That was my favorite "Kids Say the Darndest Things"-esque line from my youth. It's so cute, I really wish I had said it, but alas, that phrase came out of the precocious mouth of my little sister Jacqueline. Well, that and "the cars can't hit us Mom, we're Presbyterians, we have the right'away." Gosh she was so cute.
Anyway, back to the reason that the truth keeps changing. Circumstances keep changing, so in like fashion, our options keep changing too. It's really complicated, and I wish there was a way that I could explain it better without sounding like a 5 year old who is defiantly stomping her feet because she can't have everything go her way. The short version is this... at the core of this whole process is a burning desire to have another daughter. Don't get me wrong, if we were to go forward and get pregnant, and found out we were having a boy, we would be ecstatic! However, the motive behind the pregnancy pipedream is to try for another girl. Let me say this again, we would be over the moon to have another boy, but our motivation is and has been the potential of bringing home a little girl.
That's one of the reasons that we have been considering a reversal, so if we have another son, that we could give it another go without the aid of the fertility clinic. You know, I really hate admitting that we want to have one gender over another. It seems so stupid, you know? A baby is a blessing, whether is comes with all the optional attachments or not. I feel like I'm being whiny and horrible. But I can't make that little tug I feel in my heart every time I see a baby girl snuggle with her daddy, or pass the Christmas dresses at the department store go away, no matter how hard I try. And trust me, I've tried. And so our truth keeps changing. Reversal? IUI? Adoption? It just keeps changing. What are we going to do?! I'm so conflicted right now.
Adoption has always been something that we've wanted to do, but it is definitely a labor intensive avenue to becoming a parent. It takes years, home studies, and many many more colorful and complicated hoops to jump through. We thought of fostering to adopt, because it would be wonderful to give a good life to a child who may otherwise be in the system. And the thing is, we don't care if she's black, white, blue, or purple as long as she's ours.
The most ideal adoption situation would be international, but it's so expensive, it requires a lot of travel, and most countries will not adopt children to us because of our current family size. Most have limits set on the number of biological children a couple have, as well as income requirements, travel requirements, age limits, housing requirements, and honestly, the list goes on and on. It's very hard to meet every criteria that is necessary to adopt internationally. But open domestic adoption has Tony and I split. Tony takes issue with birth parents. It's horrible, I know. But he has so much antimosity built up against open adoption. He has a stigma for birth parents too. He just feels like they're abandoning a child. He doesn't see adoption as a gift to their child, and the adoptive parents like I do. He wouldn't want a child knowing that it was adopted, and well that's an issue right there. Private adoption has really fallen out of fashion. his biggest fear is that an adopted child will look at him one day and say "You're not my father." Or worse, that she will turn 18 and track down her birth parents and forget all about us... like the grass would be greener.
I'm at a loss right now. Which is the right way? I swear I put all of this stress on myself. It's really unnecessary, but what do you do? I'm a complicated person and I tend to find myself in complicated situations. Mostly because I put myself there. I guess it's just one more thing that I will put in the Lord's hands. I've been doing that a lot lately.
For now, I have to take a stress break... Parent/Teacher conferences in an hour. Time to find out how the monsters have been doing. My little geniuses.
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