Category: Karen’s columns

My husband and I always wanted to be open with our son about his adoption and plan to share with him all that we know about his birth parents and his biological family. This open philosophy started before he even entered our lives with the ‘Dear Birthmother’ letter where we stated what our intention was for an open adoption. The moment our son entered into our lives we started sharing his story with him. As an infant of course he had no concept of what we were saying to him since he didn’t understand our words nor did he understand what an open adoption even was. But it didn’t matter that he didn’t understand us, we began telling his story anyway with pictures so that his being adopted would never be a surprise for him; it would simply be the way he always knew it.

We used one large picture initially to begin sharing his story. It was a painting actually commissioned by a local artist, of the five of us – Scott, myself, our son encircled in the foreground, with his birth parents embracing/dancing in the background. It is a playful, colorful and joyful piece of art that emanates love and happiness and tells our story simply. It sits above our couch in the living room and attracts attention the moment you enter that room. I love looking at the painting and it brings up so much emotion when I really spend time looking at it. Amazingly, our son has always been drawn to the painting as well without any prompting from us. From a very young age he would point to the painting and babble at it as he was drinking his bottle. Now, at 2 ½ he will occasionally point to the painting and tell us who everyone is.

In our son’s very early months, I also put together a picture book which allowed me to insert photos from my son’s birthday into a story book adapted from Debra Frasier’s book, “On the Day You Were Born.” (Coincidentally, his birthparents give him the complete version of that book on his birth date.) On one page of the picture book there is a drawing of a circle of people surrounding a newly born baby. On the opposite page I inserted the photo of Scott, myself and the birthfather all surrounding the baby and birthmother in the hospital bed. The spread couldn’t be more fitting. In other pages of the book I placed a picture from the church we were waiting in (across from the adoption agency) the morning of our son’s delivery; I included a copy of his footprints that were taken in the hospital on his birthday; and I also added our very special family photo also taken at the hospital. Before our son was talking we were showing him the pictures from the book and reading him the story of his birthday. Today, the picture book sits on the bookshelf in his bedroom ready to be looked at or read whenever he desires.

As our son matures we will begin adding more things to the story we tell him. For instance, it wasn’t until the last couple of months that we started talking more about how he came out of his birthmother’s tummy. One of our friends is pregnant with baby #2 so we used that opportunity to tell him there was a baby growing inside her tummy and that he came out of Lizzie, his birthmother’s, tummy. I’m quite certain that he doesn’t understand what this really means but I do know that he hears me because when prompted with the question, “Who’s tummy did you come out of?,” he always answers with “Lizzie.”  The other night, Scott and I were looking at a map of the U.S. and I decided to point out where our son was born in comparison to where we live now (all the way across the country.) He was amused when I kept repeating, “We flew all the way over there to get you.”

It is fascinating to see our son’s comprehension expanding and to be able to share more and more details with him as time passes.  I know at this point we’ve barely scraped the tip of the iceberg in regards to what he will eventually learn about his adoption story and about his biological family. But regardless, it is comforting to know that we’ve already planted the seeds for the bigger story that will eventually be told.

I heard a talk recently about the importance of being consistent with young children when retelling stories, even stories as simple as how they “tripped over a rock and scraped their knee in the park.” In the talk, the person mentioned that part of the reason that young kids repeat things that happen to them again and again and again is that they need confirmation that yes indeed that is the way that event happened, and by confirming their story it helps kids gain confidence and be comfortable in telling their own stories. So whether our son is repeating the “I tripped over a rock” story or the story surrounding his birth, it is all good because I know these stories are helping him gain confidence and be comfortable with his own stories in the long run.

I’ve recently spent a large chunk of time moving files from an old laptop to a new one as my old computer is getting ready to die off.  If you have ever had to transfer files from one computer to another I am sure you can feel my pain in knowing that there are hundreds of emails/documents saved on a computer from over the years. When I considered what files/emails from my laptop really needed to be saved from my massive collection onto my new laptop it occurred to me that the most important thing on my computer are the original email contacts we had with our son’s birth parents and social workers that transpired two and a half years ago.

So needless to say, in copying these email files from one computer to another I’ve taken much time in going back and rereading these early correspondences, many of which have brought both smiles and tears to my eyes.

