Just adopt.
I remember the first time someone casually mentioned that to us, and then went on to discuss how many children there are out there in need of homes.
The reason I hate the “just” adopt is it makes it seem like a no brainer, easy thing to do compared to infertility treatment.
Having heard so many amazing stories from other couples who adopted their child both here, and abroad I don’t recall ever thinking that they “just adopted”.
There is as much ignorance about what goes into adopting a child in this country as there is about infertility.
The income based sliding legal fees, or the international legal fees, the wait time once you’ve identified a child, choosing what level of “openness” you want to have with the biological family (if the biological mother lives nearby), special needs considerations if adopting older kids, what will it be like to have a social worker analyze your worthiness to have a child in the home study, are you marketing yourself in a way that will likely attract a biological mother to give up her child to you.
Lisa and I completed the adoption classes at Catholic Social Services, and that is when I developed my nails on chalkboard reaction to anyone who puts the words ‘just’ and ‘adopt’ together as a recommendation for the easy breezy path to parenthood.
I heard stories of women grieving the loss of a uterus scarred shut by a botched DNC. Or men who found out that they were sterile after years of medical treatments.
I watched the body language of other couples in the room as they met very “open” biological parents and extended family discuss their relationship with a child given up for adoption and the relationship they had with the adoptive parents and their extended family.
I heard nightmare stories of international adoption delays, bribes that had to be paid to different officials along the way, long trips by plane, train, bus, foot through various government bureaucracies as brave adoptive parents navigated the path to the child they had chosen.
Hopefully a little extra education and sensitivity will help ensure that the proper respect is given to the couples who make the very courageous but anything but easy choice to become adoptive parents.