Happiest of holidays: Their hopes for a baby were doused again and again. Then it happened

The Christmas tree at the Lambert home on Churchill Street in West Palm Beach has been erected.

Its lights gleam, and its star has been affixed. But, on Dec. 12, no gifts had yet been stashed beneath its bare green branches.

That's not because the Lamberts are holiday slackers. No, it's because of the wiggling, smiling gift Christina Lambert held in her arms.

Brianna Rene Lambert, all of eight months old, is the answer to a prayer, the end of one journey and the beginning of another.

She is proof that forming a family sometimes requires a fight.

Infertility: A common problem that can sometimes wreck a marriage

If eight couples of child-bearing age sat at a holiday banquet in the United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures show one would be wrestling with a problem that can wreck a marriage — infertility.

For couples where the woman is between the ages of 30 and 39, infertility dogs one in five.

Infertility has many causes, and each couple's journey on that road is different.

To combat the silent stigma attached to infertility, to give women and couples hope, the Lamberts decided to share their journey.

Over several hours in their small but well-appointed home, they relayed — in personal and even intimate detail — how they went from where they were to where they are today.

Their journey underscores that community prominence — she is a West Palm Beach City Commission member and an executive administrative officer at a law firm, and he is a senior business development manager for an engineering design firm — is no shield against the financial pressure or the physical and emotional pain of infertility.

Biology is immutable and indiscriminate.

A baby? 'I always felt that there was time'

Christina D'Elosua met Monte Lambert in 2011 at a Palm Beach County leadership conference. Both had previously been married and were single again.

They had very different backgrounds. She grew up in Brevard County space country; he was raised on a cattle ranch in Montana. But they had mutual interests — volunteering, fitness, cycling, CrossFit.

There was a big age gap. She was 32, and he was 51. His first marriage had brought him a son. Christina had no children but wanted them.

"Many," she said.

Someday, of course, they'd come. Why wouldn't they?

"My sister is having kids," Christina said. "My brother is having kids. I never felt pressure. I was advancing in my career. I always felt that there was time."

Things between Monte and Christina got serious quickly, though she tried to tap the breaks, telling him that she wanted to be friends.

Monte eventually decided he wasn't up for that bit of torture.

"I told her I couldn't just be friends," he said. "I fell for her before she fell for me."

But fall she did, and the two were married in 2013.

Monte had had a vasectomy during his first marriage and underwent a painful procedure to reverse it when the marriage ended, figuring he might meet a woman who wanted to have a family with him.

Too many years had passed, however, and the reversal didn't work. Christina didn't head for the exits.

"When he told me that, I saw that as an opportunity to look at adoption," she said.

Monte was touched by her determination to stick together.

"She said, 'I never, ever held that against you,'" he said.

Rather than go immediately to adoption, though, the couple first tried a sperm donor.

For many men, the prospect of another man's sperm fertilizing his wife's egg — and then raising the resulting child — is emasculating.

Christina learned that Monte isn't like those men.

"He's amazing," she said. "He said fathers always have to choose to be a father. Mothers give birth. But fathers have to choose. He was very open whether it was going to be sperm donor or adoption."

The Lamberts decided to give sperm donation a try.

They could learn little of the biological father's characteristics.

"We went to a database," Christina said. "We saw pictures of what they looked like as children. It's a very sterile process. It's not fun."

The couple had decided Christina would undergo intrauterine insemination or IUI, a process where sperm is injected directly into a woman's uterus to boost the chances of conception. She'd take vitamins, get hormone shots and undergo insemination at a precise moment of her ovulation.

But after multiple attempts — and multiple waits to see if Christina would become pregnant — the Lamberts learned they couldn't conceive that way.

"The doctor told us we don't have a good shot because of my age," she said. "I was thinking, 'No, I'm going to get pregnant.' I was thinking it would work. I was shocked when it didn't."

The experience left Christina dispirited.

"You feel embarrassed, that you don't have anybody to talk to, that nobody else would understand what I'm going through," she said.

Adoption hopes rise and fall

Back to square one: adoption.

The Lamberts liked the idea that adopting wouldn't just help them.

"Adoption would help someone in the community," Christina said.

The Lamberts told their extensive, well-connected group of friends that they were interested in adoption.

But the more the couple looked into adoption, the more distasteful it seemed.

With a price tag that can easily reach $65,000 in Florida, adoption seemed like an insider's money machine for lawyers, agencies and counselors.

