Way Back When: The Journey Through Infertility

Although I haven’t been blogging for long, I have always loved writing. One of the reasons I wanted to start this blog was to have a place to collect the things I write about, past, present, and future. With that in mind, I’m going to share some of the essays that I wrote before I started this blog.

This one is about infertility and loss. Some people may think it’s too personal of an essay to share, but I would quietly disagree. Too many people are affected by infertility, pregnancy loss, and just loss in general. And yet we talk about it too little.

I wrote this essay way back in 2004, right after I lost my mom and less than a year before we adopted Joseph. Although it was not a hard decision for us to choose to adopt (I had always dreamed of adopting at least one of my children and Anders and both thought it silly to waste time and emotional energy on treatment for infertility when there were so many children who needed homes), it *was* extraordinarily hard to come to terms with the fact that I might not also get to carry and give birth to a child.

I know now that things unfolded exactly as they were meant to. I wouldn’t change a thing, even if it meant experiencing every single broken heart all over again. Without a doubt, this is the family I was meant to have and it brings tears to my eyes to envision a world without my Joseph in it. And yet. The grief I experienced way back then was real, and grueling, and pervasive. To ignore or deny that would be to discredit the pain of all those who continue to struggle on their journey to parenthood. With that in mind, here’s what I had to say back then:

I have read the impact of infertility can be compared to losing a loved one. When I first read this, I thought it was a hyperbole; that infertility could never bring as much pain as losing someone you love with all your heart. I was wrong. I know, because in the past year, I lost my 53 year old mom to cancer and, in the same year, have realized that my dreams of conceiving a child will likely never be realized.

To those who have never experienced the emotions of infertility, it may be hard to see the comparison. It became crystal clear to me one night as I was sitting at a football game, surrounded by a new mom and an expectant mom. The game was spent reveling in the miracle of childbirth, chatting about where the best place to give birth might be, comparing the best buys for strollers and baby gates.

To many, this may not seem like a hard situation. For me, it was tough.

I was at the beginning of a new treatment cycle, and was still working through the fact that my last attempt to conceive a child, like the thirty before it, had not worked. With only one treatment cycle to go before we officially stopped trying to conceive, I was in mourning. Mourning for the little baby that I had always dreamed of growing inside me. Mourning for the infant that would have had my husband's eyes and my nose. Mourning the feeling of a tiny newborn, one that I had helped create, sleeping in my arms.

If it is still hard to imagine how difficult this situation might be, maybe I can compare it to losing my mom. Except, instead of the huge outpouring of love and support I got when I lost my mom, imagine if nobody acknowledged her death. Imagine that every day was Mother's Day, and everywhere I turned, someone was talking about what he was going to buy his mom. Imagine that I was sitting at that football game, a few days after my mom died, and my two friends spent the entire game talking about their moms; what they were going to do with their moms the next day, how much joy their moms brought to their life, how they couldn't imagine their lives without their moms. Tough situation, right? That's what infertility is like.

When I lost my mom, I couldn't imagine how life could go on. I had so many dreams for our future together. My mom taught me everything I know about life, and I needed her desperately for all I had yet to learn. As time passes, I am slowly learning that life does go on; that there is happiness here. It's not a bad life...it’s just a different one than I had imagined.

Grieving a loved one is a process of sorting through all your hopes for the future, and slowly untangling that person from those dreams. In the same way, experiencing infertility requires a slow release of the dreams that you had of conceiving, carrying, and giving birth to a child. It doesn't mean you can't have a child. It just means that you may have to untangle your hopes of conceiving from your dreams of being a parent.

As my husband and I let go of our plans to conceive a child, we are pulled in the direction of adoption. I can't help but feel that my son or daughter is out there, waiting patiently for us to help him or her find the way home.

Infertility *is* losing someone you love. I have loved my unborn biological child for as long as I can remember. It is heart-breaking that I will never get to meet her. But mourning also requires moving past the "should be" and learning to live in "what is". Should I get to have my mom as my guide for many more years to come? Yes. Should she have gotten to meet her grandchildren? Absolutely. Should I be able to experience the wonder of a child growing inside of me? You bet. But there is no "should be". Grieving is a process of letting go of the "should bes" to make room for what is.

