Adoption

New to the board/adoption...

My husband and I met with a counselor at an adoption agency this morning. What a whirlwind of information.

We haven't decided if we are continuing IF treatments or adopting, but we we do think something about adoption feels right. We always discussed adopting our second child, before we knew we had IF problems.  So no matter what, we want to adopt.

But for those of you who have been unsuccessful with IF treatments, when did you decide to apply for adoption? Adoption is not a last resort for us, not a second best; it is something we really want do do.

But at the same time, I really want to be pregnant. It is the hardest thing to let go of. It doesn't bother me that the child will not have our genetics, look like us, or anything like that. Its just the pregnancy. 

Can anyone here help me with these feelings by sharing what and how they went through it?

This board is great, I have been lurking for months, and am happy to finally jump in!

Re: New to the board/adoption...

  • Hi and welcome.

    I'm probably the wrong person to answer this, because I never felt a burning desire to be pregnant. As time went on, I started to think about all the negatives associated with pregnancy and childbirth, and was actually relieved I didn't have to go through it. And I had been pregnant 3 times, only to experience early losses each time, so the thought of being pregnant was actually pretty terrifying. Adoption had way better odds of having a baby in our house than pregnancy in my case.

    Some people with IF need to take a step back and work through their IF issues, effectively closing the door on them, before they can fully engage in the adoption process. Or they find an agency that allows them to continue to pursue treatment while they also pursue adoption. Our agency wanted us to have stopped treatments, and I was obviously OK with that.

    GL

  • imageSHalleran:
      

    But at the same time, I really want to be pregnant. It is the hardest thing to let go of. It doesn't bother me that the child will not have our genetics, look like us, or anything like that. Its just the pregnancy

    I'm still dealing with this exactly, to a T. I'm more bothered by giving up the thought of being pregnant vs. my child not being biological. I have no helpful hints but just to commisorate.

    ETA: We have already been given a resounding "No, you aren't getting pregnant" from the doctors and yet this still plagues me every time I see a woman that is pg and I realize, that's never going to be me. Logically, I know it won't happen but it only makes it worse.

    I also don't need to "lose" this hope before we adopt because like I said before, it's not an issue of how the child gets to me. It's more that I'll never know what it's like to have a child kick me from the inside, or hear "you're pregnant" or go through labor or, or, or, or. I also feel like the natural order of things was disrupted.  

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  • Hi and welcome!

    I didn't have a hard time letting go of not actually being pregnant to have a child...actually it never really mattered how my child came to be..just as long as I could have a family.  I have no advice on how to help you let go or get past that....just wish you luck!

    Like Dr. L. said..."Adoption had way better odds of having a baby in our house than pregnancy in my case."  This is us exactly! 

    We didn't need to take a break or step back to consider adopting.  I know some couples do; as well as some agencies require that your IF treatments/procedures are finished before signing with them.

    GL to you!

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  • Lurker here -

    I understand what you're experiencing. Our ttc journey ended just a few days ago. After several miscarriages and an attempted IVF, we discovered we are prone to chrom. abnormal babies.

    Literally last night I was crying as I thought about never feeling my baby kick for the first time, or have a "traditional" shower complete with a massive belly and smug little grin. It hurts knowing I'll never experience that "congrats! It's a boy/girl" ultrasound moment.

    I'm trying to take the time I need to grieve the loss of the baby I THOUGHT I would have. We're seeing a therapist to help us through this process. We're researching adoption and will probably begin the process soon, but not until I know I have fully accepted that adoption is the right path for us to complete our family.

  • Thank you everyone. It is helpful to know how others go through it. I guess only time will tell.
  • I started researching adoption during the 2ww of my IVF.  It didn't work and I was gearing up for another one.  I had a surgery pre-op the day before a repeat hysteroscopy and my RE referred me to a hematologist for more b/w.  At that point, I was done.  I submitted our adoption application the next day, and got a call that my son was born 4 weeks later.  It was a whirlwind to say the least.

    I was just ready to adopt.  However, we both said that adopting didn't mean I was giving up pregnancy.  We both said we'd re-consider treatments at a later date.  We're discussing going back to the RE at the end of this year.  If it works, great.  If it doesn't, we'll adopt again.  Experiencing adoption and my son really took the pressure off of infertility treatments, in a way I couldn't understand when I was in the trenches.  Also, to me, I knew choosing adoption didn't  feel like I was closing the door to the pregnancy experience.

  • I have nothing to add because Dr. L summed it up so well (same issue here, many losses).  I also don't feel the pregnancy desire, but I had my appendix burst last October and figured my body has been through enough at this point.  GL and this board is amazing for its wealth of info!

