The story of Adoption

I figured that since I have a story of me (IF & m/c), the story of my son, and the story of my house, that I should also have the story of why we are adopting. I know you can figure it out if you read "The story of Me", but here it is in it's own blog entry.

I have a son who is 14 yrs old, got pregnant as a teen with him (I was 19). So, when I got married when my son was 11, we knew we would add additional children to the mix.

What we did not expect was to have trouble trying to get pregnant.

We tried on our own for over a year before seeing a specialist. From Jan - Aug we did 3 IUI cycles. All of those IUIs resulted in pregnancy. Sadly, all ended in M/C.

After the second m/c, we spoke about adoption. We talked for a long time about why we wanted children. After a while, we realized that none of them had anything to do with giving birth to a child. My husband thought is was a little pre-mature to think about adoption at this point. Afterall, I did get pregnant twice.

After m/c #3, we were given the news that our only option was IVF with PGD (they test the embryos before they are transfered back to make sure they have a correct chromosome make-up). And since one m/c for sure was due to chromosome problems and the likehood that the other 2 were as well, there is a HIGH chance that we would have no good embryos at all.

Plus, this procedure would cost us almost $10K, that is after the insurance. We live on a modest income, in a modest house, and live a modest lifestyle. We do not have tens of thousands of dollars just laying around.

So, we spoke about everything and we agreed that we would start the process of adoption (through foster care). But, we also said that IVF is not totally out of the question. But, the more we got into the process, the less I felt the need to do the IVF.

At first I felt horrible because my husband would probably never have a bio child and I already have one. He has assured me that it does not bother him. My son is not his and he treats him like his own.

I have positive experience with the foster care system, so I always knew that if it ever came to that, adoption through foster care would be our first option. Plus, if we don't have $10K for IVF, we would never have the $$ for private/agency/international adoption. Adoption through foster care cost little or no money.

We submitted our application on October 27, 2008 and we started our required training on November 3, 2008. The class will be done before Thanksgiving. In addition to the class, there is background checks, financial checks, home inspection, reference checks, etc, etc, etc.

So, in a nutshell, that is the Story of why we are adopting. I might add to this post as time passes and updates are needed