. That’s a big loss.”

Nancy knows she is old enough to be a grandmother herself. “There are times when I feel: Oh, that’s why people do this in their 20s. But most of the time, [Anya’s] energy gives me energy. I feel like I’ve bloomed.”

When she thinks of her mother’s longtime work at the National Adoption Center, she says, “I find it both ironic and beautiful that all of these years later, I have adopted a special-needs child. People tell me she is lucky to have me. But it’s the other way around. I’m so lucky to have her. I guess we’re lucky to have each other.”