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In 1974, my wife Sandy & I had one child, oldest son Douglas, and were planning to adopt a second … we worked long and hard on the adoption process and were nearing its conclusion when Sandy unexpectedly became pregnant.
Birth of another child would have interrupted the adoption process … one of the rules at the time being that no other infant could be present in the adopting family.
Nevertheless, and knowing that adoption would remain an option in the future, we were happy and excited to learn of the pregnancy … as was Doug, despite his expressed preference for a playmate, rather than a helpless little brother or sister.
Sadly, neither was to be … 40 years ago today, May 31, 1974, Sandy suffered a miscarriage and lost the then two month old fetus.
Proving that even tragedy can sometimes have unexpected benefits, however … the miscarriage meant that we were able to continue with the adoption process … a process which led to the arrival in 1975 of our #2 son, Matthew Suk Zook Ahn Reilly … a Korean orphan then just over a year old.
Shortly after the miscarriage, I wrote a story about the pregnancy and the loss … copies of the original version of which are reproduced below.
———- ooo ———-
Three Dot ... 