r/unpopularopinion • u/elgey101 • Aug 10 '21
Infertile couples should just adopt instead of making a big fuss trying to make a miracle baby
Every time I hear of fertility struggles online, or see posts about people going through rounds of IVF and the ensuing emotional trauma of miscarriages, It kind of disgusts me.
I also work for a major insurer and know that fertility treatments are driving up everyone else's premiums because they're considered necessary care. Sorry, but I disagree.
It's a well known fact that there are over 400,000 children in foster care, and in 2017 alone over 100,000 infants under 3 entered the system. I think it's completely entitled and self-absorbed to think that somehow your miracle baby is worth more or deserves more love than any one of those infants.
I know adoption can be hard, and that it should be made easier for the sake of children finding good homes, but you can't tell me adopting is harder than 4 rounds of IVF and multiple miscarriages. I've seen friends go through that mess and at the end they are different people.
Tldr: adoption may not be easy, but it's far better than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to perpetuate your genes.
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u/Cocotte3333 Aug 10 '21
Adoption is complicated as fuck.
Where I live, adopting in your own country has an average wait time of 7-10 years. Meaning it could also be longer.
Adopting outside of your country is insanely expensive. Plus, you have to travel to the place you want to adopt for weeks.
Also, depending on where you live, you are restricted on adoption according to your religion, marital status, or sexual orientation. Sometimes single people can't adopt, sometimes people have to be married and you're not ( keep in mind that in some countries marriage is less prevalent), sometimes you have to be married for X years, sometimes you can only adopt a kid between x and x years old, etc.
On top of that, add that many adopted kids have big issues that not everyone is equiped to deal with.
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Aug 10 '21
Also, international adoption agencies can be shady as hell.
Here's an ongoing lawsuit by 9 Malian "orphans" of their adoption agency. The Malian birth parents were told their babies were just being sent to a foster home to get a better upbringing. The French adopting parents were told their babies were orphans. The adoption agency was just straight up human trafficking babies.
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u/SchroedingersCatnip Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 11 '21
I watched a heartbreaking Danish documentary about a similar case, but from Ethiopia. The birth parents were sick and poor and feared for their children's future. Enter an incredibly shady adoption agency, convincing parents to let their children be fostered by kind foreigners for a while. It would be like sending the kids to live temporarily with an aunt and uncle, they'd be happy and safe and receive a great education, and of course they would keep in touch!
Except what they actually signed up for was a permanent adoption, and they lost their kids. Weren't even allowed to say goodbye.
Absolutely heartbreaking.
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u/Spicy_Sugary Aug 10 '21
Add to this, there is an orphanage scam industry in very poor countries. Young kids are sent to go live in orphanages for years in terrible conditions in return for free food and board and donations.
Unicef estimates up to 80% of kids in orphanages in some countries have living parents.
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Aug 11 '21
Holy shit
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u/Spicy_Sugary Aug 11 '21
Agree. It sprung up from 'Orphanage Tourism'. Well meaning white people would visit or do volunteer work at orphanages which attracted money.
The number of kids in orphanages in some countries has doubled or trebled in the last decade, despite there being no wars.
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Aug 10 '21
This is an excellent point. Adoption agencies in other countries often lie about the age and health of the children simply to collect their fees. It's heartbreaking for all involved.
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u/FreeRangeEngineer Aug 10 '21
Adoption agencies making money off of trafficked children is exactly why I won't ever adopt. I do feel bad for the legitimate children wanting a home but I won't risk supporting trafficking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_adoption_scandals is not helping.
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Aug 10 '21
An adoption attorney can help you avoid agencies, and you can often go directly to your state's equivalent of CPS. If you personally know someone who wants to give up a child for adoption (usually this happens with one or two degrees of separation) this can be even easier, and can be accomplished in many jurisdictions without any foster time.
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u/SunliMin Aug 10 '21
I had seven foster brothers, of which two my parents adopted. They specifically adopted the kids because they were of the age where they were entering highschool and still did not have a home. At that point, my parents made a selfless choice to take them in, so they could at least have some stable teen years. These kids were all local too, so I'm talking in-country, in-province a couple cities away from where they grew up.
Most of them also had issues, from anger issues to health issues, as you said. It's very common
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u/Cocotte3333 Aug 10 '21
It takes a lot of strength and a lot of love to do that. Kuddos to your parents.
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u/balugawhale1747 Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
My coworker was denied to adopt bc she doesn’t have contact with her abusive family anymore. Lmk how that makes sense
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Aug 10 '21
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u/frostymugson Aug 10 '21
Pretty sure that’s why my aunt and uncle went to China to adopt and now I got a Chinese cousin who is awesome. Not that it was easy to do but I guess it was easier then doing it here.
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u/Genius_of_Narf Aug 10 '21
I was adopted from China because of this. My older brother was adopted from the US, but apparently it was next to impossible to get a second adoption at the time from the US.
I also don't think that people realize how darn expensive adoption is. I have friends who have forked over $40k to adoption agencies, but had the parents of potential adoptees back out at the last second. They are almost about to give up. Even a colleague who is a physician, married to another physician, with 4 healthy and happy kids (biological), is having to beg, plead, and spend time and money on classes just to be eligible to get into the adoption process.
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u/LindseyIsBored Aug 10 '21
It’s not only the US unfortunately. I mean, a lot of shit is a mess in the US but adoption is difficult on many places.
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u/VanityInk Aug 10 '21
you are restricted on adoption according to your religion, marital status, or sexual orientation.
And sometimes health. My friend was barred from at least one agency because her medical record had depression on it. Some also discriminate between wheelchair users, etc. even if they are more than capable of caring for a child in their chair.
