[Cypress]

My husband and I are married and have been a solid couple for over four years, but have not yet reached our one year marriage anniversary. We are worried that an agency will not accept us until we have been married two years and don't want to wait that long to expand our family. We know that adoption can take years and we are already 34 and 33...if we wait much longer then we may not have the energy to chase around toddlers. We want to do domestic infant adoption. We don't care about race or gender, we only want a healthy infant.

We have been trying to get pregnant for over a year (we started before the wedding because we suspected fertility issues and knew time was running out age-wise). We had no luck and when I went to my doctor to see about fertility testing she refused to test me and instead strongly cautioned me against getting pregnant at all due to the fact that I have diabetes. At first I was incredulous and vowed to get a second opinion, but then I did some research of my own and found that she was not overstating the dangers at all. After a lot of soul searching my husband and I decided that it would be irresponsible to continue to try and concieve considering that the baby could have birth defects and my health could also be severely compromised affecting my ability to parent.

So, that leads me to a couple of other concerns. First of all, will agencies have issues with the fact that I have diabetes? I am a low-level diabetic and control it through diet and oral medication, but I know that some international agencies would not adopt to me for this reason. Do any domestic agencies have issues with this? I know that you have to get physicals as a part of the home study process.

Secondly, a very nice person on this forum PM'd me some information about an agency that I really want to work with but they say that to be a part of their full-service program you have to have documented infertility. I would think that my doctor not wanting me to get pregnant would suffice, but cannot get a call back from anyone from the agency to tell me if this is the case or not. Does anyone know if I should push my doctor to test me for infertility anyway if I am hoping to adopt? I have strong reasons to believe that I, at the very least, will have some sort of trouble concieving without help (trying for a year without luck being the most recent sign of potential infertility).

I have always wanted to be a mother and after putting off marriage and family in order to go to college and establish a career and then taking a little while to find the right man, I worked myself into old age and diabetes. Now my heart is breaking with the idea that I may never be a mother. I don't think that I could handle the foster-adopt route emotionally after witnessing some friends and co-workers going through years of legal battles with CPS and the bio-parents. After holding my cousin's newborn recently I know that I need to parent a child from as close to birth as possible.

Any advice all of you wonderful people here can give me would be greatly appreciated.

[bajj]

I would suggest calling other agencies and asking what their policies are. I know some agencies require you to be married for x amount of years, but others do not. There are couples who are not married who adopt, so it is possible.

I have a close friend who is a diabetic, and she is on insulin and she was still able to adopt. Also, I am not quite sure you'd have to be tested for infertility as much as having a statement from your doctor saying it is not in the best interest for your health or the health of your future child(ren) to become pregnant.

BTW, 33 (or 34 whichever you are) is NOT old! It's also not too late. Hop over to the over 40 adoptions and read about people in their 40s and 50s who adopt infants. You're not old!