"The Adjustable Heart"

I wanted to make sure I posted about ADOPTION one more time before the month is over. I have been trying to write this post for awhile, but it always seems to take me forever to translate my thoughts and feeling into words that others will understand.

This picture is one of our engagement pictures taken just three months before we were married. It is really hard to look at us then and think that we had no idea of the hard roads we would travel as eternal companions. One of those rough, and very long roads is our struggle with infertility.

This road started only about 6 months after we were married, and even then we didn't know it was to leave a very permanent mark on our lives. We had to experience a lot through this trial to come to the decision to choose adoption as our path to parenthood. That is right, we CHOSE adoption, it was NOT a last resort. And it should never be considered that. It is a very sacred, endearing, and perfect way to become parents.

Every couple that may find themselves in the fire of infertility will have to make changes in themselves before the choice to adopt is right for them and their family. Adoption does not solve or cure infertility or the baggage that it brings with it.

The choice to adopt comes after, much heartache, much learning, much patience, much praying, much understanding, and much change.

~~~

The Adjustable Heart:
Approaching the Decision to Adopt After Infertility
By John K. Kurkjian, Psy.D., Adoptive Families May/June 1998

John is a clinical psychologist in group practice with CPG Behavior Health Resources in West Hartford, CT and adoptive dad of two.

Infertility is a grueling experience, one that represents such an insult to one's senses of self, and of the "life plan," that couples find themeselves drawn into a grim battle to undo its trauma. Along the way, they often lose track of the original goal, which was to expand their family. Instead they often descend into a contorted version of their original quest, the war to "achiece a pregnancy."

As couples proceed through treatment, and as their likelihood of having a biological child dwindles, they must engage in another difficult process of grieving the child that will never be and beginning to consider whether or not they could possibly see themselves as adoptive parents.

Biological parenting often occurs with much less anguish, much less thought and preparation. It seems as if, at a certain point, children of biological parents are automatically "installed." For perspective adoptive parents, the process to expand the family is much more complicated. While they have many painful, negative aspects, it also represents an opportunity for these couples to "make virtue of necessity," by entering the role of parenting far more mindful of the choices they are making and far more prepared to accept the responsibilities ahead.

I believe that there are three stages couples with infertility pass through in moving toward decisions about adoption.
1. MOVING TOWARD GOOD-BYE": Letting Go of One's Biological Child
Prospective adoptive parents often hear the stern, grim dictate to "resolve the loss of the biological child" before seriously considering (or being considered for) the adoption process. It almost sounds as if the resolution is a "product," with a certain date of attainment, like finishing college, or, come to think of it, delivering a baby. As one who has dealt with infertility and gone on to become an adoptive parent, resolution seems to be less of a product and more of a process, something that is worked with over time, and never 100 perfectly accomplished. If you had a baby that died, would you be expected never to miss that child before thinking of expanding your family? For couples who have coped with infertility, death is the closest thing they can equate with their loss.

Still, there is the need to have turned the corner in the grieving process, to have moved to the point where the child adopted will be loved for herself, not as a "stand in" for the lost biological child. Couples moving closer to this goal often have a clearer distinction between these two children. For instance, they may have picked out certain names for their biological child. As they consider a child to adopt they often begin to generate new names. They may begin to picture a child who looks different from themselves and from the baby they did not have biologically. There is also the beginning of a "parting company" with the biological child, a somehow more tangible sense of saying "good-bye."

To help myself with this part of the process, I wrote a song, the final verse of which goes like this:

• As important as it has been to conceive a child, it has somehow become even more important to parent one.
• As important as it has been to carry a baby to term, it has somehow become even more important to rock one to sleep.
• And maybe most of all, as important as it has been to pass on your genes, it has somehow become even more important to pass on your love.

So good-bye Greg--or was it Dorothy?
Good-bye to who you were to be
For all of life tou will not see, I;m sorry
Through never here, now in my past
Like a flame never burned,
Still a shadow cast
Now I lay you down at last, Good-bye.

2. CONSIDERING A NEW CHILD: Accepting the Differences Between Adoptive and Biological Parenting
On a day-to-day level, the similarities between raising a child who is adopted and a child who is born to you are overwhelming, and it is very easy to forget the differences. After all, their cries are identically shrill; their smiles are equally luminous. You dress a baby who is adopted exactly as you would a baby who came to you biologically. A number of years ago, my son's pediatrician noted some similarity between Jay and me, and I had to remind both her and myself that he was adopted!

With parenting, there is such a complete sense of immersion that it is easy to forget about adoption and adoption issues. But aside from this familiarity, there can also be a hidden wish to deny the difference between biological and adoptive parenting, perhaps as a way to keep the trauma of infertility behind.

The denial can be costly, because there are many important differences that will be experienced both by us and our children over the entire life of the family. Among them are our children's different genetic and historical heritages, and their special issues of loss and identity. To deny our own losses, and issues, might send a message to our children that these differences are too painful to tolerate and come to terms with.

3. MOVING TOWARD HELLO: Assuming the Role of Adoptive Parents
As we begin to recognize the differences between biological and adoptive parenting, we are in a better position to decide whether or not we can assume the role of adoptive parents. Are we ready to accept the scrutiny of a home study? Can we see the process as preparation for parenthood, rather than as an inquisition? Are we able to look at the process as an "adoptive pregnancy," comparable to a biological one?

Where there are vast differences, there are also some surprising similarities. One can see "trimesters" in 1) the application process, 2) the home study process, and 3) the wait for arrival. There are moments of great excitement and anticipation, as well as moments of terror, not only of the adoption not coming to fruition, but of what life will be like when it does. Prospective parents often sense an exhilarating shift in mind-set--for the first time in years they again come to believe that they are going to be parents. Then, there is the overwhelmingly poignant experience of the homecoming--the joyful celebration with family and friends who have been pulling for you along the way. When Emily Sung, our Korean-born daughter arrived, our friends held a welcoming party, complete with a banner that proclaimed: "You're Come a Long Way, Baby!"