It is still staggering to me just how uneducated some folks can be regarding infertility. Just when I think I've seen and accepted it all, something new comes along to blow my mind and render me speechless all over again.
This morning, I received this comment on a recent blog post.
'Just Adopt.'
(Keep in mind the fact that this comment was left on a post where I was completely devastated about potentially losing yet another embryo to a chemical pregnancy... a pretty darn emotional subject, particularly since this would be miscarriage #4.)
It's like a swift kick to the guts to read something like this - but it's a part of sharing our journey publicly, so it comes with the territory. I've never been shy in telling our story; after doing this for so long, I would be lost without the support that this community, and that my real-life family and friends have given us. With the positive though, comes the negative.
Anonymous, I ask you this: Do you think my heart would be any less broken, if we were to choose the path of adoption?
Would it erase the pain of our miscarriages? Would it 'fix' what was broken in us, physically? Would it erase any of the pain of years gone by? Would it magically glue our lives back together?
I've said this before & I'll say it again: We are SO lucky to have our daughter. We know it & we'll say it until we're blue in the face; we're more grateful to science than we could ever put into words. Does having one biological child mean that we aren't entitled to want to try for another? Or were you implying that we are selfish to hope, to yearn, to try, when children need adopting? It's just adding a whole new helping of guilt to an already full plate of sadness, devastation, anger and grief.
Would you tell your fertile friend to 'just adopt' when she excitedly tells you she's about to TTC with her partner? Would you tell someone who already has multiple biological children of her own that she's 'selfish' when she announces she's pregnant again, instead of adopting a child? Would you tell someone dealing with a fresh new diagnosis of infertility that she should abandon her hopes of becoming pregnant to adopt a child instead?
'Just Adopt.'
Two words that trivialise an extremely sensitive and heartbreaking journey to so many - birth parents with no other choice but to give their child up, the children in question, adoptive parents in the process of adopting, hopeful parents who are investigating their options, and parents who desperately WANT to adopt, but can't.
Two words that trivialise an extremely sensitive and heartbreaking journey to so many - birth parents with no other choice but to give their child up, the children in question, adoptive parents in the process of adopting, hopeful parents who are investigating their options, and parents who desperately WANT to adopt, but can't.
Since this poster is Anonymous, I have no idea where they are located... but I can only speak about adoption from an international sense, since we're in Australia. Adoption is NOT an easy process.
It irritates me to to no end, when people assume that adopting a child is as simple as walking into an agency & having a tiny person handed to you on a silver platter. It drives me crazy, when comments like these go ahead and assume that adoption is something we've never considered, or to imply that we're being selfish for wanting to continue throwing everything we have at the chance of being pregnant again. It makes me so sad, for all the newly infertile couples out there who have this comment thrown in their face time and time again.
For what it's worth, my hubby and I have spent more time than I would like to admit, searching for non-traditional ways of building our family. We've spent hours on the phone, going through the processes of seeking information on whether it's something that we can do. We've sobbed in each other's arms, because the 'fostering with intent to adopt' system that is prevalent here in Australia has so many loopholes in it, that the thought of being somebody's mother for a little while & then having them taken away and returned to their birth family is too utterly devastating to comprehend. We've weighed in on the gravity of the situation revolving around our daughter - knowing that we need to consider her wellbeing above our own, particularly considering that many local and international adoptions involve special needs children. Flippantly telling me {or anyone} to ADOPT! via a comment on a blog... well, obviously you don't know our family very well.
There is so much heartache that comes with infertility. You're grieving a child that hasn't even been born yet - you've lost a person that you never even got a chance to know.
For a lot of families, they're grieving the chance to continue their own biological line, the chance for a Mother to see their own eyes staring back at them, or for a Father to see his stubborn personality shine through in his offspring. No, that's not the only important thing about parenting, but it is important; and it's not for anyone to decide but those individuals themselves.
'Just Adopt'.
Every adoption involves some form of loss. Even if it's a couple who doesn't suffer from infertility, and are seeking to expand their family in another way... there's still loss involved. Loss of identity for children in the system, loss of a child for biological parents who choose, or have the choice of parenting taken from them. There is heartache and desperation. Adoption is not as simple as it seems.
We want to be parents again. Whether that may be parents to another biological child {if we're so lucky} or parents to a child who will be 'ours' in every other sense of the word, we really don't have a preference. But that's because we are lucky - we're lucky to have a comfortable home, a secure job, the time available to offer this journey. So many others simply don't have this option at all - so by throwing the 'just adopt' comment in their face.. even if it comes from a place of compassion, you could actually be damaging them in unthinkable ways.
Something to think about.
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7 comments:
Well said. <3
Bravo!
Beautiful and concise Aly
Very well said. It's so easy for someone on the outside of infertility to think adoption is the miracle answer. What about the years of waiting on the waiting list for adoption, in which time you can't be undergoing fertility treatment. Sure, there may be plenty of children out there needing a loving family but it's not as easy as just filling out an adoption form and walking into a shelter to choose a child like you would a kitten or puppy. Before anyone suggests adoption, I suggest they have a look at how hard it can actually be.
This was such a lovely response to such an ignorant comment. I'm not sure that I would have been as nice as you were to Anonymous had he/she left the same comment on my wall. I'm sorry that you had to deal with that and hopefully they learned something from your response.
UGH. People can be so thoughtless and cruel. Always thinking and praying for you and your family.
-N
I'm not a super expert or anything, but the adoption process--emotional and otherwise--of adding to you family is SO TOTALLY DIFFERENT than trying to have a biological child. They aren't really comparable except that, hypotheticaally, at the end of the day you have another child. The emotional roller coaster of adoption is intense, as intense as IVF, I'd say, and I don't think it's okay to assume that a family who has decided to go down one road could easily switch to another, just like that. It's a completely different kind of heart-break (like you mentioned, the intent to adopt/foster family situations that don't work out, I cannot imagine how people continue breathing through that kind of situation.) Ugh. I'm so sorry. People are the worst.
xox
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