Some Thoughts on Adoption

An old, very dear, friend of mine sent me the sweetest card last week.  It took me a while to process it because it was unexpected, but I have finally worked up the strength to address it now.


This friend was adopted.


She started out her lovely letter telling me she'd been reading the blog.  She told me how much her heart aches for what B and I have been going through.  She told me what a good Mommy she know's I would make.  She told me she admired my "I will be a better mother" post.  I love this quote from her letter:

"If we never experienced a rainy day, how could we ever appreciate the warm sunshine?"

With that being said, she also acknowledged that remembering such wisdom doesn't make the hard days any easier.


I also love that she said that while she agrees infertility doesn't define me, "it will shape you, cause you to grow and think in ways you have never known before, but it isn't you!"


She went on to tell me all the things I am in her eyes.  She reminded me of all kinds of childhood memories together (we've known each other since first grade!).  She told me she is here to support me, no matter what I need from a friend right now.


She left me with a few silly quotes to help me cope:

1. "The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God will not protect you"
2. "One day at a time... one day at at a time."

Then there was a P.S. at the end that kind of rocked my world for a minute.


She said that she wasn't even going to write this last bit, but in the end felt she needed to be honest.  She said that she completely resepects B's & mine feelings on adoption, but the sections in my blog on that topic where a little hard for her to read.


I had to go back an read what I had written, because I know there weren't any posts yet with a title like today's title... and then I remembered the post-turned-into-a-page, "What not to say."


At the end of this post I make two different statements about adoption, and now that I go back and reread them, they do come off as very dismissive and negative.  Rather insensitive actually.


I feel it is important to explain where I was coming from the day I wrote those words and a little bit more about where B and I are coming from on adoption in general.


B flat out doesn't want to adopt.  He is not interested in open or closed, foreign or domestic, baby or older child adoption.  He just keeps saying he is not comfortable with raising someone else's child.  He is afraid that if there are serious difficulties, handicaps, issues or whatever, that he won't be able to handle it, and would end up resenting me.  He says that if it was our genetic child, he'd feel differently, like it was more his responsibility to work through the tough times and so he'd be able to manage through it with our own child.  But if it was someone else genes and we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, he'd regret it.  I hope I have articulated that accurately and with the spirit in which he feels.


Because it is all about the genes for him, not just the lifestyle of the mother or the environment of foster homes & orphanages, B is not interested in embryo adoption either.  For the same reason, he is not interested in sperm donation.


I don't know how he really feels about fostering, but I think he would be very concerned of my "falling in love" and pressuring him to adopt any children we welcome into our home/family temporarily, so I think he would be very against fostering as well, though I have not discussed this with him to the point of exhaustion as I have the adoption topics.


This has been very difficult for me to absorb and accept.  I know many people who have adopted or have been adopted, and I think it is a beautiful loving thing.  


I love babies.  I love children.  I am the oldest of four children, the oldest of seven grandchildren.  I grew up with my mother running a home daycare in our house.  I started babysitting other people's children when I was eleven.  I taught Sunday School.  I taught children's swimming lessons for years.  My friends with children always comment on how good I am with their kids and sometimes even call me the "Baby Whisperer."


For me, this whole infertility struggle isn't about our inability to conceive our own genetic child.  It would be beautiful and amazing, and world-changing (to us) for B and I to create a being that is part of each of us.  But I don't need to have my own genetic child.  I'd love to have the experience of being pregnant and giving birth, that rite of passage into womanhood.  But I don't need to be pregnant to feel like a woman, or an adult.


What I do need is to fill this empty hole that is growing inside of me.  This need to nurture, to give, to love something that depends on me for everything.  I need to be a mother.


I honestly believe I'd be very content and my needs would be beyond satisfied with adopting a baby.  An embryo adoption would allow me the opportunity to experience pregnancy and labor, but like I said before, I don't need all that.  I just want a baby.


Sometimes I even think fostering would help, though I'm sure it would be a very slippery slope toward wanting to adopt.  It would be hard to give them up once they've been part of our little family.  Maybe I'm putting words in B's mouth when I say he'd be afraid of me doing that... maybe I say he'll feel that way because part of me worries that I'll do it...


So when I wrote those comments about adoption, about how it's not for every one, about all the negative aspects and risks of it... I was trying to convince myself of these things.


I needed to convince myself that I too felt this way about adoption.  Or that it was ok for someone to feel this way about adoption.  I had to separate myself from my own true feelings about it because the fact of the matter is, I cannot adopt.  In the life I have chosen, I am half of a partnership.  My life is not just about me anymore, it is my and B's life together now.  He feels very strongly against something that I think could take away my suffering.  I have to accept that.


If I don't come to terms with and accept the fact that we will not adopt I only have two other options.  Continue to live in pain with tension between us, or abandon our relationship and pursue adoption without him.  The first is not healthy and won't solve anything and the latter is unimaginable and not an option at all.


I want a baby, but I want B more.  I can't imagine spending the rest of my days without him.  I can't imagine choosing to be a single mother over being a childless couple.  I can't imagine meeting anyone else that I could have children with and being able to love them the way I do B.  I never could have imagined myself not being a mother, but I also could never have imagined myself loving a man like B this much either.  Now that I have him, I don't ever want to let him go.  I'd rather have a good love story be the legacy of my life than an unknown future without the love of my life.


So that's why I have been struggling to come to terms with the fact that adoption is out for us.  Because it has to be.  Because I have to.


That's also why I put so much emotion, time, and energy into fertility treatments and options.  Because they are my only hope of having it all.  Of being the person I thought I was meant to be.  Of feeling complete as an adult woman in the only way I know how to...so far.


To all my friends and family who have either adopted or were adopted. I'm sorry if my comments in earlier posts/pages were hurtful to you.  I see now how insensitive they were.  I just want you to know that I wasn't thinking of anyone or anything besides myself and what I am experiencing with B when I wrote those.  I talk so much about wanting others to be sensitive to infertiles like me, and then I go and do something so thoughtless.  I'm sincerely sorry for any pain or discomfort I may have caused.