There are good things here, too. I am a much stronger person than I was a year ago. I have learned the value of my amazing husband, my beautiful friends, and my supportive family. I see with amazing clarity how precious life truly is. I have very little fear left, for the things I feared the most are coming true, and I am still standing. My compassion for those who are suffering has deepened, and I am no longer afraid to comfort them. I have patience for the small trials we go through each day, because I know how hard life can be. I can see God's fingerprints everywhere. I have met many angels in my journey, most them disguised as people here on earth. I am grateful for the truths that have been revealed to me.


Yet, through it all, I grieve.

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning."

-- Louis L'Amour

This Is What Democracy Looks Like

It began very quietly, in my home, last week.

My husband, Anders, came home from his job as a high school teacher and told me that we needed to prepare to take a $400-$600 cut in his monthly take-home pay. He explained that our governor, Scott Walker, was about to introduce a (now infamous) budget repair bill that would call for a sudden and drastic increase in the amount of money public employees were required to pay into pensions and health insurance. At the same time, the bill would prevent public employees from getting raises no greater than the percentage change in the consumer price index, unless approved by referendum. Essentially, there would be no way to offset the cut in pay that would result from the increased contributions.

We spent the next few days working through the implications of this bill for our little family of four. We tossed around various ways to make cuts to our tight budget, only to discover that we were already doing most of the things recommended for living on less. For about 48 hours, we pretended we didn't already know what was weighing most heavily on our minds: if this bill passed, we would have to put our adoption plans on hold. This may sound trite, but just that morning I'd felt the rush of love felt by all moms when they envision holding their new baby in their arms for the first time. My mind had already wrapped itself around the dream of another baby. When we finally said the words out loud--when we finally admitted to ourselves that, short of moving out of our modest home, there would be no way to sustain the cut in pay and still manage the cost of daycare for another child--it brought me to tears.

As much as the personal implications of the bill broke my own heart, I knew that the repercussions for many public employees would be even greater. Sure enough, as the story of the bill began to leak into the news, families all across Wisconsin reeled from the potential ramifications. Public employees talked of losing their cars... their houses...their plans for the future on which so many of their dreams had been built.

Predictably, supporters of the bill began pushing back, explaining that Wisconsin was broke and that it was time for public employees to give back. This, despite the fact that, even when hours worked are controlled for, Wisconsin's public employees with a college degree already make 25% less than than those with equivalent degrees in the private sector and that these public employees have continually accepted stagnant wages in exchange for the very benefits and pensions for which they were now being asked to pay more. This, despite the fact that so many teachers have already given so much of themselves in unpaid time and self-bought supplies and emotional energy that the call to "start" giving back rang rather hollow.

Underneath the talk of pensions and unemployment, though, other issues had started to simmer. As people began to read the bill, they realized with alarm that public employees weren't the only target. Buried deep within the bill were "emergency rule" provisions to hand control of Medicaid over the Governor and his team, without ensuring that changes to the program would pass through the normal legislative processes, or be presented for public input, or follow the typical laws. If the bill passed, Walker and his administration (including his pick for secretary of Health and Human Services, who had previously been known to recommend dropping states from the Medicaid program completely), would have unilateral control to restrict eligibility, increase premiums, modify benefits, or revise reimbursements to doctors and hospitals.

There was more, though. More than the unemployment and the pension contributions. More than the stagnant wages. More than the potential gutting of Medicaid. More than all of this, surrounding and pushing through and rising above all of this was the component of the bill that stripped public employees of their right to collectively bargain around more than than wages. It was around this issue of collective bargaining that the ground began to swell as people started to comprehend the enormity of what was truly at stake.

To understand the depth of the implications of the provisions that would eliminate collective bargaining, one must step back to the late 1800s. Today's opponents of unions talk of bottom feeders and con artists. They argue that unions protect crappy workers, make labor too expensive, and hurt the market. This short-sighted perspective, however, comes at the luxury of a system that now accepts for everyone the very things that labor unions once had to fight for on their own.

