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My husband and I are considering adoption. We are choosing adoption instead of having a biological child. I am an adult adoptee myself. Both of us have always felt strongly about adoption and I have never felt the urge to carry a child biologically as a paramount part of becoming a mother.
As I mentioned, I am adoptee. I was adopted at birth, in a closed adoption. My parents adopted me as a last resort, however, after several failed IVF treatments. I was well loved, supported, and had a wonderful upbringing. However, my parents would've wanted to have a biological child if they could've, and only considered adoption when that wasn't possible.
I think that, for that reason, they won't understand why my husband and I would chose adoption as first choice, rather than adoption as a last resort choice. I have brought it up in passing, and I have gotten the sense that they would wonder why I wouldn't want to have "my own."
My husband's family doesn't have adopted members in it. My husband's sister has 3 biological children, and his brother is expecting his first biological child. I anticipate that they, too, will have questions and doubts about our decision.
How can we handle these conversations with our parents? How can we steer the conversations in a positive manner? We would like our families to be on board, without having to justify our decision in detail (after all, if we had made the decision to have a biological child, we wouldn't be questioned or have to justify it or tell them about every pros/cons debate). Any guidance, thoughts, or suggestions would be appreciated. I am open to hearing your experiences with similar situations.
Many thanks
Last update on October 27, 12:45 pm by amg1501.
What type of adoption are you considering? It makes a difference in ways you can go about explaining it.
For example we are doing Foster Care adoption.. (there is a lot fo adoption in both of our families) but two extra things play into our decision. 1. Health I have a genetic disease which I could pass to a biological child 2. Although I have always wanted to be a mom I don't love the baby stage. In fact I prefer kids over 3 so for us it made the most sense to do foster care adoption (also I have a sibling and he has 2 that were foster adopted)
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Amg1501
I completely understand how you feel. I was a nervous wreck about telling my parents. My husband and I are also choosing to start our family via adoption - we have been trying to conceive but haven't gone down the route of infertility testing, IVF, etc.
Unlike you however, no one in my family has any experience with adoption. And, we are adopting an older child from foster care so add about 100 extra questions right there. I finally one night just blurted it out while I was talking to my mom. And although she did have a lot of questions and did have reservations (mostly wanting to make sure we knew what we were getting ourselves into), she and my dad are thrilled! They are so excited to be first time grandparents and they have been so supportive through the ups and downs of the process.
One thing that really helped for me which may not be necessary for you given the history of adoption in your family was education. When my mom heard that I had spent a lot of time educating myself and could educate her, it calmed her fears that we might not know what we are getting into.
At this point in our journey we are getting ready to spread the word to extended family and friends who don't already know. Because there are a lot of people that are spread pretty far geographically, we have written a letter to send explaining the process, our reasoning, and to introduce our match (we are currently having visits).
I hope and pray that you encounter the kind of love and support we have received in our journey from your family. I hope this is at least a little helpful.
Best of luck ߘ