Explaining A Personal Choice

We are nearing the end of the line with fertility treatment. I’m hopeful as we have gotten further than people with my exact issues usually get, but staying realistic. (I’d rather be pleasantly surprised if we succeed, than totally crushed if we fail again.) I’ve been open about it, mostly cause I work as an RN in an oncology ward and need to avoid being around certain drugs (most of the drugs are fine with proper PPE, and the ones that aren’t don’t come up often enough to cause a burden).

Adoption was our first choice, until we researched it more, so most conventional advice on explaining why we aren’t adopting (which usually focuses on wanting a biological connection with a baby) doesn’t apply. How do I explain to the average person why we aren’t adopting ? Especially if the alternative turns out we will have to remain childless?

One suggested – You could just say adoption is unethical and if they ask further, you can get into it with them. She explains what she has been doing – “Talked about how there’s agencies that advertise that they’ll help you “sell yourself” to “birth moms” and how to reduce the “risk” that they’ll decide to parent. People tend to get the ick from that.”

Someone else shares – My husband and I don’t have biological children. I get asked often when I’m going to have kids or if I’m able to have kids. (What a weird thing to ask someone). My answer is always “I’m not sure if or when that will happen.” It’s really disheartening how often that’s followed by “you could always adopt!” Like it’s the cure all or something. Usually I say I’m not interested in adoption. Sometimes they ask why and sometimes they change the subject. If they ask why, I tell them I’ve learned how harmful it is. Most people don’t care if I say anything more about it after that, unfortunately. If they push, I offer resources, so they can learn too. You can lead a horse to water.

Another one shares – I had set aside the idea of adopting long long long ago, mainly because my now husband wasn’t interested and I didn’t think it should be done unless both parents were enthusiastic. But also I had started researching the foster system and realized it would be very difficult to take In a child of a different religion and integrate them into my family, especially because of diet. It comes up now because I have a two year old and wouldn’t mind having another but am not willing to go crazy with IVF to do so and I am pretty old. I mostly tell people that I don’t have enough confidence that any of the systems available to me are only placing children who absolutely need a new set of parents, and that seed of doubt would always be a problem for my bonding. That way I’m not erasing or disrespecting any of their perceptions of adoption in their family. I don’t really have the bandwidth to do that. (blogger’s note – more than one person appreciated this response – “I don’t have enough confidence that any systems available to me are only placing children who absolutely need a new set of parents.” )

One adoptive parent points out the obvious – why is it anyone’s business? I have never once asked a 30 year old friend why she and her husband never had children and she has never talked about it. And I think since the majority see adoption as a joyous event, you could never get them to fully understand how tragic it is – so why even try ? or risk shocking them. You could say – “Research has shown most adoptions are not in the best interests of children, and though I’m sure we could do an excellent job of raising a child, we are choosing not to participate.”

One foster parent shares her reality – We are in the final stages of the adoption process for the sibling group in our care that we’ve had for a couple of years now and I absolutely lose my shit on everyone who asks if we are excited or offers congratulations. I am heartbroken that it has come to this point, that Div of Children and Families isn’t willing to keep trying and that we have run out the clock, that there is no biological family willing to take them. I hold so much grief over this immense loss, and that I can’t protect them from this hurt. I tell anyone who will listen that these systems are broken and deeply harmful to families and that the trauma of being adopted is passed through generations and leads to so much attachment trauma. No one is meant to do this parenting thing alone, but a good village doesn’t cut the parents out, it augments that critical bond with more love and support for both parent and child. Putting time and energy and resources into making supports more widely available can keep families together and prevent so much of this trauma now and for generations to come.

One even suggested – A really good zinger is – if you know they have not adopted and they ask you why you aren’t going to adopt, is to ask them why *they* didn’t. They usually stammer and say “well…I had my own kids” or some equally stupid answer. So then you can go down a couple of paths…Then you’re saying only those of us that can’t have kids should adopt ? So you’re saying biological kids are better ? Kinda depends how salty you’re feeling at the moment with how on the spot you want to make them feel.

An Inconvenient Truth

Most IVF efforts fail.

Sharing some thoughts from an article in The Guardian – LINK>Not being able to have a baby was devastating – then I found people who embraced a childfree life by Helen Pidd. Adoptees in my all things adoption community often suggest that couples struggling with infertility accept remaining childless rather than adopting someone else’s baby and inflicting trauma on that child.

The author writes that her three rounds of IVF produced 24 eggs and six decent embryos, none of which resulted in a baby. Therefore, they decided to stop trying. Not everyone seemed to respect their decision. Imagining they were being helpful, they would share stories about their friends who had succeeded on the seventh try or had gone down the egg-donation route.

She tells the story of Mia and Laura, who are married but had decided early on not to have children – they just didn’t feel that children were the key to a meaningful and worthwhile existence and didn’t fancy the day-to-day drudgery of parenting. There’s a freedom that comes from opting out of motherhood before you hit your 30s. She notes – “Having children is a good way of not having to think about what you really want from your life. Without children, you are responsible for your own destiny.”

