#fertility #infertility #pregnancy #adoption
Emojis: π€πΆπΌπ
Is not being fertile really that bad? This is a question that many couples struggling with infertility ask themselves. It’s a topic that is often surrounded by a sense of hopelessness and despair, but is it really as dire as it seems? Let’s delve into this sensitive issue and explore the different perspectives on fertility and parenthood.
## Understanding the Emotions Behind Infertility
Infertility can evoke a wide range of emotions, from sadness and frustration to guilt and shame. Couples facing infertility may feel like they are missing out on a fundamental aspect of life and may struggle with feelings of inadequacy and disappointment. The pressure to conceive can be overwhelming, leading to stress and strain on the relationship.
### Exploring the Desire for Biological Children
For many couples, the desire to have biological children is deeply ingrained. The idea of passing on their genes and seeing a mini version of themselves is a powerful motivator. The inability to conceive naturally can feel like a personal failure and can trigger a sense of loss and grief.
### The Appeal of Adoption
While adoption may seem like a logical solution to infertility, it is not always an easy decision to make. Some couples may have concerns about bonding with an adopted child or may worry about the biological connection. However, adoption offers a path to parenthood that is filled with love and fulfillment, regardless of genetics.
## Debunking the Myths Around Adoption
There are many misconceptions surrounding adoption, particularly when it comes to raising a non-biological child. Here are some common myths and the truths behind them:
1. **Myth:** Adopted children won’t feel like a part of the family.
**Truth:** Adopted children form strong bonds with their parents based on love and nurturing, not genetics.
2. **Myth:** Adopted children will always have identity issues.
**Truth:** Adopted children can have a strong sense of self and identity when raised in a supportive environment.
3. **Myth:** Adopted children will never be truly loved by their parents.
**Truth:** Love knows no bounds, and adopted children are cherished just as much as biological children.
## The Benefits of Adoption
Adoption offers a unique opportunity to provide a loving home to a child in need. Here are some of the benefits of adoption for both the child and the parents:
– Giving a child a chance at a better life
– Creating a diverse and inclusive family
– Fostering a sense of empathy and compassion
– Fulfilling the dream of parenthood
## Conclusion: Embracing Alternative Paths to Parenthood
While infertility can be a challenging and emotional journey, it is important to remember that there are alternative paths to parenthood that can be just as rewarding. Adoption is a beautiful way to build a family and provide a loving home to a child in need. Ultimately, the most important thing is creating a nurturing and supportive environment for a child, regardless of genetics.
So, is not being fertile really that bad? The answer may vary depending on individual circumstances and personal beliefs. What truly matters is the love and commitment that parents bring to their relationship with their child, whether biological or adopted. Let’s shift the focus from biology to family, and celebrate the diverse ways in which love can create bonds that transcend genetics.
Adoption of newborns is basically buying an infant, it’s very expensive with very long wait times and some people have ethical issues with it.
It’s the best. Being able to have unlimited sex without fear of pregnancy is amazing.
Thats like telling someone missing a leg that he at least does not need to worry about an itch on his toes⦠You might not want to be a (biological) parent (now) but for others it might be something heavy. Having something (fertility) and not using it out of free will is still something different than not being capable, even if you have no use for it.
Adoption is very hard, couples are on the waiting list for years with no certainty.
Most people want to see adopt newborns, but there aren’t that many available babies.
Couples have to go through a screening, they’re evaluated and need to fulfill certain criteria. They need to be of the right age, in a good health, have no mental issues and so on.
Most available children are older, usually with some kind of handicap or mental issues. It’s not easy and not many parents are willing or capable to adopt a child like that.
Depending on the location it can be very costly to adopt the baby. Some try adoption from abroad, that’s also very difficult and expensive.
Some parent chose to be foster parents. They hope to adopt the foster baby, which sometimes happens, but more often they have to say goodbye to the child after a while.
I think people connect their self-worth to their ability to reproduce. So being infertile means being a failure.
