Why don't you just adopt?

I'll admit it.  I was one of those people.  I thought that if you couldn't get pregnant, you should just adopt.  If there's one thing I've learned loud and clear from this process, it's that you can't guess what your reactions will be at any particular stage of the game.

When someone says "you should just adopt," they are implying that you are not fit to procreate and you should just stop.  They are saying that adoption is some sort of consolation prize rather than the amazing thing it is on its own.  They are saying that because you badly want something that came so easily to them, you are somehow selfish.  Usually in life, we celebrate those that struggle to reach a milestone.  Why isn't the same true for starting a family?

When we started this process, my Type A self felt like we needed to prepare for all possible worst case scenarios.  That meant browsing the smorgasbord of reproductive options.  When I brought up the possibility of adoption, Mr. Right was not gung ho.  He wants to be sure we exhaust all possibilities for biological children and take some time before we decide to think about adoption.  I had a hard time understanding this at first, but now that we're looking our first medicated cycle in the eye, I get it. 

It's nice to think that having a baby is all about doing your part to make the world a better place, but it really isn't.  I mean, how well equipped are any of us to be able to form a small person into someone who can change the world?  When it comes down to it - procreating IS a little bit selfish.  Having children is about establishing your legacy... what you leave behind when you meet your maker so to speak.  It would be nice to say that our careers establish our legacy and having a family is just what we are all meant to do, but when you have a child, there is for real and for true a piece of you to stick around on earth for as long as it keeps spinning.  This is a basic psychological need and one that we are all entitled too.  To imply that it is the job of all infertile people to save the world's orphans is dumping a giant moral burden on the shoulders of grieving people.  People who have a right to grieve their loss of what they thought they would leave behind.  That's a burden to be shared with ALL people, regardless of the state of their reproductive organs.  Caring for our fellow humans, especially the littlest ones, is just human responsibility.  I don't believe it is God's wish for infertiles.  But no one would look at a pregnant woman and say "Why didn't you adopt?"

If the time comes when we decide to end our reproductive travels, we will take the time to mourn the loss of the family we thought we would have.  We will mourn the adorable little half Asian baby we have pictured in our minds.  Some day, we may decide that we want to adopt, but that will be a decision we come to apart from our infertility.  I think all families who choose to adopt feel a calling to do so.  They certainly don't feel like they are moving on to their consolation prize.