Time - A Gay Man's Worst Enemy

They say that you get your "Gay Card" taken away once you hit 30. Apparently the bar lights don't bounce quite as well off of a face full of wrinkles, crows feet, and years of fake tanning abuse. Thankfully, Jon and I don't frequent gay bars, but time was not on our side for a different reason.

Intermingled with all of our talks and question answering, Jon and I both talked about our time lines. This is another way of saying, what would our cutoff age be before we gave up trying to adopt a child? Jon's timeline was more forgiving than mine. Call it ageism, but I wanted to forgo the embarrassment of being the geriatric man who has to be wheeled to his son or daughter's college graduation.

Jon is currently 33 years, 1 month, and 26 days old. He would adopt a newborn baby until he was 42. Let's see where that puts him in the timeline of our baby if we don't adopt until he is 42:

Jon's Age When the Baby Graduates High School: 60
Jon's Age When the Baby Graduates College: 65
Jon's Age When the Baby Marries: 70
Jon's Age When the Baby Has Babies: 72

I am a young 31 years, 4 months, and 26 days old. I only want to adopt a baby up until I am 35. Let's see where that puts me in the timeline of our baby if we don't adopt until I am 35:

My Age When the Baby Graduates High School: 53
My Age When the Baby Graduates College: 58
My Age When the Baby Marries: 63
My Age When the Baby Has Babies: 65

There is a 7 year difference between my age and Jon's age. 7 years is a long time....ask a dog, that is one human year in their life. That is why we both agreed to start now, when we are still young and don't feel pressured to meet our timelines. This way feels more natural, more organic.

There is one thing we do agree on with time lines, once the adoption process starts (from our very first call to an agency), we are looking at about a 3 year window before we stop pursuing. There is only so much rejection a person can take before they have to move on.