Verb VS Adjective...

Just a couple of things... & indulge me here just a bit as I am likely to get on a little bit of a soap box. We all have our topics that we like to discuss & for obvious reasons this is one of mine. I just think if you have personal experience with a topic & you feel you have something relevant to share on the subject that might enlighten others that you should go for it. However, I don't want to be misunderstood that I am preaching here or upset...as I know that everyone most generally means well, but I just chose to take this time & forum to just put some of my thoughts out here on a topic that is so personal to me.

It was recently suggested by a dear friend that we should not give up hope on trying for "your own" baby. I just want to make it very clear that I know that what she meant to say was a biological child. I also want to make it clear that Emma would have been & Mia will certainly be "our own" baby, just not our biological children. I know that everyone knows that & that is what is usually meant when someone says "your own" (biological), but I just wanted to say that adopted is a verb, not an adjective. Adoption is a way to grow a family. It describes the way that a child comes to be in a family, but is not a descriptive word that should ever be used to describe a child. It is kind of like a vaginal delivery or c-section. No one goes around saying "this is my vaginal delivery daughter" anymore than anyone should be saying, "this is my adopted daughter." They are just your children period; your own children, irregardless of how they came to be your son/daughter & you their parents. I just feel better having said this as it is something that is important for all of us to help each other to be mindful of. Sometimes I have heard people speak of families when talking about the children & they will say, "their daughter is adopted". That is an incorrect statement. The correct statement would be "their daughter WAS adopted." Again, the word should be a verb, NOT an adjective. Thomas & I tried to have biological children as you know, but adoption wasn't necessarily our second choice. We never looked at Emma & won't look at Mia as a consolation child or a second choice. We just want to grow our family, whether that be through birthing a biological baby or adopting a son or daughter, it matters not to us. Our only goal is to be parents, to grow our family. Our goal isn't to become pregnant or to adopt & adopting internationally or domestically matters not either. Being 35 we still have some time I suppose to explore our options for a bio pregnancy. However, the odds are no doubt against us. Just as a reminder, I have PCOS, Stage 4 Endo, a hydrosalpinx & use to have Insulin Resistance (corrected after losing 80 pounds), plus I am 35...so, although not impossible, certainly I have some things working against my odds. Thomas has no male factors, so that is a plus. Also, our insurance although good in every other aspect offers ZERO coverage for anything related to Infertility. Yep, ZERO!! So, if we did do InVitro it will be @ $14,000.00 here in Missouri at our physician out of the gate cash money up front. We for a long time thought that adoption was very much more a sure thing than InVitro would be. We contemplated which process to pay for that would in the end get us to our goal of growing our family. We thought that adoption was the clear choice, that we would in the end have our babies sooner & more safely than by doing InVitro. Yep, that is what we thought. We have since come to see that isn't always the case. We know a lot of families who have done InVitro, both successfully & unsuccessfully. Some have done a mixture of fresh & frozen transfers; a total of between 6-10 times & out of those attempts have 1-3 beautiful, precious children. Ofcourse, they would do that again, it worked for them & for that I am so glad, but will it work for us? How many times can we financially afford to try with no insurance coverage & also having gone through two failed domestic placements that were very costly in the last sixteen months, plus having our International Adoption in process as well. All, very costly. Not complaining about the money....we have a very clear understanding that we are paying for the process, NOT THE CHILD! It is just a little more difficult to think about the money spent when in the end we have come home twice without our babies.

So, that is my soap box for the day. If I just enlightened one person, changed the vocabulary of one individual my time here today was well spent!

Have a great day! It is suppose to be 75 degrees here. I am hoping to get out in the garden this afternoon to get it rolling for this season.

Jen