Why We Chose Adoption

This question was the reason I was most nervous to share our story for two main reasons:

1. Telling others you most likely will not have biological children feels like wearing a scarlet letter
2. I am afraid others will judge me for not pursuing every possible method for conceiving a child biologically before deciding to adopt

There, I said it.  As much as we want to be parents, it just wasn't happening for us.  Even though we were not told that we can't have kids, we were feeling very defeated and like it would never happen.  I will go into more detail about that struggle in another post, but I don't want this one to be too long discussing that as well.  

After nearly 4 years of trying to have a child, we sat down one night and I finally spilled out my heart to Tyler...I didn't want to try InVitro Fertilization (IVF).  It was so hard for me to admit this because I thought he would be disappointed that I wouldn't try anything possible to have "our" child.  I felt like if I wasn't willing to go through IVF, then I didn't deserve to be a mom at all.  When you go through years of wanting something and it not happening, you definitely begin to think that maybe you don't deserve that thing you want.  Of course, Tyler was completely supportive and said he didn't care whether our child had our DNA or not - he just wanted us to be able to give all of the love we have to a child that needs it.  

That was the last Monday night in April.  I had already been reading This Family's Journey, thanks to a suggestion from a friend, and told Tyler about it.  He started reading it and we decided to email Shelley the next day - that was a HUGE step for us.  First of all, she was on the news.  Why would someone on the news take time to talk to complete strangers?  Second of all, it was admitting that we were "giving up" on conceiving a child.  Well, Shelley emailed us back within hours and we planned to go meet them that Sunday.  We felt an immediate connection with her and Chris, and I think we left that day knowing that we would be pursuing adoption.  In fact, we emailed Susan, the adoption consultant they used, the very next day to get started.  In my original email to Shelley, I told her that we would not be starting the actual process until school was out - guess I was wrong on that!  We started immediately and the month of May 2014 was one of the craziest of my life (more on that in another post).

Some people probably think we jumped in too quickly.  Many people say you need to do your research before you decide to adopt as well as how to go about starting the adoption process.  Well, our research was done at a kitchen table of (at the time) complete strangers who shared their hearts with us.  It was all we needed to confirm our decision to pursue adoption. 

I hope you don't take this post as if I think IVF is wrong because I don't.  I know people who have had successful IVF treatments, but unfortunately I know many more who have had unsuccessful ones.  The treatments are expensive - monetarily, physically, and emotionally, and I just knew I did not want to go through it.  It is so hard to admit that, but it is the truth. 

Although this is our reason for adopting, it does not mean everyone who adopts struggles with infertility and not everyone who struggles with infertility adopts.