There was that very first, memorable email from the birthfather asking my husband and I to answer several detailed get to know you questions. Our responses that followed were to help both he and the birthmother decide which adoptive parents to choose for their son (they had narrowed it down to one other couple from our agency and us and I assume the other couple got the same questions as we did.) I will never forget that night writing out our answers. We had been out late at a special event and we left the event early (at 10:30pm – clearly before baby came home when we could stay up past 10:00pm) so that we would be able to write out our answers before the next work day. I felt like it was the most important “paper” I’d ever had to write. My husband and I worked separately, each writing our own emails. We spent a good bit of time reflecting on our answers as we wanted to be sure the mails represented each of us accurately. Our answers were candid, honest and well thought out all at the same time.  I remember sending the emails and thinking, “Well if they don’t pick us then it truly isn’t meant to be because we couldn’t have been more ourselves in those emails.”

Then there were the pictures attached to a later email. Two images were the very first glimpses of what our birth parents looked like and one was of the baby-to-be’s sister. We had agreed to adopt their baby before even seeing one picture of the birth parents. (When adopting, looks of birthparents are not often a high priority item on the checklist in comparison to other items like drugs use during pregnancy, health of child and race of child.) I remember being so relieved at seeing their picture – they were “normal” looking. Later, in a separate email I had sent out, was a picture of our first family photo of my husband and I holding an ultrasound picture which the birthmother sent to us. Until that point, being matched didn’t seem real at all even though we were to be parents in only 3 months. I was beaming in the picture even though moments before I was bawling my eyes out in joy. I still tear up simply thinking about that moment!

There were occasional email updates from our son-to-be’s birthmother on how the baby was doing; some of which informed us that the baby was strong and perhaps we should consider naming him something that means “strong.” At one point she nick-named the baby “kicks-a-lot” which made us smile (and still holds true to our son’s active character today.)  Since everything was so distant for my husband and I – we weren’t pregnant, feeling the baby move, or seeing my pregnant belly expand to remind us daily that parenthood was getting closer – these emails meant a lot to us and helped us feel like other expecting parents.

Other emails included things like coordinating our first meeting in New York state with the birth parents; scheduling a tour of the hospital for the four of us (birth parents and adoptive parents) which took place when we visited them before the birth; talking about circumcising the baby and asking how everyone felt about the procedure since the baby would still be under our birth parent’s custody and insurance at the time the circumcision would occur. There were many emails going back and forth between my husband and I and various social workers from both New York and California – all of whom would play some part in completing our adoption. In many cases the social workers played the middlemen handling questions and/or concerns of both parties: the adoptive parents and birth parents.

Occasionally there were small gaps of time between correspondences between us (my husband and I) and the birth parents and social workers which seem insignificant now, but at the time these gaps had me gasping for breath and praying that nobody had changed their minds about the adoption.

It was interesting looking back at all the mails after the adoption. Even though I remember there being so much uncertainty at the time the emails were sent, I know what a bonding, unique, amazing, exciting, stressful time those months were for all of us. As hard as it was to go through it all, I wouldn’t trade that time period for anything.

I never really wanted to be pregnant. Even when I was trying to conceive, getting pregnant was only a means to an end – a family. My whole life, I always felt a bit sorry for pregnant women because being pregnant looks so terribly uncomfortable. I remember once as a little girl saying that if I ever were to have kids (which I wasn’t even sure I wanted until the age 36) I’d rather adopt them then go through a pregnancy. Of course, when faced with the reality of having to adopt after discovering I seemed to have infertility issues things suddenly looked a bit different. I realized what a gift it is to be able to reproduce.

After adopting my son, I still have no desire at all to be pregnant; however, that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel immense sadness and jealousy whenever I hear of other people getting pregnant and having babies – especially if they’ve had an easy time of it. This was particularly true in the four years that my husband and I were trying to have a family. But pain, like other forms of energy, changes over time. After our son came into our lives the pain of hearing about other people’s pregnancies got much less pronounced. The pain was more like a dull ache that would pop up on occasion.

These days I’ve discovered a new form of the pain which is triggered from news from mothers I’ve befriended through my son that are now pregnant again with their second children. Two is that magical age where many mothers consider having their second children. I knew that once our son hit that age I too might be faced with new feelings of pain so I wasn’t completely unprepared when I close friend hit me with his “exciting news” of his wife’s pregnancy. What surprised me wasn’t his news, but the enormous amount of feelings it brought up in me after I was home. I call it my tornado.