If we rewind history just a bit, to the late 1800s, we find the topography of the work world drastically different. Andrew Leonard, a writer at salon.com, paints a picture of this world for us; as he does, we are suddenly in a courtroom with a lawyer, Clarence Darrow, who has been called to passionately defend three woodworkers from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The woodworkers were charged with conspiracy against their workplace because they had gone on strike to object to their employer's use of child labor and to advocate for a weekly payday (yes, that means that they had no guarantee of even getting paid for their work). In his closing argument, Darrow argued that he was not fighting for the men he was representing but was instead fighting a bigger battle for the sake of broader humanity:

I appeal to you, gentlemen, not for Thomas I. Kidd, but I appeal to you for the long line -- the long, long line reaching back through the ages, and forward to the years to come -- the long line of despoiled and downtrodden people of the earth. I appeal to you for those men who rise in the morning before daylight comes, and who go home at night when the light has faded from the sky and give their life, their strength, their toil, to make others rich and great. I appeal to you in the name of those women who are offering up their lives, their strength and their womanhood on the altar of this modern god of gold; and I appeal to you, gentlemen, in the name of these little children, the living and the unborn, who will look at your names and bless them for the verdict you will render in their aid.

 

Gentlemen, the world is dark; but it is not hopeless...

This, then, is what people in Wisconsin began to understand. The world before unions was not a pretty place. It was a world in which those who had money were able to exploit those who did not and discard them at their convenience. The world back then belonged to the rich and there was no one to protect the poor. Unions allowed workers to join their collective voices together and stand up to the power of money. Over time, unions fought to establish 40 hour work weeks and weekends and overtime and fair wages and health care and workman's compensation and child labor laws and safe workplaces. As these elements of fair workplaces were established in jobs with unions, those same elements came to be expected in jobs without unions as well. Soon, these things became the norm for every worker. And we all forgot about the world that existed before the common worker was allowed to stand up for himself.

As Wisconsin began to realize the true repercussions of the bill that Governor Walker had asked us to accept, the voices that had begun quietly and in isolation began to join together and grow louder. People began to gather in Madison and voice their opposition. They began to call each other and post on Facebook and write blogs and spur others to join in the action. They began to stand up for themselves.

Still, though, it appeared that the bill was going to pass. Wisconsin's Senate and Assembly are currently controlled by Republicans, many of whom were prepared to walk in lockstep with Governor Walker on the bill. Because the bill had been scheduled for a vote just six short days after it had been proposed, the public had not had the time to adequately voice their dissent to the few Republicans who might have been open to listening.

The vote in the Senate was scheduled for last Thursday. I spent most of the day on the verge of tears as I pondered both the personal ramifications of the bill and the broader implications of what it meant for so very many hard working people.

And then.

Fourteen of Wisconsin's Democratic Senators stood up to Governor Walker and his plan. Literally. They stood up, walked off the Senate floor, got in their cars and drove out of the state. In doing so, they effectively prevented the house from having the 20 senators required to take a vote on the bill. As I write this, those Senators remain in hiding. It is the only thing keeping this bill from passing.

Some people have called those 14 representatives cowards. Personally, I call them heroes. Why? Because they hit the pause button on a movie that was running in fast-forward and, in doing so, they bought back the time that Governor Walker had tried to deny our citizens as he attempted to ram through a bill that our state's citizens had almost no chance to process or respond to.

Those 14 senators gave us time.

Enough time for public employees to say that yes, they certainly understood the need for sacrifice. Enough time for them to acknowledge the potential need to contribute more to pensions and unemployment and help offset our state's budget woes. Enough time to say that they were willing to come to the table and find a solution. But not like this. Not all at once, not with public employees shouldering the majority of the burden of our current economic situation, and certainly not with a bill that went far, far beyond the scope of what it was purported to address.

The senators bought us enough time to understand that this is just the beginning of Governor Walker's overall plan. To realize that the savings that would come from the plan would not return to the public programs themselves but that, after the budget bill passed, the governor planned to call for massive cuts in funding to public education and other municipalities. That if his budget passed, public schools would face significant losses in revenue, school closures, school mergers, and major cuts in staffing. Enough time to hear that the Governor might refuse to accept federal funding for Title 1 programs and low income students. And to understand that all of this would have a devastating impact on our state's education system.

They bought us enough time to take in the very real possibility that there was no real budget crisis in Wisconsin after all. To realize that Wisconsin had actually been handling the country's economic downturn relatively well and had been set to end the 2009-2011 budget biennium with a budget surplus; that is, until the governor helped pass $140 million in new spending. To find out that this new spending was ostensibly put forth to create new jobs and create private health spending accounts, but that it smacked of special interest spending for corporate allies. And that if this spending was rescinded by the Legislature, the "budget crisis" would be fixed.

They bought us enough time to ponder the fact that Governor Walker had received a massive amount of contributions to his campaign from the Koch Brothers, billionaires in the private sector with a long-standing history of influencing political campaigns with their money. Billionaires who were known to advocate strongly for the eradication of public unions. Billionaires who had a vested interest in doing away with all collective bargaining, both private and public. Billionaires who were using money as power to shift government protections away from the individual worker and toward large corporations.

