Let's Try This Again, Shall We?

I don't have a ton of time to write right now because, well, it's after 4am.  The Wee Lass didn't go to sleep until well after 2, and I was, of course, wide awake at that point.  So let's just make this brief for now and maybe we'll go back and revisit at a later date.

My son, probably the first real love of my life, came to me and my ex-husband when he was 8 months old.  We were foster parents, battling infertility and desperate to adopt, when we agreed to take this placement that wasn't going to be permanent.  Due to several fuck ups by the birth parents (Oh yeah.  Language.  Get used to it.  This is a swearing Mommy Blog.), we were lucky enough to keep him.  Yay us!  But, some things happened along the way.  Like divorce.  It sucked and I handled it wrong and nothing went the way it should have, but my ex ended up adopting as a single parent.  There is anger there, but we'll leave that for another day, mmm-kay?  Now, we share custody of Monkey, in all his 4 year old glory.  He is the bestest.  The is the single most amazing dude I've ever met.  He can infuriate me and make me fall over laughing in the exact same moment.  Who else can do that?

So after the divorce (like, a year after), I met J.  And I loved him.  Ohhhhh how I loved him.  I didn't love him the second I met him.  No no.  I actually kind of thought he was annoying.  But we exchanged phone numbers and he annoyed me until we went on a date, and THEN I loved him.  By the third date, I knew I would marry him.  Roughly 30 seconds after we decided we would marry and live happily ever after, I found out I was pregnant.  The former infertile was expecting!  Holy shit!  He gave me my ring on the spot, we married three months later, and Little Miss was born five months after that.  All very whirlwind.

In the process of all this, both fostering/adopting Monkey and introducing him to my new circle of friends and family, I was asked stupid shit like, "But do you have any REAL kids?"

.......

Really?  Does he just look fake?  I mean, like, I think he's super cute.  Perfect, really.  He could be a child model.  Blonde hair and blue eyes and a face that could make the angels sing.  But he's not real enough for some people?  J tried to tell me that it was just ignorance and although it was rude, I shouldn't let it bother me because people just don't know any better.  But the more he loved Monk, the more it annoyed him as well.

These days, J and I are undergoing the loathsome process of licensing to do it all again.  I won't foster.  I just can't.  I look back at even the earliest days with Monk, and just the thought of someone taking him away and putting him back with his birth mother just about killed me.  I don't have the emotional fortitude for it.  I won't even make apologies for it.  Better to know it and decline than have an emotional breakdown, I say.  But we do want to adopt.  We aren't rich.  We have what we need, some of what we want, and a whole lot of love. Our marriage is awesome.  We love our kids like crazy cakes (and Monk will tell you as much).  We need to share this life.  So here we go, down the rabbit hole....  Down the path to more of our mystical martian children, who aren't quite real enough for everyone out there.