In honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, it’s my pleasure to share this beautiful essay from one of my sweet clients, Miranda!
Dear Hopeful Adoptive Parent, I See You
This week is National Infertility Awareness Week, but how does that tie in to adoption? For many families, an infertility diagnosis is what led to the decision to adopt.
Many families who grew through adoption started in the trenches of infertility. They started in a cold, sterile exam room where an infertility diagnosis was first given. Many couples who chose adoption had to endure countless tests and spend thousands of dollars to never see a positive pregnancy test. Others saw plenty of positive pregnancy tests but will never get to hold their babies this side of Heaven.
And that’s where infertility and adoption come together.
Because in the trenches of infertility, someone probably told those couples to just adopt. But let’s address that right now. If you are on a journey to adoption after infertility, let’s do something together right now. Let’s drop the word “just” as a prefix for adopt. That word minimizes the significance of the journey you are taking. That word makes it seem like your journey is lesser, that you are settling, that the path you are taking is easier.
But you are strong. You are brave. You are willing to put your own desires aside to raise a child.
And adoption isn’t easier. There’s nothing easier about choosing to raise a baby grown in another woman’s womb. You will forge difficult but rewarding relationships with birth parents, you will put your desires for prenatal care aside and you will take risks all in the name of the child who will one day be yours.
You are committed to a child you know absolutely nothing about.
I see you, hopeful adoptive parent. I see your worries and your fears and your excitement and your dreams.
I see you because I’ve been there, too.
As best you can, you’ve moved on from fertility treatments. Maybe you never started, or maybe you’ve spent your life savings and still have no baby in your arms. But for your own personal reasons, you’ve chosen to close that door and open another one: The one labeled adoption.
Now you’re here. You’re about to begin the oftentimes long adoption process in hopes that this will be the path that makes you a parent.
I’m so happy for you. I know you’re uneasy now, but this will be so rewarding.
You mail off a mountain of paperwork. You take long lunches to get fingerprinted and go to appointments so a doctor can say you are healthy enough to raise a child.
Haven’t you seen enough doctors already? I understand the annoyance. You got weekly blood draws trying to get pregnant, and now you have to see another doctor? It’s frustrating but you do it anyway.
You get aggravated by the long to-do list. Some people get pregnant on accident and they don’t have to do all this to prove their worth as a parent. I feel your frustrations. And by the way, you are worthy.
It’s time for the social worker to come for your home visit. I see you fussing at your spouse for missing that cobweb in the dining room, but I promise the social worker won’t notice. I see you popping a batch of cookies in the oven to make the house smell good. I see that lemonade in the fancy pitcher the one you’ve never used since you got it as a wedding gift. But today feels so monumental that you pulled it out.
I see you begging your dogs not to bark when the social worker rings the doorbell. They do anyway, but it’s ok. She’s not here to rule you out of adopting. She’s here to approve you. I know it doesn’t feel that way though.
I hear you nervously answering all of her questions the ones you’ve thought about and the ones you haven’t. I see you trying to hold back tears when she asks why you are adopting. The lump is forming in your throat. Even though you know this is right, you want her to know it, too. You know in your heart that you’re not expecting to get pregnant, and you hope she sees it too. You hope she sees how truly overjoyed you are to adopt.
I see her pouring over your finances and touring your home and reading your character references. And I feel you wondering if you’re going to be good enough.
You are enough. You are good enough.
She leaves and you breathe a sigh of relief. You and your spouse rehash every second of the three hour visit, hoping you didn’t say anything wrong or give off a bad impression. You convince yourself that you definitely did not pass.
But you press on.
While you wait to find out if your home study is approved, you go to those mandatory CPR and parenting classes. You’re in a room surrounded by pregnant women and your heart aches so much. You listen and learn as much as you can while the pit in your stomach grows. Because adoption doesn’t cure infertility, and you still don’t even know if you’ll ever be a parent. You keep going because your dedication to your future child is worth the pain and the waiting now.
You leave the class and cry the whole way home. It’s exciting to be taking steps toward parenthood but it’s still so hard to be surrounded by expectant moms who are learning about labor and delivery and birth plans. It wasn’t that long ago that you thought you’d be doing that.
Even though you are 100 percent confident in your choice to adopt, the weight of infertility is so heavy.
On the ride home, you also have thoughts of your birth mom. Is she pregnant now? Is she learning about labor and delivery? Will she regret her decision to form an adoption plan? Who is she and is she ok right now? She’s about to have to endure much worse that you have so that you can be a parent. The weight of that is heavier than you want it to be. Adoption is beautiful, but parts of it can be messy too. You already know your joy might be her pain. The weight of that feels heavier than the weight of infertility.
A few days later, you get the call: Your home study was approved. Hallelujah! You’re officially a waiting family.
If you’ve signed up with a consultant (which I highly recommend) you will start receiving cases expectant birth moms who will be reviewing profile books. You send your book off and start imagining your family with that child.
Then you find out you weren’t picked. It sort of feels like a negative pregnancy test all over again. You wonder what about your profile they didn’t like. You question everything.
Then you pick yourself up and send off your profile to the next case. And the next and the next and the next.
And then one day, your phone rings. You’ve been matched!
It feels like the best day of your life. You haven’t had many days that have been this great since that infertility diagnosis, which now feels like a lifetime ago.
You share the news maybe with just family and close friends, maybe with the whole world. Someone warns you not to get too attached. Adoption plans fall through, you know.
You’ re hurt. In the back of your mind, you know they’re right. But you also remember how infertility felt. Until you knew a treatment didn’t work, you had hope and love for that baby, for the possibility of the baby. Perhaps you are an IVF warrior, and you know how much you loved those embryos, even though you never got to hold them in your arms.
So in the midst of your hurt and your anger, you respond. This baby deserves to be loved unconditionally. Even if you’re risking your heart being broken, you can handle it. You’re strong. You’ve been through so much already. This baby doesn’t deserve to not be loved even if this falls through.
You start planning and dreaming about the day the child is placed in your arms.
The day comes. Forget match day, this is the best day of your life. A baby is placed in your arms, maybe by a birth parent, maybe by a nurse, maybe by a foster mom. It doesn’t matter how it all happened, you are now a parent. This is the best day of your life.
All of those tears you cried, from your infertility diagnosis to today? They all make sense now. Every heartbreak, every lesson, every tear all led to this moment.
Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created. Esther?4:14
In this moment, as a new parent, all of the pieces of your broken heart have been put back together. It all makes sense now, every painstaking step of the journey.
Adoption didn’t cure your infertility. It built your family. And that’s what matters above all else.
He gives the childless woman a family, making her a happy mother. Praise the Lord! Psalms 13:9
It’s Just A Season /// Blog on Infertility and Hope