I cried. I was jealous. I was pissed that they had such ease at getting pregnant. Did it even take them three months? And she felt like it was taking so long to get pregnant! Talk to the hand! I thought of my miscarriage, the years of trying to conceive, the months of failed fertility treatments, and the years of waiting anxiously to adopt. I felt a smidgen of the pain and the endless anxiety all over again. Until I made myself take a step back from it all like I learned to do during meditation during those tough years. After stepping back I was able to just observe and to be a bystander to my own crazy thoughts.

Amidst the jealousy and pain swirling around I saw other things too. Good things. I saw how glad I am that my body hasn’t changed at all due to being pregnant. I saw how lucky we are to have our wonderful, healthy son. I saw how having just one child can allow us to put all our energy into him giving him the dedication that he deserves. I saw our son’s wonderful birthparents, and how lucky we are to have such an amazing bond between us that people having their own biological children can never experience. I saw it all in my tornado.

The craziest bit of all of this is that my husband and I have talked numerous times about our feelings about continuing to try for our own biological children or pursuing another adoption but we both mutually agreed that we are good with just one child and are taking action/or no action accordingly. As much as we’d love our son to have a sibling living with him, just one child is really fine by us.

But the mind is a funny thing and you can’t control thoughts you have and you shouldn’t try to control them because you would be fighting a losing battle. You can however control how you react to your thoughts. This time I chose to step back from my tornado instead of letting it suck me in. After a while the tornado passed as I knew it would. The damage from this one was almost nonexistent.

When I reflect on the route we took to adopt our son I am always glad that my husband and I followed our hearts and made decisions that essentially led our adopted child to us. There are two significant reasons I believe that our adoption story ended positively. First that we chose the right kind of adoption for us; and second, we were honest with ourselves about what we were willing to take on in an adoption.

The first huge decision that must be made for anyone adopting is what kind of adoption to pursue. There are international adoptions, opened and closed domestic adoptions, and foster care adoptions, which all vary hugely. We chose to do a domestic, open adoption. The biggest reasons why we chose this route initially was because we wanted a newborn baby and in the other options it was harder, if not possible at all, to do so; plus we wanted our child to know where he came from. But looking back on our experience now, I am most grateful that we chose this route for a different reason, a very simple one that differentiates domestic open adoptions over all other types of adoptions: we were picked.

We, Scott and I, were chosen by our son’s birthparents to raise him over other potential birthparents that they looked at, which at the time of going through the adoption waiting process seemed like a horrific hurdle to overcome for potential adoptive parents as it is often a long and painful journey to wait for someone to choose you. There were many times along the way we doubted we would ever be picked. (The waiting was similar to having to wait to be picked for a dodgeball team in gym class by your classmates and not faring well.) I remember thinking about a year and half into our adoption wait that I would never recommend an open domestic adoption to anyone and I could completely understand why some people avoid this type of adoption for just this reason! However, when we were finally chosen my tune changed. We discovered the huge benefit of being hand selected by the birthparents. Interests and traits between both parties often have similarities which makes the likelihood of having common traits with the child much more likely. Since we wanted to have similar interests with our adopted child our open adoption seemed so much less random to us than having been matched casually with a baby via another route. Our chosen adoption path will also give my husband and I more credibility later on when we need to explain the adoption process to our son because we can tell him that his birthparents picked us to raise him. They thought we were a good fit for him which hopefully will take away a lot of questions and uncertainty regarding his adoption.

The second reason I believe that our adoption was successful is that my husband and I were honest with ourselves about what we were willing to take on in an adopted child. Two big things come to mind for me here: health of the child and race of the child.

At times I feel as if my husband and I took the easy way out on our adoption because we were placed with a healthy child of the same ethnicity, yet this wasn’t accidental. On our adoption profile we had to specify health issues we were willing to accept in a child as well as races (and give percentages of race no less than 50%) of what we were willing to accept in a baby. Both my husband and I wanted a baby with little or no health issues, however, it was my preference not my husband’s to limit us only to the Caucasian race. Even though I knew our wait time would likely be much longer because of this, I felt very strongly about adopting a child who would look like us, not because I have anything against other races, but because I wasn’t yet ready to tackle living with a transracial family. Perhaps people might say this makes me weak or shallow or racist; I think that I’m in touch with my reality.

Race issues exist. To deny that race isn’t a big deal to you is fine but if you take on an adopted, transracial child you must be willing to address race issues head on and not ignore them or pretend race isn’t an issue out in the world. By not addressing these issues with your child you risk hurting your son or daughter in the long run. I wasn’t ready to take on this task. So in the end, we waited longer, but we got exactly what we asked for: a healthy, Caucasian baby.

