"That's what always happens! People adopt, and then they get pregnant!" Which isn't true, not at all. Only about 5% of couples who adopt after infertility will go on to have a successful pregnancy, and I have to wonder, given my situation, how many of those pregnancies are due to donor gametes or embryos...
I read than on one of the many blogs that I follow written by Willow, who is an adoptive mom who is also now pregnant with the help of donor eggs. Check out the entire post....it is good! I can't even tell you how many people say this to me. "Just watch....now you will get pregnant!" EVERYONE seems to know about another family who adopted and then got pregnant afterwards....and they LOVE to tell me about it. I know that people mean well and that they probably think that is something I should hope for. I don't think that they realize how frustrating it is to hear people mention that. Like Willow said, only about 5% of adoptive parents end up having successful pregnancies after adoption. Those are not good odds.
Now of course, we will welcome any children that God may bless us with, but do I think that just because we adopted that I will get pregnant now? No, of course not! I still remember the years of failures and disappointments all too well. It was a very painful and lonely time for me. And of course, it seemed like everyone we knew was getting pregnant during that time. (And, yes, my crazy self counted. There were 32 babies of friends/acquaintances of ours that were born between the time we began looking at the infertility issues to the day that we learned about Gus. That included 2 sets of twins.) I struggled a lot emotionally during those years. I remember sitting at a staff meeting and chatting with a handful of my coworkers...two of which recently had babies. They were talking about how they wish they could still wear their maternity pants because they were so comfortable. One turned to me and said, "Oh Beth...just wait....you are going to LOVE wearing them!" I had to leave the room before I burst into tears. All I could think was how I probably would never wear maternity clothes. It seemed like an innocent conversation....and really, most of those women didn't know what I was going through at the time. I also remember a deal my husband and I made. I love real trees at Christmas and he likes fake ones. Since we visit family for the majority of the holidays Joel didn't think it was a good idea to have a real tree. So the deal was that we would have fake until we had kids...because then we wouldn't travel as much. I clearly remember sitting in a snowbank in the middle of a tree farm as we were hunting for my parents Christmas tree. I was surrounded by reminders of how I still wasn't a mom. These memories, and many others, are very vivid to me. I will always remember those years but they don't sting as much any more because there is a beautiful little boy in my life now. I will not pretend that all the issues have changed and that I will suddenly have a successful pregnancy.
This week was National Infertility Awareness Week. Did you know that 1 in 8 men or women are diagnosed with infertility? Travelling the road of infertility is a very lonely road to be on. Even when travelling it with your spouse, it is very lonely and painful. Please take a minute to pray for those who have experienced fertility issues. And if you want to learn more about the infertility issues that many people face and learn the truth to many myths out there, check out http://www.resolve.org/.
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