A friend of mine is currently going through fertility treatment trying to conceive which is costing a great deal of money and, more importantly, not working. She in her early 40s and it may quite simply be too late for her to do this naturally (she’s conceived before but has had a series of miscarriages recently which is even more evidence that her body is trying to tell her it’s not going to work at her age). Statistically the odds are really against her and she and her husband don’t have enough money to keep doing this for that long. If I didn’t know how touchy a subject this was for her I’d tell her that I thought she was mad for blowing her savings on a treatment that isn’t doing anything and in fact could be easily spent on a child they adopt.
Clearly one or both of them are seriously wedded to having their own child as they’re fighting up hill to have one, to the point where they’ll have no actual resources to take care of the child when they have it. I don’t understand this, why not simply adopt a child? They’re both in very stable and well thought of careers, have nothing in their pasts that would get in the way, and are on paper the perfect kind of parents for a prospective adoptive child. It could be even easier if they wanted to adopt a foreign baby, you can often do that within weeks and have the child from birth.
If/when I get around to wanting to have children it’s pretty certain I’ll be adopting as a gay man, and I have no problem with this. What matters to me is that I am able to raise a child from as close to birth as possible so that I’m able to care for it and have the full experience of being a parent. It doesn’t really matter to me that the child share more chromosomes with me than someone else particularly.
So I’m wondering, if you were in the position my friend is, would you not simply give up having your own child and adopt? Or is being a birth parent so important to you that you’d never even consider it? If so why?
I think the worry is about bonding with the child. Some people feel it is easier / more certain if the chil sis biologically your own. When me and my wife were trying for our first I put a little thought in and I was dubious about adoption for this reason. Luckily we have managed 2 of our own with no problems. I have a colleague at work who has adopted 2 and she has bonded just fine. I think this is a person specific thing, and everyone will have their own views.
It may not be that easy to adopt. Here in Australia, there are few domestic adoptions (20 per year in Victoria), and most are international. All of the countries that allow international adoption by Australians (from what I can remember when we looked into it) have age limit restrictions (along with other restrictions such as a need for the couple to be married etc) - pretty sure any female over 40 would be ineligible. That’s discounting the time and cost it takes to actually secure a child through the adoption process - it can be long (2-5 years) and take as much money as IVF if not more. For example, in 2008 - 2009 just 46 children were placed with Victorian families. There are some adoptive parents on this board who may be able to provide more detail.
The fact that she’s conceived before is a good thing in her favour as far as IVF goes - and it may be that which is encouraging them to keep going past the point you feel is necessary - and the multiple miscarriage thing could have nothing to do with age, so unless you know exactly what factors are preventing her successfully carrying to term it may pay not to judge.
If her situation is as above (i.e. adoption is not likely) - I can see why she’s keeping on going. We set ourselves time and budget limits for IVF (1 year and $10K out of pocket per kid) and were lucky to be successful 1st and 3rd time around - but would we really have given up if we got close to the limits we’d set ourselves? Probably, but it would have been a really hard decision.
Always could be a situation like ours, where I was open to adoption, while Boy From Mars was not - he felt really strongly he could only parent a kid of his own genetic makeup. In that case, you really shouldn’t progress with adoption.
I am sitting here a few days shy of my due date, so I may be a little biased, but some reasons I can think of:
Really wanting the experience of pregnancy. It’s an amazingly interesting process, and one I wanted to have. It’s an end in itself–like a trip to Europe or something. It’s not going to make this child more “mine” than if I adopted him or anything like that, but it’s something I was highly interested in doing.
Adoption is pretty intrusive. We are very private about our home lives, and I really can’t put into words how much I dreaded the idea of home visits and searching interviews. I’d rather have a hundred vaginal ultrasounds than have to explain to one stranger my religious views or have them look critically at my strictly functional home.
The costs of infertility treatments are often not that much, and when they are, it’s incremental. You don’t go in expecting to do multiple rounds of IVF with donor eggs: you go in maybe needing a few rounds of Clomid, or inter-uterine insemination, or a fibroid removed. For the vast majority of people, that’s all it takes. For the unlucky ones, it’s always a matter of choosing one more treatment, and that decision is usually made because there is some reason to hope it will be successful. They also aren’t as expensive as you might think: infant daycare is $14K/year, at the absolute least, and if someone quits their job to stay home instead, that costs even more. $14K will get many people two rounds of traditional IVF, and one round of complicated IVF (depending on local markets, of course). If you have insurance that covers any of it (and quite a few do cover the monitoring, or the drugs) it can go even further than that. Fertility treatments aren’t that much more expensive than the actual baby will be, it’s just that it’s one big number. So unless they’ve told you they can’t afford this/won’t be able to support the baby when it comes, I wouldn’t assume that.
I will let someone with experience speak to this in more detail, but I think you are vastly underestimating the costs and troubles of adoption. Overseas adoption is neither simple nor quick nor cheap. Domestic adoption is either very slow and very expensive (private) or somewhat quicker and cheaper but with huge risks (foster-adopting an older sibling group).
