Hi,
Most experts say you should not pursue adoption and infertility at the same time and that you need to fully grieve your infertility before pursuing adoption. We have found that the grieving process has been a slow one and we did both with no ill effects.

I am not an expert or anything like that but I can give you some background on ourselves. We have infertility that is not fully dx'd. We have been trying for 3 years, DH has a low count and low motility, both of which are border line and they say that should not cause us to not be able to have children. They have done numerous tests on me and all came back as being fine. My cycles are not regular which adds a whole new spectrum to the situation. We have decided to persue adoption, but are not giving up the chance that we may some day be able to concieve on our own. We are not seeing a specialist and have no desire to. If we are supposed to have children of our own, it will happen when the time is right. I do not agree that we need to grieve the infertility. We have been doing that for 3 years and each month brings with it a whole new set of emotions. Some days it is anger, others frustration and still others saddness that we may never be able to be parents and give our love to a child.
We are at this time persueing adoption through the state of minnesota and hoping to adopt a some what healthy infant. We are open to many options, but will have to look at it as each case is shown to us. If we do become pregnant, I will not guarentee that we will not still continue on the journey that we have currently chosen to follow. But that is just my opinion and it would be wonderful to hear others.
Thank you

Hi there:
We too sufferred from infertility on both sides. Our situation is similar to yours. However our doc (fertility specialist) was quite clear with us that we would NEVER have children of our own without trying in vitro fertilization. at $8000 per cycle this just wasn't an option for us.

We started the adoption process shortly after, and we also went through the grieving process at the same time. It took me a long time to let go of having my own bio child, but eventually I did.

I think that some grieving is necessary. Although I have accepted our infertility, it still makes me sad sometimes.

Due to the long wait involved in the adoption process, I see nothing wrong with pursuing adoption while going through the grieving process. It gave us some hope and helped me to realize that pregnancy isn't all it's cracked up to be, and that I could still be a great mom through adoption.

The journey was worth it. I see that every time I look into my son's eyes.

Tam

Hi we are pursing adoption and infertility. We did invitro in Jan 2002 and become pregnant our first cycle, unfortunately at 16 weeks I had a premature labor and miscarriaged. My husband and I prior to losing our baby in April 2002 were so hooked on becoming preganant we never considered adoption after seven years of infertlilty. After our loss, we prayed and God placed adoption on our hearts. We do believe that it is God's will for us to have our own bio child and to adopt. We have discussed with our social worker that we plan to continue to try to have our own bio child and if we have our own bio child before adoption, after our baby is born we continue to build our family through adoption because I do believe this is God's plan for our family.

We ttc for 5yrs. We went through every test under the sun, surgeries, 2 IUIs and 1 IVF before I finally said no more, especially since they never could tell us what the problem was to start with. I brought up adoption first stating that we could get started with the process while we decide about another treatment, but my dh flat out said no way was he adopting. The more and more I thought no way was I doing another treatment, mentally, emotionally and physically it was just to much for me. So I had to sit back and give him time. During this time though without realising what I was going through I started to grieve. This down time gave me a chance to research adoption and decide if I wanted to adopt for the right reasons as well as what type of adoption I wanted to pursue. By the time I did all of this dh was ready to pursue adoption too. For me though that time helped me let go. Let go of the anger, sadness, and all the other emotional issues. I was just amazed at the difference in me by then. Something that many of us forget though is that the guys have to grieve too and it is much harder for most of them. So most of the time they are running behind us in this process and will show it by saying there is now way they are adopting or by not seeming to be as interested. If adoption is the right thing they too will get through it and adjust. As to doing both treatment and adoption at the same time they usually suggest not to do both of them at the same time because of the stress for one and secondly it is hard to determine that you are really ready to adopt and doing it for the right reasons. I will tell you we are in the 2 week wait to find out if we are adopting a sibling group of 2. I thought waiting each month to find out if I was pg was bad, but this is extremely stressful too. I could not imagine going through both at the same time. Plus just trying to get your homestudy and basic approvals are very time consuming and stressful. While I had that down time I realized it wasn't the fact that I wanted to be pg that I was struggling for it was the end result of having a child. I realised it did not matter how I recieved that child just as long as I did. Yes it is normal to still feel sad about IF and not conceiving your children but you need to make sure you are ready to deal with some issues you may have to deal with depending on what type of adoption is pursued. I wish you all the best which ever road you chose.

Hi,
We went through 3 years of infertility including two cycles of IVF without success and are now waiting to adopt a child. For me, I don't think I will ever really get over the grief of not carrying a child until I have a child in my arms. But that has not stopped us from fully pursuing adoption and we know that adoption will give us the family we want so much.

To me, there is a difference between grief and letting go of the idea of ever having a biological child. My husband and I have let go of the idea of having a biological child since our odds are very low although we do try some months (just in case we're one of the miracle pregnancies). But we're not counting on it. I still grieve over this loss but this hasn't stopped us from pursuing adoption with an open heart either.

My interpretation of the professional advice is, don't mask your grief by moving right into adoption. But I think being ready means something different for everyone.

ISW that is a great point. Being ready to let go or move on is actually a stage of grief so although you may have not gotten over the grief as some may never completely, letting go is part of working through it.

We've been dealing with unexplained infertility for 18 months. Before we married we talked about adoption, initially planning to adopt a little girl from China. The current situation the US is in (planning a war in the middle east) makes us hesitant to adopt overseas, so we decided to open our home to a special needs child from our area. We are in the process of having our homestudy completed.

This week I have an appointment with a specialist about the infertility. I was being treated by another doctor who had no interest in identifying or correcting what might be wrong with me, he pushed hard for us to do invitro, I declined.

I can't imagine not carrying and giving birth to my own child. I am very excited about adoption, but still, the shadow of infertility looms large over our plans.

As much as I am frightened by the unknown, I have faith that I am on the right path, be it motherhood by adoption or by birth or both.

best of luck to each of you on your journey .

My husband & I as well as our families dealt with our infertility in different ways. I come from the most infertal family. My brother & I are adopted as well as 5 of my cousins and of course I am infertile too.

When the invetro failed I grieved for a few weeks, but I knew the day I received my negative results that I wanted to adopt. My husband and his family were all new to this idea and couldn't understand why I wouldn't want to try the invetro again! The only response I could give them was-what makes your genes so great that you'd want to pass them on? (in laws are strange- I'd sware my husband was adopted too)

My family is now treating us as we are pregnant- and we are- adopted pregnant, we're just waitting for a birthmom.

Hello,

My fiance and I already know that we are dealing with PCOS, and we are hopeful that we will be successful at having a baby of our own through infertility treatments. We are both researching adoption though, as we want to know what our options are should infertility treatments fail.

I have mixed feelings about pursuing both adoption and pregnancy at the same time. From what I've read, both seem to be frought with stress, and I'm not sure that I'd want to do both at once. I certainly don't mind researching adoption while we're ttc... after all, if we do go with adoption, we'd then already (theoretically) have made a decision as to domestic vs. international, agency vs. attorney, etc.

We've tried to place ourselves in a potential birthmother's shoes as well, and we both said that if WE were going to place a child for adoption, we personally would not feel comfortable pursuing a match if the potential aparents were also trying to get pregnant... we'd hate for a birthmother to wonder if we'd love her child as much as our biological child or if we'd decline to adopt her baby, should we get pregnant before the adoption takes place.

Of course, I know that ttc and adoption at the same time have worked well for others. I just wanted to throw in another opinion.