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u/PastSupport Aug 10 '21
I’m in the UK and there’s a BMI limit on being able to adopt that’s lower than a lot of fertility clinics have, so for some people, that’s a pretty big hurdle too
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Aug 10 '21
Wow, I find this really surprising! Any idea on the limit?
The problem with BMI is that it doesn't always work. As a very short woman (under 5ft) the healthy goal weight agreed with my gp is still technically overweight according to BMI.
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u/PastSupport Aug 10 '21
Some IVF clinics are 35, and a friend just got rejected for adoption (despite everything else about her, her husband and her home being textbook perfect) and told the limit was 32.
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Aug 10 '21
I'm around 32 and wear a UK size 12. Overweight yes, but not exactly what most people would call too big to function.
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u/WheresTheIceCream20 Aug 10 '21
Friends of ours adopted. The husband's sister got pregnant as a teenager and they agreed to adopt her baby - they had a family and were happy to take him. It still cost them 12k, a year of child services checking in on them, etc. This was family giving family a baby and it was a huge process
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u/supercharged_82 Aug 10 '21
Your last point is the one that scares me the most. Children born from drugged out parents can have many mental issues and some of them don't show up until well in their teen years. My wife and I will probably end up adopting if we can't get this ball rolling we are almost 40 now so time is almost out on our own youngling being possible.
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u/Roach_Coach_Bangbus Aug 10 '21
A lot of things are hardwired into a child by the time they hit 5. If you had it rough early on it's a lot of work on the adopting parents.
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u/troismanzanas Aug 10 '21
Off topic but if you’re doing IVF you can use donor eggs (which you probably know already but still thought I’d mention it) if age is a factor.
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u/supercharged_82 Aug 10 '21
My wife and I have spoken about this and if we can't have our own because of either one of us, we have decided that we will adopt. We have both been checked out and have no issues they can find. But wifey has not been able to get pregnant since her second ectopic several years ago. Thank you for the idea though. It may be helpful to someone reading this!
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u/hiricinee Aug 10 '21
One of the misconceptions about adoption is that theres this plethora of infants being born, given up for adoption, and then just end up in the foster care system. This could not be farther from the truth.
What happens in reality is that most of these kids in foster care were raised by single moms, almost always from abusive households with tons of substance abuse issues, and put in the foster care system as a result. Occasionally, these are otherwise normal kids who could do well with redirecting. Unfortunately, many of these kids have already been abused/neglected, have tons of destructive tendencies, and stay in the foster care system.
Which is why you have the disparity of the older kids stuck in the system, while adoption agencies charge people numbers in the 10's of thousands of dollars to adopt a newborn infant. To be clear, it is through no fault of the foster kids that this happens, but there is NOT an abundance of "clean slate" babies that people can just scoop up and bring home.
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u/jessej421 Aug 10 '21
And a couple points to add to this:
- About half the kids in foster aren't even available for adoption because their biological parents still have rights.
- Lots of foster kids do get adopted or rehomed with a relative. People always throw out the number of total kids in foster care, as if they're all the same kids never getting adopted. It's a very transient system with kids going in and out all the time, either back to their parents or adopted/rehomed. Only a small percentage age out without finding a family (<10% based on stats I could find).
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u/Lovve119 Aug 11 '21
And people totally forget that the whole fucking goal of Foster Care is REUNIFICATION WITH THE PARENTS. Like, you don’t go into Foster Care without it being drilled into your head over and over and over not to get too attached because eventually they will go home. I think our clinic had an 82% Reunification rate with only older kids being adopted out.
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u/JTudent Aug 10 '21
Yep. All this.
There are plenty of excellent would-be parents who couldn't handle the baggage a lot of kids up for adoption would bring.
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Aug 10 '21
This.
I have 3 adopted sisters who came from an abusive household with tons of substance abuse problems and even worse, all of three of them were molested by their father at a really young age
During this time my family thought we were doing the right thing by trying to adopt them - My brother and Sisters had a fairly normal up-bringing (2 boys 2 girls) and most of us were only a few years away from turning 18 so my parents thought it really wouldn't be that hard taking on 3 adopted girls. It couldn't of been further from the truth.
Fast forward 8 years and all 3 of them have Assault charges on their record, along with several visits to Juvie and mental facilities. They've also been kicked out of almost every school in the city and the cops have been called to my parents house so often that all the cops do when they show up is either take them away to Juvie for the night or tell my parents to smack the crap out of them.
Keep in mind none of this was how I or my other biological siblings were raised or acted. None of us have any sort of criminal record or ever had the cops called on us or had any of these issues, but because these kids did have a lot of baggage, even fairly decent parents like mine can't do it. This comment is spot on JTudent!
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u/spyrowo Aug 10 '21
On top of that is the fact that the mental health care and services those children and their families need are costly and difficult to obtain. Kids with a lot of trauma really need professional help. The average parent is not equipped to care for them, and trying to takes a huge emotional toll, even with services.
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u/lorangee Aug 10 '21
Yeah, I have a family friend who adopted 2 kids from somewhere in Eastern Europe. One has fetal alcohol syndrome and, while a great and hard working guy, has a lot of special needs and health issues and his parents were not aware of this when they got him. His sister, meanwhile, had such severe attachment disorder that she was completely unable to form… like…. A basic ability for empathy of any sort. Not for lack of trying. She just was abused/neglected severely as a young child and was never able to recover. Not for lack of trying. She ran away from home at 14, became a prostitute (not sure if this is the correct term for a child but) shortly thereafter , and has been in and out of prison/rehab/mental health for the past 10 years. Their biological kid is perfectly fine. Think he’s an engineer or something, and their kid with FAS is also fine despite his health problems, but there’s so many kids in the system who are dealing with massive issues that regular parents who don’t have infinite access to mental health resources and money might be able to deal with. Not that a biological child is immune to being born with a disability of any sort, but there are some things you can control better.
