Monday, November 15, 2010

One more time, from the top


This cute, LOLdog photo pretty much sums up how I'm feeling right now.  So, remember a few posts back when I said that we were doing IVF because we knew we would love a REAL child way more than those adopted things we have running around?

Yeah, you don't remember that because I never wrote it.  Or said it.  Or thought it.

But here we are, day 6 of Lupron shots and I've already received my first insensitive comment.  This gem comes to us from someone who shall remain nameless, doesn't read this blog and is a friend of the family.  Something along the lines of, "I'm just concerned that she's risking the relationship she has with the boys, because it's going to be different when she has one of her own." 

Give me a minute...must count to ten so that I don't kick the nearest cat.

I don't really even know where to begin with tackling this one.  I guess I'll start by quoting myself from an earlier blog post:

When I got my Happy Fun Time Box (it's what I'm calling the box o' needles...just go with it) in the mail, I sat the boys down and had a heart-to-heart with them.  I wanted them to know that I am so lucky to have them as my sons and that I am so grateful their birthmoms chose J and I to be their parents.  I told them that we weren't doing IVF because we want a baby that looks like us or that shares our blood or because we think we'd love a bio-kid more than we love them.  I told them that we wanted to experience pregnancy and that I wanted us to experience that as a family.  I want the boys to go in and hear #3's heart beat, come with me to an ultrasound, feel my kicking belly and come visit us in the hospital when #3 arrives.  I really tried to stress that we didn't care how we got to be parents again, because blood doesn't equal family, love does.

I'd also like to add that the cost of IVF/ICSI has come down, considerably, and we are in a program where we get four tries for half of what we paid for Andy's adoption fees.  (And just so I'm not misquoted anywhere, I said "paid for adoption fees" not, "paid for Andy".)  Not only would I very much like to experience a pregnancy, labor and delivery, but it's cheaper.  Momma is going to need a mini-van for her child-army, afterall.

Next, I'd like to take on the whole "real child" thing.  Aside from the fact that it implies that adopted children are somehow mystical, magical, imaginary beings, it implies that they are not as part of the family, therefore not as loved, as biological children.  Put it to you this way: If it were possible to love a child more than I love my boys, the universe would implode upon itself. 

To quote the legendary Stevie Wonder, I will love another child more than I love my boys "the day the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea, the day that 8 x 8 x 8 is 4, the day that is the day there are no more, the day the earth starts turning right to left, the day dear Mother Nature says her work is through, the day that you are me and I am you."

And last, the idea that I'm someone who could love a child of my womb more than a child of my heart is just downright insulting.

I need to go kick a cat, now.

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