They bought us the time required for lower and middle-class Americans across the country to realize that this wasn't just a fight about the pensions and health insurance contributions for some teachers in Wisconsin. To recognize that what had started in Wisconsin had every potential to spread like wildfire across the whole country. To understand that this fight called for working and middle-class families all across our country to stand up and fight for the right to join hands and rise up against those who would hope to wield their power simply because they had money. 

And they bought my family enough time to join the tens of thousands of people flocking to the streets of Madison to protest. Enough time for us to join hands with with teachers and nurses and policeman and snowplow drivers and prison guards and firemen and union workers and non-union workers and businessmen as we all walked for the democracy we believed in. To feel the amazing power of citizens peacefully standing up for themselves.

What began very quietly is now building toward a crescendo as people join their voices together to make themselves heard.

I don't know how this will end.

But I do know that this--this power that comes from the people, up through the people, for the people--this is what democracy looks like.

And I know that every American should be looking.

The One Where She Loses Her Mind

I've been reading a book. This is not an uncommon occurrence, of course. I like books. Whole bunches. Books are like water to me; they quench a thirst and fill me up. Books have been a mainstay in my life for as long as I can remember and it is through reading that I feel most connected to my mom. So, no, reading a book isn't uncommon at all. What is uncommon, though, is for a book to move me to make changes in my life. And yet this book has done just that.

Most Good, Least Harm, by Zoe Weil, is about living a "good" life, one in which we step up as individuals and start to make choices that allow us to fight back against materialism, environmental destruction, and injustice. The book had been on my 'to read' book list for a long time, but I kept putting it off, probably because I knew that I wouldn't really want to read what was inside. It turns out I was right. Upon starting to read the book, my first reaction was an intense desire to chuck the book out the window. It's really hard to read about the various harms in which we participate just by going about our daily lives. It was almost impossible not to be overwhelmed with it all, overwhelmed enough to want to plug my ears, shut my eyes, and sing at the top of my lungs, "LA LA LA LA, I can't heaaaaar you, Zoe."

It's so much easier not to know than it is to know. But the problem for me is this: Now that I know what I know, I can't go back to not knowing. Oh, I can pretend, for sure. I can go about living as if I don't understand that the choices I make have impacts far beyond those I can see. I can focus on my family, my work, my home. I can delve into the busy of daily life and stay there for a really long time without even looking up. But amidst all the busy, whenever I pause enough to breathe, there is always a nagging voice whispering to me softly: there is so much more. There is so much more.

So. I didn't chuck the book out the window. I read and read and thought and thought. As I did, my thoughts kept circling back to Helen Keller's famous quotation, "I am just one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." I can't do it all, but I want to do the something that I can do.

But where to start? There is so much to be done and it's so easy to feel helpless in the face of it all. Yet there is always a place to begin, a way into a better life for all. In her book, Zoe helps readers begin to make choices as she talks about 'living your epitaph." She challenges her readers to envision the world of their dreams and then to decide how they, in their ripe old age, would answer the question: "What role did you play in the development of the world we have today?"As I pondered her question, I realized what I want my epitaph to be. When I die, I want it to be said that I fought for people. That I believed in people. I want to live in a way that shows that I believe all people have value. And I want to make choices that support and lift up people, every day.

Some of this, I already do. I always knew that I had to have a job where I worked to improve the lives of others. Not because I want to be looked upon as saintly (because I am *so* not a saint; just ask my husband if you have any lingering doubts about that), but because I truly believe in my heart of hearts that we are all better off when we build each other up rather than tear each other down. My job allows me to help children and families find their highest potential and I am so grateful to get the opportunity to do this each workday.

But I want to go deeper. I want to begin to reconcile how I live my life with what I know about the struggles faced by people all across the planet. I want to teach my children to feel gratitude for what they have, rather than discontent for what they don't. I want to push back against entitlement and materialism and the pervasive and poisonous belief that what you have defines who you are. I want my actions to create ripple effects of good that reach all the way across the world and back again. I want to choose kindness, over and over and over again.

