Just adopt.
JUST adopt.
Just...you add this word in front of the word adopt like it's the easiest thing in the world.
If you can't have children, JUST adopt.
If you are so stressed, JUST adopt.
If you are sick of all of the IVF treatments, JUST adopt.
If you are heartbroken over failed IUIs and IVFs, JUST adopt.
Why waste money on an unsure thing like IVF, JUST adopt.
Let me tell you, there is no. such. thing. as JUST adopting. It's not an easy process. It's 100% worth it, but it is NOT easy. It's not JUST signing some paperwork and being handed a child like some people think.
The chart above is a brief, and I mean brief, summary of an adoption. My husband and I chose public adoption because we couldn't afford a private ($15,000-$25,000) or international adoption ($20,000-$50,000). The homestudy the chart mentions involves you inviting a total stranger into your home and having them critique it. It involves you talking to this stranger about the most intimate details of your life. And it involves you being interviewed separately from your husband to see if there are any discrepancies. The chart fails to mention the mandatory training is 3 hour classes for 8 weeks where you are handed a binder that is bigger than an encyclopedia full of information and homework. You do meet some really great people through the training though, people who are in a similar situation as you. And finding a match? The chart makes that seem so easy. There's the potential that you could be waiting 1 day - 3 years.
And just like IVF, adoption has the potential to not work. You could be given a match and something unforeseen could make everything come crashing to a halt. You could have a baby placed in your arms and the birth parents could change their minds. You could care for a baby for a couple of months and have the baby returned to birth family (only with CAS) and let me tell you, it's devastating.
So the next time you tell someone to JUST adopt, hand them a money order for $50,000 and the 100% guarantee the adoption will all work out. Oh wait, you can't, because you aren't God!
Even after adoption, you still run into tricky situations. We get asked all of the time who our son gets his red hair from. My standard answer is from my side of the family (because my brother has red hair), but it catches me off guard sometimes. I absolutely love when people tell me how beautiful he is and what a happy child he is. No one ever questions us on whether he is adopted or not because all they see are two extremely happy and loving parents and one extremely happy and loving child.
I also ran into a situation when we were going through IVF. Both our nurse and the psychosocial counselor said to my husband and I that it's good we adopted first because it would make IVF less hard if it didn't work out. Seriously? Who are you to tell me that I am going to be less emotional when I find out that I'm miscarrying? We still have the same hopes and same dreams of having a pregnancy as everyone else in the waiting room.
And most recently, when I was at my pre-admit appointment for labour and delivery, the nurse told me we did things backwards and most people only resort to adoption when IVF fails. Sorry, but you have it wrong. We did not do things backwards. We did things exactly how God intended us to do them.
Finally, JUST adopting doesn't fill the void of wanting to have the experience of carrying a child. I don't think that will ever go away for any woman who wants that experience. Our bodies were made to do just that so when we aren't able to, we not only feel like we are failing ourselves, but our husband as well.
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