In the US the amount of people who want to adopt vs the amount of kids there are is almost 3 times as much last I checked so people not wanting to adopt isn’t the problem. I tried looking into it a bit myself and it’s way harder to do than I thought.
In terms of being infertile, I’m planning to get sterilized ( because I’m trans and such ) but I’m most likely infertile already. I personally don’t think the idea that my kids won’t look like me is that bad, cause like you said me raising them like I would would affect them just as much.
I guess my only problem would be that the government would essentially be the ones to decide if I get to have kids ( through adoption at least ).
For starters adopting also costs a lot of money. And I can only speak for myself but I think there’s some value in having your own kids and being able to say “this is a part of me”, and making yourself “live on” if that makes sense.
The same arguments that apply to abortion can also apply to infertility: just like if abortion is banned, with infertility, your choice has been entirely stripped away from you, and people tend to not like having no control over important aspects of their lives like child rearing
To some people it matters if the children is biologically theirs.
Some people want their own biological kids instead of adopted, but even if someone is open to adoption, it’s not like they can just walk into the baby store and come back home with a child. Adoption is a difficult process – you need to meet certain criteria, the waiting times are long, it can be very expensive… If you don’t struggle with getting and staying pregnant, then having a biological child is way easier than adopting.
Imagine you wanted to be a doctor and you are never allowed to go to medical school.
Becoming a lawyer or engineer is also an option. The only difference that I’m seeing is you don’t wear the same clothes as a doctor.
A significant portion of the disappointment is that you didn’t make this decision.Β
The difficulty with adoption was already addressed. So, about everything else, having a child is one of the big life events (like marriage, death, etc), so it makes sense that some people get invested, even more so if they’ve put a significant amount of planning on it.Β
Also, the big price doesn’t come all at once. There are many, *many* different causes for reduced fertility and each of them comes with different treatments and different efficacy. So a couple starts with the simpler stuff and for many couples those things work. For the others, they keep trying and the costs add up over time. Like with most things in life, be it getting a job or finding a significant other, you never really know if the next time will be it, so you keep trying. Couples that go through multiple rounds of the expensive stuff like IVF aren’t that usual. And also, even when everything is working well, you still only have a 30% chance of conceiving every month (already considering perfectly timed intercourse), so some people just have terrible luck.
It’s seen that way because most people who want kids want to *make* the children. If the desire for kids was simply having kids, orphanages wouldn’t stay full, and foster parenting wouldn’t be a thing.
People who adopt are awesome, but most people who want kids want to have that biological connection, and fulfill their biological imperative to reproduce.
Different cultures look at it differently. For some, not being able to have offspring is too much to deal with.
Think about it. In some cultures, people leave their women because they keep giving birth to daughters.
What would they do to the woman if she was unable to have a child?
Children in adoption arenβt there to complete the families of infertile and childless couples. If you cannot have children you need to seek therapy before adopting. Adoptees donβt exist as a backup plan.
The way yβall talk about babies like puppies is weird. Theyβre people.
There are far more older children up for adoption than newborns. Plus, adoptions aren’t cheap, and you have to worry about the child, a lot of whom either come with burdens of their own or disassociate from their adopted parents when they grow up. Fostering is an option, but you risk having the child taken away at any given moment, so it’s harder to build a bond.
More importantly, people still have the biological drive to have their own children, s having that ability taken away is gut wrenching if you were yearning to be a parent for years.
I had no idea how badly I wanted a biological child until it looked like I might be infertile. The need to reproduce is programmed in our genes!
A lot of infertility troubles have already been addressed, but I’ll add a few more from my personal experience. Infertility doesn’t always mean an inability to get pregnant. Many infertile people can get pregnant, but can’t carry to term. My partner and I have had a lot of miscarriages over 7 years of trying to have a baby. It’s a special kind of hell losing your child before you ever get to meet them, especially when so many people dismiss your pain saying, “It wasn’t a baby. It was just a bunch of cells.”
