I was considered for adoption…

Therefore, I do not consider adoption. Adoption is not an option.

‘Have you ever thought of adoption?’

Your question is like a shotgun,

Suddenly pointed at my throat.

For weeks I’ve been trying to get the story of my experience with adoption down on paper, and even though it’s been over a year since it ended, it is still too heartbreaking to tell the story in its entirety.

This is an illustration of the picture of me and my husband that would be in “the book” that markets us to potential birth-mothers.

I just wanted a baby

No! I don’t want you to fix me

And I don’t need your sympathy

All I ask is that you listen to my story.

I was never the little girl who played Mommy with dolls and baked cookies in make-believe kitchens.

I sat at a table at Starbucks, listening incredulously as a Facebook friend, a woman I knew on the most superficial of levels, told me that she wanted to meet with me to connect about our infertility/adoption journeys,…

Have you considered adoption?

Yes. Have you? No? Of course, you didn’t need a ‘plan B’ for making a family.

“Have you considered adoption?” A loaded question which I have been asked hundreds of times in the past 9,5 years and one I have answered with just one simple answer; Yes, I have.

If I had a dollar for every time I was asked the question “Have you considered adoption?” after I turned 40, I’d probably living in a mansion with my husband and furbabies with a butler, yacht and our own private jet!

Every time I tell someone that I can’t have children because I’m infertile, it’s automatic. They ask me the killer question: Have you thought about adoption?

Talking about a difficult situation with someone can often result in the person you’re speaking to wanting to help to fix that difficult situation.

I was a mom, a damn good mom, but I can never go back to that life. It’s a distant memory now. Motherhood was full of heartache, loss and trauma; a life I can never go back to.

It comes up almost every time I discuss my infertility and subsequent childlessness with someone. Have you ever thought about adoption?

My dream of creating a family was marriage, then adopt at least one child and, maybe, birth one child. Life, however, had profoundly different plans. I divorced my first husband by age 22.

I originally wrote this blog earlier in the year but feel one part, one really important part, is totally relevant to comments that hurt and ‘that adoption question’.

I think the worst part about this question is that it symbolises that kids up for adoption are a 'consolation prize' or that adoption is like a supermarket where you nip in and pick out what you want.

Have you considered adoption? A question cast out like a net… like a trap… I have got tangled in it before. Just four simple words.

I’ve been asked this question by hairdressers, my boss, my sister, people I’ve encountered at a party – is it a simple “how are you?” or “how’s work”? Not exactly. The question is the very personal and loaded “why didn’t you adopt?”.

Working in retail / grocery you get questions about kids ( how old are they or how many do you have ?) I rarely ask first because then the tables turn and they ask you. As soon as I say I have infertility (premature ovarian syndrome) the first words back are well you can just adopt.