None of these reasons are for the good of the child. They are all pretty selfish. I am ok with that. Having children should be a selfish thing: kids should be something you want, not something you are settling for, or something you feel like you should want, so you pretend you do.
One note: when you say things like “it isn’t doing anything” and this is “evidence that her body is trying to tell her it’s not going to work at her age”, you’re making a lot of assumptions (unless you are visiting her doctor with her). For example, the miscarriages are likely a result of older eggs–bodies carry babies long after egg quality starts to decline. If she gets a good egg (and it only takes one) or moves on to donor eggs, chances are very good that she will be able to carry a baby just fine.
This might be the self-centered reason, but here’s mine: I want a baby that’s a combination of my husband’s and my genes. I don’t particularly want to raise some stranger’s kid, especially with all the baggage that can come with open adoptions and the kid potentially needing to deal with his or her bio family later. So, if my husband and I were unable to conceive, I think it’s highly unlikely we would adopt, as neither of us has any interest in it.
I’m sure if we somehow ended up with an adopted baby we would love it, but I’m not going to seek it out.
Adoption is not simple. I have friends who have been trying for five years to adopt. They’ve tried internationally, they’ve tried domestically. They haven’t been successful.
If all you want to do is parent, adopting is a fine choice. But a lot of people do want more than that - they have the biological urge to pass along their genes. My son is wonderful, but he is different - athletic when none of the rest of us are. Less questioning. Doesn’t read for enjoyment! Sometimes that happens in birth families too - but there is so much in my daughter that is “claiming” - she is a mini-me - or a mini-us.
A lot of people don’t like the loss of control in adoption - they want to control the pregnancy - no drinking, playing Mozart in the womb. For two of my girlfriends, this was a huge thing with their pregnancies - then when they couldn’t conceive a second time, they realized that you lost control the moment they were born anyway and adopted the second.
People get hung up on the success criteria - i.e. getting pregnant. Sometimes they don’t shift to “being a parent.” If you can’t let go of the whole idea of having kids the traditional way, adoption isn’t a good choice.
(I found being pregnant WAY more intrusive than adopting. Strangers did not give me the fish eye if I went to happy hour in a bar when we were adopting. The homestudy was a piece of cake compared to the third degree from the lactation consultant. i.e. with adopting we let one person into our lives - the social worker. Pregnant, I was letting strangers in the elevator into my life - well, not letting, but that didn’t stop them).
I’m sure it could be that way. People just have different tolerances for different things. For me, I think it comes down to power: I don’t mind nodding and smiling at crazy lactation consultants, and I am unlikely to notice the stink-eye regardless. And the medical stuff didn’t bother me at all. But being evaluated by a social worker than can decide my fate? Having to chose between trying to fake “normal” or being myself and letting the chips fall where they may? It makes me physically sick to think about it.
It’s a completely natural human urge to want to pass on your genes. Some people have changed this to wanting to pass on their ideas and principles by raising a child, but it’s understandable to want a child that’s fully yours. It’s kinda like asking why some people want to have sex because a small proportion of people don’t have that urge.
Like Girl From Mars said, adoption simply isn’t that easy. In he UK, you’re extremely unlikely to be able to adopt a child under 5, and the child will most likely have been abused or severely neglected; many also have serious physical disabilities.
It’s one thing to deal with problems your own child may have, after you already love them, but intentionally taking on a child with such problems is something that a lot of people, understandably, don’t feel they could cope with.
Open adoptions are also the usual way now. This means that the child always knows their history and isn’t severed from their previous caring bonds. It also means that the adoptive parents can feel like little more than caretakers, not real parents at all.
And because there are so few children to adopt, it’s easy for the adoption organisations to refuse parents on the smallest of grounds - a friend of mine was refused for being overweight, even though she has no associated health problems.
Short answer: many people want their ‘own’ child and adoption has a hell of a lot of drawbacks.
I think it’s ultimately a version of a question one of my former bosses would ask people who brought in a puppy that broke with parvo 2 days after they got it home and couldn’t decide whether to treat it or return it to the breeder/pet store–Do you want a puppy, or do you want this puppy? Some people just wanted a puppy, and they returned the sick one, got a different one from somewhere else, and were perfectly content with the outcome. Other people wanted this particular puppy, and for them it was worth spending hundreds of dollars on vet bills for an uncertain prognosis.
For some people it’s worth thousands of dollars on fertility treatments for an uncertain outcome, for other people it’s not. There’s not one right answer for everybody.
Plus…I’ve learned it’s just not something that can be understood by an outsider. I will never understand the need to have your own baby, especially when it costs oodles and oodles of money (sometimes leaving no money for the child, as you say), but the people who engage in this can never understand my desire to never have any children. The mindsets are fundamentally different. All you can do is wish them the best, love them, and maybe ask them directly if they want to talk about it or wish you would never bring it up. (It varies from person to person).
