Last week I got a comment on a post of mine that was about moving on and letting go of the hope of having genetic offspring. This was a post in which I was talking about how I was managing to move from grief into acceptance and, ultimately, into a happy ending. The comment that was left for me was by a well-meaning man, a man who clearly had the best of intentions. This man wants me to be happy and to have the child I had so long wanted. This man’s well meaning suggestion was that I “just adopt”.
“Just” is quite a word. “Just” sounds so simple. “Just” tricks you into thinking that the task it is asking of you is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. And I can assure you that my experience with adoption was been anything but ‘just”. And, not that I talk about it much here or anywhere, but I can tell you that my failed attempt at adoption hurt me a million-zillion-trillion times more than any IVF procedure ever endured. It hurt more because there was a baby that existed and that for a period of time that baby was promised to me. When the mother changed her mind and kept her baby I was unhinged. I was the closest to a catatonic depression that I have ever been. I continue to think of that little girl almost daily. I know her name and I know what city she lives in and I know what grade she is in now and all of that knowing makes it harder to let her go. I know that I don’t have it in me to endure that again. I feel sure that another failed adoption would kill me, and I am not being hyperbolic when I say that. One, I believe, has to enter adoption knowing that they might not get the child that was promised to them. One has to enter knowing that and be able to handle that risk. I simply cannot handle that risk, and so that is why I don’t adopt. For me it is just as simple as that.
“Adoption is complex on many dimensions. While it’s a given that the child involved is the preeminent priority, it’s not enough today to commit solely to raising a child in a healthy and safe environment. With the prevalence of open adoption there are also the the birth parents and their extended family to consider. All who adopt (whether they have children already or are looking to add to their family) are advised to consider the losses involved for the child given up for adoption and the birth parents. With the needs of many to manage and facilitate, adoption calls for more than parenting. Those who cavalierly suggest “just adopt” to a couple who has been emotionally, physically and financially drained as a result of extended infertility diagnosis and treatment are typically the least familiar with the actual adoption process.”
Lisa Manterfield, the author of I‘m Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood, and the blog Life Without Baby, explains her own reasons:
I think I could answer this question calmly and logically if I thought it was asked from a place of genuine curiosity or concern. But it always feels like an accusation, as if a woman who wanted children but didn’t adopt is somehow a lesser human being, or the dreaded word so often associated with childlessness: selfish.
So, instead of educating about the complexities of the adoption process, I usually just offer a neat version of the truth: that would have, if we hadn’t already maxed out our heartbreak cards.
After five years of dealing with infertility, my husband and I did choose adoption over the expensive and evasive fertility treatments that were offered as our next low-odds hope. We quickly learned that the “millions of unwanted children looking for loving homes” is a myth and “just adopting” isn’t a matter of going to Wal-Mart and selecting a baby off the shelves.
At the time, foreign adoption was a quagmire of bureaucracy and corruption. Guatemala was in the midst of a baby-stealing scandal, China has just changed its requirements (making us ineligible), and good friends of ours had finally pulled the plug on six fruitless years of trying to adopt from Russia. Private domestic adoptions can be prohibitively expensive and just as fraught with danger. With the availability of birth control and the lessening stigma of the unwed mother, there simply aren’t enough “unwanted” babies to meet the demands of potential adoptive parents. As such, competition to adopt domestically is so stiff that it can feel more like a game show than an application for parenthood.In the end we opted to pursue adoption through the foster care system. We now understand that this route is a calling, and not just an alternative route to parenthood. The goal of the system is to keep blood relatives together whenever possible, and foster families can have several children temporarily in their care before an adoption becomes possible. We were more than ready to open our hearts to a child (or children) who needed a home, even if that child wasn’t the newborn we’d once dreamed of, but having had our hearts ripped out and stomped on so many times through infertility, we no longer had the emotional stamina to go through losing a child over and over again. Some people may view that as selfish; I prefer to call it self-preservation.So, when someone asks me why I didn’t just adopt, they’d better hope I say, “Because I’d maxed out my heartbreak card,” or be ready for a long education about the realities of adoption.
comes from. How could I deny that knowledge to a child?
I believe Pamela has said she views adoption as a “calling” and one that she just didn’t feel personally. Another online friend once put it this way: adoption was something that she tried to get excited about — but couldn’t. Her heart just wasn’t in it. And didn’t she owe it to any child that she adopted to be excited, truly excited, about bringing that child into her life?I don’t think that makes her, or me, a bad person. Better to be honest with yourself about your feelings and limitations and what you personally feel capable of doing.
