Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Adoption Cures Infertility???

Right, so since we got on the roller coaster ride of emotions called International Adoption we have had a lot of comments.

For the most part, the comments have been positive. Friends and family are supportive and for that we are very thankful!

However, we still get the occasional comment that - well - just makes a girl (and a boy) wanna cry!

It is no secret that we have decided to build our family thru adoption because of "unexplained" infertility. Basically this means that after HSG testing, Laparoscopic surgery, fertility drugs etc. we have not been able to conceive a biological child and there is no medical reason as to why we can't . It just didn't happen! It was hard to understand - the gynecologist said "well, we just don't know why, sometimes we can tell from the testing but everything looks normal and seems to be operating as it should." We looked at each other dumbfounded because this is not what we expected to hear.

So, there it is! We did lots of soul searching and after sitting in the gyno office for fertility treatments and ultrasounds one too many times with extremely pregnant women surrounding me and always leaving the appointments in tears we decided to look at other ways to have a family. We made the conscious decision not to pursue IVF because it wasn't right for us.

After careful consideration and much research we decided to take the route of international adoption because that is where our hearts led us. We are happy with our decision even though at times it has been a wee bit emotional. We made peace with the fact that we will not have biological children but that we would and could still have children and a family of our own.

There are the odd occurrences when we tell people about our adoption and we get answers such as these:

1. "What an honourable thing you are doing."
2. "That child will be so lucky"
3. "You better watch out, now that you are adopting you going to get pregnant"
4. "I have friends who as soon as they decided to adopt they got pregnant and then didn't have to adopt anymore."

I have to bite my tongue lots of times. I know that people don't understand that adoption was our choice. They don't understand that we could have decided that if we can't have biological kids we won't have any kids.

It is not a decision we came to lightly one night over beer and wings. We dug deep into our hearts and asked a lot of questions, the answer that came back to us time and time again was - we want a family, period. It was not how our family was built that mattered to us - what mattered to us was that we had wee ones running around our home, filling the house with laughter, tears, spit up, poop, toys and the patter of little feet.

1. We do not feel we are being honourable by adopting a child - we feel we will be honoured by our unknown child's presence in our lives.

2. We are the lucky ones!

3. At this point we don't want to get pregnant - we are 'pregnant' - 10 months, 3 weeks, 3 days worth of pregnant and believe me my ankles are swollen - I should be on bed rest at this point.

4. I can't even answer this one - I just walk away - this is not a game to us - we didn't decide to adopt because it might be the trick that gets us pregnant. We are committed to our wee boy or girl in E and are taking precautions just in case.

Adoption is not a way to cure infertility. Adoption is a way to create a family.

15 comments:

Carolyn said...

Adam and I can SOOO relate to what you are talking about. We went through a similar experience except we did 2 rounds of IVF as well. We always get comments like those. Even my own mother said "maybe you will get pregnant now"- people just do not understand. Although we are thrilled about our adoption it does not take away the pain of the infertility. Great post!

Carolyn

Kristen, Dave, Katelyn & Jon said...

Wow - your post completely mirrors our experience with unexplained infertility, our decision to adopt and the comments we get from some family friends. It's so nice to not feel alone anymore.

Kristen :)

Julie said...

All you can do is keep trying to educate people. If you haven't gone through it, you just don't understand it. You are so strong, and such a great 'spokesperson'. Thanks.

Barb said...

I agree. This is one of the hardest things to respond to. We feel the same. We are the lucky ones to be matched with such a beautiful child. I suspect we will learn way more about life from her than we can ever pay back.

Good for you for making this brave post. I wish people who made those comments would read these postings.

Barb

hazel said...

#4 is RIDICULARSE!

People don't realize that once you commit to adoption, you are, for all intents and purposes, 'expecting.' You're not going to change your mind and walk away from your coming child - just like you wouldn't if you were preggers. Sick.

My heart goes out to you and everyone who has faced fertility issues.

((HUGS))

Anonymous said...

Great post! Get outta my head, willya? :)

I am totally with you, and what others are saying. I am UP.TO.HERE. with people telling me "now you'll get pregnant"... uh, if thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of medical science couldn't do it, I doubt that adoption is going to be some sort of "cure". And believe me, with being up twice a night feeding Stinkerbelle, who's got the energy anyway?? Sheesh.

Jess said...

Thank you for your post.. it is as if I wrote it myself! We too have unexplained fertility, decided not to pursure infertility treatments further and am also tired of the "comments" It is so amazing to know there are other people going through the same thing. We are switching countries right now...
thank you! (I got your blog link from Sandi's blog!)

Ramona said...

Great post on a ignorant subject! I don't even want to begin to imagine what I'd feel like if we somehow (quite impossible as it is)got preggo while on this journey(Yes, I'd have the months to get a grip on my emotions, accept it, rejoice and then one day start on our journey again). But if someone decided to adopt in hopes that that would make them get pregnant??? Hello?! I still have people closely related to me giving me "hopeful stories" of people they've heard of who started looking in adoption and then got pregnant...
I have 2 miracle fertility drug kiddos which is one more reason why people question why we can't just be happy with the kids we already have... And in the end we realize how blessed we are to have our on-line community of supporters and our small group who are all involved in Ethiopian adoptions. One day others may begin to see that we don't all choose the way some things go in our lives(infertility or whatever it may be), but in the end, our choices (as in to adopt) will be different then what their life includes!
Another hard thing is to to remember the lines I often practice so I can say a coherent response that isn't completely rude...
Ramona

;) said...

Just recently I had someone ask me why we didn't use a surrogate instead of adopting. I was gob smacked at that comment. She was making it sound like adoption was the worst choice out there. I wanted to smack her, but of course, she was 9 months prego and that would have been frowned upon. I just walked away.

Why, why, why do people have to make such stupid comments. I am so grateful for the wonderful people whom I have met in the adoption world who just get it.

Sorry, didn't mean to make it such a long post.

Shannon

Tracey said...

So well said Rana!

Keltie said...

I personally would hope that, if there were anyone considering adoption as a means of finally conceiving, their social worker would stamp UNAPPROVED on their home study before it even got past their front door. Seriously. Poeple just don't think before they open their mouths. We have been down the fertility road once and we have chosen not to do it again because for us adoption is actually less painful. Sheesh. Well said, my friend.

The Warren Family said...

Very good post!! Matthew and I have not "tried" to get pregnant, so we don't really know if we would have fertility problems or not. We just decided to adopt because it was the right family choice for us. It is funny how many people assume that we are adopting because we can't get pregnant. Again people think because you are adopting it must be your second choice or something. Also, we get the "oh just wait you will get pregnant once you bring your baby home" comment. That comment drives me nuts! I feel like yelling - we want to adopt, we don't want to get pregnant! It reminds me of that comic where the adopting parent is talking to the pregnant woman and saying "oh I'm sorry you couldn't adopt". Why don't people get that adoption is special and maybe it is what we want to do?
Great posta Rana!

Shannon

The Turgeon Expansion said...

You read my mind girl! All I can add is ditto to what everyone else said, people are mental.

Natalie and Chris said...

Happy Thanksgiving to you too Rana.

Tova said...

Hi Rana,

Thanks for introducing yourself on my blog. I look forward to following your journey as well.

Tova