Wednesday, January 12, 2011

How To Complete A Family???

Ryan and I are getting ready for some changes in our lives. Before you get too curious, let me say... no we are not pregnant and no we aren't planning on adopting any time soon. But we are getting ready for Ryan to be done with school in late June/early July. And after that happens we are planning on finally moving! Until he has a full-time job, we do not know where we'll be moving. But we're pretty much up for anywhere (hopefully not Utah).

One thing we have said since we adopted the boys was that we couldn't fit another child in our home, so we'd have to wait until we moved to complete our family. Now that we have actual plans in place for when we'll be moving, I can't help but start daydreaming about adding to our family. In my mind, we have 3 options. Fertility treatments, private adoption or foster to adopt. All are scary, time consuming and possibly expensive. I was talking with Ryan the other night about this and we had an interesting conversation. One I wasn't quite expecting... and honestly made me a little sad. When talking about these 3 options I brought up that I was looking at costs at a local fertility clinic. Then I looked at his expression and asked him if he was even interested in pursuing adding to our family through fertility. He very honestly shook his head that he did not. I had known that it was not his first choice, but I did not know that he didn't really want to consider it as an option. I can totally understand why. It is the hardest thing as a couple that we have had to do. It sent both of us on an emotional roller coaster every single month. It was very costly and sent me into a pretty bad depression until we stopped treatments and decided to adopt. It consumed me. And even though I have no desire to go through all of that again, I really wanted to experience being pregnant one more time. When I was pregnant with Alex, I loved it! It was an amazing, beautiful experience for me. And I never imagined it would be the only time I'd get that experience. Now I know that miracles happen and one day it might happen naturally, without medications. But that conversation left me a little sad about closing that door completely.

With all of that being said, please do not get the impression that I wouldn't be thrilled to adopt again. I loved everything about the adoption of boys (minus the cost maybe)! I would feel honored and humbled to have that experience again. We are considering private adoption (although the time wait on it is not ideal at all) and foster to adopt. Once we move, we'll probably start pursuing it with more intensity. For now, I will dream about our future children and hope that we don't have to wait too long.

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