As a result of all this thinking, I've decided I'm going to make some changes this year in how I live (hence the New Year's Day post; rather appropriate, no?). Before I describe the changes I've decided to make, let me be very clear that I really won't be doing very much at all. Many people, so many people, live their lives in much more peaceful ways than I am willing to do right now. Here's just a small sample of the things I'm not prepared to do: I'm not prepared to become a vegan, despite the harm that my everyday diet probably causes to animals. I'm not prepared to heat only one part of my house despite the fact that it's incredibly inefficient to heat the whole thing. I'm not ready to move to a smaller house even though I know we have way more than we need. I'm not going to give up on disposable diapers despite the toll I know they take on the environment (no. more. laundry.). Clearly, there's a lot I'm not willing to do. At least not yet. But that doesn't mean I shut my eyes and turn away from the things I can do. Instead, I sifted through all the possibilities in front of me and decided upon the three things I will do. They are big enough to stretch me, but small enough to keep me from being overwhelmed. They are challenging, but sustainable. They are as follows.

1. I will volunteer. Yes, volunteering has every potential to take away from the little personal time I have left; in signing up to volunteer, I run the risk of ending up cranky and tired. Yet, volunteering also has every potential to help me find gratitude for the things I take for granted each day, to fill me up more than an inspiring read or a good blog, to teach my children the value of serving those who need our help. And this year, I want to fill up my life more with, well, life.

A quick Google search for volunteer opportunities in my area turned up Literacy Volunteers. This was all the inspiration I needed to commit. I'm passionate about helping others gain access to the skills that they need to thrive in our society. Literacy has the power to lift people out of poverty, to turn entire lives around. And the time commitment? 1-2 hours a week. Really, who can't spare that? I know I can. Even if it means one less episode of Real Housewives of Orange County.

(As you read this, I can see you shaking your head in agreement. Volunteering is good, you think. That's not crazy. The girl is making sense. Yeah, that's because you haven't gotten to point number 3 yet. Keep reading.)

2. I will learn more about the impact of my food choices, my cleaning supplies, and my choices of disposable paper products. As I learn, I will find ways to reduce the harm I cause in the products I choose. In the meantime, I will buy coffee and chocolate only if it is marked Fair Trade.

(I'm guessing that you're still reading along in relative agreement. You can kind of see the value of my thinking, especially once you click on the links. The slope is getting slippery, perhaps, but no real loss of sanity yet, right? Keep reading).

3. I will challenge myself to buy no new durable material goods (clothes, toys, books, CDs, magazines, furniture, decorations, etc.) for the next 11 months, unless I can feel reasonably certain it was produced in a way that did not harm others.

(See, this is where I envision people saying, "Oh. Yep. She's lost her mind.")

Allow me explain.

I'm learning that many of the goods and products we purchase every day are produced in ways that are extremely harmful to people. As just one example, Target (oh, my beloved Target, please say it ain't so...) has been known to purchase clothing made in a factory in American Samoa, a US territory in the South Pacific Ocean. The owner of this particular factory was convicted for illegally confining workers in involuntary servitude, holding their passports, and threatening deportation in retaliation for any acts of non-compliance. Workers at the factory were beaten, deprived of food, and forced to work without pay. In buying products--especially clothes--from Target, I'm allowing such practices to continue; in fact, I'm indirectly funding those practices. Ugh. And it's certainly not just Target buying from sweatshops like this. Walmart, Kohls, JcPenny, The Gap, the list goes on and on. So many companies find ways to drive down costs by exploiting the work of people who can not stand up for themselves. And so very many of those being exploited are children.

This is the hidden side of consumerism, the one that is not talked about, the one I turned a blind eye to for a long time, because it was inconvenient for me to look it fully in the face. Quite simply, I loved the convenience of ignorance. I liked walking into Target, finding almost anything I needed (er, wanted), paying a relatively inexpensive price, and walking back out, all in a matter of ten minutes. I crave efficiency, and Target played right into the efficient working mom thing I've got going. To be fully honest, even as I type this, I wonder at my sanity as I make the proclamation to do more good by avoiding such products. But the more I read, the more I am convinced this is the right thing to do. And the right time to do it.

How will I go about all this? Well, it's important to note that we already have so much stuff that we could easily get through the year without buying any new stuff at all (we did just finish Christmas after all). However, in all reality, I am sure that there will be times when I want to buy something new (to us). In that case, I'll have two options. The first is to buy certified Fair Trade or Organic or local products, or find another way to reasonably assure myself that the product was probably produced in a humane way. I'll do some of this, but Fair Trade and Organic products can be justifiably more expensive. Our budget doesn't have much room to give right now, so I'll probably spend more time with what's behind door number 2: Buying second-hand. (Actually, to be fair, Green America tells me that I have third option as well: Make my own products. But that won't be happening; this I know for sure. Handy I am not).

