To those who have suffered infertility and/or been blessed with adoption

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Princess_Abby

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A few questions:
  1. How did you deal with the disappointment of not being able to create your own children?
  2. How did you go about correcting people’s misguided perceptions? (That you just haven’t tried to conceive often enough, long enough, carefully enough, etc, despite health problems that would make conception very dangerous in the first place.)
  3. At what point did you decide that it was definitely time to start looking into adoption?
  4. How did you decide between open and closed adoptions?
  5. How did you deal with family members who are/were disappointed about the fact that you’re adopting (meaning they would rather grandparent biological children)?
  6. If you chose to adopt a child of a different race than you and your husband, how did you deal with comments or judgements? Have your children suffered (teasing, whatever) as the result of being obviously adopted and looking different than Mommy or Daddy? Have you made a concerted effort to honor their ethnic background in whatever way seemed best?
  7. From start to finish, how long did your adoption process take? (Please specify circumstances of the adoption.)
ANY insight is appreciated. Thanks, guys!
 
I just decided somewhere along the line – pretty early, in fact – that we wanted to parents and not just concieve.

Infertility is still with me, but most of the time it doesn’t bother me. I am how God made me – there are many other foibles about myself that bother me more.

As to the one’s who think adoption is a fertility process and that I just didn’t relax enough – well, I asked when they got their medical degrees. If they had a degree, I could list my “three strikes” as I like to call the factors that helped lead to my infertitily.

I guess the question to adopt is when are are you ever ready to stop trying to concieve? Not to say that you would reject a pregnancy, but when are you ready to not worry about pregnancy?

Our first agency actually wanted women to go on birth control while working with a birth mom. It was, I think, a gesture to respect the birth mom and show the adoptive mom was serious about adopting. It was’t a Catholic agency. I wasn’t suitable back then for some reason. Now, I am, though – go figure.

I hope things go well for you. There are few definite answers on this path, pray, pray pray – it never hurts.
 
Thanks for both of your replies.

We actually have not tried to conceive yet because the dangers are huge to my health. The few people who are aware of that keep urging us to try anyway–completely ignoring the health risks for me. However, even if we were to throw that caution to the wind, I am infertile anyway (most of the time, that is, though I do ovulate every once in awhile)–my parents and best friends ignore that fact too and continually tell me that “nothing is for certain” and “all this will be fixed” with more treatment. It’s very frustrating to feel like I continually and repeatedly explain myself, so I have stopped doing so.

I also have yet to get an excited response when I tell someone we are considering adoption. They always make an initially unguarded face of, “oh no, don’t do THAT!” and then they make some sort of comment like, “What! You both are only 25! You’re too young to adopt! What if God “cures” you! Don’t you want to have your own children instead?”

YES. I want to be pregnant, but the sooner I accept that I will most likely never conceive, the more at peace I will be and the easier it will be to move on.

My parents are already grandparents, but they are the type who are extremely caught up in detailing each nuance of a new baby and proclaiming this baby to look like THIS family member, that baby to act like THAT family member, etc. I think they fear a disconnection from an adopted child.

A second cousin of my mother adopted a child who eventually committed suicide as an adult. This cousin had struggled with depression his entire life and I do not feel that it was wholly related to his adoption–however my parents blame it on all sorts of issues surrounding adoption. I think it has somewhat poisoned their attitude further toward the idea.

Obviously my husband and I are aware that any decisions we make for our family are completely up to the two of us. We are just concerned about other people’s attitudes adversely affecting the child (or children).

Ideally, we would like a newborn baby. Race is unimportant to either of us, though adopting a non-white baby only gives us pause because do not want to add to the adoptive child’s identity issues in the future. We just have so much love that we simply can’t wait to give a little person. Both of us sit in Mass and get completely and totally distracted by babies around us in other pews.

As for international adoption, we are worried about the orphanage situations and the lack of bonding that takes place, ultimately resulting in attachment issues. I think international adoption is also more expensive, and we don’t think we could afford that.
 