She describes why she started to seek out others without children. For one, she preferred the optimism of the childfree-by-choice community over the grief of those suffering from their infertility. Sometimes, there is a distinction defined, between the childfree and people coping with infertility, referring to them to as “childless”. Adding “less” to most words makes them negative: hopeless, meaningless, useless. She came to understand that she personally preferred “childfree”, because she did not want to be defined by what she didn’t have.

There is actually a community for such people – LINK>”We Are Childfree.” They are a community-supported storytelling project that celebrates childfree people, explores their experiences, and dispels the myths the world holds about childfree people. They offer a global community for anyone embracing a childfree life, whether by choice, by circumstance, or for those who are just curious. Through their efforts, they are committed to fighting stereotypes and strict gender roles; creating a world in which everyone enjoys equality, bodily autonomy, and is empowered to make their own choices, to live authentically. We Are Childfree began in 2017 as a photographic project to celebrate women who had chosen not to be mothers.

It is really medicine for the soul to know it’s OK. To accept that one’s life is supposed to go this different way. They celebrate with the first names of four childfree legends: “Jen & Betty & Dolly & Oprah” – Jennifer Aniston, Betty White, Dolly Parton and Oprah Winfrey. It is true that only those who have tried IVF and still failed to have children can honestly understand how those who have feel or think.

Even so, all the evidence suggests that as women become better educated and financially independent, they choose to have fewer children. What feels new is that women are now talking about this decision and refusing to apologize or be pitied for it. One comedian famously is very deliberate. Chelsea Handler rejects the idea that if you don’t have children you have to use all of your extra free time productively.

Ruby Warrington, author of Women Without Kids, wonders, “What if more women having more time, energy and other resources at our disposal means more women leaders in business, politics, and the arts?” It could potentially lead to a more restorative, collaborative way of running the world. On this Earth Day, 2023, it is worth considering.

Consider What You Do To Another

It was contentious. Someone wrote – Infertility sucks, but adoption is not meant for people that can’t have their own kids. People that can’t have their own kids should not be able to adopt. It should be an automatic disqualification. Infertile parents have a high probability of piling on trauma for adoptees intentional or unintentional. Infertile people adopting should not be a thing.

There are so many struggles in life that there is just no fix for. You can’t take someone else’s organ because yours failed. You can’t move into someone’s home because you were evicted. You can’t take other peoples’ children because you can’t have them. To me though this also opens up why people who CAN have kids shouldn’t adopt either. Because, then it becomes all about designer babies . . . we have 3 boys but we want a girl, we want blue eyes, we want international. It shouldn’t be that way either. Infertility and its impact on mental health need to be taken more seriously in the US. It’s a grieving process and the only reason buying a child is encouraged is because of the way our adoption practices are set up. People profit and that is all this country cares about. But people on an individual level need to work through it. Sometimes shit happens that cannot be fixed. It is a part of life. We all get slapped something at some point. Your money just insulates you and entitles you to do things that, if others did, it would be unacceptable.

Someone suggests – would a prerequisite for adoption would be a fertility test? To which the original commenter said – yes, testing would be an option. I don’t have all the answers to how, just sick of seeing infertile people treating vulnerable humans as second choice options. How about just staying childless?

What about someone who is anti-natalist? Anti-natalism is the philosophical position that views birth and procreation of sentient beings as morally wrong: anti-natalists therefore argue that humans should abstain from procreating. This was more of a concern when it appeared that population would continue increasing. Recently, that concern related to over-population has been downplayed. Whether over-population remains an important driver of climate issues is debated. You could read this in Sustainable Review – LINK>3 clear reasons why overpopulation is a myth. One conclusion – a sustained population decline (mainly due to lower fertility rates) is already becoming a realistic outcome.

That is never-the-less not an argument for adoption, though some anti-natalists support adoption as an avenue of possibility for those who wish to raise children. Some reality – fertility issues are heartbreaking. There are plenty of people who want so badly to be parents but are not able to. That does not justify ripping apart another human being’s family. It does not justify predatory behavior towards children and their parents who are simply facing hard times. It does not justify enriching a system that is profit motivated. A person who wants to parent but isn’t able to do so, should seek to fill that need in ways that aren’t blatantly selfish. Find ways to fulfill their own goals, rather doing that at the expense of inflicting trauma on others. Love for children should always be child-focused. Nobody is put here to fulfill the desires of somebody else.

The issue of LGBTQ people came up but that doesn’t change the calculation – someone’s sexual orientation does not give them right to take someone else’s children.

One last thought (I am aware of this back in my own childhood) – it is a known phenomenon that some adoptive parents go on to conceive that biological child they wanted all along. Adoptive parents don’t want to admit it but some were probably told that very thing because adoption has been put forth as a solution for infertility. About 30% of the time, people who were struggling with infertility issues, manage to conceive after adopting a child. Some of them go into adopting, knowing this, straight up using their adopted child to ‘trigger’ their own fertility. Strange but true. Simply – human beings have a bias toward their own offspring, though many adoptive parents try to argue that isn’t the case.