The weight of infertility is something that you can’t escape either. You watch friends and family having kids and watch them grow, knowing that every passing day is one less that you have with your own kids. It’s a very different life without them.
I’m trans, so it’s particularly hard to find support since infertility is very focused on women and the queer community isn’t often very supportive of the infertility community. I’ve delayed my medical transition indefinitely, so I could have the family I want, forcing myself to cope with dysphoria without an end in sight.
I was adopted at birth, and even though I’m glad for it, I understand the trauma that goes along with it very well. It’s not something that everyone is equipped to handle for their kids. As others have said, adopting an infant just isn’t that easy. It can take years of waiting lists if it ever happens at all.
It is painful, I wish more people would seek therapy to come to peace with the reality that may never procreate naturally or after spending thousands on IVF that is mentally and physically taxing on the body, with no guarantee of a pregnancy.
Adoption is not a tool for family building.
As an adoptee who was adopted at 18 months. I can tell you with every confidence, being raised in a family since near birth; does not guarantee assimilation into the family. I’m nothing like my family members and never was. I was told a false narrative about my adoption and it’s caused an irreparable rift between myself and my adopters. In fact I haven’t spoken to the entire family/ community I was raised in, in almost a decade.
You said why
>not able to get a child of their own
Many people want to have their own biological children. This can be for various reasons but mostly itβs because itβs in our nature to want our own.
Sometimes itβs not even about the child itself, but the actual process, such as experiencing pregnancy.
Iβve even read recently that our hormones impact how we feel towards children. Supposedly men are less likely to form a proper emotional bond with a child that isnβt biologically theirs. Not because theyβre being dicks, but because of hormones/biology.
Secondly, as others have said, adoption is not an easy process. Itβs not as simple as just getting a baby. There is a high demand for babies and due to circumstances itβs not like thereβs enough to go around for everyone.
In my experiences adopting children isnβt easy. Firstly you have to go through very intrusive processes and forms that evaluate your lifestyle. But secondly, once you have the adopted child it can be quite a difficult road ahead because the child could have trauma or underlying health difficulties due to their background that you were not prepared for.
I know of a family who adopted a little girl as a baby but as she grew up she was quite difficult and had various learning difficulties, all because her birth mother was an alcoholic. They have really struggled with that as she seemed totally normal as a baby, and didnβt expect that they would have to learn to cope with the outcome of someone elseβs bad life choices.
Out of the several families Iβve know adopt children, only one got a child that had no issues. So itβs really not as simple and easy as some people make it out to be.
Iβm infertile. Itβs hard, but weβve also chosen not to go down the expensive/invasive route to get pregnant. We stopped at what is a pretty early step in that journey for most people.
TL;DR – itβs hard. You have expectations for your life and then have to let them go while everyone else in your life moves forward with what you wanted for yourself. Adoption is not the happily ever after that it is portrayed to be.
I always wanted to be a mom. I had a career in the arts and decided iβd never be able to be the kind of parent i wanted while having that job so i switched to a corporate job. I fell in love with my wife and I would fantasize about what an amazing parent sheβd be. At the time, my relationship with my own family was great. I couldnβt imagine anything more special than bringing a whole other person into the mix. I saw other people parenting and would think about whether I would handle the issue the same way or differently. Ways that I could support and encourage my kids. Fun traditions from my family and new ones weβd make together. We moved across the country to be closer to my family before we started trying to get pregnant, so that weβd have their support while raising our kids.
We started trying. Nothing happened. I had surgery to correct endometriosis that was preventing pregnancy. Then it turned out I also have PCOS. I will never get pregnant without IVF and even then, the chances arenβt great.
The best way I can describe it is imagine youβre with the love of your life, so in love and happy and excited for your future with this person. And then out of the blue, they leave. But not just that, you see them out with a new person EVERYWHERE. You are trying to move on, but there are billboards with their face on it. There are commercials. There are targeted ads on your social media about how magical it is to be with that person. Everyone else in your life is happily with someone and they keep saying, βwhen are you going to get back with your person?β
Like most people, I assume weβd adopt since we wanted to be parents and βthere are so many needy kids out there,β right?