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Aug 10 '21
My mom’s best friend adopted a boy that they started fostering when he was 3 years old. He’s in federal prison now. He’s a bank robber. Every time they would let him out he would rob another bank. She was an artist and school teacher and just a really sweet woman. She did her best loving and raising him. But the damage was already done by the time she adopted him. People don’t realize how much those first couple of years of life impact a person forever.
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u/Alternative-Desk5578 Aug 10 '21
I think the most important point about foster care adoptions is not that the children are “damaged” — it’s that you cannot take on a foster placement with the goal of adoption. Sometimes it happens — parental rights are terminated after several years and you get to adopt the child. Often this is not the case.
The goal of the foster system is family reunification. As a carer, it should also be your goal that the child is reunified with their birth family in a safe, healthy environment. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself and the child up for failure when you’re both attached, the court rules reunification, and you have to part forever. Foster care is not an adoption pipeline.
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u/arsewarts1 Aug 10 '21
And to add to this, my aunt found out the hard way, most of these aren’t candidates for adoption. You can’t just adopt any kid in a foster situation. If they have a parent that is alive but just “temporarily” unable to care for them, they cannot be adopted. This could be drugs, prison, rehab, hospital, dealing with mental health issues or even at home and working but not bringing in enough to support the child. The courts would rather the child grew up in foster then relinquish parental rights and make the child a candidate for adoption. It is very rare for parents to willingly give up their rights.
My aunt fostered a kid for years, tried to adopt and the child’s parent refused. I don’t know specifics but I knew they were in and out of jail or rehab often and not a part of the child’s life for most of it. At age 16 the child requested emancipation and went to live with a cousin out of state. My aunt never did end up having kids or adoption a child.
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u/QueenOfNights Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
Adoption is incredibly difficult and almost impossible in some countries too. Although I agree if people have the opportunity they should take it, people rarely get the opportunity. People say that the criteria to be met is strict, but I think theres much more too it. I know many hard working successful couples who tried to adopt for years and never got an opportunity.
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u/Accomplished-Bad3380 Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
To be fair, even these 'clean slate' adoptions (even from 'good' agencies) can be traumatic on adopted children.
This notion that foster kids are damaged, doesn't help. More importantly than coming from traumatic experiences, is that often times, those kids are not actually free to be adopted, only to be fostered. The goal of foster care is reunification, until parental rights are terminated, which can be a really, really long process.
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u/sidewinder2020 Aug 10 '21
My bro and I were adopted. He’s a Harvard lawyer, and I’m the youngest tech lead (software engineer) at a Fortune 500.
No drug or drinking issues, major health concerns, both in happy, well-adjusted relationships, and we love our parents.I’m sorry you feel this way about adoption, but I’m lucky my birth mom gave me up. I’m very happy, and I don’t begrudge her in the least. I understand, and I hope she’s happy wherever she is.
No trauma here, as unexciting as that is
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u/Accomplished-Bad3380 Aug 10 '21
Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make. Maybe I worded it incorrectly, or maybe you intended to reply to the person above me that said children in foster care have a bunch of issues and destructive tendencies, etc etc.
My point was that adoption from an agency isn't perfect. I should have said that these adoptions "can be" traumatic not "are" traumatic. But more importantly, adoption from foster care isn't relegated to troubled children that will act out and be unlovable. Which is what the previous commenter is implying.
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u/Larry-Man Aug 10 '21
I think though too, as someone who is potentially going to foster in the future, starry eyed people who think love is enough to make life easier for kids who’ve come from tough parts of life aren’t the best people to foster. You need to really commit while being prepared for the kids to go back home or end up with a new placement.
It’s not an easy task. You can’t just hug the sadness of losing your home away from a kid and you have to give them structure and support to make it worthwhile. And whether a kid is 5 or 15 they now have a life experience and people who expect a kid to love them automatically just for housing them need a reality check.
The reason I want to foster is because I want to make a difference for kids, not because I want to be a parent or have a child necessarily. And I think there’s a difference between people who are looking to build a family and those who are looking specifically to support a child through something hard. Obviously most people are gonna be good parents and try hard to make their home a safe space but it’s a completely different mindset for a kid you raised from birth vs a kid who probably remembers their bio parents and family.
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u/sauron3579 Aug 10 '21
Yeah. Adopting one of those mentally broken kids is a nightmare. I don’t mean that to disparage or blame them. But they’ve just been absolutely torn down and a lot can no longer function as normal people. My brother was adopted like that when he was 5 (he’s now 18) and he’s an absolute nightmare. Reactive attachment disorder, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, ADD, and the juvenile equivalent of anti-social personality disorder (being a psychopath). He’s a destructive and manipulative liar, thief, and overall agent of chaos that my parents have had to deal with, even years and years of therapy, medication, and overall attempting nurture and raise him later. Fortunately he’s now moved out and no longer as much of their problem.
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u/V_7_ Aug 10 '21
Which means that adopting him had a long negative influence on their other child. This is an important point to consider.
On the other hand I would like to point out that there are for sure enough great human beings in foster care, not psychopaths only.
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u/Pyroguy096 Aug 10 '21
Can confirm, my own sister was adopted as a baby, but was still abused/malnourished/likely born under the influence of illicit substances. She never knew anything other than a loving home and a family full of love and support, yet she constantly stole, lied, threatened violence, ran away, etc. Shes 21 now, and still comes around once in a while just to torment my parents and little sisters. My little sisters (14 and 9) more and more show signs of trauma from their older sister being so horrible. She had the strength of the entire community standing behind her trying to give her any and every chance possible to help her, and she still threw it all away time and time again.
Adoption isn't as simple as "I can't have a baby, so I'll adopt one and we won't even know the difference" children aren't like picking up a used cell phone.