My husband & I talked about adoption, but I didn’t feel that excitement or enthusiasm that I saw in other couples we knew who were considering adoption. If I felt anything, I think I just felt exhausted. Dealing with stillbirth and years of infertility does that to you. I was in my 40s (he
was too). I’ve often said that, maybe if I’d been 35, I might have felt differently. As it was, I was just tired, and ready to move on with my life. I didn’t look at adoption & see a possible child for us. I just saw more work, more prodding into our personal lives, more money, more complexity,
more waiting, more uncertainty, more potential for more heartbreak. I didn’t want another roller coaster ride. I’d had enough of roller coasters. I wanted off.”
As someone who has been through the process, twice, and who has spent many years understanding the complexities of adoption from birth parent and adoptee viewpoints, I concur that the words “just” and “adopt” should rarely be used adjacent to each other.
There should, I think, be a mandatory five-word distance between the two words.;-)
Thks again Tracey for a ‘spot on’ post! (& sorry I think I called u Susan in a reply a few days ago-oops!)nearly everything expressed above totally resonates with our experience of infertility/IVF, loss grief & our feelings re the adoption &/or fostering options AND how people tend to offer you this ‘simple solution’, often as if they think these opts. wouldn’t have already occured to you to boot. Re adoption from Australia, there is virtually no adoption option avail. other than from overseas & this is very complex, very expensive (like $35,000 ++, the cut off age for women is upto 45yrs & many countries insist adopting parents must be (& prove it)of the same religion of the child/child’s family to be adopted. There is a gruelling, very intimate selection process over a number of years & you can wait several years whilts being ‘assessed’ until you are finally put on an actual waiting list whilst then undergoing continued assessment. It is good that our Govt. will only allow legal, ethical adoption, focused on finding families for children rather than ‘children for families’, BUT yeah, even if we hadn’t already ‘done our $$’ on IVF etc & I wasn’t in my 40s, we are definately not up for more intense uncertainty or having our hearts actively trampled over again & again as it might well occur during an attempt at adoption!
No worries, D.A.H. I don’t care what you call me—I am just delighted you are here and are bravely sharing your story. Thank you so much for your comment. As you and Loribeth and others have said, after enduring all the heartbreak of failed ART to endure more heart trampling—I know I couldn’t manage another day of it—and it is a comfort to hear you and others understanding exactly how I feel about this. Truly, thank you!
Here’s the one I like. “You just have to let go”. Really!?!? Fucking genius, why didn’t I think of that. You know Tracey as I was reading this a sudden strong feeling came to me about you. Something good and fulfilling s on the horizon for you. I don’t know if its a a child but maybe. I don’t know if its adoption or what. All I know is having a person come out of you vagina does not make one a mother. Keep you heart and eyes open my friend.
Thank you for your generous premonition. Yes, good and fulfilling things are definitely in my now and on my horizon. Thanks for sharing that vision with me.:-)
After experiencing the emotional devastation in the wake of a failed ‘domestic’ adoption and the subsequent complete breakdown of my former boss (actually committed to an institution for several weeks at the time and has bounced in and out about every 18 months over the past 15 years), we thought long and hard about adoption. We had multiple roadblocks hurled at us (mainly b/c my D.H. was active duty military and I was a part time student/part time out of the home employee) when we researching our options, piled on top of that at least two failed adoptions within our own unit.
There will always be those narrow minded, myopic fools who cannot see beyond the end of their own noses and will make inane statements like “just adopt” w/o considering the consequences & impact on the person/couple they are spewing at.
Thanks again for your refreshing honest take on a still under discussed topic that effects/affects more people than openly discussed.
I really get what happened to your boss. Kate, I was a COMPLETE wreck after my failed adoption. I know I said it in the post, but it was much harder for me to deal with emotionally than the failed ART. And I totally understand and appreciate your careful approach to the topic. Truly there is nothing easy about it.
Thank you, Kate. I certainly hope that this post makes those who offer the “just” suggestion to pause and consider their well-meaning suggestions.
I’ve had this one thrown at me a few times and find people completely astonished that there aren’t scads of children out there just waiting to be picked. Like you’d just pop down to the pound almost and pick one out. In addition to being in my 40s, and of a fairly low income that could not cover the cost of the process, I also have the temerity to have inadvertantly remained single. If couples find it hard to adopt, I really don’t know what hope a singleton like me has but people persist in thinking it should pretty much be my first option, if not my last. In Western Australia, I’ve been told, even to be a foster mother, you need to fund a year off work to be there full-time for your foster child for the first year. Another singleton interstate has just been told, she needs to wait 12 months for training to be a foster mother.
