Sensitive Help for Infertility: Where is it?

Back before my first son was born, I had fertility problems.  I remember asking my doctor "why am I not getting pregnant?" and him shrugging his shoulders (and I can still vividly picture this scene in my mind) and saying "you're not getting pregnant because you don't have a cycle.  Your labs are fine so I'm not really sure...but it could come back.  I just don't know when."  Helpful!  I was given the diagnosis of PCOS and put on a regimen of Metformin, Clomid, and some other pill whose name I can't recall, to force me to have somewhat of a normal cycle.  It didn't really seem to be working, so I gave up after a few months (I hate taking pills).  One day in February 2008, I took a pregnancy test; it was positive and I was all but knocked to the floor in shock. It had taken me 18 months since the time I decided I wanted to get pregnant to get pregnant. 16 months of trying for a second child, I got pregnant and lost the pregnancy. A month or two later, I was nearly-knocked-to-the-floor finding out I was pregnant again and 9 months later, gave birth to my second son.  During the whole pre-pregnancy ordeal thinking I would never get pregnant,  I hadn't thought to go to a specialist and I don't know that I ever would have gone to one.  This was also during my pre-investigating-my-adoptedness days, I did look into adoption, and I decided it wasn't for me.  People slapped the "just adopt" cliche out there but other than that, there was no sensitivity for what I was going through.  For some reason, I resisted talking about it in-depth with my adoptive mother who is herself infertile.  Especially when friends who are in the same age group as me start having fertility problems, I can't help but wonder what support there would have been for me if I had never been able to have kids and having to hear "just adopt" pushed in my face constantly, when I didn't want to.  Where is the sensitivity to both infertile people and adoptees (whom people are essentially implying will fix the infertility problems of their parents?)

People who are experiencing fertility problems who know this about me and know that I am also adopted have come to me asking about my experiences.  If I could guess where they are in their thought-process on the whole infertility and parenting ordeal, it would be at the time they are starting to consider that their first preference of biological birth might not be possible and are looking to me to either provide hope that they could be pregnant someday because I got pregnant (what did I do?  Improved my nutrition and saw a therapist--not sure that's the ticket for everyone though) or they are looking for comfort about adoption, something they may be beginning to consider.  I suppose they want me to tell them that adoption makes everything better, that I love being adopted, and that it's just miraculous for everyone involved.

In the past, I do not know how helpful I have really been.  My opinion has always fit into one sentence really: find healing for the pain caused to you by infertility so that if you do decide to adopt (and I mean from foster care because I don't, as a whole, tend to support other types of adoption if someone asks me for my opinion on that) you can then help a child find healing.  This is because I do not believe adoption is a cure for infertility, nor do I believe that the stress and pain caused by infertility magically goes away just because someone adopted. My experience with this is my own, being adopted by infertile parents. My parents always made me feel loved and wanted and let me know I was a real member of their family. However, as someone who loves and am close to my parents, the pain losing the option of biological birth was absolutely not lost on me. I was a smart and intuitive kid (I think most kids are that way). In an effort to try to assuage their pain, I didn't talk a whole lot about adoption or our differences or my identity outside my adoptive family (things I probably really needed to talk about) because I was afraid of hurting their feelings. My conclusion about this, right now as a young adult, is that people slapping "adopt!" in my mother's face as a "cure" to her infertility wasn't all that helpful to her. Her pain was still there: that elephant that always marched into the room whenever I thought about bringing my adoption up kept me from really asking and saying what I wanted to say, to talk about what I really needed to talk about. 

I didn't want to ask a question and then hold my breath while she answered trying to keep her voice from betraying any of her pain.  She didn't even need to speak it; I could feel it.

This wasn't fair to either of us.

I was privy to a conversation a while back where someone said a really positive thing about infertility was adoption.  I didn't say anything because explaining how I feel on the topic means that I have to divulge what I've just divulged now and explain why I feel that way, meaning, I have to talk about my and my mother's experiences with infertility problems and I just didn't feel like doing that at the moment.  But it was eye-opening to me that when so many people hear "infertility" they think "adoption makes it all better."  "Adoption" is the one and only resolution that many people slap out there to infertile people.  When I hear it, I envision a room full of emotions and I giant door with "adoption" painted across it.  The person says "just adopt" and the words cause the door to slam shut on the room.  The emotions and loss are there, ever present, swirling around.  But the nice advice-giver is satisfied that they can't see the emotions any more, case closed, door shut, I fixed your pain for you: "just adopt."

It also makes me wonder if people ever consider the other end, the child, whose job they've announced that it should become to fix the infertility issues, the pain, the loss, the disappointment, of the parent(s) in their life.

As I said, I do not think adoption just magically fixes infertility.  I really think we can do better than this for women, for my own mother.  While adopted children are not second-best to biological children, we are clearly just as awesome, adopting is not the same as giving birth.  Perhaps it is really important to someone for whatever reason to experience pregnancy and have a biologically related child.  Adoption professionals and law have really tried to make it the same with trends such as: matching based on appearance, adopting in ages that reflect a biological birth order, amending and sealing birth documents, the "as-if-born-to" part of the law, and the whole "paper pregnancy" stuff.  These efforts are more a denial of difference and denial of reality than a transformation of adoption to the equivalent of biological birth.  A mother denies that she is very hurt by not being able to be pregnant and having a child with her DNA by saying adoption was the exact same experience.  Likewise, an adoptee's reality of having two different families and two different entrances into those families and the importance of those things to the adoptee gets denied.  I don't see how it is truly possible to honor an adoptee's reality and connection to two families while simultaneously pretending that the adoptive family is identical to a biological family in every single way (remember, "different" does not mean I'm saying "worse").

And then there's another possibility: perhaps the person does not want to adopt or be a parent at all.  Perhaps they've decided not to become parents at all after their ordeal with infertility.  Who offers these individuals support?

I have some friends struggling with infertility who I think may soon come ask me about my experiences.  I will give my usual sentence but I'd actually like to be more helpful than that.  For one thing, what does "find healing" mean?  I do not know of any support groups in our area.  I know of one major infertility newsletter but it is provided by an adoption agency and major themes are tied in with adopting or waiting to adopt.  Every time I've read it, I felt like it served to keep couples focused on adoption as a resolution to their infertility, like the agency was making sure to preserve its long line of waiting customers.  I do not want my friends' pain and emotions used that way.  I also do not know of any good books or resources.  Are there books and resources out there for people who are experiencing infertility that are sensitive to the fact that someone may not want to adopt or that someone might want to deal with infertility on its own, rather than having "just adopt" as a major theme in how or why the author of the book claims they are going to be healed?  I believe women simply deserve better: to have a sensitive response that points them in the direction of healing and support.  I want adoption to always be seen as being about what a child needs, rather than persisting as this insensitive retort that people slap in the faces of infertile people as though it is some service that exists for the primary purpose of assuaging their pain.

For those wondering what I think about this, no, I do not think that giving birth magically makes erases all of the pain and losses caused by infertility and pregnancy loss either.  I spoke specifically about infertility and adoption because this is an adoption blog, not for the purpose of making that contrast or implication that biological birth eradicates all losses.  I personally feel relatively unscathed.  However, having friends who had a far more strenuous ordeal than I did to get pregnant, I know that some losses simply don't magically go away without help and sensitivity.

Any books, websites, blogs or other suggestions for the people I am thinking of who I think might come talk to me, that do not involve "just adopt; all better now!" that I could refer to my friends: please, let me know.

Photo credit: winnond