New to posting here
skinnursemandee
member
Hi everyone, I am not new to the bump/nest however I am new to your board here. A little about me:
DH and I have been trying to concieve since 2001 without success. We gave ourselves a timeline that if we were not PG by 2009 then its time to adopt. So here I am on my last month of ttc and we are ready to start the adoption process. I do not know why I waited so long to look into adoption, I think a part of me really thought we could get pregnant and have a biological child but our desire to be parents far outweighs our need to have a biological child.
I have no idea where to beging, I know there will be alot of research for us right now but I just had a question for all of you going through this, who have ttc before trying to adopt.
I know adoption is stressful but do you feel a little more ease in adoption than the constant let down of TTC? For us ttc has been just such a long stressful, heartwrenching journey and we both are realistic about how hard adoption will be but do you get any peace of mind knowing that in the end of all the struggles you will become a mother?
Re: New to posting here
First of all WELCOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now I want you to know I am going through the same thing right now......we are coming towards the end of our last month of TTC and we started our adoption process 3 weeks ago.
I have to tell you I am soo excited about the whole process I can imagine as time goes on it may become stressful BUT if you can deal with the stress and disappointment month in and month out of not being preg than you can handle ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This last month of TTC for us has been the best because we are not stressing about it and know that we will be parents again soon. Keep in touch this is a GREAT group of ladies and we will help as much as we can!!!
Donna
Welcome!
I am sorry you've had such issues TTC.
For me/us, I am a cancer survivor....so although we did TTC for a few months, my doctor finally "talked" me out of it due to risk factors and we quickly moved onto adoption. Therefore, I can't really talk about the ups and downs of TTCing. But I can share my thoughts on the adoption process.
We are "early" in the process. We started in May. We spent several months planning on going the Int'l route. I was super excited. We hit a road block and had to refocus our efforts with Domestic Infant Adoption being our choice. Refocusing was difficult. As crazy as it may sound, I had to grieve our decision to change direction. We'd chosen a country and agency, and I'd started invisioning our child and the journey to him/her. I'd had in my mind what our journey would be like and I'd decided DA was scarier than IA. It was a tough transition.
Moving on, it took us several months to meet with the different agencies and lawyers for DA. Making a choice on who to use was difficult...but what a relief once that step was done. (and that's where we are right now).
My point- for me, adoption has come in phases- Intial decision, deciphering between types of adoption, chosing an agency....and then the prep for home study, waiting for a match, waiting while matched, and holding breath during final stages. Each phase has felt like a struggle and victory. Once we get through one stage, we sigh with relief, only to feel completely overwhelmed again with the next stage.
It's definitely a journey! An exciting one but there's lots of stressors involved. The internet has become a real blessing...as I am sure you've found in your TTCing. It's great to meet other women who are struggling with the same decisions.
Best to you!
Welcome!!! We have been ttc for three years, and are in the early stages of completing paperwork to begin our adoption. For me, when we first started considering adoption as a real possibility, I was so excited about the prospect of actually being successful in building our family that I was in this state of euphoria almost. The next time AF arrived I came crashing down like you wouldn't believe and realized that even though I was very excited about adopting, I still had some grieving to do over not being pregnant.
That said, I think that was a good thing to go through, and now we're moving forward 100% and seeing some progress so we're in another stage of excitement. I know there will be bumps and heartache to come, but I know that if we keep moving forward, eventually we'll be bringing our baby home!
There are a ton of great books out there, Adoption for Dummies and others. The first one that I read, which I really liked as an introduction was The Ultimate Insider's Guide to Adoption by Elizabeth Swire Falker. It is written very conversationally, while the others are more "clinical", and provided a good A-Z overview of adoption and set the stage for the next steps.
Good luck to you and DH and again, welcome!
Adoption has its own set of roller coaster emotions. It's an interesting journey, that is for sure. It's not an easy, smooth path - but the outcome is more than worth the wait.
One thing, make sure you take the time to grieve your TTTC if you need to. Some people aren't able to move on to adoption until they have done so. It's not necessary for everyone, but it's crucial for others. Everyone handles it differently.
Use your resources - there are tons of books out there to help you, plenty of forums, etc.
Good luck!
Welcome to the board. I have known that I can't children since I was 13 so I never went through the TTC issues but I can certaintly understand how turning to adoption would ease your mind and emotions a bit after all you've been through. I think just knowing you will be a mommy is the most important thing of all. This board is wonderful. It has made my journey of researching easier, everyone is so helpful and nice.
Good luck and I look forwar to hearing more......
Welcome to the board and congrats on the adoption!!! I think that it was very hard for me to let go of ttc. I very much had to grieve and I think I went through every stage of grief. I was depressed even after we started the adoption process. With that said from the time we decided to adopt I had this weight lifted off my shoulders. It's hard to explain. At the beginning a baby still seemed unattainable, I wasn't convinced it would happen. That lessons everyday and I am becoming more and more excited as we move through the home study. It was a confusing mix of emotions at time but I am at such peace with our decision. It's wonderful!!
Hi!Welcome, and good luck! The above mentioned author, Elizabeth Swire Falker is my attorney, and if I can ever answer any questions for you, feel free to page me here. We started with Liz in April and were going to do a DE cycle but could not get financing and all my IF insurance benefit was used up. Liz talked me down from the ledge, so to speak, and we set up the beginnings of our adoption journey in September. We are now homestudy approved and working on our profile and website!
Liz is very organized and we are really happy working with her and her office!
Best of luck in your new journey!!!
My Blog
Hey babe, welcome to the board. Our adoption kind of fell into our laps - we were VERY lucky. For a few weeks I was overwhelmingly relieved. Now we'll be starting the process over again.
I will say that once we made the decision to adopt I did feel a large weight lift off my shoulders.
Lucydoxie@gmail.com is my e-mail addy if you ever want to chat.
~Mary
I'm a bit late commenting here but hopefully you'll get a chance to read this anyway.
We've been ttc since 2005 and I went through horrible crashes every month. I'm super super regular and the worst was about a year ago when I was over a week or 10 days late after having all of the real or pseudo symptoms that I'd read about like implantation cramps etc (part of me still believes that was a really early mc). Anyway, after that I think was when I really started to grieve. By the early part of this year adoption started to look really really good and didn't feel like second best or even an alternative anymore, but more like the 'right' choice for us. DH and I started nearly 6 months ago and we're now ready to translate our dossier and send it overseas. You asked about whether this process brought peace and for me it absolutely did. I know that grieving is important and we did that, but now we are excited and moving forward. The strangest thing is that once a month I now have a marker that I'm one month closer to meeting my child which is weird I know. It (adoption) has been tough but no where near as tough as all the IF doctor visits. It isn't over yet but I can safely say it's been the best decision we've ever made.