My advice to others who might be waiting to adopt is to be honest with yourself about what you want and don’t make compromises you aren’t willing to live with for the rest of your lives. If something is important to you don’t settle for anything less, no matter how much longer it might make your wait. Also, if enough time passes don’t be afraid to reevaluate all of your choices. Over time you may find that your priorities have changed.

Ever since becoming a mother I’ve been very aware that motherhood through adoption is not and never will be the same as mothering your own biological children. It isn’t the act of mothering my son that is different as that seems to be the same as any other mother as far as I can tell. And mothering my son has been wonderful, absolutely wonderful – pure joy. What I’ve noticed to be different is the undeniable fact that no matter how much I act like his mother, as I do naturally, I will never really BE his “real mother” – his biological one.

Sometimes when hanging out with other Moms, I hear them talk about how their son or daughter really looks or acts like themselves or their spouse or another closely related family member and I can’t imagine what that must feel like. The lack of shared genes leaves me feeling a bit sad or sorry at times like I’m somehow not getting the full parenting experience. I imagine it brings a sense of great pride that someone else carries on your genes. I’ve often wondered if it somehow strengthens a bond between the child and his/her parents. Fortunately I’m lucky as an adoptive parent to know both of my son’s biological parents so I can at least see both his birthmother and his birthfather in him and I can pinpoint the features and mannerisms of him that come from each birthparent which is wonderful and very special and will mean the world to our son someday. But this knowing who he takes after only goes so far as to what I really know about his birthparents and what they have shared with us about themselves and their extended families. Yet even if I had all the information I could possibly want on my son’s birth family, it is simply not the same thing as knowing your ancestors and being able to share stories and your own genetics with your child.

I’ve asked my husband recently if he ever thinks about or gets sad over the fact that our child isn’t genetically related to us and will never look like us. Thank goodness for him and his logical, steady self because his response is, “I never really let myself dwell on these things because those thoughts and feelings never lead anywhere good.” Now why, WHY, can’t I think more like him?

I do try to take my husband’s lead and I remember that there is a flip side to every issue out there, good and bad. For instance, when I hear my friends worry about traits coming out of their children which are the same traits they themselves struggled with I am reminded that there are some real benefits to adoption. In this case, we can easily take our son at his face value and not read too much into his traits or mannerisms, or assume his path will follow similar steps of his ancestors. Since our knowledge of his ancestors is limited, it forces us to be present with our son and let him develop into the very unique person that he is without letting preconceived ideas of how he might turn out get in the way of his development.

I read about a fellow adoptive Mom once that shared how she responded to the inevitable question/statement that all adoptive Mom’s get sooner or later, “You mean you’re not my real Mom?” I loved her response to her child’s follow up statement, “I wish I came from your belly.” She said very firmly, “I don’t. I’m glad you didn’t come from my belly because if you did you wouldn’t be the same person that you are.” I think about this response and it gives me much peace of mind because it is so true. My little boy would not be the same person that he is if her were mine biologically. He wouldn’t have gorgeous brown eyes or golden brown hair and great olive skin and a sweet personality. He’d be someone else entirely which are not those things. He is such an awesome little boy and I love him so much that I couldn’t imagine him any other way – even if he isn’t my biological child.

My husband and I were talking to a waitress the other day in an airport who noticed we had a young toddler with us. We were making small talk when she mentioned to my husband and I that she was pregnant and due with a boy in just a few weeks. She mentioned that she was so tired, due to her pregnancy, and made a comment directed at me, “Well, you know how it is.” I didn’t reply to her comment but rather nodded politely as if I completely understood. Two years ago, before adopting our son, that small, innocent comment would have sent me reeling and I likely would have ended up in the fetal position on my bed crying my eyes out because no, I really don’t “know how that is” being deemed infertile after trying unsuccessfully for years to get pregnant. But miraculously the comment this time didn’t even phase me. In fact, I remember thinking at the time how much things have changed and how funny it is that that things aren’t always as they appear in life.

