The Adoption Fairytale

I just saw a movie, I won’t say the name but it’s initials are SATC and what follows will spoil one of the plot lines so stop reading now if you plan to see it! It was good except for one storyline. One of the characters through out the television series was “reproductively challenged”. At the end of the series she and her husband receive word that they have been matched with a baby girl from China. It was a tearjerker as the character looked at the picture and says, “I know it, that’s our baby”.

In the movie the character is raising her daughter, then she and her husband discover they are pregnant. The word “fairytale” is even used in the dialogue to convey the character’s happiness.

For the record, I think any time someone learns that their family will grow either by pregnancy or adoption it is wonderful thing. But becoming pregnant after adopting is not the ultimate fairytale of adoptive parents. If it happens, wonderful. If the family adopts again, wonderful. I cannot count how many people’s response to the news of our pending first adoption was, “I bet NOW you’ll get pregnant!”. It was always said with enthusiasm and never contradicted their happiness over our decision to adopt. But there was always an air of “Now that you’ve conceded to adoption, you’ll get what you really want.” I won’t even go into what an insulting comment this is to someone who’s dealt with infertility but that’s just part of the picture.

In all honesty, there was a part of me that wondered when we decided to adopt if that would be the magic bullet to finally make me pregnant. You know, I would finally be done with the stress of infertility and then I would be able to conceive. But I did not want to adopt to trick my body into fertility. I wanted to adopt to become a mother and to love a child. And though I don’t have any official statistics to back me up, I would guess this is the ultimate motivation for most couples thinking about adoption. Interestingly, during our paperchase for Emmy, I read the fine print in our agency's contract which stated that if I became pregnant during the process we would have to put our adoption plans on hold. My reaction to this...we started using birth control! We'd had six years of infertility but we knew so strongly that the adoption was what we wanted we were careful just to be safe!

Personally, I don’t ever feel sad that I was never pregnant. I would have preferred a less stressful route in our adoptions (especially this last one!) but to me that was my pregnancy. I sometimes feel sad that I didn’t get to be with my children during their first year, but then our paths to each other wouldn’t have been the same and they wouldn’t be who they are and I wouldn’t be who I am today.

I am living the adoption fairytale of my dreams. Two amazing souls have been entrusted to me to love. I can’t imagine that a positive pregnancy test could have felt anymore magical than that.

So here’s my list of qualifying options for adoption fairytales in future cinematic productions:

1. After someone adopts they are able to adopt or conceive a second child if they want more children. Neither outcome is more fairytale-like than the other.

2. The path to adopting their child is a predictable process with logical steps and reasonable wait times.

3. The children being adopted are loved and cared for by foster families or well-run children’s homes until they are able to be with their Forever Families.

4. Governments always put the best interest of the children above politics and unnecessary red tape.

5. Adopted children are granted the same rights as biological children in immigrating to their homes, on insurance policies and estate laws.

6. Families of internationally adopted children never have to justify their choice over domestic adoption and never have to re-adopt their children in the states (nobody re-delivers their babies do they?).

7. Adopted children who will grow up as a minority in their new countries will only encounter racism on a limited basis and never within their own families.

8. Everyone thinking about adoption will know that sometimes you have to travel far, or you have to wait a long time, or you have to endure someone thinking you’d be happier if your child had your DNA, BUT in the end the only thing matters is loving and caring for your child.