Trackback Back
Karen eloquently said:
An adopted child isn’t some sort of consolation prize for those who fail to conceive and it should not be handed out at every opportunity by those who insist “they’re just trying to help”. Trust me, all infertile couples have heard of the concept of adoption - so these “helpful” individuals are not telling them anything new or useful or helpful or even original.An adopted child should be treated as a first choice - not as a poor substitute for the biological child that was not possible. Those who make adoption “suggestions” aren’t really concerned for the welfare of potentially adoptable children, although they like to say they are… if they were really all that concerned about adoptee welfare they’d consider how their attitude of “second best” makes adoptable children feel - and they’d also be adopting children themselves - regardless of their own biological abilities.
This post inspires me to talk about something that happened to me last week. After I found out that our social worker was coming for our homestudy, I had a fit of depression. I couldn’t understand it because I had been so happy and excited so now why was I feeling sad? I went to the store to pick up some childproofing things for our fire inspection and while I was standing in line to pay, I saw a father with his three children. They all looked just like him and I knew that he was a dad and here were his bio-children like little stairsteps: A preschooler, a toddler, and a baby. I felt a wave of jealousy the likes of which I hadn’t felt since we were doing infertility treatments and then my sadness made sense.
I forget sometimes that our journey to adoption and our journey through infertility coincided but were each their own thing. Having a child come to us through adoption will be a great joy but it’s ok to feel sad for the bio-child that we aren’t having.
This is difficult to explain.
What I mean is that one is not a substitute for the other. We had to resolve our infertility before we could move on to adoption because otherwise, adoption was a sorry second best. While we have for the most part made good on that resolution with our infertility, it crops up again. Our homestudy brought up some of our grief because it was a reminder that we weren’t going to have the child that we had dearly hoped to have. But that’s ok because it’s appropriate to feel sad about that. It’s also appropriate to feel happy about adoption as it’s own thing and it’s inappropriate for adoption to be solace for a birth baby. That’s just way too heavy an expectation to put on a child.
The only way I can think to explain it is to say that if — god forbid — I lost Brett, falling in love again would not erase my love for Brett; it would be its own thing. And having loved Brett would be part of falling in love again so they would be entertwined in some ways but also entirely their own. Like that, the grief of infertility has receded but it hasn’t disappeared. Working through my grief has given me the strength and certainty that I will love again and that I will love the child that comes to us through adoption as his or her own person, as his or her own blessing.
It’s hateful to me when adoption is shoved down infertile couples’ throats. By all means, if you are led to adopt, adoption is a wonderful choice and for many families, a great way to be a parent but it is not a substitute for creating a bio-child. Seeing adopted children as substitutes for children that we couldn’t have degrades their own birth stories, their own ways of entering the family. It denies their history and the reality of who they are. Recognizing this is, in my opinion, an important part of a journey to adoption.
Reading Rainbow had a very good (PBS) program the other day about adoption.
I KNOW I could love an adopted child JUST as much as natural born to me children, but there is some kind of stigma, weirdness *out-there* about it, sadly. Love is love is love
Thanks so much for sharing your *walk*
For me, dealing with primary infertility, it all boils down to this: do I want to be pregnant, or do I want to be a mother? It’s definitely the latter, but it’s hard to let go of wanting the former. But, I know I have limits as to how far I’m willing to go to get pregnant.
Sometimes, though, I have a hard time remembering that other people don’t think the same way I do, and won’t make the same choices for the same reasons. Even as an infertile woman, I sometimes find myself being critical of the treatment decisions other infertile couples make. When I catch myself doing that, I know it’s time to take a step back and evaluate why their choices bother me. Is it because I have vestiges of guilt for not being willing to go “that far”?
Here I am rambling in your comments again!
I’m reading an autobiographical novel about the Meskwaki tribe of Native Americans, and when the narrator’s grandfather died, another man was ritually assigned to be his 2nd grandfather.
It reminds me of how you are talking about adoption as being linked to the grief of infertility.
I got so sick of people suggesting adoption when we were on our infertility journey. ummmm duh? We lived in NZ where international adoption is/was rare and difficult and domestic adoption is about 12 children a year. Adoption is not a path I would have pursued because the heartbreak would have been so hard to manage. A friend of mine spent 12 years in the adoption pool. I don’t have that kind of stamina.
My parents often suggested adoption to infertile couples that they knew/know, but not as a consolation prize (obviously). They suggested it because after adopting us they considered themselves adoption advocates and felt that they were clearing up the misconception that adopted children would be second best. Just thought I’d share that not all people who suggest adoption to infertile couples are totally thoughtless.
I never think of my son, who was adopted (once; it’s a legal process, not a state of being. Much like a child conceived by surrogate or IVF is not an IVF baby or surrogate baby) as my “adopted son.” I also think that if by some miracle I became pregnant, I could also love that child as much as I do him.
I love this post. It was an issue we struggled with when we were deciding whether or not to continue fertility treatment. My next favorite thing people do is to tell me that I’ll get pregnant now that we’ve adopted– As if Jackson isn’t a good enough child in his own right but merely a means of getting the bio child that I really want.
poignant and well said.
It makes me want to complete my little essay about the ‘the biology of parenthood’. Our adopted daughter feels as ‘biologically’ ours as one that would have been born ‘genetically’ to one of us.
Great post, Dawn.
As an adopted child myself, I find this all very interesting. It makes me wonder what kind of discussions/issues/debates my parents had prior to adopting me.
In their situation, they had a bio baby and soon lost her to SIDS. Subsequently, my mother had serveral miscarriages before her OB-GYN called and alerted her to my impending birth. (Keep in mind this was 1971 - pre Roe v. Wade - and the pool of babies available for adoption was far larger than it currently is.) Still, they were elated to have me and always treated me as the bio child they wanted as a *first choice* despite the fact that they did have a bio child six years later (my mom was 39, edging close to 40 at the time my sister was born).
There was never any distinction made between me as the *adopted* son and my sister as the *bio* daughter. Our parents showered us with the same amount of love and attention - as did family, friends, and neighbors that knew I was adopted. So I never had any real baggage about being adopted. My mother told me about how I came to be a part of their lives when she was pregnant with my sister as if it was just as normal. In fact, it made sense to me as a 6-year-old because of its similarity to the fabled stork story I always saw in the cartoons.
That said, I must admit that I look like my adoptive family - so much so that I could *pass* as a bio child. So there wasn’t the obvious differences to alert others that I wasn’t my parents’ bio kid. I think the general premise remains the same - treat both your kids alike and the rest will sort itself out.