My entire life I had this feeling, or opinion if you will, that parents could not love their adopted children as much as they could love their biological children. I didn’t have any real basis for that; it is just what I thought.

I was raised an only child after my younger sister died. My parents discussed adoption from time to time, but never brought home another baby. I actually don’t know their reasons for not adopting when I was younger, and it really doesn’t matter. I think, that in my young mind I believed it would be too hard for them to love an adopted child after they had lost a biological child. Almost like a replacement.

When I was in my first week of my first year of college, I came home after a night class and my parents had a baby. A newborn was laying on a changing table in our spare bedroom. My mom quickly explained that we were becoming a foster family and were taking care of this tiny baby on an emergency placement. Here I had lived my 18 years as an only child and I came home to find a baby. It was such a shock, to say the least.

We went through foster care training as a family, and William became integrated into our family. I learned how to take care of a baby and I fell so much in love with him.

Soon after William was born, his birth mom became pregnant again. And when William was six months old, a judge decided that his birth mom had shown enough improvement that she could have him back again. I remember looking at him laying on his changing table and just crying because I was so sad he was leaving us. It was awful.

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William went back to live with his birth family, and Dillian was born. Their birth parents were still involved in the court system and were being monitored. Eventually the boys were returned to my parents’ care.

The pain I felt when they didn’t live with us is all the proof I needed to know that I was so wrong in thinking that adopted children can’t be loved the same.

My brothers were adopted on September 5, which is the birthday of my sister who died.


William & Dillian

We all went out to dinner in October last  year and I told the boys about our baby. I explained that Mr. Polish and I were adopting and that they were going to be uncles. They were so excited and immediately started giving their recommendations for baby names (Cobra, Bob, Bobby, Luke, Periwinkle, Maleena, Bobber, Sloppy Joe, among others). They told me that I should start thinking about buying a bigger house, because a baby needs its own room. They are so full of advice.

And they are the reason why I already know that our baby will never lack love. We already love our baby so much and we’ve never even met. It was then that I realized that if I never got pregnant, I would be fine. We were being given life, just by a different delivery method. I truly believe that our baby is worth the years of hurt we experienced at the hands of infertility. And I’m so excited to share this experience with my brothers so they can see just how amazing life is.