What NOT To Say To Adoptive Parents

“Now that you’re adopting, you’re sure to get pregnant!”

“Oh, it happens all the time. Once you take the pressure off, you’ll get pregnant!”

I have been through adoption twice. Biological birth, once. Happens all the time? Yes, it happened to us – one time. But the first time? No.

Our world was turned upside down and our adoption threatened when we found out that I was 10 weeks pregnant. #1son was already assigned to us and we were waiting for him to come home.

Please, don’t say “Oh, that happens all the time!” It doesn’t.

It didn’t after #1daughter was adopted. And I know of only one instance where pregnancy happened during adoption – out of all the families I’ve come into contact with through the course of our journey.

While we were waiting for a decision from the agency if we could still adopt our son because of my pregnancy, those comments were of little comfort. We were already in love with our son from Korea. He was already born to us, as far as we were concerned. We had pictures. We had named him. To lose him now would be devastating. The pregnancy was no consolation prize.

I can’t tell you how many times someone said to me, “Oh, now that you’re adopting you’ll get pregnant!” I waited 11 long years for that to finally happen. So, I suppose they were right. Eventually. But I had given up all hope of pregnancy. Those comments, as well-meaning as they are, can be little stabs to your heart if you aren’t physically pregnant and you desperately want to be.  It takes away from the joy that you are pregnant in your heart with your adoptive child on the way.

In our case, in our second case, I was actually pregnant, with an adoptive son on the way. All of the well-meaning, but mildly thoughtless comments, took away from the joy of our #1son and HIS place in our family – as if he were second best. As if he were the consolation prize.

I am so grateful that I was able to experience the joy of giving birth. Of being physically pregnant as well as mentally pregnant. If it weren’t for my age, I’d go back on the fertility roller coaster all over again.

But forming a family through adoption is no consolation prize. It is an amazing, wonderful and perfectly viable way of creating family. The planning, wishing, hoping and heartache that accompanies the adoption journey makes it that much more beautiful.

Be excited for the once infertile mom if you ever hear of this happening. Be delighted for her that she gets to experience the joy of adoption and the joy of pregnancy.

Most of all, be thrilled that she is creating this amazing family.

Out of biology.

Out of need.

Out of love.

You Met Your Husband Where? Online, Of Course

What’s more embarrassing than saying that you met at a bar? Admitting you met online.

Aidan at Ivy League Insecurities wrote a post the other day about where she and her husband met. And she is finally comfortable admitting that they met at the neighborhood bar. She wasn’t always comfortable. Vague references were often used, “Oh, we met in the neighborhood.” Which reminded me of myself. Only I’d say, “Oh, we met at a health seminar.”

Which was true.

Honest!

Cross my heart and hope to…..ok, well…..it’s sort of true.

I was married before. Quite young. To a man 10 years older than me. In my “oh so wise” early twenties I thought I knew myself, what I wanted, who I needed. I was so wrong. He was 31. Comfortable with who he was, what he wanted, what he needed. I was a baby – merely 21 years old. What did I know of love, life, marriage, myself? Nothing, as it turns out.

I grew. He didn’t. He had already grown. We were nothing more than roommates by the end of our 10 year marriage. With infertility testing and a beautiful baby girl adopted from Korea between us. We weren’t good for each other anymore and we were a horrible model of what marriage should be for our daughter. So we divorced.

Enter the internet.

What an amazing place! Chock full of interesting facts, figures and people. I enjoyed my online “friends.” But I like that they stayed, well, online. I had no desire to meet people face-to-face. I was a single mom. A teacher. Surrounded by students and colleagues all day long. Somewhat introverted, I LOVED my downtime. The peace and quiet of home. I dated a little but my primary focus was my daughter and my job. In fact, when my daughter was home I did not enjoy an active social life. Except for my Junior League responsibilities I rarely hired a babysitter for her. If she was visiting her dad, only then would I go out.

