Infertility: My Journey for June — World Infertility Awareness Month
I come from a large family — I’m the eldest of five children and my youngest brother is 18 years younger than I am (and we’re all from the same parents). But for some reason, I never thought that a family had to be created through genetics. I watched friends make themselves physically ill, being poked and prodded by fertility treatments and monthly disappointments. I heard friends’ parents sadly comment that their family surname would die out with their grandchildren, since my friends has (apparently inadequately) only birthed daughters.
I didn’t understand the emphasis on solely creating a family biologically. Frankly, being one of five biological siblings was no bed of roses. There’s no “one size fits all” to create a family. What matters is love, commitment and what works best for each individual family.
When I got married, even though I was a bit older, it never crossed my mind that I would have difficulty conceiving. My mother certainly didn’t have any fertility challenges, and I’d spent my single 20’s and 30’s terrified of an unplanned pregnancy. So, when it seemed to be taking longer than normal for me to get pregnant, I started looking for other options. Thankfully, my husband was also open to creating a family through adoption.
I took the lead in exploring options and my husband supportively was open to any and all ideas. We had our eyes on the prize: children. We weren’t focused on how we would bring them into our lives, only that we would in fact be blessed with them. I investigated private adoptions. A friend of mine was an adoption attorney and he connected us with likely candidates, but everything was so uncertain (and there were no guarantees that the expectant mothers we spoke with would go through with an adoption after giving birth). I’m rather risk averse, so I thought perhaps adopting a baby from another country would be more of a sure thing. Frankly, the cost of foreign adoption unexpectedly steep and seemed to take so long.
My next idea was to contact our local county department of family and children’s services to look into adopting through the foster care system. I signed up for the orientation class, and then the 12-week parenting course. I fostered a few children on a short-term basis and was then approached by some social workers who told me about two young sisters who they thought would have their parental rights terminated and become available for adoption.
The benefit of adopting through the county is the support you get and the information you receive about the children (by this time, the girls had been in the foster care system for several years and had medical work ups, counseling and other testing. I also had information about their family history. The county supported us with a stipend to help offset the children’s care. The downside was that it wasn’t a sure thing that the girls would in fact become available for adoption (but it was a pretty sure thing) and that, well, when you are adopting children who have been removed from their parents because of abuse and neglect, it’s going to be traumatic for them to adjust to a new family. I was naive and that that my love would cure all. My love — plus a lot of counseling and time and life experience — cured a lot, but not all.
Today our beautiful daughters are in their late 20’s. They are kind, compassionate, funny, fun, intelligent and beautiful. We share the same idiosyncratic quirks (much to their chagrin). They are successful, self-supporting and interested in making the work a better place. I am so proud of them. Was it always easy? No, of course not. There was a lot of pain, but that’s just part of parenthood regardless of whether you’re biologically related or not. Would I choose this route again? Absolutely. My daughters are my children and I love them with all my heart.
What helped me most on my journey to creating a family was being confident that I would have children while not being focused on how I would have them. Don’t be afraid. Open your heart to all options. I truly believe that the right children will find the right parents.
When I learned about Hadassah’s reConceiving Infertility initiative to decrease stigma around infertility by sharing people’s personal journeys and helping people access treatment, I felt compelled to share my story with Medium.com readers for June World Infertility Awareness Month.