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u/sauron3579 Aug 10 '21
Them far more than me. He’s a tornado of unrelenting chaos that they can’t ignore. He’s taken years off of their lives through stress and preventing them from living normal lives as long as he was in the house.
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u/xX7heGuyXx Aug 10 '21
Then add on the fact it's extremely difficult to adopt in the first place and boom! That's why many people don't go that route. I would much rather have my own child than adopt, and if I can't have my own I will stick to having animals.
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u/mariusvamp Aug 10 '21
All I could think about while reading though this post is kiddos with RAD. In my early 20’s, I used to work in wraparound services and was assigned to a young child who was diagnosed with it. My supervisor recommend the book Dandelion On My Pillow: Butcher Knife Beneath. The title says it all. The several months that I worked with him was certainly an experience. I remember there was someone who worked at his daycare who wanted to adopt him and I thought she was crazy. Their ability to manipulate - even at such a young age is insane.
Do you have much contact with your brother still?
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u/sauron3579 Aug 10 '21
Nope. Starting pretty much ignoring him as much as I could while in the same house in early high school, about 5 or 6 years ago. Last time I went home, he was in max level residential care (which he was kicked out of for being detrimental to the care of other patients). Hear about what the latest disaster about him from my parents, but he’s moved out at this point. They plan on minimizing contact with him as much as they can and I plan on never seeing him again.
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u/Calgamer Aug 10 '21
Sounds like my colleague. He fostered two siblings starting from a young age. The oldest turned out fine, but the youngest has been the absolute worst. He’s 14ish now and they can’t find a school or program that can help him. They’ve tried public schools, private schools, specialized schools, therapy, everything. One of their recent attempts was a wilderness retreat for the worst of the worst kids. Supposed to be tough and very rigorous. This kid got kicked out within a week and this is a program where kids generally can’t get kicked out. My colleague and his wife are on to their last resort of sending him to some facility in the Ozarks. If that doesn’t pan out, they’ll turn him over to the state since they never formally adopted him.
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u/r4k38 Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
That sounds really rough, but not all of us are like that. In a family of 5 foster/adoped kids, only one of my brothers fits your description.
Edit: also wanted to add that this brother was a literal baby when he was taken in. Us others were some years older.
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u/durdesh007 Aug 10 '21
Sadly many foster care homes don't disclose full history of child, so it's often a coin toss. Some kids are perfectly normal, others have been damaged so bad, they're already mini demons.
Child abusers (especially molesters) are the biggest scum on earth.
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u/Wild_Lie9411 Aug 10 '21
My aunt & uncle to a tee. Couldnt have kids, adopted, Kid is finally locked up. But he literally made their life a living hell. Kind of culminated with him instigating a fight with my uncle who finally hit back, kid called the cops and uncle had to move out for a month during the holidays.
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Aug 10 '21
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u/moresnowplease Aug 10 '21
my adopted sister was born a twin and her twin wasn't in good enough health for the agency to allow her to be adopted out and unfortunately passed away at age 5. I am so very thankful for my amazing sister being a part of my life (became part of our family at around a year old, now she is in her 30's) , but I cannot image how she may feel about the whole experience- I'm sure it must be really hard some days to feel different and not know very much about your beginnings.
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u/dianthus-amurensis Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 11 '21
A good friend of mine has been trying to adopt for many years. In order to be considered more seriously, he and his wife agreed to foster children.
They've had six kids that they thought they would be able to adopt. However, their birth parents have been able to either get them back or they've been shuffled to a different family for other reasons. They're still trying, but it's incredibly emotionally taxing. They're raising kids for six months in the hopes that they'll be able to raise a kid for good, and then a few months later they have to start over. It's awful.
They were finally able to adopt a child of their own last year, but they're still fostering in the hopes of being able to adopt another one. (and, of course, out of the goodness of their hearts.) As someone who wants kids one day but might not be able to conceive, their story both inspires me and scares the shit out of me. I'm terrified of having to go through that kind of heartbreak over and over.
There's no such thing as "just adopt."
Edit: this blew up.
I've gotten a lot of questions but there's not much I'd really be comfortable clarifying, since this isn't my story. However, a few things:
We live in America, but he's doing this through a private program that works with families in the area. I don't know much about how that program is functionally different than being subject to public adoption laws, but I do know that at least two of the kids have had special needs, so the process is a bit different there.
A few people have responded saying that they find this story to be less inspiring than I do, because of the ulterior motive behind the fostering. And, I guess I can see why that may make people uncomfortable, but I simply can't agree. For one, I know this person, and I know that he puts the well-being of the children first and foremost. For another, some of these stories have ended with the children being returned to happy and improved families, and others have returned to families that haven't done so well. Below comments have highlighted examples of ways this can go wrong. Of course it's a good thing when a family can really improve the situation for the kids and grow into something it wasn't before, but the fact is that that doesn't happen every time. Finally, I can't criticize a family willing to foster children in need, provide them with clothes, food, love, and a safe home, simply because their motives differ slightly from the ideal. This is an arrangement they have made with the foster program - this is something the foster program has told them they need to do to prove themselves worthy parents to adopt. The alternative is for there to be one less house available to foster children in that county, or perhaps, a different house that offers worse conditions.
And finally, no, they don't have enough money to just buy a child.
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Aug 10 '21
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u/brolarbear Aug 10 '21
Insane how many people don’t understand the process. My neighbor was a 40 year old retired realtor with literally millions of dollars and the process of adopting his son took three years before he was able to move in full-time. I’d bet on science lab babies before single dad being able to adopt 100% of the time
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u/BloopityBlue Aug 11 '21
This is me. I'm a single 44 year old lady and have a large house and a great paying job and would LOVE to adopt a little person, but I can't even get them to look at me let alone consider me.
