My sister has been married for three years and is expecting her first child in November, 1993. Everyone in my family is very excited. At first, I was sad and jealous when I found out Emily was pregnant. I have been married for seven years. I always thought that the first grandchild would be my child. I was jealous because she is getting the experience of pregnancy and childbirth that I will never have. I thought about it for a long time. Emily is my closest woman friend. I thought about how much fun it will be to be an aunt. I thought about how, when we adopt a child, Emily's child and my child will be first cousins, close to each other in age. I have no first cousins and Emily and I always thought that cousins would be fun to have. In the excitement and anticipation of her baby, I have been able to overcome my jealousy and disappointment. Andy has already threatened to hide our credit cards because he is afraid that Aunt Juliet will spend every cent we have on presents for her new niece or nephew.

Since we are unable to get pregnant and have children biologically, we naturally came to the idea of adoption. My brother-in-law, Michael, is adopted. We have many friends who have adopted children. I have taught countless numbers of hearing and Deaf adopted children in my years as a teacher. Adoption was never a difficult choice for us.

Andy and I have always said we would join a temple when we had children. I grew up with all the traditions and training of my Jewish family. We went to my grandmother's house for holidays and Sabbath meals. We went to shul with my father's parents. I learned the prayers, rituals, and traditions of Judaism. These family traditions are very important to me. Andy is one-eighth Jewish. He was drawn to Judaism before I ever met him. He took classes and had plans to convert to become fully Jewish. Our getting married provided the impetus he needed to make the move. Half an hour before we got married, under our wedding huppah, the rabbi officially converted Andy to Judaism.

As an adult, I had many questions about religion. One of my major concerns about Judaism was that women were not respected nor treated very well. This is still very difficult for me. It was very important to Andy that we get married by a rabbi. Because of my questions about religion, I agreed to having a rabbi only if the rabbi was a woman. As it turned out, our female rabbi conducted our wedding in a very democratic way that was respectful of both tradition and women. We do not belong to a temple now, mostly because it is very expensive. It is important to us to give our children the traditions and the foundation that I had and that Andy has learned. It is our intention to join a temple to help give our children these traditions that are so important to us.

My family cannot wait to have a new baby in the family. My sister and I are excited that we might have babies at the same time. My mother cannot believe her good fortune that each of her daughters will be having babies and she'll be a grandmother. Andy and I know that we will have no trouble considering an adopted child our own. We already love the children of our friends. I love my sister's unborn baby. I love my stepfather, who is not biologically related to me. It will be easy to love a baby that we take care of and nurture and who depends on us.