The baby boat

by Patty Dann

"Get children?" At first I did not understand, but quickly realized he meant "have a baby." I was then thirty-six years old and had never wed. I could feel the arsenal of eggs I'd been born with beginning to fray.". And so begins the chronicle of Patty Dann's journey to adopt an infant from Eastern Europe, a memoir that recounts with humor the hurdles she and her husband encountered at every step of their odyssey - from the tedious preparation of paperwork and the seemingly endless waiting, through the heartbreaking loss of the infant girl who might have been their adoptive daughter, to their giddily joyous flight home to New York City from Lithuania with their pink-cheeked son in their arms.