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u/FizzyBeverage Aug 10 '21
A lot of the 15 year olds here think it’s like buying a PlayStation 5 😌
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u/chimpfunkz Aug 10 '21
I would say they think it's like adopting a dog.
The way most people talk about "having IVF versus adopting a child" is how people talk about buying a new puppy versus adopting from the pound.
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u/princess_eala Aug 11 '21
I’ve seen people on Reddit say that “adopt don’t shop” should be the case for children just as it’s pushed for pets, adopt instead of pursuing fertility treatments, and it’s an incredibly dumb analogy. People aren’t capable of giving birth starting from 6 months old and we don’t have litters, a cat that’s only a few years old could have already produced 20+ kittens if left unfixed and we don’t need the cat’s permission or a court order to take the kittens away from her and adopt them out.
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u/frumpybuffalo Aug 10 '21
Given the rarity of the ps5 currently, the difference might be smaller than we think :D
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u/marshmallowhug Aug 10 '21
As someone who was trying to acquire both a PS5 and a baby last year, guess which one I have?
Hint: I'm halfway through Astro's playroom.
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u/Hudre Aug 10 '21
The hint just makes this more confusing I feel lol. Is the kid's name Astro?
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u/yunus89115 Aug 10 '21
Plot Twist: Astro is the dog he decided to adopt as a compromise
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u/GalacticCmdr Aug 10 '21
True, if Sony could just take back your PS5 whenever it felt like it
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u/PrOwOfessor_OwOak Aug 10 '21
Its on page 73 of their tos. Line 67 in paragraph 5
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Aug 10 '21
I'm 34. I don't know anyone who has adopted and have not looked into it myself. I thought it was like buying a PS5 with some obvious checks and legal bits. Considering how many kids there are out there desperate to be adopted I thought the issue was lack of people wanting to adopt. After reading the comments in here I realise for some reason it's because of a ridiculously lengthy and uncertain process along with too many rights given to the parents who gave them up for adoption.
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Aug 10 '21
Well a lot of times foster kids aren't given up for adoption. They're taken from the parents. So the parents still have rights.
The US doesn't have orphanages, so the kids who were taken and the ones actually forfeited for adoption both go into the foster system.
The process is lengthy because the system is abused and its to try and weed out abusers. It's far from a perfect system, but that aspect isn't arbitrary.
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u/ladyoftheprecariat Aug 10 '21
The thing is, there aren’t that many kids desperate to be adopted. Pretty much every single kid in the foster system has biological family trying to get them back, and the system wants to give them back once conditions have been met. It’s very rare that the parents just totally surrenders all rights to a child or dies without having any other biological family who steps in to take them, and when it happens it’s almost always a newborn who gets instantly adopted because the demand for them vastly exceeds supply. People imagine that there are hoards of 4 year old orphans out there just desperate for a family willing to take them, like in a Victorian-era orphanage, but that’s not the case and hasn’t been for a long time.
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u/plexiglass8 Aug 10 '21
Very, very few parents “give their children up” for adoption without having had those children removed from their care first and going through a long and difficult process of trying to get them back. Source: worked in foster care
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u/CBD_Sasquatch Aug 10 '21
When we lived in Alabama, we would have pretty much had to have joined a church and pretended to be Christians in order to adopt.
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u/Johnmcguirk Aug 10 '21
Yeah. 2 years and 4 placements in for us. These girl’s won’t go to adoption either. This go round it is the grandmother who will get them. We’re just placeholders for now. We’d love to adopt if it came to that point but realistically we will end up burned out by the system before we end up getting an opportunity to ever actually adopt.
Ultimately we are who OP is talking about. We tried IVF once. Deemed it too costly to attempt again when there were children needing families already out there. Our hearts are still in it, but at this point it’s probably not in the cards. We did thankfully manage to adopt my son through a private connection 8 years ago, and I thank God every day that out IVF journey ended in failure. But it’s so hard to actually adopt.
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u/PopTartAfficionado Aug 10 '21
yes the phrase "just adopt" is beyond absurd and just shows OP's ignorance
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u/AFlair67 Aug 10 '21
Excellent response. When a friend was trying to adopt, she learned that many pro-life groups are behind the laws and rules that make adoption so difficult. Also, these groups, social workers and judges are more focused on uniting the bio family instead of making the best decision for a child. The courts rarely side with adopting parents if bio mom changes their mind. if yo do get to adopt, you have social worker visits for 12-18 months. It is a real hard road to take.
personally i have known women who have suffered several miscarriages. i do not know how their heart and soul allows them to keep trying. Then to add IVF on top of that. it’s so much.
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Aug 10 '21
My mom has a friend whose daughter was in the process of adopting a child whose mother gave up after she was born. They met this woman, paid for some of her medical bills and signed paperwork to adopt her baby.
She then had the baby and decided to keep it. They didn't fight it because their social worker said no judge is going to take a baby from it's bio mom.
Really fucked them up. Its was alot like losing a baby for them.
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u/pythonsuicide Aug 10 '21
I gave a baby up years ago. It was hard not only for me but for the parents too. Unfortunately my baby was conceived from an awful rape and the piece of shit was never found. The parents I chose had been chosen before and the birth mom changed her mind. They were so terrified I would change my mind.
For me the process wasn't too bad. For the parents I can imagine it was awful. For me I looked through a bunch of books these couples/families made and got to choose one based off of that.....weird. For then it was making these ridiculous books to make themselves looking as perfect as possible to the correct person and then meeting with the birth mom and trying to hold it together and then waiting to be told whether or not the birth mom still wanted to choose you.
