infertility trouble does NOT equal adoption by default!!!

amother

Fri, Nov 21 2014, 10:55 am

amother wrote:

are you talking from experience with cancer? ppl do what they have to do sometimes to keep themselves alive. no matter what. and I talk from personal experience.
and weighing all factors when trying to get pregnant, it seems like you are not talking from experience either. its not always about that at all. when I took clomid, then injections, I weighed nothing. I knew I wanted to have a child.

Unfortunately yes. There are various treatments for cancer and while chemo/radiation is the usual path, there are other treatments which may be more controversial or more effective. Most people usually choose chemo/radiation and that's not a bad thing.

You didn't even look to understand what clomid and injections can do to you or how it works or anything? Well, you should have, even if you chose to do them anyway. Being uninformed is never a good thing, even if it doesn't change the end result.

amother

Fri, Nov 21 2014, 11:01 am

Chayalle wrote:

Here we go again.

I'm the imamother above with the impotent husband.

And I still don't get it. If you consider that the worst thing on earth that could possibly happen to you is not to have kids (as people here have posited), then why is adoption not a viable alternative?

I understand that some people, for whatever reason, don't want to adopt. My husband is one of them. But for them, being childless is clearly not the worst thing that could happen.

I'm not condoning people butting into the procreation decisions of others by recommending adoption. That falls into none of your business.

But how do you reconcile "being childless is the worst thing that could happen" with "I would rather be childless than have children who are not genetically mine"? If the latter is true, isn't the former false by definition?

dancingqueen

Fri, Nov 21 2014, 11:08 am

amother wrote:

They don't conceive because of adopting. There can be a host of reasons, one of them being that technology changed, some new treatment came out, giving them a better chance. And this phenomenon is unusual. Don't ever tell an IF'er "just adopt... You'll see you'll have your own afterwards". Adoption is beautiful thing - not a segulah to become fertile.

Keep in mind: most of these "adopted then became pregnant" stories - these people don't say the full story.

I specifically said I'm not giving anyone advice to "just" do anything. Obviously the adoption doesn't cause the conception. But I've heard that it's not uncommon, perhaps because the stress of conceiving is taken off. Again not advice just something interesting I heard.

Chayalle

Fri, Nov 21 2014, 11:22 am

amother wrote:

I'm not Hashem, so I can't definitively say what the worst thing is that can happen to someone.

However, from my limited human perspective, not being able to have one's own biological children is pretty high up on the list of something that is painful.

See the bolded word. It's a biggee and without understanding that, your premise makes sense. But with understanding that for some it's a big issue, your premise falls apart.

I grew up with an adopted "cousin" (in quotes - we are actually related very distantly but our families were very close and treated each other like cousins) so the concept of adoption is not foreign to me. This cousin was/is very close to us, and she sat shiva for her adopted mother - a wonderful woman, a wonderful parent. Do you think adoption entirely took away the pain of IF? I don't think so, but I do know she loved her daughter and loved raising her, loved being a grandmother, etc....

This is the path she chose but not everyone would choose that path. And some would not even have that choice.

That is why Shabbat started this thread - not to say that IF is THE WORST and not to say anything against adoption - but just to educate the wise folks out there who say this to an IF couple with nary a thought to the fact that they would be best off keeping their comments to themselves and allowing the couple to come to their own conclusions as to how they will address their IF status and what choices they will make.

Chayalle

Fri, Nov 21 2014, 11:23 am

dancingqueen wrote:

This deserves a thread of its own.

Raise your hand if you have been thru IF and told that YOU JUST NEED TO RELAX!

amother

Fri, Nov 21 2014, 11:26 am

dancingqueen wrote:

I know you didn't give advice - I just said it in case you thought of saying it IRL. Nobody appreciates it.
I've heard such stories too. But, in many stories the facts don't add up to a "natural conception"; I'm sure many of those people just say it was natural even if it wasn't.
And - if it did indeed happen, I would assume they were either unexplained (IF), or had a more minor or "fixable" issue, like hormonal imbalance. Adopting a baby won't miraculously make my husband produce sperm. Nor will it grow eggs for a woman who doesn't have. Perhaps it was just some great miracle, and miracles can happen to anyone.