    *Tef*
  • Hello, and welcome!
  • This may get long, and I apologize for that in advance...

    we adopted our DS in November of 2009.  We opened our home to foster children because we felt we wanted to reach out and help children in need, and we had no idea we would end up adopting.  We knew we werent ready to have kids yet, but wanted to be there in every way possible for kids looking for their forever home.  Our first foster son came, and within two days we knew we wanted to adopt.  We had a total of 5 foster children in our home, and we would have adopted each one if the scenario had permitted it.  Finally, Isaiah came to us, and we fought for over two years to adopt him.  He will be 4 in January and was 9 months old when he first came to us.

    Fast forward to this past November when we finally adopted him.  We knew in July we could officially adopt him, and we decided to start TTC.  We had been holding off having a biological child until we knew for sure we could adopt him.  Now it is 15 months later, and we just found out on Monday that DH's SA did not come back good.  We have tossed around the idea of IUI or IVF, as well as adopting again.  We made the decision to move forward with trying to adopt again...because for us, we did not want to go through IUI or IVF and obviously have no guarantee if we would get pregnant or not.  Adoption just seemed a better fit.  Maybe someday we will try something else, but at this point in time we want to move forward with adoption.

    For me, the heartache in all of this was letting go of the pregnancy.  I wont get to feel my baby kick, or have a traditional shower, or just get to enjoy the journey of finding out I am pregnant, to finding out the sex, and finally having the baby.  I also feel sadness when I see pregnant women, but the biggest thing for me is hearing people and their naive comments.  I am tired of hearng them, and I really just want people to be supportive of our decision.

  • imageDr.Loretta:

    I'm probably the wrong person to answer this, because I never felt a burning desire to be pregnant. As time went on, I started to think about all the negatives associated with pregnancy and childbirth, and was actually relieved I didn't have to go through it.

    This is how I feel.  I have no desire to be pregnant.  I also have always wanted to adopt and, like you, never had any issues with not sharing genetics with my child.  Since we were completely comfortable with adoption, we actually skipped over fertility treatment when we found out that I don't ovulate and went straight to adoption.  However, the one thing I did feel sad about (and this might sound crazy) is not being able to breastfeed.  I know there are so many health advantages to breastfeeding, and my best friend had such a great bonding experience through breastfeeding her baby. 

    I don't really have any great advice.  LO is four months old, and if I take the time to really thing about it, yes I still wish that I had been able to breastfeed (I actually considered adoptive breastfeeding, but we didn't have enough time before LO was born to make it work).  However, once your child is with you, you are so busy and in love with your little one that what you "missed out" on just isn't something that you think about very much.  And there will also be no doubt in your mind that the baby that comes home with you is the one you are supposed to be parenting, and that you belong together.  Had you gone another route, you would not have the same child, so the experience that you did not have will not really seem like a sacrifice.

    One more thing I have to add is that, while with adoption you are giving up on certain experiences, you are also gaining an amazing experience that you would not have if pregnant.  We traveled to Las Vegas (from Georgia) before Logan was born.  We anxiously waited for several days before the birth mom went into labor.  We met her ahead of time, and were in the hospital room just minutes after his birth.  We have experiences and memories that are very unique, and I wouldn't trade them for the world.

  • imagebabygirlpriest:

    Literally last night I was crying as I thought about never feeling my baby kick for the first time, or have a "traditional" shower complete with a massive belly and smug little grin.

    Welcome to the board!  I just wanted to chime in that having a shower with the baby there to be passed around and loved on is way more fun than the "traditional" baby shower :) 

    I'm sorry you are having such a hard time, and you are smart to talk to a therapist.  Good luck.

  • Welcome.

    I'm probably the wrong person to answer this, because I never felt a burning desire to be pregnant.

    This was me, but my husband hard a harder time letting go of the dream of a bio child. I had no real drive to visit an RE and pursue treatments, but I went for him. When it became clear that us having a bio child would require more surgery and probably jumping straight to IVF, we decided we were done, and it was more important to us to have a family than to go through pregnancy just for the experience of it.*

    I was ready to move on to adoption after 1 year of TTC, but it took another year for my husband to get there. (And a loss and a major surgery for me.)

    We are both now super, super excited to be on this journey, and for the first time in more than 2 years, I feel excited and hopeful. It is seriously an awesome feeling!

    re: breastfeeding. I am actually pursuing adoptive breastfeeding. Just got a pump, am in contact with an LC and am researching milk shares. It is a LOT more involved than giving birth and popping the baby on the breast, but it IS possible.

    *This is how I felt about it: I was already to the point of knowing no matter what our child looked like or how he found us, he would be OURS. So being pregnant would just be ... being pregnant. (If that makes any sense!)

    Edited for typos and to clarify.

  • I can't believe how refreshing and helpful everyone is. I think I am ready to start filling out the application, submitting it might be another hurdle. The thought gets me excited. Playing another waiting game does not.
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