Approved to adopt and grieving infertility

[Lovelylolz]

Hello all,

Looking for some support/guidance please.

My partner and I were approved to adopt on Friday which we are delighted about but since then I've had this overwhelming grief about being infertile. I feel so guilty about it as I'm really looking forward to adopting and thought I had put being infertile to bed. When loved ones congratulate us I smile and say how pleased and excited we are (because we are, we have so much love to give and feel like I love lo already) but at the same time I'm dying inside with grief and dreading hearing of another pregnancy announcement that comes and goes full term before we get a little one.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Ina it sounds like you need to do some venting and that it really hasn't been easy. It sounds as though you have had not enough support for one thing. But..."barren"....? I know there are lots of women on this forum who refer to themselves as such, but it's in a black humour type way. It would kill me if I thought my husband labelled me in the same way :( (not that we know whose "fault" it is, as our infertility is unexplained). Do you think your children pick up on the way you feel about them?

Your post makes for very, very sad reading.

And by the way, the way you feel isn't confined to parents of adopted children. My DB was troublesome as a teen, and my parents were constantly called into school about him. My mum often spoke of him as though he was a stranger and had been switched at birth. She was an awful parent to a troubled boy, and she was his birth mother. Maybe it's just the person you are.

Ina, everybody's experience of adoption is different, I get that. But to the op, please do not think all adoptive parents feel this way. My children (who are both adopted, a little girl of 2 and a boy of 7) are very much 'mine' and when I say me and my husband adore them, I mean that wholeheartedly. They are both absolutely amazing, I am so proud to call them mine. My little boy has been hard work, but has come so far, Ina is a good example of the type of person that shouldn't have adopted. I did have infertility grief, but my children cured me of this and I now honestly feel and my husband does too, that not being able to get pregnant is the best thing that ever happened to us, as it gave us our angels.

Ina, your post has made me sad for your children and sad for your wife. To say how can anyone love a child that isn't a birth child makes me angry and if anyone said that to me in real life, I'd be enraged and would certainly put them straight. Adopting our children has been a privelidge.

Wow Ina maybe you should pursue your dream and find someone else. Sounds like your issues run deeper than your children and barren wife. Have you tried counselling yourself?

Thanks for the posts following Ina's.

I also don't believe for ONE SECOND that a school would wonder aloud why "two eloquent intelligent parents have produced such offspring". Not for one single second .

You do love them the same. I worried that i wouldn't in the run up to it but ultimately trusted i would and i really really do.
It helped that a friend's husband had voiced his concerns about having a 2nd child and whether he could love them as much as the first who he adored. And then laughed at his own fears after 2nd child came along.
Ina your words read harshly but i suppose you make a good point. If you're not prepared to love a child with "faults" and will forever think of them as "other" then don't adopt. For the children's sake.

We adopted 12 years ago, I don't have a moments regret and love my boys more than anything in the world.

However, I do still fleetingly feel sad when friends announce pregnancies or people post on here about how they essentially looked at their husband / partner and fell pregnant.

However I am so pleased that we did it - best decision we ever made.

I thought parents of more than once child were lying, to spare the feelings of subsequent children, birth or otherwise. Clearly, it was impossible to love another child like I love elder DS. Clearly, you've known the first child longest, you'll love them more.

3 months into placement of younger DS, I now know there isn't a cover up! (Unlike sleep. Parents with babies that sleep. They are still lying.) The love is equal, intense and fierce. I have an adopted son, and a birth son. The love is the same.

I know the adoption board is generally nice and understanding, so I'll be less robust here than my natural inclination: Ina, I suspect your issues here are wider than whether you share DNA with your children.

Ina - I'm not an adopter, I'm a social worker though, so I care deeply about the wellbeing of children who are adopted. I'm also ready to be a bit less kind than the lovely people here. I think you're probably a troll but if your awful post is true, I feel sorry for your children. YOU are the reason for their difficulties. They didn't come into your life for your benefit - it was your job to love them and make their lives happy. Every word of your post speaks of your selfishness