Today's myth "You're adopting? Now you'll get pregnant."
If you tell someone that you are adopting it is not uncommon for the next words out of their mouth to be "oh, now you'll get pregnant."
Oh, I hope not. I do not want to go through another miscarriage. We have made the decision to adopt and to end our efforts to have biological children. Getting pregnant is no longer on our agenda.
I know when people say this they only mean to be kind. Although if you look at it from our point of view, it is not very helpful. We have suffered much loss and disappointment in our efforts to conceive. We have reached a point where we have decided to pursue a different path. Our hearts are content with our decision and we are ready to move forward.
Sometimes it happens. Every so often a pregnancy will occur after initiating an adoption. For whatever reason a couple is able to finally conceive but that's not how it generally works. For most of us we have accepted our infertility and we have moved on.
If you want to tell an infertile who has just announced they are adopting something encouraging, try "I hope you are blessed soon! Congratulations". That's what we want to hear.
Infertility
4 comments:
I agree! Yeah, sometimes it happens that way, but not always. Also, I cringe when people say "oh, you just need to relax and it'll happen." If only it worked that way, it would put a whole new light on "spa days!" When I finally got pregnant with my son, it was weird. There were many times I was certain I was going to loose him too, just like the others before. Even while he was in the NICU fighting for every breath and people were saying "congratulations," it was almost enough to make me sick. We didn't need congratulating, we needed support.
Being infertile bites, being infertile and pregnant bites as well, especially when so many times things don't work out. I don't see how anyone who has battled infertility could become pregnant and be 100% happy about it. It's a rough road. I wouldn't wish that on anyone who has had trouble in the past. I agree with you completely though, people wanting to adopt do need congratulations, or "that's great" and hopes and prayers for their waiting to go by swiftly!
For me, telling people we want to adopt and being met with "now you'll get pregnant" felt like getting a new car only to have people tell me "great, now you'll have a wreck."
People desiring to adopt need support, not contradictions.
I just laugh at them when they say that. Granted, they don't know I had a hysterectomy at the age of 25, after delivering my son. My response might be a little different than most, but I simply say... " If I get pregnant again it will have to be with the Son of God." They look at me strange and then I continue with "Without a uterus it's quite impossible. Thanks for your concern though". Then we all laugh in utter bliss :) lol
I agree!!! Getting pregnant was not the issue, it was keeping it! I will shove a marker, or key, or whatever I have in my hand at the moment to the next person that tells me that! :) I'm still waiting to be blessed, but excited for my adoptive baby to come home
I can relate with this one. I did have mixed feelings when I found out we were expecting about three weeks before our second adopted baby was due. I thought it meant we would lose her and knew there was a risk of miscarrying.
The smug, "I knew you'd get pregnant once you adopted" comments bothered me. What are you saying? That if we had just waited a bit longer we would have had to adopt?
My husband said to me, "I know what got you pregnant and it certainly wasn't filling out adoption questionnnaires." :)
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