The whole infertility thing just seems like one punishment after another sometimes.
Another great article and thanks!
Yeah, no…alas there are not children pounds or baby stores( oh, how I wish there had been…only I obviously get the ethical nightmare of such a scenario)…but people act as if there are such places and it drives me bats.
A year off???? That is ridiculous. What a shame that the system prevents people from offering children a safe home.
You are so right, Annette, it often does feel like one punishment after another. Thank you for being here and adding your voice to the topic.:-)
I adore this post! We’ve been discussing this in my support group and one lady is at the end of her ART and starting the adoption process. It is NOT for the faint if heart and it’s not a “just” situation. I, like you, suffered much deeper from our adoption scam, which no one mentioned here. We put our lives, our hearts, and TONS of money out there to a horrible person who was scamming us for money and never intended to adopt out her child. I had a nursery ready for a child and couldn’t even open the door for months. There is nothing ok about that. Thank you as always for writing about things that should be discussed!
Deni, I am so sorry. There should be a special place in hell for people who scam would-be parents. Truly, it is evil. I am so sorry you endured this. And I so hear you on the pain of it. I know that pain. Oh, sweet you, I am so very sorry you know this pain. Thank you for being here.
Thank you for this post, Tracey! We are a couple in our 40s and have slowly, painfully come to the realisation that we will be childless, because we cannot face the pain and potential heartbreak of adoption. I had a horrendous miscarriage 6 years ago, and I know I cannot face that level of heartbreak again.
Loribeth’s comments particularly resonated with me – when I think about adopting, I simply feel exhausted. We want to move on with our lives, and gradually becoming able to accept our childlessness is a major part of that.
Anne, You are most welcome. Thank you so much for adding your voice to this post! I really get it. And I understand that exhaustion, and I imagine every person who has going through the pain and heartbreak of infertility and/or miscarriages knows that exhaustion only too well.
I’ve posted something like this once in FB and a friend of mine (another non-mom-not-by-choice) told me that two friends of hers had trouble having kids and they adopted. After that they got pregnant on their own, but alas…they cared more about their own children than their adopted ones. So I agree with Pamela that adoption is a “calling”. My friend wrote this: I think adoption should stem from “I want to give love to a lost child” rather than “I want to pretend this is my child.”
I myself think that it’s selfish to go on to adoption without thinking carefully about it. That it’s selfish NOT to think about the child in question just because we long to have a child so much.
I also know a woman who can’t have children anymore (hysterectomy when she was in her 20s). When she heard news that someone got pregnant out of wedlock and was confused about what to do, she and her hubby were ready to adopt the child. At first the girl said that she’d give the child to them when the baby was born…so my friend and her hubby had started loving this baby already and they had prepared her name. Alas the girl’s parents wouldn’t have it, so they kinda persuaded her to abort the child.
(( Yeah, trying to adopt can mean another heartbreak ‘coz you’ve started loving the child-to-be already.
Thank you so much, Amel. So many fantastic points in your comment. I love the distinction about what adoption should be. And you make great points about how how it is selfish to not fully considering your motivations.
For me it really has been an ongoing grief as I know she is out there somewhere. And every time I hear her name I cry. I love her ( or at least the idea of her) and that will always be try. Yes, I grieve for my lost embryos and that is an undeniable loss—but its different. I don’t imagine I have to explain this to you.
I want to add my voice to those thanking you for your thought and candor. I am the other part of this debate. My (now ex) husband and I adopted 2 children from foster care after my hysterectomy. They were 2 of the “waiting” children you hear so much about. They are now grown up and more or less launched.
However, I must tell anyone contemplating such an adoption that it is not an easy “alternative.” Older children available for adoption have suffered great loss and often trauma. Parenting such children is not like it’s portrayed in the movie of the week. The experience, while worthwhile, was truly harrowing. My children are now in their late 20s and I’m still dealing with the vicarious trauma. I am not the same person I was. I have used up any emotional balance I ever had. The stress of parenting also destroyed my marriage. If I had it to do over again I do not know if I would do it. Sometimes the price really seems to have been too high.
Mind you, I am held up as an example of a “success” by social workers. I’m often asked to speak to adoptive parent support groups etc.