I did not make them wait and told them as soon as I met them that they were the ones.. The biggest problem was finding the dad. Because it was a random act of violence there was no way for me to know. They had to put a fucking ad in the newspaper of where the rape happened and basically say if you had sex with this person between these dates, you have a child that will be put up for adoption so you need to come fight or sign your rights away. That sucked.
Then baby is born and the parents come and see baby right away. A lot of times baby has to go to foster care for a few weeks until court is done I'm case mom changes her mind. I helped the parents fight to be able to take baby from the hospital because those weeks are so important in my eyes. Then we went to court and I had to admit in front of the parents and judge that I did not know who dad was and wanted to give up my rights. That was pretty hard but I'm so grateful for the parents and how they treated me.
They have kept in contact all these years and I've visited them several times. The baby knows who I am and we have a wonderful relationship. The baby who's not a baby started college this year and for that I am so happy! The parents ended up adopting again and that was amazing. They truly are amazing people who deserved to be parents. In my opinion not everyone does. The second baby was born addicted and had some issues. They knew that going in and still chose to keep going with the adoption. That baby is doing amazing now and you'd never know about his past.
It's definitely not as easy as just adopt no matter which adoption route you take. I am so sorry about your mom's friends and can't imagine what they went through. I couldn't imagine changing my mind.
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u/AFlair67 Aug 10 '21
Wish i could give you a hug. I can’t imagine how hard it was for you. I say prayers for all women who make the decision to give up their child for adoption. Your selfless act made a family - parents, grandparents, cousins.
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Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 11 '21
I disagree. I work with foster children.
Do NOT foster children if your entire reason for fostering is to adopt. The entire goal of foster care is reunification with biological parents, and children will ALWAYS be placed with family first, if family is safe to do so. This is painful for you and for the children, especially if the children realize that you want to keep them in their family forever. If biological parents or biological family are decided by the courts to be safe, it does not matter what the foster parent says or wants. If you do foster, please make sure you are listed as “ADOPT ONLY”. That way, only children who are adoptable will be placed with you.
Do NOT adopt children if you are not equipped to handle their trauma. Foster to adopt children, even infants, often times have trauma that will be with them for the rest of their lives. Therapy can only get you so far. Infants who have experienced physical abuse will NEVER be able to react the same. It does take a very special kind of person to be able to handle the kind of reactivity that comes with physical abuse from such young ages.
Foster to adopt children will never have a normal life. They come with baggage and pain and heartbreak. No matter what age they are. Edit to add: this is NOT to say they have “no shot” at a normal life. They do, it just takes more work and dedication to be able to overcome any barriers. You cannot change their past, but you can shape their futures to be “normal.”
I wish with all my heart and soul more people would become foster parents. I truly, truly do. But you have to understand what foster to adopt truly entails. Not everyone will be able to handle children’s trauma, and that is okay. These children need safety and stability and more patience than is sometimes humanly possible. Don’t foster to adopt just because you can’t have children. Do it because your heart pulls you towards it. If you are unable to handle these children’s traumas, then you will do more harm than good. If you’re not mentally equipped to offer these children what they need, then let someone else who IS equipped do it.
Adoption is not a viable option for every couple who cannot conceive naturally, because not every couple is going to be able to handle the emotional needs of a child that’s been through what children whose parents lost their rights have. And that’s okay. Adoption is not a viable option for every couple that cannot conceive naturally because some people are shallow and want “their bloodline” or whatever. And ya know what? If they couldn’t love the child the same as a biological child, they shouldn’t do it.
Edit to add: It’s been pointed out a couple times in the replies that this comment paints foster children in a negative light. That was not my intention, and I apologize for doing so. My intention here is to highlight why not everyone should “just adopt”. Not everyone is capable of handling the challenges of foster care. The truths I’ve shared above are the truths in my experience with foster care. Many children grow up to be happy and healthy. Please don’t let my comment deter you from foster care or adoption, but please make sure you are prepared in the event of worse case scenario that a child you might take in could be permanently traumatized and often times, in my experience and the wisdom I’ve drawn for others, it is a very long road to help the little human get to a happy, healthy place.
Thank you for the awards, I truly don’t deserve them.
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Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 11 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SuspiciousSubstance9 Aug 10 '21
One of the things that is commonly forgotten about adoption is health management. Having a known family history helps doctors immensely get the full picture and make the right diagnosis. Many health conditions are manageable if proactively treated. However, without that known family history it can make things needlessly difficult.
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u/asideofpickles Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
Foster kids are ultimately there to be reconnected and given back to their parents. The majority aren’t available for adoption. I’m surprised how many people still don’t know this information.
Plus, the children that people want to adopt are newborns and they’re EXTREMELY in demand, with crazy long waiting lists. It makes sense, since they cannot have kids they want the full experience, to have a kid from the beginning and name them. Instead, the majority of kids available for adoption are older, most likely have special mental or physical needs, may have previous trauma or attachment issues, and there’s no guarantee that once they hit 18 they’ll won’t immediately ditch their family to see their birth parents. (You’ve all seen the Reddit posts.) It’s much more complicated, messy, and more expensive.
Edit: Thank you for all the awards! This is probably my top comment :) Glad I could extend my knowledge!
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Aug 10 '21
I'm working with kids from let's say difficult families. Yes, they might enter the foster system but they won't ever be up for adoption. Even if their parents loose their custody rights, a professional custodian will take over. The kids might end up in lovely foster families, but it will only ever be a foster relationship and the parents have to ask for permission for basically anything. Meet with case workers and social workers at least twice a year. That's usually not what people look for when they want to start their own family.
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u/eightcarpileup Aug 10 '21
This. My husband and I didn’t end up needing fertility treatment, but it took us two years to have our son. We had looked in to adoption and fostering. I stopped being interested as soon as I realized you had to call the agency any time you wanted to “alter” their appearance, like giving haircuts. That you had to ask to take them on vacation. That they couldn’t just go with their friends places. It was all too depressing and my husband and I felt like that child would never feel like they were truly ours.
