Grief, Infertility, and Adoption
Some of us adoptive parents (who have experienced infertility and come to adoption because of this) assume that after adopting a child our grief over infertility will diminish because we have a child. However, Faith points out that it is not always the case.
I was surprised to learn that adoption did not take away my infertility pain. I thought that the cause of my infertility pain was the inability to have a baby. So, once I adopted a baby, I assumed that I would no longer have any infertility pain. I was wrong.
My first clue that my infertility pain remained was my reaction to finding out that friends were pregnant with their second children. Without exception, I cried after hearing the news of one friend after another announcing her pregnancy.
I too, have felt twinges of grief…of jealously about friends’ pregnancies. Although I have a child I had never experienced a pregnancy, which is what I had always longed for.
I had never felt AJ kick his little feet in my tummy or hear his heartbeat on an ultrasound monitor. I had not experienced childbirth like 90% of my friends and I can never contribute to their conversations…I can only listen to them talk about nestling a newborn or breastfeeding for the first time. I will never experience the bonding and attachment that biological children often have the moment the are born nor will I innately know the sound of my child’s cries in the middle of the night or know their smell (because it is just like mine).
Although I am honestly happy for friends when they become pregnant I know that friends are hesitant to tell me of their pregnancies because they know of our infertility. One friend even recently shared with me that she was nervous to tell me.. It was easy for her to get pregnant and she felt guilty that we could not have biological children.
I have, in my heart, grieved our infertility. A normal part of grief, as Faith puts it, is wistfulness…wishing for that other part. And I can’t help but always wish for that pregnant belly, now matter how much I know it will never happen.
Tags: , Adoption, grief, Infertility, pregnancyRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Infertility, Medical, My Family, Reflection
4 opinions for Grief, Infertility, and Adoption
Michelle
Apr 19, 2008 at 8:25 am
Great post, Marcie. This comes and goes for me. When MAM was an infant, it was basically gone….then as she got older, it started to surface again, which surprised me. But for awhile, I was really content with her, so it wasn’t a big deal. Then J dropped her bomb, and it was like ripping off a bandaid, I think because it drove home again that our becoming parents is SO out of our control. And that things have to go badly for someone for us to get a sweet bundle of joy.
Krissi from Krississippi
Apr 19, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I should write in my own blog more about this topic… I never wanted to be pregnant and now that I also have had a hysterectomy I feel almost… strange (or that I should feel strange or different?)… that I don’t even miss it.
Sometimes I wonder if at some point I’ll feel sadness because I never had a bio-child and now can’t, even if I wanted to… or if it will just be a part of my life that (for me) will always be a ‘non issue’.
Marcie
Apr 20, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Thanks for the two different views ladies.
It is like ripping off a bandaid, isn’t it? And, it sneaks up on you.
A.K.
Jun 21, 2008 at 8:35 pm
This gives me much insight as to what my adoptive mother went, and goes through, and me — as an adoptee– as well.
Ours is the second best solution to a heart wrenching problem. As an adoptee, my mother couldn’t mother me, for whatever reason. I was placed where I was loved and wanted, but however loved, wanted, and cared for I was, I was never a substitute for the well wished for child that would never be.
Likewise — and is adoption really for finding homes for children, or children for homes?– my adoptive parents, doting and loving as they are, would never have that one essential connection with me that I so longed for and dare I say, needed?
Of course I say it. Look at Moses. He had it all. When Pharaoah’s daughter saw that he was a cutie-pie she took him home and the royal family adopted him as their own.
But how did Moses repay this benevolence? With whom did he identify? When he said “Let my people go?, ” did that refer to his adoptive family?
My heart goes to you… yet I wonder if adoptive parents consider that grief goes both ways. Adoptees get tired of being told that we ought to be grateful, when the same standard isn’t applied to our loving, sacrificial parents.
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