Abby,

First of all, my heart goes out to you. My husband and I were in our mid-20’s when we realized that we were not going to have children. We were open to children from the day we were married and used NFP. So, within 6 months of marriage, we knew there was a problem (another plus for NFP). We went through testing and “procedures” until we just couldn’t anymore. It was incredibly painful. During this time, of course, we were at an age when all of our friends were having babies. It seemed every other month another friend would call with her “good news”. I was invited to more baby showers those years of infertility than in the entire time since. I began to become depressed and still think of it today as “the black hole in my heart years”. I wanted a baby so much. Even as a young girl all I wanted to be was a mother.
I began to heal as I came to terms with the Cross of Infertility that God gave me. From the Catechism, it says that God has special compassion for infertile couples. This gave me great comfort. Everyone has a Cross to bear----this was ours.
Healing really began when we adopted our first daughter. We wanted to be parents, it didn’t matter if they were ours biologically (this took time to understand). We had insensitive comments from family and friends, but once we had our daughter much of that changed. Our family is multi racial—my husband’s father was very prejudiced (he is now deceased), so we were worried. He came around when he got to know our sweet little kids.
We correct people who say insensitive things in a calm, rational, and loving way. After all, usually our kids are around and we can then provide a teaching moment. There has been some teasing with the children, but no where near what we had imagined. The vast majority of people are incredibly supportive and accepting of adoptive families.
We make an effort to teach the kids about their respective heritages. This has been very helpful and for them and for us as parents too. We have even enrolled them in special camps in the summer to learn language, customs and such about their cultures.
We have one child with an open adoption, the others are not. The open situation was difficult at first, but now we see Birthmom once a year without much anxiety at all. Our son is still unaware that she is his birthmom (her choice), but will be told as soon as we feel it is necessary (he’s in 3rd grade–so soon). We talk very openly about adoption when the kids ask or seem to have concerns. We talk openly about their birthfamilies and offer prayers for them often.
We have many friends who have adopted. If you adopt internationally, the time frame is around 1 year from start to finish. Time frame for domestic is highly variable. I’ve known people to wait up to 7 years (closed adoption) and others who have waited a matter of months once they choose an agency and have a homestudy done (usually this type of adoption is when a birthmom chooses you and meets with you—whether she remains in your lives or not is up to you and birthmom). I advise working with a licensed agency or an adoption attorney — make sure you get references!!!

God Bless you and your husband as you make this decision. I have nothing but positive things to say about adoption. My kids needed a mommy and daddy and we wanted kids, God answered all of our prayers.
 
Thank you, Giannawannabe! That is a very comforting post and one filled with a lot of information.

We actually questions about the homestudy, too. I know this “sounds” bad, but it is actually very healthy: we were forced to give up our relationship with my husband’s family when they became very emotionally abusive toward both of us. (Excessive control, manic episodes from his mother, etc.) We did this under the advice of a Catholic therapist. We have not seen them in almost two years.

Obviously they will ask about our relationships with both of sets of our parents. Will they be highly concerned about Paul’s parental relationship? Do they interview future grandparents, too? (My relationship with my parents is very good, the only conflict–if it can be called that–being with this issue.)

My parents and siblings would actually interview very well probably, and I know my parents will probably come around more once I’m holding a precious new baby and they won’t be able to resist him or her. 🙂 But, we would not want to involve my husband’s parents nor his siblings in the adoption process whatsoever. We are about to move across the country and they will actually not even be informed.

Do you think we would be rejected from any agencies because of this? Should we look for Catholic agencies or Catholic lawyers specifically? My husband gets nervous when he sees those few publicized cases of adoptions gone bad, and children returned to birth parents. He (nor I) can imagine bonding and loving a child as our own, and then being asked to give them back. Fortunately we recognize that it is a very rare occurrence, and if we look for reputable agencies and lawyers, it probably won’t be a problem.
 
HI Abby.

In my experience and with our friends, only the prospective adoptive parents are interviewed. If you’re working with an identified adoption (where the birthmom identifies you from pictures and info on you), then birthmom and birthdad (if he is around) are also interviewed. They(the social workers) will come to your home at least once before the adoption and 1 or more times after baby comes. I think if you are straightforward and honest regarding your hubby’s family, it should not cause a problem. The main thing is to be honest and answer the questions short and sweet. You don’t need to give them all the gory details, but it will be something that they will ask about—stress YOUR family situation. About moving across the country, you may wish to wait until you’re settled in your new home as it would be difficult to have a homestudy done on your current location and then up and move to a new one.
Your husband’s family should not have any bearing on whether you’re going to “pass” the homestudy. I would investigate agencies/attornies in your state. Talk to people that have adopted, etc. In our state, Catholic agencies are not the best place to go (sorry to say that). In other states, they are really good. An adoption attorney might be the best way to go in your state. Find a good adoption support group and go to their meetings for a bit and get good info. It’s best to be prepared and have the best agency/attorney you can have. You’re in my prayers Abby.
 