I'm a little bit nervous, a little bit excited, and a little bit curious about my new adventure all at the same time. I'm sure I'll be a lot bit annoyed at times as well, especially when my do-good attitude is trumped by the inconvenience of not having the things I want as quickly as I want them. I'm guessing I'll bump up against feelings of discomfort as I walk through thrift stores. And I know there will be times when I regret leaving my babies to go work with strangers. But through it all, I'll know deep down that the choices I am making are in harmony with the person I truly want to be. And in this, I'll hope to find peace.

"And the world is full of stories, but all the stories are one."

-Mitch Albom

A Child Of My Own

A Child of My Own

It’s amazing how quickly you can become sensitive to the words of others. Before my son, Joseph, came home from Ethiopia, I gave little thought to how I talked about adoption. Now that he’s home, the value of choosing words carefully has revealed itself to me in ways that I can only begin to describe. When people ask us about his ‘real’ parents, or query about whether or not we have children of our ‘own,’ I cringe. I cringe for myself, but mostly I cringe as I wonder how those words will affect his little mind’s understanding of who he is and how he came to be a part of our family.

As I try to explain myself, some people will no doubt think me picky. Others will perceive me as over-sensitive. I just think of myself as mom. And like any mom, I want what is best for my son. That means sharing our experience with others in the hopes that they will also begin to think about the power of words and the impact they have.

Let’s start with the whole “real” parent thing. When you stop and think about this, it’s fairly obvious why this wording makes adoptive parents bristle. What’s the opposite of real? Fake. Pretend. When you refer to my son’s first family as his “real” parents, you are by default resigning us to being his “fake” parents. Although you may not mean to, you suggest that I am simply pretending that I am his mom. But obviously, that’s not true. I’m about as real as they come. Pinch me and I’ll jump (in fact, sometimes I pinch myself in doubt that life can really be so good). I’ve changed my fair share of diapers, been spit up on repeatedly, gotten up ten times in one night, dried tears, been hugged more times than I can count, worried, worried, and worried some more. If that doesn’t make me real, I don’t know what does.

My son does have another set of parents. His first parents created him, carried him, and gave birth to him. We talk about them, honor them, and love them. They are very real. But we are no less so.

Another small difference in wording can be heard when I say that my son was adopted. Not is adopted, but was adopted. That may seem like a minor detail, but small words carry great meaning. Adoption shapes a child and a family, but it does not define them entirely. It is simply a way of forming a family. Just like your child was born in 2005, my son was adopted that year.

So if we want to, we will explain that Joseph was adopted. Like all other families, we love to tell the story of the day that our son joined our family. More often, though, I don’t mention it at all. It is rarely relevant to the conversation at hand. When you introduce your child, you don’t say, “this-is-my-conceived-by-invitro-son” or my “oops-she-was-an-accident daughter.” The method by which you became a family is simply not important in most conversations. The same is true of our family. Yes, Joseph joined our family through adoption. Yes, we are very proud of that detail. But there is rarely a need to distinguish our family from others.

Sometimes people will ask me, “Do you have any children of your own?” I’m never quite sure how to answer that question. At philosophical level, none of us “owns” our children. As Kahil Gibran wrote, “Our children are not our children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you, they belong not to you.” Our children belong to the future, not to us.

And yet, like all other parents, I sometimes find myself referring to Joseph as “my own son.” He lives with us, we provide for him, we love him deeply. We are listed as his parents on his birth certificate. We are there when he’s happy, when he cries, when he’s sick, when he hurts. The fact that I did not carry him in my womb is irrelevant in determining the fact that he is our child.

Still, the “child of your own” phrase is the one I hear the most. Sometimes I think this is because it is hard to understand that you can love a child by adoption as much as a child by birth; that a child by adoption really is just as much “your own.” Before Joseph came home, I don’t know that I truly understood that either. Then came the moment a tiny little boy was placed in my arms and I forgot who I was before he entered my life.

So when I tell you that I am eternally grateful that I did not initially conceive a child, I am not exaggerating. I am horrified at the prospect of not having Joseph in our lives. He is my heart and my soul and the joy of my life.

He is my son.