When I first brought our son home after adopting him from birth, I would tell everyone around me that he was adopted. It just seemed dishonest of me to let people assume incorrectly that the baby came from my genes after they had made a comment about him such as how cute he was. I was way too honest of a person to let the innocent comments like that pass. However, as time goes on I find myself letting more and more of those innocent comments go. It’s not that I’m trying to hide the fact that he is adopted or that I don’t think about their comments every time I hear them – because I do – believe me I do. It’s just easier now to nod my head and agree with people’s comments and leave it at that.

A couple years ago, I remembering hearing that adopting a child does not take away the pain of not being able to have your own biological child but it does however lessen the pain. I was very glad I heard that statement before adopting my son because I found it to be very true. Adoption does however allow you to be a parent anyway despite being infertile.

Since adopting my son, I have had tinges of pain brought on by innocent comments from people, however, I find these days that the pain passes much faster and doesn’t hurt as deeply. It only takes looking at my healthy, beautiful, adopted son to help put things in perspective.  Having a biological child is not everything, and I truly believe that raising an adopted child can be every bit as rewarding as raising your own biological child.

Looking at the woman in the airport made me wonder about her situation. I had no idea what kind of home life her unborn child was about to be born into. Possibly it was a good situation but I suspected it may not have been an ideal situation or she may not have been working an early shift as a waitress in a Texas airport at that stage in her pregnancy. Either way, it proves the point that you don’t always know how it is for another person. What appears one way on the outside is not always what you think it is.

I often get questions from people about our open adoption. Questions are usually those based on fear. For example: “Aren’t you afraid that the birthmother will want him back?”, “Aren’t you afraid that your son will be confused about who his ‘real’ mother is if spends time with his birthmother?”, and “Aren’t you afraid she will step in someday and try to parent him?” These questions come from various sources, even people who have adopted themselves but have not gone through an open adoption. I’m used to these sorts of questions and I understand people’s concerns as I too asked similar questions when my husband and I pursued our own adoption. However, having recently gone through an open adoption and being in regular contact with my son’s birthmother I can honestly say “No, I’m not afraid of any of those things.” Letting fear get in the way of things is not what a successful open adoption is all about.

Open adoption means opening up to the birth family in whatever way all involved feel comfortable. When I first heard about what an open adoption was about, I admit, I was terrified and did not want to open up my life to a stranger. Luckily my husband and I worked with an agency in our area who took the time to educate us on the benefits of an open adoption verses a closed adoption and in our training sessions with them we realized being open was a very good thing for everyone in the long run. By the time we were officially on the list to adopt a child our minds had transformed so much that both my husband and I commented that if we didn’t have a chance to be involved in some way with the birthparents then we weren’t sure we’d want to adopt that particular child.

Perhaps because I’ve been immersed in the adoption world for a fews years now I forget that not everyone knows what I do about adoption and questions that I get from other people still catch me off guard at times. Two months ago, a hairdresser who was cutting my 1 1/2 year old son’s hair found out he was adopted and asked me, “Why didn’t his birthparents love him?” This particular question was so astounding to me because it was clear how terribly misunderstood adoption is. Why didn’t they love him? Are you kidding me? His birthparents have nothing BUT love for him. Clearly this person just really didn’t get the sole essence of open adoption which is in a nutshell, immense love. I assure you, a birthmother that didn’t love her child would never in a million years go through the painful process of birthing her child; find suitable adoptive parents to raise her child; and then give her child to them – only to have her choice be misunderstood by society later on.

My son’s birthparents put faith in us to raise their child when we could not have a child of our own. They gave us the biggest gift anyone could ever give another person – a family. How could we as adoptive parents be fearful of the very people who gave us this gift and put such huge faith and trust in us? To deny them the simple pleasure of seeing how their child is doing over the years to me is clearly not an option.

In adoption the adoptive parents are often viewed as saviors. What many people don’t realize is the adoptive parents don’t view it that way at all. In fact, in my husband’s and my case we view the birthparents as being the saviors. If it weren’t for them I shudder to think about where I’d be right now. But I do like how our son’s birthmother put it in one of her emails to me: “We, all 4 of us, saved our son. And maybe our son is saving all of us in return. Maybe we are all saving each other.” So true. Our little boy has saved me. If I died tomorrow he would have saved me from the deepest, darkest despair. It’s amazing to think that one person, even a little baby, can make such as huge difference in this world simply by being. Perhaps that is the greatest lesson a birth of a child can teach us, that simply by “being” each and every one of us is making a difference in this world.