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Princess_Abby:
Ideally, we would like a newborn baby. Race is unimportant to either of us, though adopting a non-white baby only gives us pause because do not want to add to the adoptive child’s identity issues in the future. We just have so much love that we simply can’t wait to give a little person. Both of us sit in Mass and get completely and totally distracted by babies around us in other pews.

As for international adoption, we are worried about the orphanage situations and the lack of bonding that takes place, ultimately resulting in attachment issues. I think international adoption is also more expensive, and we don’t think we could afford that.
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My friend just came back from working with the Missionaries of Charity in Haiti. He told me that you can adopt a HEALTHY NEWBORN (no HepC or HIV) for less than $4,000 if you’re a married Catholic couple!

I would LOVE to adopt one of these babies!
 
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Princess_Abby:
  1. How did you deal with the disappointment of not being able to create your own children?
    It has been hard, but time does help heal and I am thankful that I was able to become a Mom through adoption.
  2. **How did you go about correcting people’s misguided perceptions? ** In some cases I tried to educate people about infertility issues and life issues; in other cases when someone was being malicious or confrontive I’d just say “Now, why would you ask me that?” or “Why would you say something like that?” Usually stopped them in their tracks.
  3. **At what point did you decide that it was definitely time to start looking into adoption?**When I realized that I wanted to be Mom more than I wanted to be pregnant.
  4. **How did you decide between open and closed adoptions? ** We were flexible, up to a degree, with the open adoptions. We didn’t want continued ongoing meetings, last names or addresses shared, etc. Just met them once and sent letters and pictures for the first year or so. Ended up being very positive in both of our adoptions.
  5. How did you deal with family members who are/were disappointed about the fact that you’re adopting?
    Had some trouble with this, especially because we were open to other races, etc. Again, tried to educate where possible and would always tell people “It’s in God’s hands. We’ll take whatever child/children He has already chosen for us.” In the end, it has all worked out fine and our kids know they are loved by all.
  6. If you chose to adopt a child of a different race than you and your husband, how did you deal with comments or judgements?
    Our children are of mixed races. Our daughter’s appearance is less noticeable, but our son has dark hair and dark skin (part Filipino) and I’m a red-headed Irish woman! Most people have been very charitable, but I remember one woman looking at me funny at a grocery store when our son was a baby. She came up to me and said “His father must be dark-skinned, right?” To which I replied with a quizzical look on my face “Gosh, I don’t know, I guess he must be.” She gave me the strangest look and huffed away. But I was telling the truth because we don’t know anything about the birthfather!
  7. From start to finish, how long did your adoption process take?
    Our first adoption happened very quickly (within six months), which is not common. We went through a private adoption agency, both children born in our state. The second adoption took some time, waited about two years. The home study process can be quite long with lots of paperwork to fill out and a lot of questions about your childhood, parenting likes and dislikes, etc. However, the process was very thought-provoking and I have to say really helped prepare us for parenthood. We think all parents should go through a similar process!
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I’ll keep you and all those who long for children in my prayers.

I have to say I can’t imagine my family with any other children and we tell them often that they are special gifts from God. Our night prayers always end with 'Thank you, God, for making us a family."
 
I cannot thank any of you enough for being so generous in sharing your experiences. I am so grateful for this forum to be able to reach out and ask questions of people I would not normally encounter in everyday life! 🙂

To both Gianna and Didi, thank you very much for giving me your experiences on the homestudy. DH’s parents have caused us a lot of worry about impacting our ability to adopt, so I am relieved to know they won’t necessarily be part of the interview process. We are actually moving to where my parents and most of my siblings live, so we are hopeful that it will bode well with agencies/social workers/birth parents, etc and help show them that we really seek to give our future children a supportive environment. It’s probably the biggest reason why we’re moving back, actually.

And, no, we do not plan on starting the process until we have moved back to Kansas. We will be in an apartment for a year, and then buying a house, so really we might have to wait a little over a year to start figuring all of this out–though we would like to start today. 🙂 However, becoming parents is already on both my DH’s mind and my own quite a bit–daily, really–so I thought I would at least start gathering information and experiences.

Also–Gianna, thanks for the idea about finding adoption support groups/meetings. That is a VERY good idea and something I will definitely look into.