"I was turned off by the whole cost of the adoption," Monte said.

Still, Monte and Christina decided to press ahead. Initially, things looked good.

"Two or three different times, we got matched just from our connections," Christina said.

One possibility, which the Lamberts learned about from a friend on a couples game night, was particularly promising.

The Lamberts learned of a pregnant young woman who planned to give her baby up for adoption. Christina met the mother, and the two quickly formed a bond.

"She introduced me to her doctors as the baby's mom," Christina said. "She said, 'I'm just carrying this for her.'"

The Lamberts' excitement and anticipation grew as the young woman's pregnancy advanced.

Then, a television report detailing possible perils of adoption changed everything. The birth mother had relatives urging her not to move forward.

A week before the baby was due, the young woman changed her mind.

Calls and text messages from the Lamberts went unreturned.

"She went radio silent on us," Christina said. "I was devastated. Crushed."

Said Monte: "We thought we had a baby."

It took a while to recover from that disappointment, but a social media post from a friend spurred the Lamberts to try again.

The friend posted that her stepsister in St. Lucia was pregnant but couldn't afford to keep the baby.

St. Lucia is a majority-Black nation, and the pregnant woman and her baby were Black.

"Race was never a factor for us," Monte said, looking at Christina. "I'm white; she's Hispanic. Why not have a Black baby?"

The couple dug in, learned what they could about St. Lucia and, again, saw their excitement soar.

The birth mother, already a mother to other young children, was struggling financially, so the Lamberts offered assistance, sending money, family supplies, baby formula, toilet tissue. A friend collected items from her neighbors and sent that, too.

But as the Lamberts learned more about what it would take to adopt a child from St. Lucia, they decided they couldn't go forward. They were already paying for a local attorney, but St. Lucia law required them to hire an attorney there. And they couldn't adopt unless they bought and held land in the country for six months.

"That was the clincher," Christina said.

Again, devastation. The first failed adoption attempt had wrecked Christina. This one did a number on Monte.

"That one sucked worse than the first," he said. "There was the need. There was the desire."

He shook his head, and his voice trailed off.

One final attempt at adoption came later, when an executive for a non-profit that helps single mothers reached out to tell the Lamberts that a young woman she worked with was expecting and planned to have the child adopted.

The Lamberts met the mother and looked to explore moving forward. That adoption wasn't to be, either.

"We met the mom," Christina said. "We didn't hear back."

An election and IVF

By now, the Lamberts were out tens of thousands of dollars and had only disappointment to show for their efforts. Their marriage was holding firm under the stress, but it was difficult, particularly in those moments when Christina thought Monte wasn't as invested as she was.

"There were times when it was stressful," he said. "Christina is a get-s*** done person."

Her message to him was firm and direct. "Get involved," Monte recalled. "Get in this."

Said Christina: "The stress would build up for me, and, unfortunately, Monte would bear the brunt of it."

Even as she and Monte battled to start a family, Christina took on a new fight: one for elective office.

In 2018, she challenged and defeated an incumbent, Shannon Materio, to win a spot on the West Palm Beach City Commission.

Lambert had run on a promise to bring a "fresh perspective" to the commission. In some conversations with women during the campaign, she shared the challenges she and Monte were facing as they sought to start a family.

"I'm an open book," Christina said. "I tell people. I would tell people what I'm going through. You wouldn't believe how many women shared with me what they were going through."

Soured on adoption, the Lamberts decided to try in vitro fertilization (IVF), a process where a woman's eggs are removed from her body, fertilized with sperm in a laboratory and returned to the woman's womb.

This time, doctors laid out a rigorous plan for Christina. She spent six months improving her health, lost 20 pounds, took hormone shots and vitamins and even saw a fertility acupuncturist.

"It was to open the fallopian tubes and make my body ready," Christina said.

But each passing year had sapped Christina's fertility.

"Each time they harvested the eggs and waited for them to fertilize, they didn't," she said.

Finally, as the couple was cleaning and reorganizing Christina's office, she got a call from her doctor.

"He sounded sad," she said. "He said, 'I know this is devastating news, and I'm so sorry to have to deliver it to you. I don't recommend you continue."

Said Monte: "That was a dark moment for sure."

Christina was numb.

"I remember sitting on the floor, almost too devastated to cry, just defeated," she said. "I lost the weight. I took the vitamins and acupuncture, and it still didn't work."

A fateful phone call

The Lamberts turned to a different path that could enable them to love and help children. They'd become foster parents.

