Cancer Ever After

Five little words that hit you like a bullet. They hurt you on so many different levels when you are infertile.

“Why don’t you just adopt?”

Condescending, well-meaning, full of ignorance, so incredibly naive…These words are loaded, and, while I truly believe that everyone who ever uttered them to me was well-meaning, these words hurt when you are infertile. I also believe that they ignore the most central part of any adoption: the child.

“Why don’t you just adopt?”

I hope you’ve learned as we’ve gone through this process that there is no such thing as “just” adopting. Adoption is not easy, it is not simple, and it’s certainly not cheap. We have one of the most streamlined adoptions that I’ve ever heard of, and ours is still complicated, exhausting and difficult. There is no such thing as “just adopting.”

And, as an infertile, you have to be screened more in order to prove that you have healed from the grievous wounds that infertility has inevitably made on your psyche. It still gets me that when we looked into adoption before we had any children, roadblock after roadblock were thrown in front of us: “A one-year wait is required after ending fertility treatments.” “We would require that you undergo physiological evaluation and counseling prior to adopting because you are infertile.”

The real wound behind these five little words is they imply that you haven’t even considered adoption as an option. It’s an option that I think every infertile considers at different points along their path. We considered and reviewed it several times, and our views on adoption changed throughout our journey.

The one view that never changed was that we had to KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that being adoptive parents would be in the best interest of the child. Infertility gave us oodles of time to contemplate and quantify exactly why we wanted to be parents. We knew exactly how far we were willing to go in pursuit of a child, something that most people never consider. Adoption is not the magical solution to a problem and adoptive children are not a consolation prize. They are THE PRIZE.

For us, we had to reach a point when we knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that adoption was THE answer. And it had to be the right answer. When we received that text offering us a child to adopt, we each only had one word in reply: “YES!”  That’s what made us know that this was our answer – the only one we needed.

We never doubted at any point that we could love a child who wasn’t born of our bodies. We doubted that we could withstand the journey to get him or her. Adoption is a long and arduous path. It’s emotional and it can be draining. And if you are infertile, you may be starting this trek when you are already low on reserves. You’ve been dealt emotional blows; physically you may have gone through exhaustive treatments. An oft-quoted study in the infertility world shows that infertility patients undergo the same level of emotional stress as HIV or cancer patients. Imagine the gravity of the stress you would be in, and then apply that to making a decision that will forever alter the life of a child. It’s not to be taken lightly.

Adoption is also expensive. That was another one of our hesitations.  With adoption, the majority of the money is paid before you ever know for sure that you are going to have the child. Relinquishment is one of the final steps, well after all legal and adoption fees are incurred. It’s a bet. It’s a gamble. It requires a leap of faith. Once again, you have to know that you are willing to pour all of your money and resources into something that may not pan out. You can spend every last dime you have and still not have a baby. One of my friends described the difference between international and domestic adoption very well:

“In international adoption, you pretty much never get an infant. If you’re lucky, you bring home a 6-month-old. But in an international adoption, you pick a number and stand in line. You know that you will have a baby in the end, you just have to be patient and wait your turn. It could take one year or it could take three.

“Domestic adoption is different. You can get a newborn, but you also take the risk that you will make it to the end and go home empty-handed–or that you won’t be selected for a baby in the first place.”

I’ll be honest. I don’t know that we could have stayed the course in this adoption–that we would have remained as calm–if we didn’t already have other children. I know the little pregnancy scares we’ve encountered these last few weeks would have given me a heart attack if I hadn’t had a very complicated, but successful, pregnancy of my own. Hearing that our birth mother’s mucus plug fell out at 30 weeks or that she is in the hospital and they are monitoring the contractions at 34 weeks is not for the uninitiated–trust me.

And then there is the most central part of any adoption: the child. We have taken every step and evaluated every option with the child in mind. Often, when we’ve mentioned the complicated and expensive process of adoption, people say, “But you can adopt from foster care.”

That isn’t a simple answer, either. Every child deserves a parent who loves them fully, who is prepared to learn and grow and be the parent he or she needs. Not everyone is prepared to parent someone who may have special emotional needs or medical needs. This is often the case with foster care. Tim and I considered this very carefully and we were never able to say that we knew we could be the right parents for a child or children from foster care. We don’t know that we are cut out to be foster parents and adopt through that system.

Maybe this will change someday, but until we know this, until that day, those children deserve better. Personally, I feel like a child with additional emotional needs would benefit from a parent who is staying at home with them. Me being a stay-at-home mom was our original plan when we started trying for a family years ago, but we have loans now that we took out to get our girls. Staying home is no longer an option.

And, finally, we get to my other pet peeve about adoption. Think about Angelina Jolie for a moment and her children. How often do you hear people refer to her “real” children and her “adoptive” children? Our son and every child of adoption deserves to be accepted fully. There is no line drawn between “real” and “adoptive.” This child is not a second-class citizen, and there will be no qualifier when we introduce him to others.

If you don’t know that you will simply see this child as your child, then you are not ready to adopt. If you don’t believe you can withstand the process of adoption–the emotional rollercoaster–and emerge as an emotionally healthy parent, then now is not the time to adopt.

That is why “just adopting” is not an answer to an infertile couple. It has to be about what is right for the child, not what’s cheap, perceived to be easy, or socially acceptable. It’s a big committment of time and emotional and financial resources. You have to be ready to commit fully to enter the process. And there will be times when you question if you are doing the right thing. You have to have the reserves to make it through the doubt.

Every infertile couple is different in their journey. I know couples that have gone immediately to adoption, and I know others who knew it would never be the right fit. Unfortunately, I also know others who have tried, and failed, to bring home a child and have no additional resources–emotional or financial–to try again.

I would compare considering adoption versus infertility treatments to determining the course of treatment for cancer. You know whatever decision you make will impact the rest of your life. You have to carefully weigh the options, risks, and benefits and determine what gives you the best chance of a successful outcome.

And it’s not a static answer.

Sometimes, one little thing happens that tips the scale. My crappy liver, even crappier immune system and overall health issues made a pregnancy in my body a path we weren’t willing to go down. The scale tipped. Risks from another pregnancy were greater than the chance of an adoption falling through. The cost of the adoption didn’t seem so bad when weighed against possibily losing five months of income again and paying for more treatments. In other words, our perspective changed. Adoption became THE answer.

And this child will be our son, but make no mistake: we are not “just adopting.” We are blessed to have this opportunity to adopt. We are so lucky to be able to have a son and third child. He will never be an afterthought or a consolation prize.

So please, don’t say we “just adopted.”

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 Baby H will be home soon!