"i can’t believe that with all the unwanted children in the world just waiting for a good home that people spend so much on infertility treatments."
why do so many fertile’s of the world believe it is the sole duty of the infertile couples to adopt? the natural order of things, as it may? WHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHY. what exempts you, oh fertile ones*, from adopting? because you can conceive naturally you don’t HAVE TO?
a woman had the gall to ask an infertile friend of mine the above question the other day. she knew my friend had just endured another negative ivf cycle, and felt it appropriate to ask. my friend, was silent. however, a few minutes later, she found the woman and asked her, "why didn’t you and your husband adopt?"
the response? come on, i am sure you can predict it. say it with me…..
"we don’t need to, we can have our own."
what gives these fertiles the right to judge infertile couples on the quest for a child? isn’t their road tough enough without condemnation? don’t they have the right to spend the money in the manner they wish? certainly they could have adopted. but instead of eating dinner out the other night, the fertiles could have given a child in a third world country clean drinking water for one year. vitamins. a blanket, maybe. oh, that’s different, is it? excuse me, i wasn’t aware.
is adoption only for infertile couples? as someone who hasn’t adopted (but tried before pursuing fertility treatment) it seems that a large percentage of people who adopt have had fertility issues. it is "traditional" to have children "the good old fashioned way". fair enough. it seems odd, having a baby where drugs and doctors are only involved in delivery instead of at conception (not to mention the petri dish). or as magnificent says, "i’m the father of our babies, but our doctor is the man who got you pregnant."
i’m digressing.
i have never adopted a child so i cannot adequately write what it IS. but i know what it isn’t. adoption is not a BURDEN that automatically falls to infertiles by default.
* i don’t mean all fertile people. you know i don’t.
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amen. very poignant. struggling with fertility issues brings an awful lot of guilt about adoption. always thought we would adopt back in the day of bliss when we took getting pregnant for granted. but now the drive for biological children is so compelling and adoption seems more invasive than even fertility treatments and my heart can’t face that right now. in the 2ww now after ICSI #2. in the hands of God and time now…
If adoption were easier, I think more people, let alone infertiles, would do it. But there is no “just adopt”- its a long arduous process and there’s nothing particularly easy about it. Plus there is something about the whole social worker evaluating one’s fitness as a parent that is very off-putting.
Touchy subject with me!
Several people asked me while went went through numerous IVF’s why didn’t we just adopt.
I didn’t want to hear it and told them as much. It was OUR decision, not theirs. OUR money, not theirs.
After the hundredth failed IVF it took a year for me to decide on adoption. I wanted to adopt when it was the right choice for us – not because someone else said we should. And certainly not as a second best way to have a child.
And if someone thinks adoption is easier or cheaper than IVF – shoot me an email and I’ll set you straight!!
Hi Tess! I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get around to delurking. It’s “Em” here of our Mini-U.N. consortium at TTC from a verrry long time ago. I’ve been so happy to follow your story and your writing.
We considered adoption, even recently. I totally agree with you & the commenters above. If only we didn’t have to ask ourselves that question. And if only all parents could keep their babies.
I’m not sure there is a right answer.
UGH. Even if it is not said aloud, I know that very statement is out there among many. So sad that so many people use the ability to talk without really thinking of what they are sayng and how they may be offending. Or even worse, not even caring. Fertile wishes to your friend during her struggles!
Please, put down that baseball bat – you are NOT allowed to bonk people just because they are idiots.
Feel free to complain in your blog though, we’ll listen.
And then those of us who do *just* adopt (said with heavy saracasm) find we face a new set of judgements from the world. I never knew when we started on our adoption journey that so many people were so rabidly anti-adoption. The decision to adopt, like the decision to pursue fertility treatments, is so intensely personal and complex. At the end of the day, we all just sought to be parents. Who knew it could all become so layered with complexity? Thanks for this piece. I’m going to come back and read it again.
I think people mean well, or something. HEll I can’t justify it. LOL
I echo Figlet. We have two children from our own two pregnancies. When we decided two years ago to look into adopting our third child, we encountered bizarrely intense anti-adoption pressure from certain folks close to us (and others not so close, but extremely opinionated). Then in summer 2005 I felt in my heart that I really wanted to try one more time biologically, so we switched gears and have been trying since then to go that route…only to have some of the same people smugly? sarcastically? remind us that if we were sincere about adoption the first time round, then by now we should give up trying biologically and adopt a child instead. (Which of course we may well do, but not due to their unsolicited counsel.) I mean, who made it their business how families grow? Sometimes we just can’t win when people behave like that.
It’s too bad that the people who truly understand infertility are those of us who’ve faced it. Is it that difficult to be empathetic rather than judgmental?
Amen. Several of my “friends” (maybe not so much so) put this on me when they found out we were doing fertility treatments…particularly when we moved onto IVF. And yet…those “friends” had biological children. They had no idea. Still don’t. Never will.
Tess, can of worms.
I can’t imagine someone actually saying that. They might just be rude and ignorant types. Certainly thoughtless. I think joeinvegas is half right, while a baseball bat might not be a good idea, a cuff-upside-the-head might be!
oi lei!
I just wanted to say that I know of quite a few families who have a birth child or two, and have adopted, not because of secondary infertility but because they feel they can offer an adopted child a good home. These are mostly people I know online in the UK who have adopted from foster care.
In my dreams we will have one birth child followed by one adopted child…
Hi- I am going to sound like a total weirdo here, but I did IVF, have a baby from my first try, and still think IVF is intrinsically a sin. I should have adopted- it is totally selfish that I didn’t, but I’d do it all over again to have my kid…I don’t know how much of this is because my sister is adopted (I’m not), and her differences in personality are truly innate. On some level, that really scared me off the process. All people should adopt, but there is this little piece of me that wonders if God is trying to tell us (infertile people) something when it keeps not happening.