Review of "Surviving the Holidays Without a Child - a multimedia guide for those trying to conceive or adopt"

When we began our adoption journey in 2009, I discovered a amazing resource, the Creating a Family website: https://creatingafamily.org, that I still use two years after finalization of our son's adotion. This holiday season, they have created a survival guide for those who are among the childless, but are trying to create their family either through conception or adoption. Surviving the Holidays Without a Child - a multimedia guide for those trying to conceive or adopt addresses many aspects of how the annual holiday season adds stress to the stressful situations of infertility treatments and the adoption process. Input for survival strategies came from studies, experts, and people "in the trenches" - women and men struggling with infertility, going through treatments, and wading through the adoption process. Holiday stress is not limited to Thanksgiving and Christmas. When you want a child, but achieving that goal is elusive, Mother's Day, Halloween, and Easter can be stressful as they are child-centered holidays. Yes, Easter has become a child-centered holiday with cute outfits, photos with the Easter Bunny, and Easter egg hunts. The Survival Guide provides strategies for creating allies, dealing with emotions, limiting physical stress, and minimizing financial stress. 

Page 9 of the Guide is the section about Let Your Family Know. Even if you view your infertility as a very private subject to not be broadcasted, the Guide recommends telling select family members who can become your allies during family gatherings. These allies will know not to ask the dreaded question, "So, when are you having children?" They can also change the subject when the conversation becomes too child-centric or make sure you get to hold the newest baby in the family, if that is what you desire.

The Survival Guide is easy to use for any family gathering such as family reunions, not just the holidays, Each section has links to blogs, videos, audio files, factsheets, all resources from the Creating a Family website. I did find that clicking on the links did not open a new window, but took my currently open tab to that link. When I clicked the back button on my browser, I was taken back to the beginning of the Survival Guide. It is a easily loadable PDF so scrolling through the 27 pages was not too difficult to get back to where I left off reading. I recommend reading through the entire guide then browsing the links afterwards. The Guide and the links are a very handy tool during the adoption process or the infertility conception/treatment process. You might consider having family members read Surviving the Holidays Without a Child so they better understand why the holidays are difficult for you.

Creating a Family is the national adoption & infertility education organization. Their mission is to provide support and unbiased information before, during and after adoption or fertility treatment to help create strong families. Check out their Five Core Values that they use to guide every decision.   They are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and you can check out their financials and IRS Form 990 at GuideStar. Executive Director is Dawn Davenport, author of  The Complete Book of International Adoption (Random House) plus many articles about infertility and adoption. The survival guide was developed with the help of several sponsors: Children's Connection Inc.; Jennifer Fairfax of Family Formation Law Offices; Walling Berg & Debele, PA; Advance Fertility Center of Chicago; Bierly & Rabuck; New Beginnings International Children's and Family Services; and Beacon House Adoption Services, Inc.

Infertility and Choices

I recently met with my best friend whom I have not seen in nearly a year. Between our adoption paperwork last year and her and her husband's infertility testings last year, we both were dealing with a lot. When Mike and I were blessed with Junior later in the year, they backed off even from phone calls as it was difficult to for them to be happy for us while they continued to struggle with their empty arms. We knew this would happen as we had discussed this scenario before we were matched with Junior. Roles would have been reversed had she given birth before we received an adoptive placement. I am still infertile, but we now have a child in our family; adoption does not negate my infertility, it is an alternative for growing our family. They are still infertile and are pursuing IVF in hopes of a child. After spending several hours catching up with my best friend, one thing she said stuck with me, she said that while they have been trying fertility treatments for two years, she and her husband have been trying to conceive for four years and it has taken its emotional toll. This statement got me thinking about her journey and about my journey.