If you don’t think you are prepared to adopt, don’t. Don’t let anyone tell you that this choice is selfish. Even if you think you can handle it I guarantee it will test you to your limits. Choosing not to adopt is not selfishness, it is wisdom.
Also, don’t think that adopting will somehow cancel the grief of infertility. I still mourn the baby I could never have. Children are each individuals and the child I might have borne would have been different than the children I raised.
Thank you for making a place for this important discussion.
Thank you, Martha. I truly appreciate you and all the others who are adding their voices to this topic. It is especially great to hear form the other side of adoption. I am profoundly touched by your candor and your willingness to share your experience here.There is so much wisdom in your comment.
And, I will admit, that when I was trying to adopt I harbored some false hope that adopting would heal my infertility wound. I see now that it wouldn’t have.
I am so grateful to you for sharing your experiences. It means more to me than I can say. Thank you!!!
Tracey, what a powerful post. The comments are powerful as well. I was aware of some of these issues, but the personal stories make it incredibly clear that adoption is complex. One person mentioned possible problems with infants. An adoption support group I am aware of has discussed, based on their personal experiences, a higher incidence of learning disabilities than expected, and speculated that birth mothers may have genetic problems leading to the decision to give up the child. This is just a speculation, but it really made me wonder about the uncertainties involved.
What comes through strongly in your post and in the comments is the enormity of the grief infertility brings and the huge lost opportunity for a child, like I once was, who would have given anything to experience all of that willing love. To all of you childless not by choice, I wish I could have been your daughter!
So many mothers who can’t mother. So many children who never were loved. Ugh. It brings up my knee-jerk reaction about the unfairness of life. That, dear Susan, is a lesson I am continuing to struggle with. I still want life to be fair and for you to have had a mother who loves you the way you deserve.
Thank you for being here and for being a part of this conversation.
I got lots of “just adopt” comments on my Huffington Post piece. I always cringe when I see people say this – they really have no idea, either of the complications of the adoption process (before, during and afterwards), or the emotional/physical/financial status of those of us who have to consider adoption as an option.
I have to say I loved Lisa’s comment (copied below) – she’s so right, and it explains why I’ve always hated this question.
“But it always feels like an accusation, as if a woman who wanted children but didn’t adopt is somehow a lesser human being, or the dreaded word so often associated with childlessness: selfish.”
Well done Ladies on such calm, clever and rational responses to the “just adopt” post. I would say the post and comments reflect much of my own thinking on the topic.
One thing I often say to people when they ask this question is that I do not want to adopt because I wanted my own child, a child who was mine and my husbands. I do not have a burning desire to parent, full stop, but rather had a desire to conceive, carry and raise my own child. I do not feel much of an interest in parenting someone else’s child. I think we would have a better life childless than going through the process of adoption or fostering a traumatised child. Not always a popular idea.
I also have a family issue wi adoption which perhaps always meant adoption was off the table. My mother fell pregnant accidentally when she was a young woman and due to the social intolerance at the time towards unwed mothers, this was the 60s, she was sent to an unwed mothers home and “forced” to adopt out her child. She was only 17, ie. a minor and she says she was not provided any support or advice about how to keep her own child. My mother was severely traumatised by this process (and I know all adoptions are not like this) and I believe this affected her for the rest if her life, even now. So, I did not have a pretty picture of the impact of adoption on natural parents. I could never have considered adopting as I would have been haunted by a women out there like my own mother, forever grieving for her lost child. It is rather ironic now that while my mother’s life was severely affected by being too fertile and having to adopt out a child, her own later daughter, me grew up to be infertile and has suffered because of that. The cruel irony is not lost on me.
Great post. I had actually started off considering adoption before I tried getting pregnant on my own. Until I realized how much both foreign and domestic costs. I also know myself well enough to be honest about the fact that I don’t feel qualified to do the foster adopt. Or emotionally prepared to deal with a loss in that arena.
I have experienced many moments when I wished my fellow infertiles could feel the happiness I felt with my son. He has made all the heartache I’ve experienced worthwhile. BUT, and it’s a big but, adoption is far more complex than people think. Had his birth mother changed her mind, I would not have attempted to adopt again. I would have been gutted. After several years of TTC,IVF and waiting to adopt, I was mentally and financially drained and I just wanted a normal life again. I was tired of being poked,prodded and having strangers in my business. People ask me often if I would adopt again and though I would have loved another child, the whole journey was simply too perilous to endure again. Not at this point in my life anyway. My point is, I get it. Had I not adopted, my life would have gone on. It just would have been different.Being a parent has its joys, but it does not serve as a direct path to happiness and contentment in life.