Katybird–you make me want to take my debit card and get on a red-eye flight down to Haiti ;). I think I will google the group you mentioned and find out more information. My husband and I haven’t researched cost at all yet–we’ve heard generalities from anywhere between 5k and 15k…so, I’m not sure what the reality is about cost in the US.

Thanks, too, for all of you sharing your experiences with other people reacting to your adoption choices. While much of it sounds insensitive at times, it doesn’t sound perhaps as bad as I was imagining it. I think with my own family (one of my sisters has become pretty supportive about it, it’s just my parents who seemed shocked initially) and friends–they will eventually come around once we have a little one to love. As for strangers, at some point we all have to say: who cares!
 
My situation isn’t exactly like yours since I was able to have 1 son after many years of infertility, but all that did was add fuel to the fire of wanting more children.

We actually started looking into adoption before we had our son.

I still ache for an infant, but I also ache for my brother who died. It is just the way it is.

We have an adopted son from Russia. We got him when he was 20 months old. He is 4 now. He is very attached and had no attachment problems. We did some regression bonding like giving him a bottle at nap and bedtime while we rocked him. Those were the only times he got a bottle and he gave it up easily by 3.

I wondered how our families would take it. If they have anything to say they don’t say it to me, but they don’t act like they see him any different than my bio son.

I found the adoption process to be another roller coaster ride for my emotions. We are adopting again and this time it doesn’t seem so up and down, but that maybe because my time is occupied with the other 2.

It took us 11 months from start to finish, but my brother died unexpectedly during that time so I took some time off to grieve. That is one of the reasons we chose international. We are older and don’t have a lot of time to wait. There are children there waiting for parents especially boys.

Someone once asked me “which one was mine.” I kept telling her they were both mine. What she wanted to know was which one was my bio son. She was a crude person so I figured if she couldn’t tell then why should I since they are both my sons. My adopted son is more like me in temperment than my bio son. I understand him better than my bio son. I have a friend whose adopted daughter looks more like her than her bio daughter. You just never know how it is going to turn out. Isn’t it that we have 98% of our genetic code that is alike and only about 2% that makes us different. And in the end we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.

No one ever asked me if we had tried enough, but if they had I would have told them it was none of their business.

Oh the home study. No one from your husband’s family need to have a say. Just be honest and simple with when describing that relationship. We did have a request for a letter of reference from a family member from each side. If there is even a distant relative that has a positive relationship with your husband you might use them. If there is no one be upfront with your social worker and ask if another person can be the reference. As far as I can tell not one person I have talked to gets through the adoption process without some glitch, but these can be overcomed. We had them with our 1st adoption and we’ve already had some with the second.

Read James 1:27 often during the adoption process. It will help with the glitches.

I firmly believe that God gives us the children he intends for us to have. What ever way you go He will lead you and you will be so amazed at how the right child found you and you found him/her.
 
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mom2boyz:
I firmly believe that God gives us the children he intends for us to have. What ever way you go He will lead you and you will be so amazed at how the right child found you and you found him/her.
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I have to agree totally with this. It’s truly amazing how most people seem to feel destined to parent the children they adopt.
Princess Abby, I’m so happy that you’re considering adoption instead of pursuing lengthy, expensive and disappointing treatments.
There’s another option that no one has yet mentioned: foster adoption. We tried international adoption but ran out of money after we spent $12,000 searching. I think God just had other plans. So we tried domestic adoption, not newborns, but kept getting referrals to children with major health issues or behavioral/family issues.
We learned that foster families got first choice as to whether they wanted to adopt, once the children became available for adoption. So we became foster adopt parents, though we had sworn we would never consider that. A month later we got a referral for a 28 month old boy, and the next year for a ten month old girl, who are still with us, now 8 and 11. Note that we weren’t trying for very young children, we would actually have been happy with older ones, but these children needed homes at that time.
There are many infants and young children in foster care, who may be able to go home to their parents but who need a stable home until then, and who will need an adoptive home if not. A friend of ours has adopted 8 foster children. The state provides a subsidy which is quite helpful, as well as help with medical. Each state is different in its rules of course.
Good wishes in your journey to adoption!
 
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mom2boyz:
My situation isn’t exactly like yours since I was able to have 1 son after many years of infertility, but all that did was add fuel to the fire of wanting more children.

We actually started looking into adoption before we had our son.

I still ache for an infant, but I also ache for my brother who died. It is just the way it is.

We have an adopted son from Russia. We got him when he was 20 months old. He is 4 now. He is very attached and had no attachment problems. We did some regression bonding like giving him a bottle at nap and bedtime while we rocked him. Those were the only times he got a bottle and he gave it up easily by 3.