No I don't know all the details in those stories, but I don't believe them in their entirety.

amother

Fri, Nov 21 2014, 11:28 am

Chayalle wrote:

This deserves a thread of its own.

Raise your hand if you have been thru IF and told that YOU JUST NEED TO RELAX!

I don't mean to say hooray, but I can't find an emoticon with raised hands.

Oh I'm the another of 12:26.
One of the other reasons I assume those "miracle adopted then pregnant" stories had hormonal issues or unexplained, is because with those, stress can sometimes play a factor. But just like adoption won't make dh produce sperm, neither will the lack of stress.

amother

Fri, Nov 21 2014, 11:38 am

amother wrote:

I'm the amother who wrote about wanting a biological child with my DH.

It's not ANYONE'S business why I don't want to adopt, these are very personal and often painful choices. For someone to just assume adoption is the next step is presumptuous. It's often said when couples are in the throes of ART, which is unbelievably stressful and hormonal and PRIVATE.

Additionally, It completely discounts the enormous efforts we IF people are going through, and the deep disappointments we're experiencing.

Imagine if you had a child who died, G*d forbid, and amidst the grieving people asked if you were going to have another one. That's what the "but you can always adopt" line feels like.

Ruchel

Sat, Nov 22 2014, 1:20 pm

Someone can think childless is the worst ever but adoption somehow doesnt solve it if to them it's not similar. Or not in the best interest of the child: very insular kehila for a non white child, one parent not so on board. Can Syrians convert a baby?
Fostering can mean losing. Even adopting, the first year, in some types of adoption.
Some can forever fear the child is actually Jewish and a mamzer or that the child will reject the "non willing" conversion - or feel bad changing his culture or if it's that kind of adoption they cant take the presence of the bio parent(s). Etc etc etc.

Raisin

Sat, Nov 22 2014, 4:17 pm

amother wrote:

That happened to a relative of mine. The doctors believe that in her case, either the treatments or the actual pregnancy "fixed" the issue. That won't be true for everyone though. Some people will never be able to conceive naturally. It depends on what the problem is and I'm sure some other very individual factors. It's kind of like a complicated psak halacha. What is true for one isn't necessarily going to be true for someone else because it may depend on very specific elements that the average layperson is not aware of.

As to adoption, I also know someone that happened too- adopted a baby, and found out a few days after the bris that she was naturally pregnant. The kids are 8 months apart and in the same grade in school. But that was obviously just a happy coincidence (min hashamyim, of course, by coincidence, I mean that one thing had nothing to do with the other, Hashem simply decided that it should be that way).

Since she was pregnant already when she adopted the baby there possibly is no connection.

shabbatiscoming

Sat, Nov 22 2014, 5:51 pm

Raisin wrote:

also, I've heard of cases where a women has primary infertility, goes through treatment and then conceives naturally. I wonder if there are any studies done, I am not convinced there is any correlation. In any case I hope people adopt because they want that child.

Again, have not read any further than this post, but for some conceiving naturally can never happen and so saying these things is both just silly and almost dumb. Im sorry to say that so harshly, but raisin, this is also something that people say without knowing much about IF. Really.

There are women out there that DONT ovulate. There are couples who the man is the one with the issue. There are many more IF related things. Its not always so simple.

Ill tell you that after I had my only daughter (as of now) my IF issue got much much worse. Not better.

amother

Sat, Nov 22 2014, 6:09 pm

amother wrote:

I am the amother who you were replying to. No, I did not look into what clomid or injections could do to me. Of course I looked into how it worked. What difference would it be to me to know what negative effects any IF medicinses or injections had on me? I was going to be taking them, no matter what.
I really dont get why I need to know any of that. It would only make the IF cycles even worse, to have in the back of my mind the whole time "oh my gosh, the clomid/injections are going to do xyz to my body". On top of all of the emotions and physical side effects that happen during an IF cycle. No thank you. Its hard enough, and to get to the end result? ttrust me, enough bad thoughts are already running through ones mind. I didnt need more of it.