Most people who I work with, or who call to inquire about adoption, have either struggled with infertility in the past or are currently in the throws of infertility treatments. And from time to time, I get asked the question about going down both paths at one time. My answer usually starts something like this…”It’s complicated, but doable.”
Personally, I get conflicted. Because if I was in your shoes (and I once was), not yet having put my infertility behind me, I might consider the same thing. But it IS complicated. Emotionally for sure and also logistically, for lack of a better term. Let’s think about a very simple scenario. If you are in the middle of an IVF cycle and you get a call saying you’ve been matched with an expectant mother who is giving birth in a month, what are you going to do? Where does your heart TRULY lie? If you are still holding out hope to get pregnant, perhaps emotionally you might not be ready to go down both paths at once. Giving yourself a minute (or months in some cases) to grieve and put one path behind you may be something you need to go through so that you can truly give your full heart to however you become a parent.
This is only one scenario. There are so many others…perhaps you get pregnant AFTER you’ve been matched. Do you pull out of the adoption match at that point, then putting a lot of other people in a tailspin? You get my drift. It’s just not a simple yes or no question. You really have to evaluate your feelings and consider various scenarios before making the decision of choosing one path over another or trying both at once.
Dawn Davenport covers this topic well on her website, Creating A Family…
By Dawn Davenport
Sitting as I do with one foot in the infertility world and one foot in the adoption world, a question I hear a lot from people is whether they have to stop infertility treatment before they can apply to adopt. I suspect adoption agencies and social workers don’t hear this question as much since most people aren’t comfortable asking them this question. Quite frankly, it is a bit of a sensitive hot topic in adoption circles….Read More.