Why don't you foster or adopt?

[Myguessis]

Please, please stop asking this question to anyone that tells you they can't have children.

I promise you, they are already aware that adoption and fostering exists. You are not enlightening them.

Fostering and adoption are not solutions to infertility. They are huge undertakings in themselves, and the focus is on providing an often traumatised child a loving, stable home. Not to 'fill a hole' in someone's life. Yes, this can be the route some have travelled but it's not an automatic Option B!!

It's also a huge emotional challenge in itself, with the training, visits, and checks often taking months and months - many couples are still raw from unsuccessful invasive and physically demanding treatment.

Just don't make this 'helpful' suggestion. It's so insensitive.

Totally agree. If adoption/ fostering is so easy why don’t everyone do it? people totally don’t understand the complexities of it

I was thinking more along the lines of ‘oh we tried for 6/12 months for our child (or our 2nd/3rd) and thinking that’s in some way comparable.

@gogohmm As someone whose single NHS IVF round failed I would have been livid if a health professional had suggested I explore adoption, how insulting. Do you think people haven't considered this?

I also think it's not good advice to give, anyway. Adopting a child is often nothing like having a birth child and expectations have to be sensitively managed. I work in adoption services and many people who would make perfectly good parents to a birth child are not suitable adoptive parents, for a whole raft of reasons. It's unkind and unhelpful to adoption services and the couples to funnel them towards adoption.

I agree. We were lucky not to struggle with infertility but we had made the decision before even trying for a family that if we couldn't do it "naturally" (and I hope that word doesn't offend anyone, can't think of a better way) we would remain childless and make the best of it.

There were far too many negatives and complexities around fostering and adoption we didn't think we could deal with, it's an incredibly difficult process. My cousin has children who were adopted at 3 and 1 from a traumatic situation and has had struggles with both at various points, especially the younger one. Much respect to people who do it but it's not something you can blithely go into.

So true OP. I think people struggle with finding a way to respond or want to say something positive. Sometimes it’s ok to just listen, nod and accept something is shit.

yes, this is so so important. It overlooks the special/critical/challenging role of a foster carer or adoptive parent, there isn't just a warehouse of babies waiting to get picked up. it's such an amazing thing to do, but not for everyone.

"sat on an ethics committee for the ccg, and this was exactly the position- one round of ivf, couples to be encouraged to explore adoption to see if it's right for them. (Note explore, no one is saying it is right for you)."

My dealings with my CCG is that it has an appalling stance on many issues so that doesn't surprise me.

I found most responses or comments unhelpful, insensitive and insulting.

'You can just adopt' - no you can't 'just' adopt, it's not a consolation prize! Adoption is incredibly difficult and a huge decision. I am lucky to have friends who are adoptive parents so knew the process through their experience. They are very open about how hard it was, they are a beautiful family now but the dc are have their own issues.

'Oh my dh just has to look at me and I'm pregnant!' 'Have you tried just relaxing?' - yeah super, I'll just let my health condition know we're relaxing now and it will resolve itself.

'You can have mine, they're a nightmare' 'you're so lucky!' 'I couldn't live without my dc they are everything, you don't know live until you're a parent' - nope, don't tell someone desperately wanting a child that yours are a nightmare, or their life is empty.

And I know I'm lucky because after years of trying I had a dc but I would never say to someone else in that position 'oh it worked for me'. If a comment is needed then empathy is enough- 'that is really shit' and allowing them to talk about it without useless bs advice.

I can only imagine how difficult it is. Thank you for giving me some perspective this morning.

As for fostering and adoption. Unless anyone has been involved in that process it is not like picking out your Christmas tree and having a quick DBS check.. I find those suggestions absolutely appalling for any parent or potential parent. Adoption is a serious life changing decision.

Hugs OP.

Or of your auntie Flo who got pregnant at 48 having assumed her symptoms were menopause. It’s like saying to someone struggling financially “oh my cousin was the same but then guess what? She won the lottery!”

It’s often better to tell people what you would like them to say rather than what not to say. What would be a good response for you?

You can just say you’re sorry and it must be hard. That is fine. Of course it’s not as satisfying for you as you’re not offering a solution, but it’s better for the recipient.

I think if you are opening up to people about infertility then I’m not sure you are just looking for a pat on the back? Definitely the worst comment I ever had was someone who on telling me she was pregnant felt moved to say they’d tried last month and so she knew it wasn’t the same but she had felt a little what it must be like…..ffs! Honestly so obtuse it was breathtaking.

