Knowing Our Limits; Even When It Hurts

I am not sure what I was expecting to see when I clicked on the "view adoptable children" link on the adoption websites. Wait. Yes I do. I was thinking that I was going to see lots of tiny fingers, and toes, and toothless smiles.

Instead, what I saw made my heart ache. Most of the children were older, with some sort of disability and many of the children had siblings. One of the website had a family of six... yes, SIX, kids. Their ages ranged from 12yrs- 0yrs old. My heart sank. How can someone, a mother, have six of her own children up for adoption or living in a foster home? What is wrong with her!? I wanted to scream when I saw the image of her six beautiful children. How could she do that to them? What kind of a mother was she. Oh, that's right. She wasn't a mother, she had just given birth.

Seeing those six children was just a reminder that  life can be cruel sometimes. Here we are struggling to start our own family; we have the means to take care of our child, a stable home, a loving marriage, a wonderful family surrounding us. How can one woman have six beautiful children all up for adoption; all wards of the state, and we can't even conceive one; even with fertility treatments, nor can we save those six kids.

Mike and I have talked about adoption a few times. As you can see in the post below; adoption is not cheap. There were a few times that I thought about forgoing treatments, in the hopes of a BFP, and opting for adoption instead. However, the further I looked into adoption, the less I was willing to give up trying for my own child. Adoption, just like treatment, carries no guarantee of a take home baby.

After  scrolling through the websites I was saddened by my response to the children that were  available. I felt disappointed. Not only was adoption so expensive, the only children that were available were either older than Mike and I would have wanted or living with some sort of disability. We knew that while those children are more deserving that ever of an unconditional love, and a family;  we were not willing to put ourselves in that position by choice.

As terrible as that may sound, it is true. Adopting an older child would be difficult for us. At a certain age children are extremely influential and we want to make sure that during those times, we are the ones that are doing the influencing. Mike said he couldn't adopt a child that was old enough to cause me emotional harm with hurtful words; I've gone through far too much for that, he says. We also know that while there is always a chance that the child we conceive may have disabilities, we are not in a state of mind to adopt a child that is in need of extensive medical or emotional help. We can't. And I don't want to try to convince myself that we could.

I am still trying to convince myself that I am not a bad person for being able to completely shut down the option of  adopting one of those children.

I want be a parent; a mom, so badly. But, I don't want to be one that bad. I told my mom that I felt horrible knowing that I was shopping for a baby and that I was sick with grief that I was able to dismiss the children that didn't flatter me or that I didn't fit into my "requirements". What if I was to have a child that had disabilities or that wasn't "cute"?. She reassured me that it would be different if it were my own flesh and blood and that adopting; especially adopting a child with special needs, was not for everyone. She told me it was okay that I was not ready or willing to adopt a child that needed a special kind of love and dedication. It was okay to not want to adopt at all.

I am not sure why some people think adoption is so easy. I have often been told things like: "Just adopt; there are so many children out there that would be blessed to have parents like you", "Become foster parents! You never know how many lives you may influence, and besides, the state will pay you!" or "Make sure you adopt a toddler, that way you can skip the baby stuff and go straight to the easy parts."

I don't want to be foster parents. We have been though so much heartache already and fostering children would probably cause more turmoil and distress than we need. I don't want to be a temporary mom, or permanent babysitter. I want to be a mother. Another reason why foster parenting is not for us is that quite honestly, I hate doing some people favors. I am sure that I sound horrible saying that, and for having that sort of view  but, it is true. I don't like bailing people out and sometimes I think that these biological parents get too much bailing out. They never relinquish their parental rights, or they take years to do it, and their children grow up in and out of families. It kills me that these kids could have a chance at a healthy, stable, family at an early age yet their parents were too selfish or messed up to figure it out, so years and years pass before they are forced to sign over their rights.

Infancy is a huge part of parenthood and mothering. Why would anyone ever suggest that we skip it? Don't get me wrong, I understand that it may have been suggested jokingly and maybe toddlers are easier because they are more independent, but, skip the baby stage? No way. I have been dreaming of the day when I get to wrap my little one up in the quilt that my mom made (yes, she has already made our babies first quilt) and snuggle him or her while gently squeezing them against my chest. I have spent countless nights imagining our baby waking up in the middle of the night, I've imagined what it would be like to see Mike getting up to comfort them.  I've thought about the difficult parts too. I know nothing in life is all roses; all the time but, I've been around enough babies to know that they are always worth it even though they are not always easy! It don't care what anyone says; I would never want to skip the baby stage. And suggesting it is foolish.

Adoption isn't easy. Adoption isn't the answer to our infertility. Adoption isn't going to fill my void. I fear that if anything, adoption would fuel it. Yes, I want to be a mother but, I want to be a mother to my own child; to Mike's child. I want our first born to be a product our DNA. I know that there are thousands, millions, of children that would be blessed to have us as parents, and I know that we would be blessed to be their parents but, when it comes down to it, we have to chose: adoption or an attempt at our own child? There isn't anything we want more in this life than to have our own child. Sadly, in order to do so, we have to spend a lot of money. We can't chose IVF and adoption and I can't live the rest of my life knowing that we didn't try everything we could in order to have our own.

If we get to IVF and it doesn't work then at least we know that we did everything we could. We know that we will go forward living and loving our life no matter where this chapter ends. As I said before, we can live a childfree life just fine; but, it would be great to have a little Findley around to show off share it with.

For many reasons; in many ways