YESTERDAY'S MEMORIES of a Bygone Time

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Determined Not to Have an Only Child

I am an only child, and I had two first cousins, both only children. The three of us made a pact, somewhere in our childhood, that we would never do that to another kid. We promised each other that we would have more than one child when we grew up. My older cousins followed through with their part of the bargain, but it looked like it might not be so easy for us, under the circumstances.

By the time our little one had been with us a few months, we decided we'd better start the process of applying for adoption again, because there was no telling how long it would take to get another baby. Abortion had been legalized by then, so babies were no longer so easy to adopt. The decision was made to wait until the holidays were over and, when the New Year came, we'd apply.

So you can't even begin to imagine our surprise when I came up pregnant in January!!! Me, the one who wasn't supposed to be able to get pregnant, according to the leading fertility specialist in Birmingham, Alabama! But pregnant I was, and I carried that pregnancy to full term. I was in full glory, with my big belly.

Of course, it wasn't too easy, as I was also taking care of a small baby at the time, but I managed just fine. Did we love our adopted baby any less, because we were expecting one of our own flesh and blood? Goodness me NO!!

So, in a matter of 15 months, we had two gorgeous little girls, who grew into two beautiful women. We considered both of them to be Gifts from God, specially given for us to nurture and raise in the admonition of the Lord.

nostalgia, childhood memories, adoption, pregnancy, parenthood

Labels: adopt, adoption, infertility

posted by Dirty Butter 10:19 AM

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Baby Craving Woes

You'd think by now there couldn't possibly be any more parts to my stories about the Civil Rights era, but you'd be wrong, as this was a long drawn out change in our part of Alabama, even more than I realized at the time. But I'm going to take a short intermission from that tale to catch up with other things that were going on in our lives.

After I quit teaching, in an unsuccessful attempt to get pregnant, we ended up going to a fertility specialist. That was still kind of an unusual thing to do in those days, but I was having baby cravings, and my DH wanted more than anything to help me out of my misery. We both wanted a family with several children, and here we couldn't seem to even have one. After much testing, it was determined that it was going to be highly unlikely that I would ever get pregnant, so we started the process to adopt a baby. This was before legal abortions, so it was still relatively easy to adopt babies. Even then, though, there was a long process of interviewing, inspections, and of course, waiting.

During the time that we had been approved for adoption, but no child had been found for us, hubby learned that the company would be moving out of Birmingham to a small town in a nearby rural area. This put the adoption agency in a dither. They put our case on high priority, trying to get us a baby before we moved, and they succeeded!!

Oh, and she was so beautiful! She was our 2 and a half month old Gift from God. I may not have carried her inside my body for 9 months, but I had carried her in my heart for longer than that, and she felt like mine from the first instant I saw her. We both felt that way, and never looked back once with regret at our decision to adopt. She didn't "look like us," but we didn't care in the least. She was ours, and that was all that mattered.

nostalgia, infertility, adoption

Labels: adopt, adoption, infertility

posted by Dirty Butter 10:25 AM

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