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For love and leeches

After yesterday's depressing medical news, it was nice to read an article about an "advance" that appears to be working: the reintroduction of leeches to mainstream medicine. (The New Yorker doesn't have the article online.) The quirky and fascinating history of the leech's use in medicine contains the single most depressing line ever uttered by the wife of an obsessive (Lorna,  wife of leech expert Roy T. Sawyer):
"I knew that leeches would always be the first love of his life."

The article continues: "The Sawyers live with their adopted teen-age daughter, Bethany ..." [emphasis added] An adopted daughter friend of mine felt that the descriptive was gratuitous and somewhat belittling, as if the author had said "obese daughter" or "secondhand daughter." Kinda like how the producers of Brat Camp refer to the juvenile delinquents on the show as adopted. Alas, I have to disagree. The New Yorker didn't identify Bethany as adopted to denigrate her. It was to make clear that Lorna was barren.