Our Little Journey

I've been thinking a lot about how the three of us got to be a family and wanted to record a little bit of our experience.

Shawn and I have been married for almost five years now, and have been trying to conceive a child for about three and a half of those years. I know in the infertility world, three or four years is nothing. Some people wait five, ten, fifteen years or more to add to their family, so relatively speaking, we're not doing too horribly.

About a year into the “trying” stage, we found out it would be difficult for us to conceive. So, we had some options in front of us. Shawn could try a surgery which had a somewhat good chance of improving things, or we could opt to start infertility treatments. First, we tried the operation which didn't really change or improve anything. Next, we considered attempting a few rounds of IUI, though my doctor kindly informed me that the chance of that working was somewhere in the "miracle range." She recommended IVF, which we decided not to pursue for several reasons. First, being Catholic, it is against our religious beliefs (though there are ways to go about the procedure which might make it morally "okay" from our viewpoint). Also, the process is expensive and physically taxing and might not end in a pregnancy. So we decided to rule that one out.

We had two final options: we could leave everything up to Lady Luck and hope to magically conceive a child one day, or we could start the process of adoption. We had always considered adoption in the back of our minds, but talking to some people we know who had adopted helped us to make the decision. About a year ago, in April of 2007, we selected an agency and filled out the initial application to adopt within the state of Ohio.

Once we decided to adopt, we were extremely excited. It finally felt like we were moving forward and not wallowing in our tragic infertility anymore. Shawn and I both hate "looking back" and were glad bring a close to the monthly disappointment that had made up that chapter of our lives. As we shared our news with family and friends, we got mixed reactions. Some people seemed to pity us because adopting meant we would never be able to have children of "our own." Or some people made adoption seem like a second rate choice or a fall-back-plan. Yes, our first attempts at forming a family involved trying this the old-fashioned way, as 99% of people do, but when this failed we didn't want to keep clinging to the biological child who might never be. I don't mean to say people who hold to the hope of conceiving a biological child are somehow wrong, but this wasn't the path we decided to take. We didn't care how a child came to our family anymore; we were just ready to start our family. And we were happy damnit!

We got a lot of questions about the adoption, but I was surprised to find the thing people were most curious about is what race of child we would be adopting. I don't know why I was kind of offended by this. Maybe it was the intolerant undertone of the "you're adopting a white baby, right?" question that annoyed me. In any case, it was odd to me that everyone seemed to be so uniformly interested in this point.

As with every couple who has ever considered adoption, we had a lot of decisions to make about how we wanted to proceed with the adoption. The biggest question we had to answer was whether or not we wanted to opt for an open adoption. Our agency encourages open adoptions, but we were initially leery. As our helpful friends and relatives told us, "if the birthmom knows who you are, won't she come and try to steal the child back?" This seemed a little over the top for us, but still, we had some fears and concerns. Open adoption is relatively new and we weren't sure if we would be able to emotionally "share" our child with his or her birthfamily. However, we committed to learning and reading more about open adoption. We talked to a friend whose has a son through open adoption and read a lot of adoption stories, blogs, and forums to gain insight and calms our worries.

In the end, we set our sights on an open relationship. The rest of the story is on this blog, but you know how it goes: we had our home study, got approved, waited, were selected, met the expectant mom, were present at the birth, and our daughter was eventually placed with us. Now, we cannot imagine going about the adoption in any other way. We were both glad we got to know Elizabeth's birthmom, Jessica, and her family throughout the process and are happy that Elizabeth can continue to have a relationship with them. Right now, she is too little to understand what's going on, but in the future we hope:

* She will know that she is loved by her birthfamily.
* She will have access to all her important medical information.
* She will have pictures and information about many of her relatives and family members.
* She will be able to call or talk to Jessica at any time she wants to.
* She will know why Jessica chose to place her with us.
* She will be able to have a relationship with Jessica now and not wait until she is older.

In the end, choosing an open adoption was about doing what was best for our daughter. She has a right to information about herself and has a right to know about her adoption. We could have decided do the old "let her decide when she's older," but we figured we'd make the choice for her now and let her decide where she wants to take the relationship once she gets older. All the pieces will be there for her and she can take over when she is mature enough to do so.

Of course, an open relationship often helps to bring healing and reassurance to the birthfamily, and we hope this is true in our case too. But, our number one priority will always be doing what is best for Elizabeth and continuing on with an open adoption is what we believe will be best for her.

Shawn and I hope to adopt again in the future. Of course, we are also getting the "you'll probably get pregnant now" comments all over the place, so there's that chance also. However our family happens is fine with us.

-- Lisa