Feeling Empathy
Some parents feel that their issues of loss related to infertility help them empathize with their children's losses in adoption.
"I think that infertility can be a gift in some ways, because it creates an empathy between us and our adopted children. After all, we love them with everything we are, yet occasionally we still long for that birth child. Likewise, our kids may truly love us as their parents and still yearn for contact with their birthparents. I choose to look on my infertility as a gift of empathy toward my kids. It doesn't make it 'go away' but it does help." Trish M.
Adoption brings healing
For many people the joy of adoption also brings with it an unexpected healing. This may take time - even years. But while residual loss related to infertility issues may remain, most adoptive parents find that their children bring such blessings that they come to terms gladly with their situation. They grow through adoption themselves.
"Joy and relief .. is always worth emphasizing because it's so hard to believe from the other side of the motherhood divide... It's amazing how quickly the pain of infertility is healed. I had so many fears such as that I would not feel like a "real" mother (fears that friends and family sometimes seemed to encourage). Now these fears seem laughable."
It's the children who matter
"I hope you won't let anything make you sad about the way your children (or children-to-be) come into your heart and your home. The way doesn't matter. It's the children who matter. If you run into somebody in a store who doesn't understand that, feel sympathy for them; there are wonderful things they'll never know, and wonderful experiences they'll never have!" Jo M.
Copyright 1999 Allison Martin
| Table of Contents |
|---|
| 1. Choosing Adoption |
| 2. Connecting to adoption |
| 3. Adoption Fears |
| 4. Adoptive parents tell all |
| 5. Blessings of adoption |
| 6. The healing side |
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