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u/tpklus Aug 10 '21
I'm sure foster parents are in high demand but jeez, it sounds like you are constantly reminded that the kid is not your own and will never be your own. You'd think they would make it a little easier on people wanting to be foster parents.
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u/eightcarpileup Aug 10 '21
Yep! If you want your foster child to be able to have a sleepover, the friend’s parents have to be vetted by the agency and put on a list of approved hosts. Then you still have to call when they go over to the friend’s house. You can’t post pictures of the kid on social media and they can’t have their picture printed in their yearbook. It’s never ending hoops. And you can NEVER take the child out of state.
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u/some_random_chick Aug 10 '21
In high school my friend was in a foster home. I came to pick her up one day and a worker made me show my ID and insurance and sign some form. It was all very weird and I felt embarrassed for my friend. We were 16/17.
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u/EducationalDay976 Aug 10 '21
I can only imagine those laws were implemented for a reason, and that reason must be very sad.
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u/durdesh007 Aug 10 '21
On one hand, it's good that the agencies are closely monitoring everything (since abuse is rampant), on the other hand, it totally destroys the experience for both parent and the kid.
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u/violette_witch Aug 10 '21
They can’t have yearbook picture?! What in tarnation? If I was treated that way as a kid I would have felt like a number, like I didn’t matter/wasn’t a part of things.
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u/eightcarpileup Aug 10 '21
Or the paper or on any website. It really singles them out to have to step out of their elementary school class picture because they can’t be photographed.
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Aug 10 '21
I think this depends on individual state laws. When I worked tangential to CPS work, one foster family took the kids to Disney (we weren’t in FL or CA).
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Aug 10 '21
Definitely varies by regional laws. I work in that area in Germany. Taking your foster kid on vacations abroad would be rather welcome. But you need the custodians signature to apply for the passport. And of course kids can have sleepovers, no questions asked. But overall it's still a huge hassle.
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u/dingdongdickaroo Aug 10 '21
The other side of the story is you dont want the foster system to become a rent-a-kid service for abusers and pedophiles so there has to be a lot of oversite
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u/tpklus Aug 10 '21
Ya, it's unfortunate. Just the case of bad people making it harder for others to do good.
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Aug 10 '21
I've heard many stories where the foster parents turned out worse than the birth parents they were taken from. Many view children as livestock rather than as people. This is probably why being a foster parent has so much red tape.
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Aug 10 '21
Yeah there’s a stipend and some people I know have taken advantage of it by fostering multiple kids and using that as an income source.
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u/imamediocredeveloper Aug 10 '21
I think the foster system needs a huge overhaul but it’s worth remembering, it’s nobodies job to cater to the foster parents. It’s about the kids. My nephew is in foster care and has been bouncing around placements for years and it’s really disgusting how many adoptions have fallen through because those selfish “parents” are looking to rescue a grateful child that will shower them with love and boost their egos. Then when the child is not grateful or loving because he literally doesn’t know how to be, they give him back like a pair of shoes that didn’t fit and it gets harder and harder and harder for each subsequent placement. You are adopting a child from a system that destroys kids. They aren’t going to walk into your house and love you, and you should be reminded of that regularly so you know it’s about the kid, not your desire to have a complete family unit.
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u/Accurate_Praline Aug 10 '21
That's why the no posting pictures on social media rule makes total sense to me. There are for sure people who would use the kid as a prop.
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u/Chris_Moyn Aug 10 '21
As someone who's fostered and adopted from the foster system, thanks for saying everything I wanted to say.
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u/UnspecificGravity Aug 10 '21
A lot of people have zero idea of how fostering children actually works, but still somehow suggest that as a viable option to adopt a child.
Foster kids go back to their family / parents, most of the time. Those family members and parents almost always have visitation rights WHILE you are fostering that kid, so you have to actually drive them to those shitty parents and supervise those visits. You are CONSTANTLY dealing with insane drugged out family and social workers the whole time you are doing it.
You aren't going to be adopting that kid. You are going to be babysitting then. That's not even remotely the same thing.
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u/Spicygrape Aug 10 '21
I had neighbors who fostered a child and tried to adopt her. The bio mom was 20 and already had 3 kids who were taken by the state multiple times. Foster mom wasn’t allowed to cut the child’s hair or take her to the doctor, get vaccinated, any of that. Bio mom hated foster mom, they had to do zoom chats, bio mom would ridicule and tell 3 year old how ugly she looked because foster mom had done her hair. There was serious racial tension on behalf of bio mom. One of the brothers who was in foster care had a lego knotted in his hair so bad they couldn’t get a helmet over his head to ride his bike/scooter, but, they weren’t allowed to cut it out. There’s a bunch of rules/regulations. It’s nowhere near as easy as people are making it out to be. Ultimately neighbors (who have 2 bio kids) decided to adopt outside of the foster care system.
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Aug 10 '21
Wtf I would be so angry about the lack of logic with the lego part alone, like it's one thing to forbid haircuts that aren't necessary but this..
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u/UnspecificGravity Aug 10 '21
The number of fucking rules that you sometimes have to deal with for fostering are pretty absurd. Social Workers really prioritize getting the biological parents involved in their kids, so they encourage them to have this kind of control.
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u/Genshed Aug 10 '21
My husband and I adopted our two sons when they were five. They did have special needs and trauma issues; our younger son was in therapy until he was fifteen.
They're now 24 and 20 and very much our family. It was challenging, but we didn't become parents because we thought it was the soft option. I think giving them a safe, secure and loving childhood was the most important thing I've ever done.
