Say What?!

It comes with the territory. You choose to adopt you open yourself up to a seemingly endless array of inane remarks. Jacek and I are no exception. Since we first announced our intention to adopt we’ve heard a great variety of negative comments, judgments and directives from friends and family. While we don’t believe any of them had bad intention, we present them in our “Say What?” series as an educational opportunity for those outside of the adoption community.

By far the number one crazy comment we’ve received has been “You’re adopting – now you’ll get pregnant for sure!” (Um, we don't want to get pregnant!) The person then goes on to tell us of a friend of a friend of a coworker who adopts and then magically conceives and births a biological child. If you said this to us, don't feel bad - almost everyone did. Other not-so-innocent related comments we’ve received include “Just have your own!”, “I think you should [have your own]”, and “I was really hoping you’d get pregnant and forget this whole adoption thing.”

Some emotions that ran through my head in particular when I heard the comments included amusement, anger, annoyance, disbelief and sadness that there are people who will be in our child’s life who might think that she is second best because she does not share our genetic material or that we "settled".

We don’t see having a biological child as preferential to adopting. In fact, quite the opposite is true for us. Completing our family through adoption is our first choice. We’re what some call “preferential adopters”. We chose to adopt because we want a child (or two) and honestly don’t see the point of giving birth when there are so many orphans in the world in need of homes. We are not attached to our DNA and I have no desire to experience pregnancy or childbirth. That’s right, none. Never have had the desire, never will.

For others in the adoption community who have struggled with infertility, I’m guessing that the emotions associated with "now you'll get pregant" and related comments sting extra hard.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Say What?! when we'll discuss comments based on misconceptions about adoption...