Thank you so much for your wonderful post! After going through the trials of infertility and starting the domestic adoption process, I am with you! Thank you so much for sharing your journey for those of us trudging the path. So often the pain that goes along with involuntary childlessness keeps people silent and I think speaking up is so important. I feel so angry when people suggest I ‘just adopt.’ I have learned to respond to people’s ignorance with some fun facts that they are generally astonished to hear. The average cost of domestic adoption is currently $30K is a good truth bomb. I am dying to let my shadow dance one of these days and ask one of these uniformed people to borrow the 30K, help fill out the reams of paperwork, and hold my husband and I while we cry for the 2-3 year wait when they suggest adoption is as simple as a trip to the grocery store.
dear Tracy,
thank you so much for your wonderful post. And thanks to Pamela, Lisa and Loribeth.
I agree with everything written.
And I loved Lisa’s sentence: “Because I’d maxed out my heartbreak card”. So true!
In the beginning of our infertility path I always thought that adoption was a possible solution for us. Then, after aprox. 6 or 7th failed IVF I started to read Pamela’s Silent Sorority. There was a part of the book when she tried to analize adoption. She met with a woman who adopted 3 children and who said she loved the children more then anything. But she admited to Pamela that having adopted children does not erase desire to have your biological child. This was the first time when it crossed my mind that adoption is not a magical solution for everything.
I live in a small country where only 5 children are adopted from our country per year. And aprox. 300 couples are waiting for those children. Mission impossible (especially when my husband will be 50 in couple of years, I am 40).
Foreign adoption? Whenever I think about it I think about Spain and its “stolen babies” scandal:
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/25/world/europe/wus-spain-stolen-babies/index.html
If this was happening in Western Europe only 3 decades ago – how can I be sure that it is not happening now in Russia / China / Africa ?
My target now: live happily & childless ever after…
Hearing the stories here reminds me so much of my struggles with infertility in my thirties. What do you want to be when you grow up? For me the answer was always: “a mother”. After a miscarriage and a failed marriage, I had to confront a rapidly progressing infertility condition alone. People called me selfish for wanting a child so desperately. I endured the pain and expense of years of infertility treatment before I finally gave birth to a baby boy. He was the center of my life for thirty one years. He was my motivation to make a lifelong career in an abusive “day job” I sometimes hated so I could support him and all the expenses of child rearing that kept us struggling financially. He was ADHD bipolar, and the public schools could not deal with his condition. Private schools weren’t much better. The emotional balancing act was sometimes overwhelming. He developed a devastating illness in his early twenties, and died last December after ten years of courageously facing what was often torture. He was the bravest person I know. Now I ask myself: “Was it worth it?” The tremendous expense was negligible. Dealing with the anguish and challenges over the years has made me a stronger, more aware and compassionate human being. But not only have I lost him, I’ve lost thirty five years of my life. And again I have to ask myself: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
There is a girls’ orphanage in Bangalore, India that I visited two years ago and contribute to when I can. That will have to do for now.
I am so grateful people are talking about this. I think the reason the “just adopt” advice bit at me at the time was because I perceived it as dismissive of my emotional process and grief of dealing with infertility. And, though well meaning, none of those “advisers” had any clue of the endurance and emotional courage it would take to participate in adoption. Nor did I. So we found out experientially. Again, with lots of misunderstandings, false information, and lack of support along the way. And there was no “just” about any of it. As others have mentioned, the magnifying glass is on you,. I found the process very invasive. But ultimately, the most challenging thing to navigate has been maintaining a relationship with and honoring the needs of our son’s birth mother and grandparents. We naively believed a social worker who coached us about openness and said that the desire for openness and contact with the child tapers off after the first year…
(con’t)
but meanwhile we endure parcels of gifts for every special.day of the year.., letters asking for visits, and disgruntled grandparents who thin we aren’t living up to their understandingof open adoption. This is sometimes “just” a lot more than we bargained for. Adoption is a huge responsibility requiring an extension of myself and denial of myself at the same time. I am thankful beyond words for our beautiful son who is so well loved. I also cannot deny that the complexity of becoming a mother this was has it’s unique trials and hardships. I suppose that is my cross to bear. At times it can be lonely and “advisers” are far more hard to come by at this stage in the game. Those people now just see the “end result” and are happy for us, nit still have no clue of the toll it has taken.
