Why Adopt

   The decision to adopt is a very personal one and not to be taken lightly.  We came to that decision after years of infertility.  We had talked about having kids before we married.    I knew from a very young age I was meant to be a mom.  Still we waited a couple years after we married before we tried to start our family.  When I threw that last package of birth control away, I remember thinking I was only a matter of weeks or months before I finally saw that positive test.
  It has been nearly six years now and I never saw that positive test.  I had always said I wanted to have at least 2 kids and be finished by the age of 40.  Yet here I am, one month past my 40th birthday still childless.
   The decision to adopt was not an easy one.  Our latest round of fertility treatments had failed, and we were putting our pursuit of further treatments on pause while I studied worked on the licensing requirements of my new job.  As we faced the ever increasing cost of treatments we came to a
realization, we could continue our pursuit of a biological child or we could adopted.  We could not afford to pursue both and at our age, time is not on our side.  It came down to one question: Which is more important to have a biological child or to be a parent?

   We came to the conclusion that parenting a child is more important to us than passing on our genes.  I still grieve for the child that would have looked a little like me and a little like him, but I will love our adopted child just as much.  For the first time in a long time I have hope and I look forward to meeting my child.