Red

Being an adoptive mom makes me so happy that I WAS infertile.  I still haven’t figured out a way to be happy I AM infertile.

It’s complicated, like so much of life, but every now and then I get a stark reminder that I’ll never feel life stir inside of me.

If we wanted to give our boys a baby brother or sister, we couldn’t.  Well, we could, but we would need to come up with $20,000 – $30,000 and get a bigger house to satisfy the social worker we had enough bedrooms to adopt again.  Even though our house is fine, and we would manage like any other family if we were to “get pregnant.”

‘Cept we can’t do that.

Having these children of ours is the greatest delight of our life (mine and my husband’s), and we appreciate them exponentially.  Embarking on the emotional turmoil of another adoption would take attention and energy from my sweet kids, and that seems unfair and impractical.

Tonight I succumbed to a series of indicators and begrudgingly took a pregnancy test.  Taking those tests is the worst.  It’s the absolute worst feeling to take them and get the single red line, the big red F.  And so tonight I was staring at that test in our bathroom and working up a good cry when I heard a little voice.

“Where’d mommy go?”

Another tender mercy floated my way.  I’m a Mom.  Even better I’m a Mommy.

When I sat down to pour out my thoughts on paper as I normally do when emotion begins to envelope and drown, a little warm body squeezed next to me in the recliner.  And then a red crayon snuck onto my thoughts…

A red crayon beats the hell out of that red F any day.

Signing off now to do something I never take for granted – hold my kids.