Road to Adoption

November is Adoption Awareness month. I thought I would start the "awareness" by telling you why we decided to adopt. The short story is bad eggs combined with endometriosis.  Marlon hates when I say, "bad eggs". The long story story is...

We were married young and some people assumed we already had a bun in the oven, but no, we were just in love.  We spent most of the first 10 years of our marriage not really thinking about having kids. We just assumed we would one day. We travelled, had fun with friends and enjoyed being together.  We'd start to try to have a family when we were 30.  

Well, that didn't work out.  After two surgeries and years at the fertility clinic, it was time to make a decision.  Anyone that has endured infertility treatments knows how daunting it is.  The appointments, the shots, the anticipation and the depression for years can kill the most positive person's outlook.  We didn't really talk about it with our friends and family.  In some ways, it felt shameful and way to bring down the room.  So we'd mention things casually, while crying at night. As the years passed, friends and family had kids and it became more difficult to to keep that happy face charade.

I started thinking a lot about adoption, long before Marlon did. I talked to our doctor about other options we had to have a baby. Frankly, I was emotionally and physically drained from the infertility process. There are options - surrogacy, donated eggs, embryo adoption and adoption. I am not much of a gambler and I knew I wanted a sure thing - adoption.  Pregnancy is a delicate progress (though some people can can just pop those babies out) and for me I didn't want to take the risk of going through all that emotion and expense and a baby might not be the end result.  I was tired of the roller coaster and with adoption, I knew the end result.  Marlon and I started talking about adoption.  It took a long time from talking about it to actually signing with an agency.  It may sound weird, but it is important to take some time to grieve the biological children that you'll never have and open your heart to adopting.

After a lot of reflection and research, adoption seemed like a natural fit for us. We've never been very conventional, so why start now? Most adoption agencies have free educational seminars, we attended every one in NYC.  We went with our gut when choosing an agency.  

Marlon and I have now been waiting for a little over a year for a newborn.  Some people find the wait incredibly difficult, but I feel like the wait is giving me chance to better understand adoption. Sometimes the wait gets to me, but I truly believe when it's meant to be, it will be.  It's easy to face the tough days together.

Why did we choose adoption?  We want to have a family. We want to be mom and dad.  Adopting a child, our child, will fulfill this longing.  This kid is already loved so much. We are just waiting for our baby to get here.  For us, it is a no brainer. Through the looking glass, we go.