One of the fertility myths that annoys me the most is the misperception that adopting a child will cause you to become pregnant. The media continues to perpetuate this myth, which might be one reason that people seem to buy into this nonsense.

I adopted my son almost seven years ago, and I have not become pregnant. I know many other adoptive parents, and very few have conceived babies after adopting. While there are some adoptive parents who do go on to have a biological child, most do not. According to the Encyclopedia of Adoption, less than 10% of adoptive mothers go on to bear biological children.

I have read other studies stating that the percentage of pregnancies after adoption are consistent with the number of pregnancies after choosing to end fertility treatments without adopting. (I wish I could remember the source. I did not find the article on-line.) As the Encyclopedia of Adoption points out, since about 20% of couples have a diagnosis of "unexplained infertility," the resulting pregnancies after either adopting or ending fertility treatments might account for many of the situations in which a pregnancy is achieved later.

More importantly, adopting my son was not about stimulating my reproductive organs. His joining our family was not a means to an end: We adopted him because we wanted to parent him. No child should be adopted into a family solely as a way to "make your own baby." People should only adopt because they truly want to parent a child, and they feel that they can embrace a "stranger's child" as their own. If you cannot embrace an adopted child as your own and find contentment in parenting this child, even if you never conceive a biological child, then you have no business adopting a child.

People who tell you to "just adopt and you will get pregnant" are both ignorant and misinformed. Adopting a child does not make you conceive, and the majority of adoptive parents never do go on to conceive a biological child.

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Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt