To wish people wouldn't suggest fostering

[swansolistice]

Hello. I probably am being unreasonable as I recognise people just want to be kind, but - even so, AIBU to wish people would stop brightly saying 'you can always foster!'

Context is, need fertility treatment to conceive. Initially went to an adoption information evening and decided it just wasn't what we wanted (amidst a few tears of course!)

Now preparing for fertility treatment in the new year. All self funded, which is why with close friends we've just been honest over Christmas and explained that we just can't afford much because all the money is going into this, and that we want it to work but it might need several tries and people keep saying 'you can always adopt!' We explain this isn't for us. And peoples immediate response is to try fostering?

I suppose I'm just getting a little fed up with having to tell people fostering isn't the same as being a parent in any way and it doesn't replace a family of our own no one could take away.

Am I being overly harsh in being sick of this?

[swansolistice]

Some people on here are muddling adoption and fostering as if they are the same things - they aren't.

Initially when I considered adoption there were a few adverts on the radio and on local billboards that made it look easy! I wasn't that naive; I realised the process would be arduous, but it looked doable, so signed up with an adoption open evening where, after a nice cup of tea and a chat, I was besieged with information about how any child we got (and if we wanted an under five, virtually no chance) would be severely damaged, we'd really be just looking after them until the birth parents could step in again once the child turned eighteen () and most pertinently for me at this moment in time everything would need to be in place and ready for a child, before matching would begin.

So, for example, our apartment wouldn't suffice as we'd need a home with a garden which would be hugely expensive in the short term but we wouldn't be able to in effect say 'OK, well let us know when there's a child suitable for us and we'll pop the apartment market,' - it would need to be sold, moved somewhere else and probably settled and then and only then they'd start to consider us.

So - adoption was out! (By the way, I'm not saying anything critical about adoption or adopters, it's just as you can see it isn't for me right now.)

Fertility treatment allows us to hopefully get pregnant and take things at our own pace a bit more I suppose.

Now even assuming we could foster, with FT jobs and the apartment, realistically it just wouldn't replace our own family however we obtain that.

[Goingtobeawesome]

I think most people know that fostering and adoption are quite clearly different.

Whatever you decided, swan, I hope you get what you would like.

[swansolistice]

But there are several posts explaining why people suggest adoption, when my thread was about fostering :)

[gabsdot45]

I'm always so sorry to hear about people having trouble conceiving. Infertility really is hell and I'm sorry to tell you OP that this is probably only the beginning of the stupid things people will say to you.
I'm an adoptive mother, I know I could never be a foster mother.
Good luck with your treatment.

[BipBippadotta]

Merry Christmas, Swan, and best of luck with your treatment in the new year.

[Unreasonablebetty]

Hmm, op I've not read the whole thread,
But maybe the key is to explain it differently to these people?
Most people explain that they want to have a baby/ to have a child.

Maybe you need to explain to people from the outset that you want to be pregnant, you want to experience pregnancy, childbirth, and to have you and your husbands DNA mixed together to make a little human being who is half you and half him.

People don't tend to understand the real differences between adoption and having children who are genetically yours and from day one, or the wonder that pregnancy really is, until they are faced with a situation which means that they may never be able to experience these things.

I certainly didn't until I suffered with infertility issues.

Good luck to you in the new year xx

[swansolistice]

Well, we're actually using donor sperm. But people don't get it: they do think you can go to a baby home and pick one you want and foster it and it's the same as your own, and it's just not.

[Unreasonablebetty]

Sorry swan, I hadn't read the whole thread, but all bar the one with you and DPS DNA mixed together might be a great explanation.

I do from experience understand why you want your own and not someone else's,
But some people just don't feel that same way, or haven't even thought about it enough to know how they would feel.
In example, I always though I would grow up, and marry a man who had already had his children, I would be the cool step mother because I love kids and couldn't foresee how I would feel any different with a child who is mine, and who isn't.

Fast forward, I had a child. Was madly inlove with a man who had a child on the way (he cheated, left when he found out she was pregnant, came back and told me when we were back together) and I realised that I could not do the things for his child that I would do for my own, which is an awful thing to admit. I would have loved her, just not as much.

With men it can and often is very different. My DH loves my daughter to the extent that if we had a child, they would both be loved the same. Men are amazing like that.

I wish you loads of luck!! X

[PollysHoliday]

I think that very many people say stupid and thoughtless things to people suffering fertility problems. It must be because they haven't given the pain and suffering fertility problems cause a moment's thought and even if they have they vastly underestimate the pain and suffering.

I have had fostering and adoption suggested to me. Why anybody would think fostering would in anyway replicate carrying, giving birth to and raising my own child I have no idea. And (any adoptive parents reading please forgive me for any unintended offence) as for adoption, if it is such an easy option, if it so closely replicates having your own children and if there are so many children just waiting to be adopted why don't those who suggest it adopt instead of having their own?

One of the most thoughtless things said to me was in reference to the possibility that my embryo would not survive transfer or implant. She said "Oh well, some things aren't meant to be." Maybe not, but in the end my baby died. And I doubt she would have said that to someone who suffered an early miscarriage.

[scarlets]

I think that people underestimate how complex it is to adopt and to foster, and how few people are actually up to it (as a pp said, some think it's a case of picking out a baby and Bob's your uncle). However, most people are aware, even vaguely, of how gruelling fertility treatment can be, how expensive, how stressful, and how it fails more often than it succeeds. So, they think that avoiding it is sensible I suppose, without realising that adoption and fostering are just as challenging, and certainly not dead-certs either.

Good luck with the procedure OP. I know a lovely little girl who was conceived with donor sperm. I hope you're as fortunate as her mum and dad were two years ago.

[RaisingSteam]

TBH I think it's only worth listening if the comment comes from someone else going through fertility treatment/infertile, or someone who has adopted/fostered. But they would be pretty unlikely to make it!

Also it's not as if you won't have thought of that, it's almost too obvious to mention that the fertility treatment might all come to nothing and then you have pretty limited choices to be an adoptive/foster parent or make the most of being child free. People reminding you of that doesn't exactly help. (But of course I very much hope like most people you do get a successful outcome !)

Maybe a good come-back is to say "Oh, are you interested in that then?"

Sadly starting a family is one of those situations where your success or failure is all too public and you have to grow a thick and teflon-coated skin against comments from people who have not been in the situation and well meaningly blurt out the first thing that comes into their heads.

[RaisingSteam]

I think I missed half the thread - OP as an adoptive parent I do know the difference . Most people are not very well informed about the whole care scene if they've been lucky enough not to be involved in it.

[Imustgodowntotheseaagain]

swan which adoption agency insists on a garden? I've only ever seen a requirement that you are able to offer the child their own room, as sadly some have issues that rule out sharing.