The Brigid Alliance

Learned about this non-profit organization today – The Brigid Alliance. I wish things were different but here we are. You might be surprised if you’ve not been listening to as many adoptee voices as I do every day, to learn how many will say plainly – I wish I had been aborted. Beyond that, many do not wish to have children themselves. Here’s one example –

I’m an adoptee, former foster youth and former kinship foster youth. I do not want to be a parent. I have multiple reasons some of which include severe mental health issues, cost, responsibility, dysphoria etc… I am on long term birth control and am in a long term serious relationship. Abortion access is not limited in my state currently but could definitely become restricted. If I were to become pregnant, my first choice would be abortion. However due to limited access, I know that might not always be possible. My question is what advice would you give to someone who is pregnant but doesn’t want to be a parent and can’t access abortion?

Clearly, pregnancy prevention should not be all on the woman in a committed relationship. Agreeing to a vasectomy, which is a form of male birth control that cuts the supply of sperm to the man’s semen. It’s done by cutting and sealing the tubes that carry sperm. A vasectomy has a low risk of problems and can usually be performed in an outpatient setting under local anesthesia. The man can opt to have a vasectomy reversal in the future. This is a surgery to undo a vasectomy. During the procedure, a surgeon reconnects each tube (vas deferens) that carries sperm from a testicle into the semen. After a successful vasectomy reversal, sperm are again present in the semen and a man may be able to once again get his partner pregnant.

In the case presented in this blog today, the male was not willing – so what else ? Pre-emptive preparation can help. Research what pharmaceuticals can be accessed online and know what the resources are in your state before you need them. The LINK> National Women’s Health Network has a fact sheet on safe and effective FDA-approved abortion pills (aka medication abortion) which are now available by mail in several states — without an in-person clinic visit.

Lastly, today I learned about LINK> The Brigid Alliance, a referral-based service that provides travel, food, lodging, child care and other logistical support for people seeking abortions. They prioritize clients who are beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy and for whom it’s generally more expensive and harder to find a provider near home. They are part of a growing ecosystem of support organizations propping up abortion care access in the US due to an increasingly hostile environment post-Roe.

The group takes their name from a story about St Brigid of Kildare who ministered to a nun who had failed to keep her vow of chastity, and became pregnant. Based upon a 1987 translation of the story: “A certain woman who had taken the vow of chastity fell, through the youthful desire of pleasure and her womb swelled with child. Brigid, exercising the most potent strength of her ineffable faith, blessed her, causing the child to disappear, without coming to birth, and without pain. She faithfully returned the woman to health and to penance.”

Giving Up The Ghost

Ghost Child photograph by Shirley Sirois

When I thought the book I’d write would be a memoir, I read Giving Up The Ghost by Hilary Mantel. I am reminded of that with her recent passing. It is the only book by her, and maybe not the best known, that I have read by that author. She was only a couple of years older than I am now.

The relevancy of acknowledging her passing now is that Mantel suffered from endometriosis, which went long undiagnosed and instead, her infertility was assumed to be caused by her suffering a bad case of female overambition. Infertility often leads to adoption. Mantel did not adopt but she did remain childless and channeled her creativity into 17 books including the one I read as well as Every Day Is Mother’s Day, Vacant Possession and Beyond Black. Her ghost was from an encounter in her youth as described in that book which I read.

In a 2003 New York Times review of the Mantel book I read – LINK> Unsuited to Everything By Inga Clendinnen – it is noted – One ordinary morning when she was seven, she encountered a terrifying something ”as high as a child of 2” manifesting in the rough grass beyond the new house. ”Within the space of a thought” it was inside her, ”a body inside my body,” and ”grace . . . runs out of my body like liquid from a corpse.” Mantel acknowledges that after this event, she was always more or less ”ashamed and afraid.”

The ghosts of the never born, those babies lost in miscarriage, or those that die in infancy often haunt women who have those experiences. It can even become an inherited trauma as in the story LINK> Mothering Ghost Babies by Kao Kalia Yang. Her grandmother lost a daughter at 7 months of age to a sudden unexplained death. Her own mother was silent in the wake of all the ghost babies she delivered into the world. Her mother had six miscarriages, all little boys, all formed enough so the adults could see that they were baby boys, but born far too small, and sometimes too blue, and other times too wet with blood to survive.

Similarly, Yang’s baby died inside of her at nineteen weeks. My own daughter lost her first conceived baby that way. Like my daughter, she had to deliver a dead baby into the world. She notes that she thought back to her grandmother’s story, and that she was her mother’s love of the babies whose share of love she had taken fully and gratefully. She says, My baby was more light than substance. He was silent, but he sang a song full of sorrow.

Sometimes, a woman must give up the “ghost” of the child she will never have. I do not believe adoption is the way to attempt to replace the child a woman would have had. It often fails the “replacement” child because they are not the child the woman really wanted. And the adoptee fails the adoptive mother’s expectations of what her child should be. Women like Hilary Mantel who simply accept remaining childless (even if it is not what they wanted) should be appreciated compassionately.