The bright computer monitor in the hospital delivery room read 151, then 155, then 153. My wife and I traded smiles. It was my unborn son’s heart rate, and the reading was—the nurse said—perfect. The sound, though, was what put a tear in my eye.

Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump it rapidly went, telling anyone who knew our background: God is amazing … and He has a sense of humor.

We had decided to call him “Isaac,” simply because we, like Abraham and Sarah and their own son by that name, literally laughed when we learned my wife was pregnant. That’s what you do when you become pregnant in your 40s, seven years after adopting your first child and three years after adopting twins. It’s what you do when you learn you’re pregnant 10 years after visiting a fertility doctor, crying and wondering what the future holds. It’s also what you do when you become pregnant after you give away your baby carrier, your baby toys and all your baby clothes.

It’s not the path I would have chosen but, in hindsight, I would not change a thing.

Many couples struggling with infertility—like we did—look at their options and contemplate a question they’d rather not voice publicly: Can I love an adopted child as much as a biological one?

But before Isaac was born this summer, I confronted a very different question: Can I love a biological child as much as my adopted ones?
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