I think part of the reason the myth exists is because doctors used to tell women they couldn’t get pregnant from conditions that no one thinks that way about anymore, such as a tipped uterus. So they’d adopt, and then not surprisingly get pregnant.
So she was fully fertile, and she conceived. This is a good example of where the conceive-after-adoption myth comes from.
I’m one of the 5% (my Reproductive Endocrinologist was my OB, he said 8% thirteen years ago when we got our surprise - most of it cases like mine - unexplained infertility). He also said “same rate.”
As an adoptive parent, I know LOTS of other adoptive parents, and have to agree its something less than 1 in 10 and perhaps a little more than 1 in 20 that get pregnant after adopting. My son is older now (fourteen already) so my data is a little out of date, but when he was younger we’d go to events for Korean adoptees and spend Tuesday night or a Saturday surrounded by families with kids from Korea - my daughter - a white child younger than the four to seven set you do this sort of thing with - stuck out like a sore thumb. I think of the 100 or so families we used to go to picnics with, there was one other family like ours.
I got pregnant while waiting for my son to come home from Korea -that was far more stressful than infertility. A girlfriend who suffered from sub-fertility (her children were all bio, but each took years to conceive) had a surprise pregnancy while her baby was going through chemo. Claiming its stress isn’t backed up by my experience (unless you body can tell ‘infertility stress’ from ‘the stress of worrying about your child’ or ‘the stress of war, personal finances, graduating from high school’ and all the other stressful situations women get pregnant under. And it also is a blame the victim statement.
The “oh, you’ll get pregnant for sure now” statement or “it always happens” is really offensive. My son was not a fertility treatment so that we could conceive my daughter. When we adopted, we also moved on and decided that its OK never to have bio kids.
Thank you for saying this.
“Just relax” implies that it is the couple’s fault that they can’t conceive. Because, you know, chilling out will totally unblock your fallopian tubes, or improve your sperm morphology.
I think that the “pregnant after adopting” thing is because people don’t talk about the thousands of couples who don’t get pregnant after adopting.
Even if stress was a cause of infertility, saying “just relax” to someone who’s stressed is like telling someone who’s depressed “you just need to light up!” Neither is a matter of flipping a switch.
Great posts. As someone dealing with infertility, it’s frustrating hearing these statements, not to mention the ‘are you doing it right?’, ‘lay in the bed with your hips raised for half and hour afterwards’ and ‘have you heard of ovulation predictor kits?’. I know they’re being helpful, but if I have one more person offer to be my surrogate, I might have to kick them in the uterus. 
Here’s a great article from RESOLVE that addresses infertility etiquette: RESLOVE
They make a really good point about the stress thing - infertility is a diagnosed medical condition. Would you tell a cancer patient to ‘just relax’ and they’ll get better?
This.
I’m an adoptive parent, and my experience is much the same as others who have chimed in here. I know a lot of adoptive parents - probably between 30-40 couples, if you’re counting casual acquaintances. Only two couples have a biological child that came after the adoptive child(ren).
This meme can hurt kids, too. Nobody wants to think, as **Dangerosa **said, that they were a fertility treatment so their parents could get a “real” kid. And most adoptive parents don’t think about it that way AT ALL. I say most because one of the couples I mentioned above - that adopted, and then had a biological child - obviously did think about it that way. It’s been disastrously painful for the adopted child.
ultrafilter said it first, but it is completely this. Textbook confirmation bias.
Not as yet, but the final stage is looming close at last. If China continues matching at the current rate, we’ll be matched with a child in March; if things slow down, it could be May. In any case, after six years, it’s finally looking like it’ll actually happen.
Our adopted son will be two years old tomorrow, and my wife is currently pregnant. When we found out she was pregnant our first reaction was “Oh crap, we’re perpetuating the damn myth!” My mother-in-law is convinced that adopting caused the pregnancy, even though it was two years ago!
Best of luck. Fingers crossed for you.
Congrats. We got a card saying “you are the reason everyone believes this,”
And congrats to Max as well. Fingers crossed for sooner rather than later. Believe it or not, once the child is here, all this waiting will suddenly seem unimportant.