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Question: We’re 5 years in trying to conceive and I’m TIRED. I have an opportunity to adopt an unborn baby girl. My question is, does it get any easier dealing with the infertility, the failure, the empty feeling? Does your heart stop breaking every month when you know you’re not pregnant? I’m so afraid that I’m gonna get this little baby but still need more…. hope I didn’t offend anyone!
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Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Welcome everyone to Week in Wisdom by Creating a Family. Creating a Family is a national support and training non -profit for foster, adoptive and kinship families. We have a regular podcast that we've been doing now for almost 17 years and it is a long form where we interview an expert for about an hour.
This Week in Wisdom is where we answer your questions and it's short. It's supposed to keep this to about five minutes. So without further ado, today we're going to be talking about, will the pain of infertility go away if I adopt?
Here's the question. We're five years into trying to conceive and I'm tired and that was with all caps. I have an opportunity to adopt an unborn baby girl. My question is,
does it get easier dealing with the infertility, the failure, the empty feelings? Does your heart stop breaking every month when you know you're not pregnant. I am so afraid that I'm going to get this little baby,
but still need more. I hope I didn't offend anyone. This is a hard one to answer. Infertility is a terrible disease, both physically painful, emotionally grueling.
You have dreams and plans get delayed or outright replaced by doctor's appointments, tests, and so, so many needles. So the question,
"Will the pain of infertility go away after I adopt? Will it ever go away?" I get this. And the truth is that the pain of infertility is so much more than just the failure to conceive a child.
It's the death of a dream. And even if you do become a mother by treatment or adoption, infertility can leave so many incomplete dreams and emotions that feel like they may never heal. And many couples wonder if the pain will ever completely go away.
So first, I really do believe that you have to work on the process of coming to terms with your infertility grief and losses before you adopt. A good therapist with knowledge of infertility can be invaluable.
If you don't have one, call around to some of the local infertility clinics or those near you and ask who they will recommend. That is absolutely imperative. However,
this doesn't mean that you have to completely resolve any sadness or feelings of loss. In fact, you may always carry some of those feelings. The question is how prevalent they are in your life and how much they interfere with your life and your future parenting.
It is possible for joy and grief to coexist in life, and the struggle with infertility is often no different. Your infertility may always hurt, but alongside that hurt,
you can also experience great joy and parenthood through adoption, and parenthood for adoption could be a part of that joy. So each person has to decide for themselves what's best for them, obviously.
But I suggest you ask yourself the following questions to help you determine if you are ready to move to adoption. So the first is, do you want to be a mother or do you want to be pregnant?
There is no judgment here of what your answer is. It is fine to have either of those options, but be honest about it. The next one is how much do you want or need to experience all the steps of becoming a parent from pregnancy to childbirth to breastfeeding,
all of that. And the third question is, what is your goal for your journey? Is it to have a biological child where you can look and say, oh, they've got their daddy's big ears, I was so hoping they would,
or, oh my gosh, grandpa's, you know, disjointed toe, or grandma's musical talent, or something along those lines. You need to think through what's important to you and what your goal is.
There are no right answers. Adoption does not cure the pain of infertility. But the change of focus to adoption can be tremendously healing for the raw emotions of trying to conceive and being disappointed each month by a reminder that there is no baby on its way.
And I wish you the best of luck in this decision -making process. Before you leave, let me remind you that we have 12 free courses on the Creating a Family Online Education Centers.
They are brought to you by the support of the Jockey Being Family Foundation and you can check them out at bit .ly /JBFsupport. That's B -I -T dot L -Y slash J -I.
Thank you for listening to this week's Week in Wisdom. If you liked it, please tell a friend to subscribe to thecreatingafamily .org podcast. See you next week!
