Adoption for us isn't as easy as just saying we want to / we're going to do it. In fact, adoption will most likely be in our plans one day. But. And here's the big but. (And not the one on my backside.) I am disabled. Public adoption is pretty much ruled out for us. Which completely invalidates your theory. There is no way I could pass the screening process, even though we are perfectly capable of raising a child together. (Key word: together) We've been told we have little to no chance of adopting a child through state-funded means. And even if we did...you don't just apply and get a baby. You wait. And wait. And wait some more. Just like we've been doing since we originally started trying to have a baby in 1998, and then I learned I couldn't have one in the spring of 2000.

Which leads us to private adoption. Yep, we've done our research here, too. We've been told to have a minimum of $10,000 on hand for this. Shaw...right. We're lucky to have $1000 in savings in a given year. We live on one income. Although if we had a child tomorrow we'd be perfectly capable of raising it on what we make now -- starting out with -$10,000 from day one would cripple us in any given scenario.

Then there's private foreign adoption. We watch this very closely each time we learn of someone pursuing it. In the examples of family friends that have done so, we've been told to have a minimum of $20K on hand -- and up to $50K saved depending on the country. Besides the legal expenses involved, some countries have a knack for upping the ante at the very end -- and if you can't pay, you can't play. Since I don't have a rich aunt Edna somewhere waiting in the wings to buy us a child, again, we wait.

Adoption is tailored to a two-income family -- or at least a one-income famlily with two healthy individuals. We are neither. I'm not exactly sure where you're getting the figure that it's cheaper than having a kid in the hospital, but that's certainly not our case. We have excellent insurance and each prenatal visit's co-pay would be $10 each. The actual birth and hospitalization would cost us a maxium of $150. Versus a $10K pricetag...well, no... I've had several thousands of dollars worth of surgeries, drugs, and treatments to date -- and we've been out no more than several hundred in co-pays. Of course, our arms are still empty. But no matter what path God ultimately leads us down, it will never be as easy as just wishing it done. Ever. We have finally accepted that.

And even though I was open to the idea of adoption from day one, Todd was not. That's a very big, and private, decision in a marriage. You just can't go along telling someone they "should do it". We reached the decision together after travelling a path together that was filled with an enormous amount of pain, physically and emotionally. I cannot fault my husband for wanting his own flesh and blood. That's a part of human nature. And he certainly can't fault me for exhausting every bit of modern technology possible when trying to give that to him. But again, these are very private decisions we have to reach together for private reasons -- emotionally and financially.

If anyone out there has $10K lying around, well then I'd love to consider starting my family tomorrow. Otherwise, I just have to continue to believe there are reasons God has said "not right now", and that someday I will understand them.

[...it turned colder, that's where it ends]