Sitting as I do with one foot in the infertility world and one foot in the adoption world, a question I hear a lot from people is whether they have to stop infertility treatment before they can apply to adopt.  I suspect adoption agencies and social workers don’t hear this question as much since most people aren’t comfortable asking them this question.  Quite frankly, it is a bit of a sensitive hot topic in adoption circles.

Over the years (Gulp, that sure makes me sound old!), I have talked with many adoption experts and therapists about this question, and there is disagreement about the advisability of continuing to pursue infertility treatment and adoption at the same time.  Those that oppose pursuing both are concerned that on some level (perhaps unconsciously) you will consider adoption second best.  They view continuing treatment as a red flag that you have not come to terms with your infertility losses and may have trouble bonding with your adopted child.  The financial drain of pursuing both may also put undue stress on the family.  Others do not think pursuing infertility treatment and adoption are mutually exclusive and that it is possible to pursue both without lessening your commitment to either.

We did a Creating a Family show this past Spring (February 11, 2009 ) on how to know when you are ready to move to donor eggs or sperm.  One of the email questions we received called using donor eggs “half adoption”.  I haven’t gone back and re-listened to the show, but if memory serves (and it is doing so less and less these days) I said something along the lines that there were similarities since in both donor egg and adoption the woman would be parenting a genetically unrelated child. 

Last week’s Creating a Family radio show (July 15, 2009) was about how infertility can affect parenting.  We received a number of questions from adoptive parents that still dream of having a child by birth.  The conversation continued on my Facebook wall (dawn.davenport1) and became quite heated.  Some adopted parents were horrified that others could still be trying or wanting to conceive, while others felt better knowing they weren’t the only one with these feelings.

Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt

Melissa Nilsen lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two-year old daughter. She writes articles on open adoption and blogs about being a birthmother and mom. Check out her blog at: www.birthmomguide.blogspot.com

See Articles by Melissa at Tapestry Books on-line.

We live in an individualistic society. Our culture teaches us that we should be able to thrive by our own grit, our own merit. But are we meant to be so individualistic? We are pack people by nature; genetically designed to depend on a clan.

My birthdaughter’s mother helped me to glimpse the struggle that adoptive parents endure as they accept their inability to start a family on their own. There was a lot of anger and pain surrounding Sandy’s infertility. After three failed In Vitro Fertilization attempts, she and her husband commiserated over margaritas. I think her exact words were, “Great, now I’m going to have some teenage girl deciding if I’m a fit parent.”

Now we can laugh about how much she dreaded the person who turned out to be *me*. But in the months that she and Tom worked toward adoption, there was a lot of pain and anger stemming from her own feelings of inadequacy. Sandy felt that she should be able to produce children. She didn’t want to have to depend on me, a high school girl accidentally pregnant, to make her life feel complete.