The Things We Miss

Let me first begin by saying that mourning the fact that we will never have biological children has nothing to do with our excitement about adoption. We are so, so, so excited that we are adopting.

It has nothing to do with other people. We are so, so, so excited when our friends have babies. However, there are certain things that we will miss out on because we are not able to have biological children. Here are some:

• We will never get to surprise our family and friends with the wonderful news that we are expecting.
• We don't get to plan what month of the year would be best to have a baby because it would be a good time to take off work or the weather will be nice (people do this, I'm told).
• I will never be able to feel my baby inside me.
• We will not be the ones in control over how our baby is treated in the womb.
• We will never have a baby shower in anticipation of our baby's arrival (this is because of the timing and uncertainty prior to baby's arrival).
• We will not be able to experience the joy of the ultra sound when we find out if it's a boy or a girl....and immediately go buy gender appropriate stuff!
• I will never get to experience pregnancy cravings (and a legitimate reason to gain weight for once in my life!)
• We will never wonder if the baby is going to look like one of us (although I've heard adoption stories where kids look freakishly like their adopted parents).
• We will never get to talk to our friends about our pregnancy experiences.
• We will never have 100% peace that the baby is ours before the papers are signed...because someone could always change their mind.

Many people try to pretend that there is no loss with infertility because we were never actually pregnant. There is certainly loss -- beyond words. We have been dealing with this loss for 4 + years, and even now, we are occasionally sad over the things we will miss.

We don't want people to feel sorry for us. The whole purpose of me writing about adoption was so that our family and friends could understand what we are going through and those going through the same things would know that they are not alone.

There are a lot of wonderful things about adoption...perhaps better suited for a different post.