Yes, children need homes and some people can’t have their own children. But it’s ridiculously simplistic thInking to think you can just put the two together and voila, problem solved. And 70 years ago society was very different. Unmarried motherhood was frowned upon and babies were forcibly taken away from mothers who didn’t really want to give them up.

People are full of shit. 'Adoption' is seen as an easy solution in more than one context, bizarrely.

I completely understand what a pp posted re ccg (and not having a go at you!) but as someone who had their first round funded (and just finished our second privately funded ivf) I find it slightly insulting that the same thing isn’t said about e.g alcoholics/drug addicts etc who require ongoing health care and the money being spent on them for random and recurrent admissions. Or the dopes that need healthcare on a weekend because of too much booze/drugs/fighting etc.

I never need to visit my gp or the hospital, worked since I was 18 so I’m not ashamed to say I very happily took that £5k worth of treatment for my first round, and we were very grateful to be granted it. We had every hope it would’ve worked to give us a child and hopefully bring up a great member of society, but unfortunately it didn’t.

I’ve told very few people about ivf and our struggle, I understand their comments come from a good place. I bumped into someone at the clinic this round who didn’t know I was going through ivf, who said a very well meaning ‘I’m positive this will work for you’ which was nice to say and I only wish I still had that level of positivity with our journey 😏😢

The nicest things to say are ‘that’s shit, really sorry to hear this’ and ‘I’m here for you if you ever need to chat/cry/vent’

When you are lesbians this is constant. Straight people with 4 kids will look you dead in the eye and tell you about all the kids in care you should be adopting! It’s vile. Adoption and fostering are a huge undertaking requiring constant monitoring and invasion of privacy, risking false allegations, supporting the child through the impact of trauma.

Whether you’re gay, TTC, struggling with infertility the most appropriate response to this question is ‘Why don’t you!?’

That suggestion was given to me whilst going through ivf.

Having watched family spend a year of invasive questioning/examinations to have the opportunity to be placed with a child and now have the fear of the bio family trying to prevent them from legally adopting the child - no it is not the plan b. It is not a given that you would even be suitable to adopt. Watching their stresses and dedication to provide a stable homelife for their child, I know that I'm not strong enough to do that.

Equally, we've been very lucky to have our daughter after 5 years of ivf, multiple ops and a few failures. Still people ask if we are going to have a 2nd 🙄

Brilliant thread OP.
I totally agree, although I expect most people are misguided and think they are helping.
I had this for years, usually comments from one woman at work.
Every month she would ask "Any luck this month "!!
So annoying. In the end I just ignored her, but the icing on the cake came years later. I bumped into her in our shopping centre, and she did her usual "pregnant yet". This time I saw red and said "Unfortunately not, but it would be a bloody miracle don't you think as I am 60 years old!!
She went bright red, I just walked away, but felt better and had a giggle to myself.

I think the worst comments are from judgemental people who think people should “just adopt” rather than have fertility treatment. I remember one mum saying that if she hadn’t been able to conceive her children naturally, she would have adopted rather than tried IVF as that was the right thing to do.

Easy for her to say. I wish I’d asked her why she’d tried to conceive, instead of adopting. After all, you don’t need to be infertile to adopt.

By the way, I do know a couple who tried to adopt before trying IVF. They were approved as potential adopters after a gruelling 18-month application process, but were devastated when the child they’d hoped to adopt was matched with another couple.

They couldn’t bear to go through the matching stage again so gave up on adoption, but eventually had a child via IVF.

The people crossly saying ‘well what are you supposed to say’ FGS

YANBU, OP.

Some of us are also as tactless and rude as you.
Asking for guidance should be a good thing, and yet you've shat on it.

This definitely!

I wonder if it's a cultural thing for Brits to keep stiff upper lip as anything said in these situations is considered insensitive. People in other cultures, particularly in warmer climate, consider it ignorant or lack of compassion when seeing someone going through a tough time, especially anything relating to family, and just stay silent or offer no suggestions. And they do hug, a lot.

I don’t think infertility is unique in that people telling you about it aren’t asking you to solve their issue (unless you are a fertility doctor), they are venting. Do we need to ask for guidance every time we comfort someone or listen to a friend vent?