Mike and I have had years, almost decades, of emotions regarding my fertility and other health issues. I actually found out at age 15 (20 years ago), a year before meeting Mike, that I would not be birthing children. At the time, I readily accepted adoption as my only path to motherhood. I was okay with this decision for years. After we were married for 10 years and were looking at adoption options, I also explored surrogacy, but realized we would have to go through adoption even in this case since we would be using a surrogate with at least donated egg, possibly donated embryo. Regardless of our path to parenthood, our choices were: adoption or childlessness. That does not really seem like options, but thinking more about it, I realize most people do not even think about how they are going to form their family. They have sex, the woman gets pregnant, carries a health baby to term and they raise the child. That is supposed to be the standard, no-thought process. We actually had to think about how we wanted to become parents, so did my best friend and her husband. They discussed fertility treatments and adoption. They already tried IUI and are moving on to IVF. Even with IVF there are a variety of choices which the non-infertile person is not aware even exist. With adoption we have choices of: foster-adopt, domestic infant or international. We started an international adoption process but moved to foster-adopt. Even with foster-adopt, we had to choose a private agency (see A Side Step in Our Journey for previous blog post), but our choices were limited due to our location and desired age of child.

Now there are some choices we did not get to make about our child - name, age and past experiences. For many parents, picking a name for their child before birth is a wonderful thing. Since we were adopting an older child, we knew our child would come with a name; we would work with our child should he/she desires to change his/her name at the time of adoption, but the child would already be named upon arrival. As for age, we only knew our child would be over age 5, then age 8, then we moved it to age 10 and older. And past experiences, we would have no idea until we were matched.

In ways infertile couples have more choices for family planning than fertile couples, but these choices are thrust upon us because we cannot achieve parenthood in the traditional way. Since we are forced to make various choices on our path to parenthood, it elicits a variety of emotions along the way. A common emotion during these choices is anger - anger due to frustration from having to make the choices, anger at our failed bodies, anger at having to expose our lives including finances to adoption workers or infertility clinic employees, anger due to exhaustion of going through the process(es) we chose, anger at other people's ability to get pregnant or adopt quicker. So often we feel alone when we need the greatest support, we feel we are either forgotten or misunderstood by our loved ones. Our fertile family and friends may not understand our decisions or about infertility so they may avoid us or say very crass things including identifying the cause (blame) of our infertility (see Creating A Family Blog: Playing Blame Game Infertility) which only causes us more pain and anger. My best friend and I are open about our infertility and our choices with others - her fertility treatments and me adoption - so we can let other infertile couples know they are not alone; we are not alone. When we started our adoption journey, I did not expect to become so knowledgeable about the various ways to adopt, fertility treatment, surrogacy and everything else related to infertility. I am in no way an expert, but I know way more than I knew existed before we started this journey. With my friend going through IVF I am learning more about the choices she faces. Maybe, some day, by talking openly about our struggles and choices, when the next generation faces infertility, it will not be the shameful, lonely, anger-filled dark place it still remains for many of us. Hopefully each of us dealing with infertility, couples and individuals, can find peace with the decisions we have made along the way.

Christmas and Childlessness

We have entered the Advent season, preparing for the celebration of Christ's birth. As this is a time of joy and celebration for most, I am struggling again with social gatherings this Christmas season. Last year I was so filled with joy as we were beginning the adoption process. We were talking to lawyers and filling out paperwork. This year we are in the middle of the process with no deadlines and many unknowns plus my arms are still empty. This year is a mixed blessing. It is the first Christmas I will spend with my niece who is 18 months old, but I know my heart will ache watching her open presents and interact with her parents. Yesterday I bought Christmas gifts for my nephew who is also 18 months old.

Christmas and Mother's Day are the two holidays I really struggle with infertility. While the Virgin Mary had to deal with an unplanned pregnancy, I have to find my niche as a woman longing for a child while we celebrate the immaculate conception. The bible is full of stories of God blessing infertile women with pregnancy; it is hard to accept, at times, that my choices are adoption or being childless. I believe my husband and I have been called to adopt and pray the Lord will continue to bless us with family.

This Christmas may just take a bit more steel in my veins than past holidays. I find comfort watching family holiday shows such as "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas". The difficulty is in public gatherings that include Children - parades, church programs, family gatherings. At times solitary confinement is desirable, but not practicable.

This Christmas I pray for peace in my heart as I wait for our family blessing. May you find peace if you are dealing with infertility or loss of a loved one this holiday season. May joy fill your soul if you are blessed to spend time with family.