I wondered how our families would take it. If they have anything to say they don’t say it to me, but they don’t act like they see him any different than my bio son.

I found the adoption process to be another roller coaster ride for my emotions. We are adopting again and this time it doesn’t seem so up and down, but that maybe because my time is occupied with the other 2.

It took us 11 months from start to finish, but my brother died unexpectedly during that time so I took some time off to grieve. That is one of the reasons we chose international. We are older and don’t have a lot of time to wait. There are children there waiting for parents especially boys.

Someone once asked me “which one was mine.” I kept telling her they were both mine. What she wanted to know was which one was my bio son. She was a crude person so I figured if she couldn’t tell then why should I since they are both my sons. My adopted son is more like me in temperment than my bio son. I understand him better than my bio son. I have a friend whose adopted daughter looks more like her than her bio daughter. You just never know how it is going to turn out. Isn’t it that we have 98% of our genetic code that is alike and only about 2% that makes us different. And in the end we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.

No one ever asked me if we had tried enough, but if they had I would have told them it was none of their business.

Oh the home study. No one from your husband’s family need to have a say. Just be honest and simple with when describing that relationship. We did have a request for a letter of reference from a family member from each side. If there is even a distant relative that has a positive relationship with your husband you might use them. If there is no one be upfront with your social worker and ask if another person can be the reference. As far as I can tell not one person I have talked to gets through the adoption process without some glitch, but these can be overcomed. We had them with our 1st adoption and we’ve already had some with the second.

Read James 1:27 often during the adoption process. It will help with the glitches.

I firmly believe that God gives us the children he intends for us to have. What ever way you go He will lead you and you will be so amazed at how the right child found you and you found him/her.
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Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I am also very happy to hear such a successful story about international adoption with an almost-two-year old. It actually makes me re-think some of my “boundaries” about the whole adoption journey. Neither my husband or I want to limit ourselves and possibly miss out on a child God is calling us to parent. Thanks for showing me a different perspective. 🙂

Thanks also for the information about a letter of reference from both sides of the family. We are VERY close to his first cousin, so I’m sure she or her husband would write us a letter. 🙂

I also think what you said about all of us being more alike than different is really beautiful. And true.
 
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Viki59:
I have to agree totally with this. It’s truly amazing how most people seem to feel destined to parent the children they adopt.
Princess Abby, I’m so happy that you’re considering adoption instead of pursuing lengthy, expensive and disappointing treatments.
There’s another option that no one has yet mentioned: foster adoption. We tried international adoption but ran out of money after we spent $12,000 searching. I think God just had other plans. So we tried domestic adoption, not newborns, but kept getting referrals to children with major health issues or behavioral/family issues.
We learned that foster families got first choice as to whether they wanted to adopt, once the children became available for adoption. So we became foster adopt parents, though we had sworn we would never consider that. A month later we got a referral for a 28 month old boy, and the next year for a ten month old girl, who are still with us, now 8 and 11. Note that we weren’t trying for very young children, we would actually have been happy with older ones, but these children needed homes at that time.
There are many infants and young children in foster care, who may be able to go home to their parents but who need a stable home until then, and who will need an adoptive home if not. A friend of ours has adopted 8 foster children. The state provides a subsidy which is quite helpful, as well as help with medical. Each state is different in its rules of course.
Good wishes in your journey to adoption!
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I really, really appreciate your perspective. I have worked extensively with foster children in shelter situations. I have also seen many adoptions not work, so it TRULY makes me feel better to hear more about this option. My experience is primarily with OLDER children (12+) trying to assimilate into families after surviving abusive situations, and I have not really been around younger toddlers/children being embraced through foster care adoption.

I am somewhat open to this option, but my husband is very fearful of OUR attachment to these kids becoming very strong, going through the adoption process and then possibly having them ripped away if biological parents end up getting their act together and suing for their rights to be re-instated. (I know this is very unlikely to happen, but for some reason he continues to mention this and I am trying to respect it as it is a possiblity.) The other issue that worries him is simply getting very attached to foster children and then having to give them up, which will be the norm. He also doesn’t like the possibility of feeling futile in falling in love with these children and then always knowin they aren’t OURS. I hope that makes sense. I am sure that as time continues on and we research more, these feelings will become more ironed out.

Thanks for your encouragement and for also sharing your experience. 🙂
 
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