Adoption

For Mother's Day my husband and daughter treated me to a wonderful dinner at one of my favorite Italian restaurants. My daughter who is six years old still needs to be reminded to use her utensils and not her fingers and to sit properly in her chair from time to time. In other words, she needs to be reminded to use her restaurant manners. So, upon leaving the restaurant after our meal, we couldn't help but beam with pride when a woman at a neighboring table complimented my daughter for her excellent table manners and her behavior in general. Then it happened. Totally out of left field the woman asked if we were my daughter’s parents… [more]

I have never been particularly fond of Tom Cruise, although I do like some of his movies. I have always liked Nicole Kidman. So, of course I was on "her side" when they split, but that is neither here nor there.

As many of you likely know, Tom and Nicole adopted a couple of kids together. While I do not believe they ever made a big deal about it publicly, speculation has always been that they were infertile together. However, Tom got Katie Holmes pregnant, and now Nicole is pregnant by her husband, Keith Urban. According to the article in Women's Day, Nicole conceived after months of fertility treatments.

I find it interesting when a couple is unable to conceive a baby together but both… [more]

While you are facing infertility challenges and desperately trying to conceive a baby, adoption might not be an option you are considering. In fact, you might feel downright hostile toward the idea of raising a "stranger's baby." However, you might not always feel this way. It is okay to have a change of heart later.

Some people are always open to the idea of adopting. I was one of those people. I wanted to adopt a child ever since I saw the movie Pete's Dragon when I was a little kid. I loved the idea of a homeless kid finding a forever family. However, other people, like my husband, never even considered adoption. He was very uncomfortable with the idea of "raising a stranger's child." Now… [more]

I know many women who have struggled with their fertility. Most, if not all, have had people try to comfort them by saying, "You can always just adopt." Most infertile women do not find these words comforting and certainly not in the early stages of exploring fertility treatments.

I am an adoptive mother. I have been through the adoption process, and let me tell you - there is no "just" to the process. When people say, "You can always just adopt," they make it sound like, if you cannot have a hamburger, then a hot dog will do, too. Choosing to adopt is not that simple.

Adoption is Not For Everyone

First you have to get past the hurdle of whether adoption is right for your family. Adoption… [more]

When I had exhausted our fertility procedures and was waiting to adopt, a friend of mine was starting her own fertility journey. I had already reached a place of making peace with never getting pregnant, but my friend was just starting to face that she might never know what it feels like to become pregnant. She learned about a program called the Snowflake program and asked me what I thought about it.

The Snowflake program is one of several services available that enables a couple to adopt an embryo. The adoptive mother has the embryo implanted into her uterus, and she goes through a full pregnancy, giving birth to a child whose DNA comes from another couple. My friend took a… [more]

In my last post, Fertility Success Stories, I shared several fertility success stories experienced by people in my life. All of these people were blessed to hold their biological children in their arms after struggling to conceive them. However, those are not the only successful stories shared by people in my life. I would be remiss if I left out one of my favorite success stories, which is different from the others.

I want to send out a special thank you to this friend for allowing me to share her story. After I wrote an initial draft of this post, she chose to add several personal details that drive home how inspiring her story is. I appreciate her honesty in… [more]

In a previous post, Adoption Does NOT Cure Infertility, I talked about some of the infertility losses that I have had to grieve despite being a mother through adoption. This post continues the discussion.

My son used to belong to a playgroup of children who were all close in age. When my son was around three years old, we went to a playgroup at a friend's house. There were seven of us there with our children. All of us had children around the age of three, and everyone other than me held a baby in her arms.

One of my friends said, "Isn't it funny how last year we were all sitting around talking about our pregnancies and now we all… [more]

When I adopted my son, I assumed that my infertility woes were over. I was a mother now, so there was no need to think about my fertility again, right? I was so wrong about this. Adoption cures childlessness, not infertility.

The pain of my infertility started to bubble up as my friends started conceiving their second children. I had already placed our names on a waiting list at an adoption agency to adopt our second child, but the agency told me that it would probably take a couple of years before we would be invited to apply to adopt through them. In the meantime, there was nothing to do except love and cherish my son.

I did not appreciate how much… [more]

We continued intrauterine inseminations (IUIs) throughout the winter and spring of 1999, but I was losing steam. I had given up hope of ever conceiving.

People told me that I needed to keep a positive attitude or I would never conceive. I countered by pointing out that a positive attitude had not gotten me very far up until now. I was in the process of accepting that I would never meet a baby who had my eyes and my husband's nose. As I considered adopting a baby, I realized that passing along my genetics was not as important as having a baby to love.

I looked at the brochure from Dr. M's office again and read about the option of… [more]

I know that this is much later than I had planned on posting this, but I was having troubles fininshing it. I would get too nostalgic and start to cry. Today must be the day! At the airport I remember feeling kind of sick with apprehension. My chest was tight and I had this pasted on brave smile. What if he wasnt' on the plane? What if he was screaming hysterically? What if he hated me? I was a bunch of nerves. His plane was the second plane to arrive that night. We didn't know that the first plane was going to be there, so, when he didn't get off of the flight, I was frozen in stone. I didn't want to throw… [more]