In the wake of the very real possibility that I won’t be able to conceive my own children, my husband and I have started to consider adoption.

Apparently my PCOS has highly affected my fertility. I’ve been referred to a specialist OBGYN, but my midwife has also already brought up the reality that I may actually need to see a reproductive endocrinologist. If it comes down to

<a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a>

being our only means of conceiving our own child, we are going to give up the idea entirely. Because I’m sorry, but $10,000 per cycle not covered by insurance is way out of our price range. We have three months with this specialist OB, and then onto the reproductive endocrinologist.

Since having that heart to heart with my midwife, I’ve been mulling over adoption. I brought it up to my husband tonight and he was open to it. We both want kids quite badly. I’ve done a little research, and it looks like given our ages, we’d only be able to foster/adopt children under the age of 13. I looked at the state’s online photo search of children who are currently cleared for adoption. And I’m pretty sure I’m in love with five of them.

One is a sibling group of three, but I’m not sure if we’d be able to handle all of a sudden having three kids.

One is an 8 year old girl, but she’s two states away, so idk how that works???

The other is a two year old little boy in my state who has some medical needs, but his little snippet of info says “Currently only accepting ICWA preference placement families, must be able to prove enrollment in a federally recognized tribe.”

As two people with no tribal heritage, I’m not sure how that works either???

I’m going to reach out to my parents tomorrow, as two of my sisters they adopted are native and maybe they know how to navigate the ICWA?

Does that help my husband and I if I have native sisters who were adopted?

Should I try to get the ball rolling now? Or wait? I just have no clue how any of this actually works.

So if anyone knows how this works and/or has some advice, I’ll gladly take it!

We’re obviously going to talk it over some more before taking the plunge, but if we decide tomorrow that we’re 100% for sure we want to do it, at what point do we get the ball rolling?

If we end up pregnant while we’re in the middle of adopting, we’re not going to cancel the adoption because that would be like giving up one of our kids. We’d essentially be telling that kid that they’re not as important or lovable as someone’s biological kids. And if we’re adopting, we obviously already love this child more than anything and want to officially be their parents.

I just don’t know where or when to start...