They threw themselves into it, changing the bed in their guestroom from a queen to a twin and undergoing foster care training.

Halfway through the training, Christina got a call. The voice was familiar; it was the woman from the non-profit who works with single moms.

"She said, 'Christina, I haven't forgotten about you and Monte. I think you'd be excellent parents. Are you still looking to adopt?'"

Christina's answer was instant.

"Yes," she said. "Immediately, yes, without even asking Monte. I didn't know, but I didn't want to turn away an opportunity. Monte was a little more reluctant."

The woman said one of the mothers she works with was expecting. Christina spoke to the birth mother and connected. They exchanged telephone numbers.

The birth mother seemed to be on board.

"She said, 'Yes, I like you all. I would like for you to be the adoptive parents,'" Christina said.

On Mother's Day, the birth mother texted Christina.

"Happy Mother's Day," the text read. "You're going to be a mom."

Christina was, again, on a precipice of hope, wanting to fall, but scared of the potential impact. Other falls had hurt, badly.

On April 15, a baby girl was born at St. Mary's Medical Center. She was six weeks premature and weighed four pounds and 11 ounces.

Unlike in past adoption attempts, Christina hadn't immediately assumed it would work. She and Monte needed to hire a lawyer.

When they did, they suspected the attorney had already been working with the hospital and the birth mother, who didn't have a stable home or finances.

They set up a 4 p.m. meeting with the birth mother at a local restaurant. The birth mother was two hours late, then three, then four.

The Lamberts waited until 10 p.m. at the restaurant. The birth mother never arrived.

"I'm trying to believe her that she meant everything that she texted me," Christina said. "We left. I didn't know if this would work. I was protecting my heart the whole time."

But there was no clear indication things would not work. The Lamberts were encouraged to meet the birth mother and get all of the paperwork in order. And Christina was encouraged to visit the baby in the hospital.

She was hesitant.

"I wasn't sure," Christina said. "I knew if I met the baby, I would fall in love. I would want that baby."

The Lamberts did meet the baby in the hospital.

"She was perfect," Christina said. "We both got to hold her and feed her. And, of course, we fell in love."

The Lamberts and their attorney set up another meeting with the birth mother, who again did not show up.

Now, a deadline loomed. As the baby got healthier and stronger, she moved closer to a release date. With no one to release the baby to, she would be released into the custody of the state Department of Children and Families (DCF).

Christina was visiting the baby every opportunity she could, going from work to the hospital, then going home to walk the dogs and eat dinner and then returning to the hospital, where she would stay until midnight.

The Lamberts didn't know how much to press the birth mother to meet so they could move forward with the adoption, but, with the prospect of release to DCF on the horizon, Christina decided to reach out.

She texted the birth mother, telling her she understood how hard it must be to give up your baby and assuring her that she and Monte would love the little girl with every fiber of their being.

The birth mom immediately responded. From there, the process advanced.

The Lamberts, their lawyer, the birth mother and father, a social worker and a court reporter all worked for three hours to get the paperwork signed at a restaurant.

"We took over a section of the restaurant," Christina said. "It was emotional. The birth mom came over to me halfway through, and she was crying. She said, 'I know you all will be great parents to her.'"

After the paperwork was signed, the Lamberts went back to the hospital, which had news for them.

"They told me, 'Get ready, you're going to take her home tomorrow.'"

On Nov. 13, during a final adoption hearing, Monte and Christina Lambert formally became parents.

Christina knew what she wanted to name the baby: Brianna Rene. Anna is the first name of the baby's birth mother, and Rene is Christina's middle name.

Brianna would forever carry something of the woman who bore her and the woman who would raise her. The adoption is open, meaning the Lamberts can share updates on Brianna with her birth parents.

Any day now, the formal birth certificate will arrive by mail to the Lambert home on Churchill Road.

It'll be a happy moment for the Lamberts, who have so many of those now.

As Brianna fidgets and begins to cry, Christina coos to her and kisses her before laying her down to sleep.

"I really believe that, if you want to have a family and are open to any way that family can be formed, it will happen," she said. "It just might not happen in the time and manner that you've planned."

The house is quiet. Monte has left to run an errand.

Is this holiday season extra special? Christina is asked.

She is quiet for a long moment. Light from the kitchen makes her eyes sparkle.

"Every day is so special to us," she said. "Every day is amazing with her."

Wayne Washington is a journalist covering West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and race relations at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Commissioner, spouse overcome infertility, adoption disappointments