Arriving at Adoption

In addition to reading Adoption is a Family Affair, we've been reading Adopting After Infertility, also by Patricia Irwin Johnston. In the first few chapters of the book, Johnston presents the reader and their partner with a self reflection activity to promote discussion about how to "conquer the infertility dragon." To begin, she outlines "six losses perceived to be a consequence of permanent infertility." They are:

1. Loss of control over many aspects of life. This refers to giving up control of your sexual privacy, planning vacations and events around your fertility treatments, deciding whether it's the right time to accept a new job, what car to purchase, whether to buy a house with a yard or a condo in the city. The list goes on and on. Most people don't realize how infertility affects ALL aspects of your life.
2. Loss of genetic continuity.  This speaks for itself. For someone who was raised in a "blood is thicker than water" culture, this is an extremely significant loss.
3. Loss of a joint conception with your life partner. You may not realize how many times you think, "I hope my child gets my partner's athletic ability or sense of humor." or "I can't wait to see if my child will be good at math like me, or if he or she will be a history buff like my spouse." It's difficult to realize those dreams of creating a life with your husband or wife will not come true.
4. The physical satisfactions of pregnancy and birth.  To impregnate your wife or carry a child represents the ultimate expression of maleness and femaleness. You've grown up expecting your body to allow you to do this, and losing this ability can cause you to question your self worth.
5. The emotional gratifications of pregnancy and birth. Think for a minute about what it means to potentially not be present at the birth of your child....to not hear the sound of their first cry, or experience those overwhelming emotions of seeing your child come into the world.
6. The opportunity to parent. From a very young age most of us fantasize about being a parent. As little children we play house and push babies in strollers. As teenagers we argue with our parents about curfews and rules and make sure we tell them what we will and will not do when we have kids of our own! For many people parenting is a natural part of being an adult. Personally, it never once entered my mind that I would not be a parent.

After describing each of these potential losses, Johnston encourages the reader and their partner to rank these losses, from most significant to least significant, independently of one another and then to share their individual lists. Here were our results:

Laura:
1. Opportunity to parent
2. Joint conception with life partner
3. Loss of control
4. Physical satisfactions of pregnancy and birth
5. Emotional satisfactions of pregnancy and birth
6. Genetic continuity

Jeff:
1. Opportunity to parent
2. Joint conception with life partner
3. Loss of control
4. Genetic continuity
5. Physical satisfactions of pregnancy and birth
6. Emotional satisfactions of pregnancy and birth

Sharing and discussing the results is meant to help couples identify the next step in their infertility journey. Johnston gives these four possible choices for the next step:

1. Continuing treatment to the point of having tried every possible option
2. Using donor egg or sperm to allow one of you to maintain a genetic connection
3. Adopting
4. Embracing a child free lifestyle

For example, if the wife chose "physical satisfactions of pregnancy and birth" as her number one potential loss, but her husband chose "genetic continuity," trying another round of treatment using a donor egg and the husband's sperm might be their next step. Or if "genetic continuity" was most important to both partners and they had exhausted all of their treatment options, they may decide to embrace a child free lifestyle.

Jeff and I are extremely lucky that our lists are very similar and that we're on the same page about what's most important to us. Many couples are not and have difficulty agreeing on the next step. For us, parenting is our number one goal and continuing fertility treatments feels emotionally and physically exhausting. Not to mention the fact that we don't want to use all of our financial resources on fertility treatments because that wouldn't be the end of the journey for us. More fertility treatments may or may not make us parents. Adoption definitely will. We had already been discussing adoption before we did this activity, but it just reaffirmed for us that we are making the right decision!