This past Saturday my husband and I spoke at an adoption informational meeting that is required for any person wanting to adopt from the agency we went through. I very much remember being at that same meeting myself 3 years ago and hearing other couples talk to us about their adoption experiences. How nice it is now to be on the other side of things.

Adoption is not an easy road for most people. It was helpful for me as we started our journey to hear other couples’ stories about their road to adoption. Even though the reality of adoption was hard to hear, it was nice to go into our adoption wait with eyes wide open. I hope our story that we shared on Saturday was helpful for the 16 people we talked to.

Our journey to becoming parents took us 4 years. We started off our journey getting pregnant in a short amount of time, only to end in an early miscarriage. What we thought was good news (the fact that we could get pregnant fairly easily) turned out to be the beginning of a very long road of frustration of failed attempts to have a family which included: post-pardom depression from a miscarriage; a couple years of disappointment as we tried and failed again and again to get/stay pregnant; 4 intensive months of failed fertility treatments; and finally taking the steps to get ourselves onto an adoption waiting list.

Once on a list for adoption our wait was 2 years. It was difficult to wait and not know when or if our wait would ever end. There were a handful of potential matches that came to us over those 2 years – one or two serious potentials and others that fell through the cracks. All of these possibilities required sole searching and brought up emotions in us that sometimes I didn’t know I was capable of feeling. (For instance sheer rage at one instance after hearing about a birthmom that was using illegal drugs in the hospital right before the delivery of her baby.) The longer the wait was the more we seriously began to consider living our lives child free.

In the end we did get our baby and now that the wait is over I can honestly say it was worth the wait. We have a precious child who I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. We appreciate every moment with him so much – more than we ever would if our road to parenthood had been easier. We’ve learned early on not to take our “gift” for granted.

My husband, Scott, summed it up best to the group on Saturday when he said, “Basically…it really, really sucked for a long time. Then it was great.”

Infertility: A misunderstood, devastating, heart-wrenching, seemingly never-ending, giant pothole in the road of life. When finally resolved (which someday it will be) you can look back at this time and see that it was indeed a blimp in your road of life. The pothole never goes away, however, you move farther from it and can move on in your life – however you’ve chosen to do so.

We are now in the midst of National Infertility Awareness Week, a week that the majority of the population doesn’t even know exists but for those like myself that suffer with infertility, it’s a week that is very much appreciated. Resolve.org, a major advocate of infertility awareness, has chosen a theme for this year’s National Infertility Awareness Week: “Don’t Ignore Infertility.” I personally think this theme is brilliant.

People do not realize how being infertile can have such a huge impact on a person or couple’s life(ves) and how the seriousness of infertility is often overlooked. Many aspects of a person life is affected by infertility. Friend and family relationships are often strained as a result of different viewpoints on infertility and there are misunderstandings on how impacting infertility can be on someone’s life. Many fertile people view infertility as no big deal (you can always adopt or do fertility treatments right?), when in actuality it is a huge deal and costly to adopt and not a sure thing; and fertility treatments may not be the right choice or an option for everyone not to mention the high price tag. People often don’t talk openly about infertility issues since it is somewhat of a private matter in people’s lives. This results in individuals suffering silently and insurance companies not viewing infertility coverages as valid medical issues.

We live in a very family-oriented society. If you don’t know what I mean, take a look around you. Everywhere you look people and companies support family and children. When someone is infertile and can’t have a family – or if someone chooses to not have a family – then they are left out of mainstream. They are in a minority group that most people don’t understand. Being infertile put me in that minority when I didn’t want to be there. Since I was not able to have a family on my own, my husband and I looked at all of our options: fertility treatments, adoption, surrogacy, and living child free. Living child free for me was a choice I did not like because I felt that I would be missing out on so much that life had to offer. In the end, my husband and I chose to pursue an adoption and we were lucky enough to be picked by birthparents to parent their child. Had I not been chosen to be the adoptive parent to my son, I might very likely be living child free today in a very family-oriented world.

I’m not saying that people couldn’t be happy childless. They can and they do. I’m just saying that being infertile when you want to have a family makes having infertility much more than just the medical issue of being “infertile.” It represents disappointment, lost dreams, ongoing pain, lost friendships, strained relationships, low self esteem, and unfairness that continues on and on and on and on – until somehow, over time, you come to a resolution. The best description I’ve ever heard about infertility is “living without” because you do go without many of the things that other people with children experience.

So in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week I am writing this blog in hopes to educate people a little bit about infertility and why it is something that should be taken seriously.