An unexpected grief

As you know, I've been married to DH for 7 1/2 years now. About 5 1/2 years ago, we had a wonderful, strong marriage, and many plans and dreams. We heard about a young girl in town whose mother could not take care of her. She needed a safe place to stay for a few weeks while her mom got her life together.

As you can guess, those "few weeks" led to a "few months", and to make a long story short, after a lot of court stuff and child protection stuff, it was decided that DH and I would be her new family. She still has contact with her bio mom. Even though I would not allow any other child to go over there, DD is so bonded with her bio mom that I feel it would be detrimental to her if I was to forbid it. So she goes.

I love her so much, that kid. She has come so far despite huge obstacles. She has learned so much and grown so much, I'm full of pride when I think of her (most of the time, LOL).

The thing is, I always thought I would have a child of my own. It was never my plan not to. For the first couple of years when we had DD, there was so much going on and we were learning so much and adjusting to her behaviors, that there was no way I could have handled a baby too. Then DH got sick. Most of all that you already know. He loves DD, but sometimes loses sense of "good parenting" and "how to say no to a kid". And there are so many other issues related to his illness, not the least of which is finances. I can't support the family I already have, so that's that.

But the thing is, I'm 40. I know that my odds of conceiving have already gone way down, and when I think about the fact that I want to be a mom, I would be a good mom, but I probably can't, well, I grieve. DH probably won't be ready to be a parent in time for me to realistically expect to still be able to conceive. If ever. I find myself being a little resentful about this, but I console myself with "you can always adopt a kid who needs a home", "there's no age limit on that", but then I think, with DH's bipolar, would 'they' even allow us to adopt? Probably not.

So then I go back to "the only way you're going to have another child is if you have a child." And when I get to that point, I start feeling hopeless. I know it's not DH's fault, and there are a lot of people who are in situations like this or worse, but that doesn't make the feelings go away.