Sheryl Crow announced this morning that she is adopting a second child, Levi James, who was born April 30. Crow made the announcement via her website, and her publicist confirmed the information. Crow, age 48, adopted her son Wyatt three years ago, when he was two weeks old. (Click here to see Michelle’s blog on Sheryl’s first adoption.)
The sibling connection seems to be important to Crow—she made her announcement by writing, “Wyatt has a baby brother!”
Crow reportedly is not deterred by the idea of being a single mother.
“For my whole life, I had a pretty clear picture of what my life was supposed to be. I was supposed to have a big career but at the same time a husband, the house and the kids. That’s what I knew. That’s what a successful life consisted of,” she told Parade magazine in 2008.
Not having found the husband, Crow decided she didn’t have to give up the entire dream.
“A family doesn’t always look like girl meets boy, they fall in love, they get married, they have a kid,” Crow went on. “I said, ‘OK, I’m going to let go of what I think things are supposed to look like.”
Crow has said that becoming a mother has influenced her writing and her advocacy regarding the environment and stopping global warming. Just before her first son arrived, she participated in a college speaking tour about global warming, and she continues to advocate for the environment. She said after her first baby’s arrival that having this “innocent little spirit” around….”gives a certain urgency to that [concern about the future environment].”
I relate to the joy of mothering a baby and admire Crow’s concern for all the earth’s future children. My only concern is Crow’s history of breast surgery, for which she had surgery just the year before adopting her first son. I know that today breast cancer survivors are living decades after having the disease. But I can’t help thinking that it would make sense to wait for five years’ remission first. An adopted child has already lost one mom.
However, I also can’t say that I wouldn’t have done what Crow did to experience the joy of parenting a child. Waiting five years would have made her too old for many international adoptions and probably reduced her chances of being chosen by U.S. birthmothers as well.
Both of Crow’s children came to her through domestic infant adoption, so most likely the birthmothers had some say in choosing Crow. Hopefully they were aware of her health history as well. Perhaps they admired Crow’s ability to face adversity, and were comforted by knowing their children would be financially secure in the future.
Choosing adoption rather than the surrogate parenting makes sense to me; Crow won’t be passing on a breast cancer risk. (My daughter, though, sometimes either forgets or doesn’t want to remember that she doesn’t have my genes. (See my blog on this–the latest update: it’s my fault she has braces on her teeth.)
I wish Sheryl, Wyatt and Levi all the best.