Memoir
Date Published: December 11th, 2025
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Vincentia Schroeter dreams of building a family of her own and expects an easy pregnancy. She imagines following in her mother’s footsteps, surrounded by the love of children. However, when complications mount, she must face the likelihood that her wish will never come true.
As her sisters bear children, and women all around her share their happy baby news, Vin grows more envious than ever. The frustration continues as hard truths test her patience and faith and medical professionals deliver devastating blows. The only thing she knows for sure is that she is determined to become a mother.
A story of one woman’s harrowing path through trauma and disillusionment, Babymaking is a heartfelt memoir of vulnerability, rupture, and repair. Vin’s journey reminds us that hope and unconditional love have the power to lead us to the place we were always meant to be.
Sister Barbara
walks in, offers us cookies and tea, and asks us to go around the room and
introduce ourselves to each other. One couple shares that their baby died
shortly after birth, and after that, the wife was unable to conceive. Another
couple shares that, after five miscarriages, they were told the mother was
unable to carry a baby to term. A third couple shares that, after a year of
trying and endless testing, the husband was told he had unviable or “lazy”
sperm, that his sperm would never make it to the egg.
As each story is
shared, the room changes. My self-consciousness fades. I no longer worry about
how I look, what I’m wearing, and whether a crucifix around one’s neck matters.
As each couple
reveals their heartbreak, I feel a common space open up. We have traveled
similar roads, experienced hopelessness and loss, and now we find ourselves
here in this room. It is like we came out of the woods scratched and bloody,
met as strangers at a new opening, and can now travel the next road together.
Over the weeks,
our cohort of six couples builds a new circle of friendship.
But during the
fourth week of training to become adoptive parents, I tap my foot impatiently,
tired of listening again as the social worker talks about the details of legal
issues we will experience in the adoption game. I smile attentively, but my
mind floats off as I think, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want a baby.”
Sister Barbara
stands and walks in front of us to a huge screen the size of a wall. She clicks
it on and looks at us. We stare at a giant photo of a teenaged birth mother who
is leaning over a piece of paper. She is crying while signing a form to
relinquish all of her parental rights.
I freeze.
I stare at the
girl on the screen. I want to escape out the window and fly away from here, and
hold onto my own delusions that this is just about me and what I want. I do not
want to care about her, but I can’t take my eyes off of her. Her head leaning
over the form. Her long brown hair falling over her bare shoulders. Her tears. Her
tense hand holding the pen. Signing away her rights to her child. My eyes
betray me and fill with tears. My heart is captured. I stay put and do not fly
away.
As Sister Barbara
describes this new landscape, my whole being fills with care and concern for
the birth parents and the pain they must face in making what must be the most
difficult decision of their lives. One that will follow them forever.
I soak up Sister
Barbara’s description of the “adoption triangle,” a term for the relationship
and dynamics among the baby, the birth parents, and the adoptive parents.
She notes, “You
need to have compassion and think about what is best for all parties, not just
what is best for you as adoptive parents.” She has been around and must know we
need this lesson. She must know how self-absorbed we’ve been as we focus on our
very important goal.
“We work with the
birth parents to create the best plan, which we feel is open adoption. Open
adoption is where the biological parents participate in the experience of
placing their child with an adoptive family. It also means that they may choose
to continue to have contact with you as the adoptive parents. Open placement is
a further step that happens sometimes, where the birth parents hand you the
baby in person.”
I squirm in my
seat. Do I want that experience?
She continues, “We suggest
that you send photos of the baby once a month for the first year and then one
each year after that. Both birth parents must sign away all legal rights to
parent their child. After that moment, they have twenty-four hours to change
their minds.”
I am
thinking that the twenty-four-hour window is respectful, giving them time to reconsider
and avoid being impulsive. It must be a torturous decision. Those twenty-four
hours must be dizzying for the birth family.
Sister
Barbara says, “If they do not call us within that
twenty-four-hour window, then we call you, the
adoptive parents. That’s the moment when I get to say, ‘You have a new baby.’”
Hearing those words makes everyone
in the circle light up.
Leaving us with
that last line, “You have a new baby,” Sister Barbara smiles. I can tell she
loves all three parts of the triangle—helping babies find loving homes,
respectfully counseling the birth parents, and making dreams come true for
adoptive couples.
“This concludes
your eight-week course.” Sister Barbara stands up, looks at us warmly, gathers
her papers, and is ready to usher us out of her office.
But none of us
move. I look around at the other couples, feeling a sense of connection in my
bones. We don’t want to leave each other.
Mary says, “We
have to keep in touch. I want to know what happens with each of you.”
Everyone nods.
Vincentia Schroeter grew up in a small town in central California as the fourth of twelve children. Intrigued by the many different personalities in her family, she knew by the age of sixteen that she wanted to be a counselor. She put herself through college and graduate school in order to pursue her dreams.
Vin is the author of the award-winning self-help book, Communication Breakthrough: How Using Brain Science and Listening to Body Cues Can Change Your Relationships (2018). She also co-authored a training manual on somatic psychotherapy that has been translated into three languages.
After a forty-year career as a psychotherapist listening to clients’ stories of pain and trauma, Vin felt drawn to share her own story. She now lives in San Diego with her husband Steve and enjoys pickleball, painting, and time with family, including her dog, Ren.
Instagram: @vincentia_schroeter
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