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As much as we like to say things like, adoption is a very individual decision, or adoption is a wonderful way to grow a family, or even, adoption is a good thing, there are those people who won’t agree with us.
I’m not talking about the anti-adoption movement. No. I’m talking about our nearest and dearest, our friends and our family. Like it or not, their attitudes, both spoken and inferred, often have great impact on what we do. That includes our plans for adoption.
I’ll give you an example. When we adopted Little J we got almost nothing but positive support from our friends and our family. But before we’d made plans to adopt, deep in our throes of fertility treatments and miscarriages, a few select people said some really subtle, but unmistakeably negative thing to us.
Them: “Are you going to try invitro next?”
Us: “No, we don’t think we’ll go that far.”
Them: “So I guess you’ll just have the one.”
Us: “Well, we think we’ll find a way to have more kids.”
Them: “What, you’re not going to adopt, are you?”
Or how about this conversation, in regards to some relatives who had just had a baby after 5 years of fertility treatments:
Me: “Do you think they’ll have any more kids?”
Them: “Oh, no. Not after all that mess they went through. I don’t think they’d go through that again. And there’s no way they’d adopt. No way.”
But why? I wanted to ask. Why wouldn’t they adopt? What’s wrong with adopting? But I didn’t, cause I’m chicken and a certain segment of my family already thinks I’m too confrontational. I try to avoid putting fuel on that fire – and for this issue I would probably get too confrontation and p*ssed off to deal with it rationally. So I just sit and stew…and remember these details for my blog!
We also took our family in mind when we chose what country to adopt from. My husband felt very strongly that his family would not be very accepting to a child who was not Caucasian. Having been around them for various racial tirades I tend to agree…and while I don’t agree with their viewpoint and I would love to adopt a non-white child I also wanted my child to be accepted by that side of the family, racist SOBs or not.
Now that Little J’s been here a couple of years and I’m trying to convince my husband that another would be a good idea, I’m having a hard time finding anyone supportive of my wish to adopt another.
In this case I don’t think it’s because they’re against adoption — they probably think I have enough to handle with my 2. For some reason 3 kids sounds like too, too many. It’s like 3 kids is the new 6 kids around here! Or maybe I’m just lacking the grace that mothering to more than 2 will require. I dunno. I figure with all this talk about older moms that I have at least 20 more years to convince everyone.
So – what’s your story? How have your friends and family been about your plans to adopt? Helpful? Annoying? Hostile? I’d love to know.
Two comments: First off, during our first adoption our agency discussed that often times family members that you thought would be supportive of your decision to adopt will not be at first. They said to keep in mind that you know all of the ins and outs with what you had to go through with infertility and came to the decision to adopt after accepting that you were not going to be able to get pregnant. Family members often need that time to work through that loss as well. When we finally told my family we were adopting, we did not get the immediate support I had thought we’d get. After asking lot’s of questions and with a bit of time, they became our biggest cheerleaders. It made sense that of course they will feel some sense of loss initially just as we had.
Second, I have had situations with friends who had fertility treatments going on 6 years and would not adopt. It got to the point that “maybe” they’d consider it. You summed up how I felt-I wanted to ask, maybe shout “Why?”. It was interesting that they could not believe that we would stop in seeking fertility treatments when we did-like that was the oddest thing they had ever heard of.
Ok, as an older mom, I have to ask, Twenty years from when? Are you Twenty-five, thirty thirty five?……One of our bloggers is almost 55 I think!
Thanks for the plug for our blog!
I am 37 years old…so I figure I have ’til my mid 50s. I am also married to a younger man…he’s 36. Ha. He’s the sticking point. If it’s not in the next 2 years then it’s not to be – but who knows what life will bring? Never say never.
We decided to adopt after I had two tubal pregnancies. I never was against adoption so we went through the process and after 10 years we have gradually adopted 5 children from the same birth mother. The negative came from the people I work with. Its like they are the bastard children and in their minds they don’t exist. We have had so much joy from these kids. If I could have had them I would have. They are loved and I could not imagine life without them. I think keeping these kids together to grow up together has been our priority. They will always have each other and will never have to look for who they are.
My wife and I are starting the adoption process and while most people are supportive, one ‘close’ friend flat out told me that it’s a stupid idea because ‘those kids’ are messed up from the get go and all I’m going to do is screw up my family.
My friends and family think it’s wierd that we have no known fertility problems: we just want to adopt.
We’ve been treated to stories of adoptions gone south, adoptions taking years and $$$$$$$$$, adopted kids developing medical problems (because bios don’t??), and we haven’t even started to talk about race. But in the end, I love that you have pointed out here that most of them are acting out of love for us.