when does one turn to other's children to raise?

We met late. I was 45 when the Canadian knocked my socks off, in that gentle way only well-mannered, sober Canadians seduce and woo- which is not me, nor how I seduce, woo, drink, talk or live.  I do nothing gently.  But we got on.

We used birth control exactly three times before we knew we were gonna be playing for keepsies.  We've essentially been married since a month after meeting.  So, we played without a goalie and tried to make a creature out of our own ingredients.  He knew about ovulation from trying to get his ex-wife to carry his load. He kept a chart on the fridge of my cycles, we took my temperature, which oddly never goes above 97 degrees, ever, and we sexed constantly. We connected once and I lost it early on, bleeding for two weeks straight.  Good times.

My egg numbers were surprisingly hefty, at first. But without insurance, and tons of disposable or indisposable cash, we were playing without a goalie and without helmets.  And the ice of aging is hard. One month I had the egg count of a 16 year old nubile girl and two months later, the egg count of a neutered 16 year old basset hound.

 It's ironic, in a distinctly un-Alanis Morrisette way. I played carefully. I didn't have a kid between junior and senior year like my dear friend from Catholic all girls school. I didn't have kids with any number of tools, douches, drunken louts and sad clowns that litter my romantic runway. I kept my uterus tidy and HPV-free for the right sperm- and I met him too late to use that uterus for its designated purpose. So, for all fertility intents and purposes, I didn't have a kid when I wasn't in a responsible, stable, or financially feasible place to bear and raise a child right- I waited for all my ducks to line up, and those retarded ducks took their sweet ass time lining up but they finally did, and now I'm a man.

We could have taken credit cards out and done the fertility by any means necessary thing that is quite popular in the East Coast - West Coast birthing culture- but spending a quarter of a million dollars to have our ingredients grow a person just seemed... too much about us. I am no Gandhi, but I just didn't want to exercise my ego that much. That, and the economy collapsed, so the credit card offer carnival of two years ago folded up its tents and left town.  We were gonna have to DIY if we were to get a kid.

We are still in love, I'm 48 now, we are even going to get married, but before then, if we are lucky, we will be handed someone else's unlucky child- gender, race and age unknown- to raise for as long as the courts will allow us to.  So, we will have a foster child, but until we make it legal, our foster kid will be a bastard foster kid. Can't wait!

So, this is my blog- we are in the foster to adopt system, and since we aren't hitched yet (the very idea of making a wedding makes my long dormant eczema resurge to my face) we are searching for our bastard foster child. If you see our kid, let us know. Much appreciated.

Coming up in following blogs-

how best to acquire a kid: buy one straight out or just rent?

Foreign made import or export?

Gay friends who pioneered our foster to adopt path.

Taking professional parent classes.

My work with foster teens.

The whole journey from 'just us' to 'all of us'.