Hellobee

November is National Adoption Month. It has roots back to 1976 when people were celebrating their adoptions together, then grew into a week of building awareness for the groups that were participating. By 1990, the number of participating groups had grown and it had spread to a whole month. The first official Nation Adoption Day took place in 2000. The National Adoption Day Coalition worked with agencies and courts across the nation to finalize adoptions from the foster care system on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. In the past 12 years, more than 40,000 adoptions have been finalized on adoption day. In addition to celebrating those who have adopted through the foster care system ,many agencies will plan activities or conferences for all adoptive families.

In celebration of the month, all the adoptive Bee bloggers wanted to get together to share some of stories with you, and possibly raise awareness for people interested in adoptions. We all have had very different journeys, but we all have one thing in common. We have looked into the eyes of a child that did not come from our wombs and called them ours. We have sworn before a judge that we will treat them as if they were our own flesh and blood. Ask any of us and I am sure we would all tell you that adoption can be a bumpy road, that it was more stressful than we had ever anticipated, but that every tear and every worry was worth it when we welcomed our children into our homes and hearts.

We decided to do a series of posts sharing some of our journeys.  We started by asking each mom what lead you to consider adoption and How did you and your family make the decision to adopt?

Adoption has been part of our lives since my brothers were born and my parents adopted them. We didn’t know we would be dealing with infertility like we have, but still always knew we would adopt either way. Knowing where my brothers came from, and that there are other children out there who need parents to love them was enough for us. We knew from the beginning that we had it in our hearts to love a child we didn’t conceive.

We decided to adopt after we needed to take a break from TTC, and heard about a birth mom who was looking for a family to adopt the child she was pregnant with. We discussed it and agreed to tell her we were interested, but she made the decision to keep the baby. We were still trying to get over the sadness from that when Isaiah’s birth mom contacted us about adopting him. It was an easy decision for us. We knew immediately that we were going to do it.

I have always thought about the possibility of adoption for growing our family. I had it in my head that I might have a few biological children and then adopt later. I have several family members who have adopted, and I just always felt like it was something I could do. I never imagined that I would deal with infertility, but that was the road we were on in the beginning of our marriage.

As we journeyed through treatments and failed cycles, I always had adoption in the back of my mind. While my husband was looking for reproductive endocrinologists, I was looking up adoption agencies. I figured we might as well have all our bases covered. As we entered fertility treatments we always had the agreement that it was my body and I could pull the plug whenever it got to be too much.

After six cycles of medication, I was taken off everything to have an HSG. They found out that my fallopian tubes were just fine, but I knew my mental state was not. While I was off all the medications and hormone treatments I finally felt like myself again. I had been this cranky, super sensitive, uncomfortable mess for months and I couldn’t go back. The day after I got my test results I told my husband I couldn’t do it any more. We agreed to put all our attention into adoption.

Like others, our family was always interested in adoption. Both of our families have been touched by adoption– so it was never a great leap for us. Then, when I was pregnant with Little Jacks I learned that while I can get pregnant easily, that my body is a terrible baby house. I was sick, she was sick. It only got worse towards the end of pregnancy, culminating in bed rest, weekly ultrasounds and a small baby. We were very lucky that our baby was born healthy and developed normally. We were pretty sure that pregnancy wasn’t an option for our next baby and decided to explore adoption.

For so many reasons, it became apparent that we were making the right decision. It was going to be healthier for me and the baby, I was going to be able to continue working, not risk bed rest, and provide a loving environment for an at risk infant. We wanted to create an open adoption, so we hoped that we’d be adding value to a young woman as well as her infant. Another issue that was important to our family was that we wouldn’t be making as much of an impact on the environment, because we would be leaving a smaller footprint on the world by having only one biological child. We thought that for all these reasons, adoption was the absolute right choice for our family.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always wanted to adopt. Before my little sister was born when I was 6, I remember watching Sally Struthers on those “Save the Children” campaigns and asking my parents if we could adopt one of the children to be my sister or brother. Of course, I totally misunderstood the campaign, but the idea of bringing home a family member through adoption was something that always stuck with me.

When Mr. Cowboy and I decided to add children to our family, we tried to get pregnant. But after 2 years, lots of testing and some heartbreaking news that we could not have biological children, we grieved the loss of biological children and began researching adoption in earnest. Mr. Cowboy was always on board to adopt, too, so our adoption timeline simply moved up and we began our adoption journey.

Looking back, we know everything worked out just as it should because had we had biological children and began our adoption process later on, we wouldn’t have been matched with our Lil’ CB…and that’s a thought I can’t even imagine!

When I was in high school, and again in college, I got sick. Really, really sick. The illness I had affected many things including my endocrine system. The impact was pretty significant and during the first of my hospital stays, I realized that I was never going to mess with my hormones, my reproductive system, or anything else in my body if I could help it. The doctors were quick to point out that I would change my mind when it came time for family, pointing out that my reproductive system was fine. Well, the first hospital stay turned into four more and two major surgeries (and lots of sickness and recovery time) in two years. At that point, I didn’t care how healthy my reproductive system was… I knew I wasn’t going to ever want to BE pregnant. It was too risky and required too many maintenance meds and mandatory bed rest.

I grew up surrounded by adoption. Not necessarily in my own family… but several of my close friends growing up were adopted, as were several of my neighbors. In my mom’s “Mothers Group,” the adopted kids outnumbered the biological kids almost 2-1… so it seemed like a no-brainer for me. I’d just adopt when it was time to grow my family. I saw no need to put my body through any more difficulties. At the time, I was 19, a college sophomore and family was a loooong way down my road. I didn’t really give it much thought. And at the same time, I made a life-altering decision. Funny how that works.

When I met Mr. Paintbrush (well after college), he casually mentioned that he would like to adopt a child one day. I, just as casually, mentioned that I only plan to adopt children. He didn’t blink an eye and just said, “That’s cool too.” So the decision was made over sushi one night in my Boston walk-up apartment. (With my roommate making dinner at the stove, mouthing, “He’s a keeper!”)

I know this might seem like we didn’t give this decision enough gravitas. But for us, I don’t think it was ever a decision we had control over. It took years for me to heal and get back to a semblance of “normal health” after my illnesses. What may have been a defensive and flippant decision in the hospital at 17, became a heartfelt decision at 26… and a clear preference at 33 when we started the process.

When Mr. Piñata and I were dating and in the early years of our marriage, we talked a lot about our future family. We knew we wanted to have kids before too long and always talked about having two biological kids and then adopt two more later on. However, when we were diagnosed with infertility, we started to think we might want to adopt sooner than we had originally “planned.”

As our natural and fertility (just 1 IUI) treatments failed, we seriously researched different types of adoption and decided to pursue domestic infant adoption with our local Catholic Charities office. We decided to pursue adoption first and then return to fertility treatment in the future, but now that Little Piñata is almost 18 months old and things are not going well in the TTC department, we are strongly considering renewing our home study to adopt again! No matter what happens we are confident we want to adopt at least once more, but are open to more than that if and/or when God leads.