I do want to point out that a lot of people pursuing fertility treatments are not using their own genes: both donor sperm and donor eggs are pretty common, and donor embryos are becoming more so. Just like with adoption, some people put a priority on genetics and others don’t. And just like in this debate, there isn’t a right or wrong answer, just what a particular couple is comfortable with.
This. I have a dear friend who had been trying with her husband for about five years to adopt, unsuccessfully (to be fair they had not yet tried international programs), when she finally started fertility treatments and (after about a year, and I think during some rounds of Clomid) got pregnant.
Had we been unable to have children by standard means (i.e., no fertility treatments, no adoption), we probably wouldn’t have had them.
I’ve had lots of friends, though, who really, really wanted children enough to undergo fertility treatments or adopt. Seeing the rollercoaster they went through either way just made me think that if it didn’t happen for us we’d let it be.
I think you’ve made many assumptions, OP, that are colouring your opinions about this.
Firstly, l personally know multiple women who had miscarriages and then went on to have healthy babies well into their 40s. Your understanding of the medical issues here is very flawed. I assume this is because you’re not a physician and so speculating about what may or may not be causing issues, while an entertaining pass time for your, probably does not provide any actual information so should be given very little weight when thinking about this issue.
Secondly, adoption is not nearly as easy as you suggest. Having an international baby in ‘weeks’ is a bit of a farce, unless you’re Angelina Jolie. These things take time, parent countries vet adoptive parents, etc. etc.
Thirdly, fertility treatments may be much less expensive than you’re imagining, and much less expensive than actually having a kid.
While Manda JO’s number of $14,000/year for infant care is much higher than I pay ($10,000/year), it’s still not peanuts. Diapers are $100/month, formula is $100/month, car seats, and butt creams and educational toys and an assortment of books cost bucks. A few fertility treatments pale in comparison. Now, could someone spend a metric assload of $$ to get pregnant - absolutely, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. Besides, do you even have the financial details of this couple? Has your friend actually shown you the numbers that she’s spent? Because if the answer is no, you’re assuming things all over the place again.
So, with those ideas in mind, maybe reconsider your OP, and reframe your question.
I can’t be convinced to adopt a dog - forget a human. If I was sterile, I wouldn’t have kids. Adoption is great for others, but I’m not interested in others’ genes.
I adopted two beautiful older children. It is not an easy path and I don’t recommend it for the faint of heart.
I had seven miscarriages (still in my late twenties and everything looked alright, I just couldn’t carry to term). There were other fertilitiy options we could look at but I was just done.
So, we took a break and looked at adoption.
Here (in Ontario), you have three options:
International adoption: predictable timeline, very expensive (40,000 or so for a caucasian child).
Public adoption; social worker chooses you, fairly predictable timeline if you are flexible, typically older children with problems, no cost to us.
We worked with a private social worker who helped us put together our homestudy and figure out what we wanted to do. We decided (with her help) to adopt older children (siblings, only 2, youngest 4 or less) because we felt it was morally responsible and that we could handle it (being ‘young’ for adoptive parents and smart to boot). Also, not spending all that cash means they have a substantial college fund.
The reality is that most of the things we were afraid of never happened. After two years, we are these children’s parents. The biggest concern for us was that they ‘wouldn’t be like us.’ My daughter is so much like me and our son so much like my husband that it is scary. Anyone who meets us has no idea the history involved. They have some baggage but we know it and they know it and we are open about it. We thank their social worker every day for seeing our children in us and matching us up.
All this being said, it has not been easy. For every diaper I haven’t changed, we had to deal with trust issues or back stepping in development or just attachment not being there in the beginning. It has also taken being very smart and being able to read them to be able to make bonds quickly and keep them. Also, my husband and I are a team in all this. Without each other, we would have crashed and burned.
IMHO, if you can adopt a child who is in need of parents, you should consider it. The more of us who do, the better parents these kids will get (and the better lives they will end up leading).
Great post. I agree with you. Unfortunately a lot of people just don’t even consider the idea of adopting a foster child. A lot of people just assume that the children in foster care are “damaged goods” beyond repair and not worth having. I have known some foster kids and it’s clear that isn’t true. They may have had to deal with things that other kids haven’t had to deal with, but they’re still just kids.
I wish that more people would at least make an effort to investigate the option of foster care adoption. It’s a shame that some people miss out on the chance to be parents and some kids miss out on the chance to have a family because people have preconceived negative ideas about it.
I can speak from both sides. I have two children of my own and my wife (I am re-married) has two of her own and two adopted children that are now my step children. I can honestly say that I love all of our children as much as my biological kids, but there is a connection with your biological children that is hard to put into words.
I think the thing that is different is that I know that with my biological children they are a “part” of me. That even when I am long gone from this earth part of me will still be here and will be passed on to their children. I think that is the motivating force behind those wanting their “own” children vs. adoption.
But like I said above, I love all of our children and consider all of them “mine”. Anyone considering adoption I would highly recommend it, not only are you gaining a child, you are changing a life and giving someone a family. We have had such a good experience that my wife and I are considering adoption again. We want to help a child and I can think of no better way to do so than giving a child a family.