But my health – my gynecological health – had never been formerly diagnosed. Because I always knew I wanted to adopt, former-husband and I never pursued the whys of my infertility. I’d had troubles with my periods, tipped uterus, endometriosis since my teen years. I’d already been told I may have difficulty getting and staying pregnant. So, not a surprise when the difficulties began. But now I was a 32-year-old single mom. I still had irregular periods. Pain. I wanted to stay healthy to be able to raise my daughter. But the doctors could only suggest more tests and surgery. The tests and surgery required to find the answers, I wanted to avoid.

I poured over the internet. Absorbing information. Joining message boards. And I found an online chat regarding infertility. A panel of “experts” to answer your questions. I signed on at the appointed date and time. The rest, as they say, is history.

Interesting “speakers.” Interesting questions. Interesting answers. But none that really pertained to maintaining health. Just about all of the questions related to how to get pregnant. The questions I posed were largely ignored because the audience wasn’t really interested in my questions. My future-husband noticed this and private messaged me. He told me he had some information I might be interested in and to email him with specific questions. He’d get back to me.

And he did.

So our email friendship began. Writing about health. Writing about wellness. Then writing about books, movies and current events. Soon we were just writing. Every day.

This went on for about a year. And then there was a “live” health seminar in Atlanta. He was going to be there and would I join him for dinner? My heart went pitter-patter.

When I first laid eyes on him, when I first saw his beautiful blue eyes, I got this feeling in my heart that I was meeting my dearest, best friend from kindergarten and was just now seeing him all grown up. I don’t believe in love at first sight but there was definitely something to this first meeting in real-time. Something wonderful.

After our dates (we also went hiking – one of our favorite pastimes) he left to go back west where he lived. We went back to emails and now phone calls across the time zones. We made the effort to date long distance with visits back and forth. It wasn’t enough.

And since I wouldn’t tear my daughter away from her father, my future husband moved here.

So we DID meet at a health seminar.

Twice. Once online. Once at a convention center.

I met my husband online. And I can now proudly say, I’m so glad I did.

Jon and Kate? Meet Fate!

I click on my yahoo page today and I see yet another headline about Jon and Kate. Enough already! Their 15 minutes of fame should have died episodes ago.

When the show first aired my mother and her sister (twins) loved the show. My younger sisters (twins) thought it was intriguing. (Yes, my mother,a twin, had twins. No, that’s an old wives tale that it skips generations.) It was on a few times before I finally gave it a try.

Now, I was an infertile woman who had been through all the non-invasive tests and tricks to get pregnant. Once things got invasive; I drew the line. As far as I was concerned, there were plenty of children already born who needed homes. If my body couldn’t have one I’d help a woman who couldn’t take care of her child.

So, here I sat. Watching a woman berate her husband for all the world to see and then, tears in her eyes, cry to America how stressful and expensive it was to raise 8 kids. Hmmmmm  Did multiples run in her family? (Evidently, it can when fraternal twins are involved – as with my family.) Nope. Fertility drugs.

You’ve got to be freaking kidding me. Seriously? You’re going to cry on national television about the stresses of raising such a large family and you ASKED for this?

Don’t get me wrong. This is America. You have the freedom to deal with your infertility in a myriad of ways. And I’m so glad that we all have these options because adoption isn’t for everyone. But be prepared for the consequences. Know that with fertility drugs you run the “risk” of a multiple birth. And how about before you take said fertility drugs you make sure you’re prepared to feed, clothe, love and care for any amount of children you may conceive and give birth to. Just a suggestion.

Please! Once I heard (because she cried about that too, how hard it was for them to have kids) having this many children was a conscious decision, THEIR choice, I turned it off. And predicted that America would turn them off, as well.

Boy, was I wrong. To date they’ve aired more than 100 episodes. How can this happen? The show I saw, Kate was so mean to her husband. She treated him like a child. I predicted that marriage to end in divorce back when the show first began. Is anyone else surprised? Did you not see that coming? Why are we still following this nightmare?  

Because it’s THEIR nightmare. Not ours. Someone else’s life is worse. But we, with our voyeurism fascination, have created a nightmare for the children. Don’t get me wrong. Ultimately, I blame Jon and Kate for putting their children in a fishbowl. But who is out there watching the fish?

Ok. I’ll step down off my soapbox now. Darn. I knew I couldn’t really make it a Wordless Wednesday!