Someone i know is also childless. She married a man with children, however, and is loving the “grandma” experience with her stepkids’ children. She also has a disability similar to mine, but different enough that i’m not sure she understands my limitations.
She said to me recently, “You can always adopt. You can always be a parent. It is your choice.” She went into a detailed story of how her brother and his wife have a small house and have adopted seven children.
I find this really painful, because it feels like she’s denying my experience.
She IS right, it is my choice. I’ve spent countless hours looking at children waiting for homes. (They are online just like you can look at pets available for adoption.) I even think, “We can do this!” And then i get out of bed. We canNOT do this. But it is my choice.
It was not my choice that all our pregnancies ended early. It was not my choice that my husband and i met when i was at the end of my ability to have children.
It was my choice, however, to trust doctors and take a medicine that has caused me to be disabled. It is my choice to admit my limitations and that it would be very difficult to parent children. It is my choice to admit that our finances would be seriously stretched to try. It is my choice to realize that the lifestyle we have chosen would have to change entirely in order to parent, very likely to the detriment of our marriage. It is my choice, and that of my husband to recognize that we can’t bear more heartache, and we certainly could not bear to have a child “offered” and then have the mama change her mind.
It is also my choice, i suppose, to resent that a friend (who dearly wants us to have children) continued to tell me about young women she knew who would be giving up a child and how it would be “perfect” for us – and then call two days later and say the mama changed her mind or something. I’ve told her over and over that she has to stop doing this. I know i would never pass a physical for adoption – but that doesn’t stop me from dreaming when she calls or hurting when the inevitable happens. I FINALLY convinced her to stop calling me with such stories.
It is my choice, as well, to resent stories i see on Facebook about the perfect families our friends have, or how being a mama is the ultimate perfection. And on and on. I’m struggling with this choice and trying to stop the resentment and envy.
What i dearly desire is to be a support to some mama out there. Maybe a single mama who has no nearby family or support. We could become unofficial aunt and uncle, and take the kid/s for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon or Friday evening so mama can go do her own thing. We don’t have Big Brothers/Sisters in our little town. I’ve spent quite a lot of time with local social services agencies looking for this very thing, to no avail so far. (They tend to tell me “just foster” without understanding the situation.) Our own family is too far away for us to be involved in nieces/nephews lives. Surely someone nearby needs such help? But i’ve not been able to find it yet.
With all my heart i want to be a mama. It won’t/can’t happen. I still love children, and so very much want to have a couple in our lives. For me, this would be the next best thing.
I guess I need to grow up a bit, as it still pisses me off when someone says “just adopt”. It was much more a matter of “just adopting” when my grandparents adopted my mother – and they were not only able to adopt children the same ethnic background as them, it was encouraged back then. Now, forget it – people judge if prospective adoptive parents are supposedly too picky.
Thank you for your post. It makes it easier to bear knowing there are others out there who have had similiar experiences to mine. It helps to know I am not alone…..
Love this post! I completely understand every word. We are parents because of domestic adoption. He was taken away from us for almost 7 weeks by his birthmother. At the time, not knowing she would be giving him back, I literally wanted to die. After 2 failed IVFs & being told biological children were not going to happen-losing our son did me in. I actually didn’t want to live. My husband would say that I was the only family he needed. I unfortunately didn’t feel the same way. It was the darkest time of my life. I never knew I could physically hate someone as much as I hated her for taking him away from us. In our case, it wasn’t because she ‘loved him & couldn’t live without him’-it was simply because of circumstances that because he was born under 30 weeks & under 3lbs-she was eligible of getting a SS check for him. It was all because of money. So I knew that he was not being taking care of correctly-not loved like I loved him. I-wanted-to-die. When we got the call that she changed her mind again, it was very hard to go there again. She agreed to give us full custody of him immediately (as we had just moved to a new state & had a time limit before filing for adoption).
All that to say, ‘just’ & ‘adopt’, yeah, it burns me up to hear those words put together as advice for infertiles.
This is a great article, and some fantastic discussion. I’m really glad to have read it.
When people ask me why I don’t adopt, I tend to say “for the same reason that you don’t”. This makes them think a little more about what adoption might actually involve. It also seems to shorten what is otherwise quite a painful discussion.
Good luck to anyone who is dealing with this issue at the moment. It’s so tough, but at least reading this article you know you’re not alone.