I was surprised to learn that adoption did not take away my infertility pain. I thought that the cause of my infertility pain was the inability to have a baby. So, once I adopted a baby, I assumed that I would no longer have any infertility pain. I was wrong.

My first clue that my infertility pain remained was my reaction to finding out that friends were pregnant with their second children. Without exception, I cried after hearing the news of one friend after another announcing her pregnancy. I held myself together in front of my friends because I had lots of experience in doing that during my 4-1/2 years of desperately wanting to become a parent. I had no idea why I was reacting that way when I held my child in my arms.

A wise on-line friend pointed out that adoption cures childlessness, not infertility. I still needed to grieve my inability to experience pregnancy. I did not appreciate how deeply that loss affected me until being surrounded by multiple pregnant friends and feeling left out of the conversation. They were part of a "club" that I could never join, even though I had a child just like they did. I finally had to face my infertility losses and grieve them before I could move on.

Even now that I have grieved those losses, I still sometimes feel infertility pangs. I do not even want to become pregnant at this stage in my life. However, I do feel wistful at times when I think about what could have been. I would have loved to have dressed up like a pumpkin for Halloween with my big round tummy. I also would have loved to experience parenting a daughter. While these thoughts no longer hurt, I will always have pockets of wistfulness, and that's okay. That's a normal part of grief.

Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt