Make the Voices Stop!!!

So I am at a point in time where an important decision has to be made eventually. Not any time soon, but the fact that I know it's going to have to be made consumes my thoughts. I worry about everything...even those things outside of my control. Marcus and I have begun talking about adding to our family. We have even talked about it being this summer or fall. We are wanting to adopt again this time. We want to adopt another African American baby; I don't know if we want a boy or a girl. We were sure we wanted another girl, but now the thought of two little brown boys in bunk beds brings a smile to my face.
I forgot about a lot of the emotions involved in this process. I would love to have someone explain to me why African American babies are half the price of Caucasian babies. How can anyone put a price tag on a baby? Race, gender, background, special needs...a baby is a baby. It makes me so angry when I get the adoption packets in the mail and see that brown babies don't cost as much as any other race. Sure, it saves us money, but it makes me sick. I think it is wrong. I through those pamphlets away and don't give them a second glance. Before we brought Christian home, we attended some seminars from different agencies. There was one that made us feel like they were trying to sell babies. They even called us after the seminar and told us if we wanted a baby we should adopt soon because they were going to raise their prices. I'm sorry, but we aren't buying a new TV.
We also are not wanting to drain all our bank accounts like we did with Christian. We are looking into doing a private adoption, but that makes me worry too. There is no agency to help us along the way. We have direct contact with the birth mom from the beginning. I have seen too many Lifetime movies I guess. We are going to get an appointment with an adoption attorney and have them shed some light on this subject.
So if we are going to adopt again, and Marcus wants this to be our last child, do we do some more permanent type of birth control? I am not ready to make that kind of decision. I decided a long time ago that I have no control over how children are brought into my life. (Married and got two. Started adoption process and brought Christian home 11 days later. Got pregnant with Emma after three years of infertility...see what I mean about no control?) I don't know if I will ever get pregnant again, or if I even can get pregnant and carry to term again. With as sick as I was with Emma, I don't know if I can do that again with two little ones to take care of. Obviously I wouldn't have to get my appendix out again, but the vomiting and dehydration and worries of Down Syndrome that we had with Emma I don't know if I could do it again. There are so many babies out there that need a home all ready, I feel like wanting to get pregnant again makes me selfish. I want to experience it all again; feeling the baby grow inside of me, the first time the baby moves, giving birth, the bonding...all of that was amazing. But I did get to experience that once when I was told early on that I would never be able to get pregnant. Since that doctor visit, I have been pregnant three times. (Yes, only one baby, but that's not my point here. I proved that doctor wrong by getting pregnant.) I also don't know if I could handle the emotions of trying to get pregnant again if we went that route. I can't go through the fertility tests again. The HSG test I had done was worse than child birth. I would never do that again. The money, the pain, the emotional pain...I don't know if we could go through that again.
So obviously this is just my way of trying to sort out my feelings and come up with something that makes sense. I tend to ramble....but this is what the voices in my head are saying and going over all the time!! Make the voices stop!!
But more importantly then how we are going to bring a baby home: can I handle another little one? These two that are running around behind me screaming keep me very busy. Yesterday I took them to church by myself because Marcus was out of town. They were so out of control during Sacrament that after I get Christian settled in his new class and dropped Emma off at nursery, I went out to my car and drowned my sorrows in goldfish crackers during Sunday School. I got my wits about me before Young Women's started and everything was well in the world again. Goldfish crackers really do make all the hurt go away.
So anyway, enough rambling on my part. We'll keep ya updated on the whole baby thing. Maybe I'll just get a new puppy...cuz I need another one of those either!!!