So I started looking into it, and I learned that adoption is not a cure for infertility. Adoption is trauma, even when itβs a fairytale situation where a sad childless person and a parentless child are matched up and love each other.
Thereβs just so much going on with this βjust adoptβ mentality:
Itβs a lot to put on a kid. The parents are grieving their own fertility and pivoting immediately to adoption to try and fill that void can be problematic.
Hoping for an infant or child to become available for adoption means hoping for someoneβs family to be torn apart. At the very least, hoping someone is in a situation where they must give up their child.
I reached out to adoption agencies and was told, if you are looking for a child under 8, donβt bother reaching out to us. Here is a directory for private adoption. Iβve never been a parent. I wasnβt sure I could handle parenting an 8+ year old. Nearly all of the children available were special needs. I wasnβt sure I was up to it and the last thing I want to do is be another person who failed those kids. We ended up donating to some local childrenβs charities instead and decided to wait and do more research into our options and go to more therapy, frankly.
I looked into private adoption. Minimum $20k, white babies cost more. That bothered me. I did more research. Most of these adoption agencies exploit young pregnant women. It just felt like human trafficking to me. Thereβs so much regulation around organ donation to make sure no one is profiting off of itβ¦why shouldnβt that exist here as well? Why arenβt we providing more support to vulnerable mothers instead of basically selling their children to someone in a higher tax bracket who canβt have their own?
Finally, I started seeking out commentary from adult adoptees as well as birth parents and that sealed the deal for me about not pursuing adoption. The childβs name is changed. They get a new birth certificate. Their previous family is basically erased. The focus on the adoptive parents getting the child theyβve always wanted without the discomfort of having to deal with that childβs past or birth family.
Fostering is a different animal altogether. The goal is not adoption, but reunification. It is not a place for infertile people to find children to fill that need in their life. Itβs not off the table for me, but itβs the only option Iβd consider at this point and I donβt think Iβm emotionally ready for it. After everything Iβve learned, I would only consider legal guardianship and adopt someone when i and they felt they were old enough to consent.
Adoption is just not as simple as βpoor, neglected child needs a homeβ and βsad, childless adults want a child.β Some people get the fairy tale and thatβs amazing, but itβs not realistic for everyone pursuing adoption or fostering to go into expecting that outcome.
Adoption is very difficult. If you do it privately, it’s very expensive. If you do it through the foster care system, there are a lot of other potential complications. Even if you can do IVF, it’s also very expensive.
So if you want kids, but aren’t fertile, it can feel like the end of the world since options are limited.
It depends on your mindset.
My aunt couldn’t conceive. Spent a lot of time going through a plethora of tests(pre-ivf era). I saw her anguish. At one point, after a particularly painful procedure, her husband said enough. They’d live with whatever the Lord gave them. But I saw how difficult it was for them – small town community – sniggers, comments, false concern, so many potions …
Fast forward 15-18 years later and I was having trouble conceiving. The first IVF child had been born. But I remembered her anguish. We tried for about 6 months with medication. Then I said- this is stupid. Let’s just adopt.
But to be able to reach this state of mind, I had to grow up with the anguish of others. I had to see good people struggle and to experience what a good man would do in such a situation. I am sure many would have advised him to divorce and marry again. It did not even occur to me that my SO might feel differently – I just expected- nay demanded- him to be on board.
I have been blessed, in so many ways. My mindset – developed from my environment – saved me from so much anguish. I have a wonderful partner. But it is an incredibly hard hand to deal with. To be unable to do something that’s just supposed to happen. Both for men and women.
>Β But most of the behaviour and so on the baby adopts is based on how they are raised
This just flat out isn’t true.
Because they want their own offspring, to pass down their blood. That’s why they put more effort into making their own instead of adopting one that isn’t “theirs”
Adoption can be incredibly rewarding, not not cheap or easy..