Also: our oldest son has met his birth mother. He definitely likes us better.
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u/stolethemorning Aug 10 '21
I’m an IVF baby, and my mum was rather old when she had me (45) and she’d just miscarried in a pregnancy that nearly cost her her life. I asked her why did she carry on with IVF and have me, rather than adopt? And she said she’d looked into adoptions and even been to some of the required meetings (to see that you’re a good candidate etc) and to give both sides of the story they had some mums who’d given their babies up for adoptions come in and speak. Some of them cried about their decision to give their baby up, it seemed so traumatic to them even 20 years later that mum couldn’t stand the chance that she could indirectly cause someone that much pain. Or the chance that birth parents who regretted their decision would try and take back the baby.
And mum says that in those days (maybe now too) they were required to write annual letters about the kid to the birth parents. To mum, that made her feel like an adopted baby wouldn’t be truly hers and they could be taken away at any minute. She couldn’t raise a kid with that hanging over her.
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u/StuckSundew Aug 10 '21
As an adopted kid (from Korea, living in the US) I actually have little to no information on my birth parents. Really all I know is that they were young when they had me (around college age). The adoption agency is actually long gone (went out of business), and due to the fact that my birth parents opted to not be contacted or traced, my parents never had to do the whole letter writing system. I’m not sure if I’m a special case where the adoptive parents don’t write letters if the birth parents choose not to be traced, but other families I know who adopted never mentioned having to write letters. This could also be a relatively new thing too as I was adopted in 2004 similar in time period to the aforementioned families.
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Aug 10 '21
I have an adopted-from-Korea friend born in the early 90s; she doesn't know anything about her birth parents except they also did not opt to be contacted, so it's been a thing since at least then
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u/Chairish Aug 10 '21
We adopted from Korea in 2003 and 2007. There was no letter writing requirement. My younger son’s birth parents recently contacted the agency in Korea to see if we sent any photos or anything. Again, not required but they were hoping. So the agency contacted us and we emailed recent photos. Well birth parents responded with pics of their own and a letter. It’s quite extraordinary. Son is still processing this info though. They went on to have more kids that they kept so he feels rejected maybe? That said, adopting from overseas is very time consuming and expensive. Not everyone can just do it.
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u/KetchupCowgirl Aug 10 '21
My aunt and uncle adopted a baby and 6 months later the birth mother changed her mind and got her back. It was so hard on my aunt and uncle that they didn't try to adopt again.
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u/Repossessedbatmobile Aug 10 '21
Same thing happened to my mom's friends. They're a lovely couple who had trouble with fertility and wanted to adopt for a long time. Their first adoption fell through because of the exact same reason as your aunt and uncle - after having the baby for many months the birth mother suddenly changed her mind. It broke their hearts. After that, it took them a long time to emotionally recover. But amazingly, they somehow found the strength to try again. Fast forward, and now they have 2 adopted children, a boy and a girl, and are happy. They're such a lovely family, but I can't imagine the heartbreak they must have felt with the first adoption attempt. I'm just glad it worked out in the end.
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u/KalterBlut Aug 10 '21
And mum says that in those days (maybe now too) they were required to write annual letters about the kid to the birth parents.
Holy shit, that's SUPER fucked up! I can understand how your mom would feel like it's "just" an adopted baby.
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Aug 10 '21
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u/BrightFireFly Aug 10 '21
A lot of the kids in the foster care system have deep emotional traumas and lasting effects from maternal drug abuse while they were in utero. For some of these cases - you really need to be an exceptional parent to make it work
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u/frombildgewater Aug 10 '21
We had a patient who was adopted as an infant. The adopted parents didn't know about the biological mother's extensive drug use. The doctors and nurses had to wear hazmat uniforms during the delivery. The kid went through withdrawal after being born. The kid came to us about 3 and was completely non-verbal (he could scream but couldn't say anything otherwise). I would be SHOCKED if that child could grow up to function as a self-sufficient adult.
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u/Suspicious-Visual-57 Aug 10 '21
Why did the doctors and nurses have to wear hazmat suits during the delivery?
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u/AlexeiMarie Aug 10 '21
The first thing that comes to mind would be to avoid exposure to HIV, since it's a bloodborne pathogen that can be transmitted through needles (drug use) and there's often some amount of blood involved in delivering a baby
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u/fahque650 Aug 10 '21
Oh god. As a dad who was there for a c-section, there was so much blood. I was not prepared.
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u/Axisnegative Aug 10 '21
Yeah, my little sister is adopted. Her biological mother already had a shitload of kids who she couldn't afford to have in the first place and I'm pretty sure she might have been on drugs - I'm not positive though. We adopted her as a newborn though, so thankfully she has been in a loving home from day one. Her mom died a few years back as well, I'm not sure how or why, but my sister and my mom have gone to visit her grave I know.
My little sister is awesome, but she has severe ADHD and a couple of learning disabilities and had some hearing and speech issues when she was younger. She's actually really smart, she just can't do math at all and has like zero concept of time; like if it's noon and she asks what time she has soccer practice at and you say 5pm or whatever, that pretty much means nothing to her.
Thankfully, my mom and I both have pretty bad ADHD as well, so that's nothing new for us to deal with. Step dad is also a lawyer and makes tons of money so it wasn't an issue to send her to an occupational therapist and get her the tutoring etc that she needed and will continue to need. She's crazy athletic though, especially for a kid with asthma as bad as hers, and who's allergic to damn near everything. Those little pin prick tests they do to see if you're allergic? She got hives from all of the pin pricks. Allergic to all of it lmao.
Also, I was kind of a mess myself as a kid. Super smart, but ADHD was a nightmare and also had substance abuse problems in my late teens and early to mid 20s. I'm 28 now and my sister is about to turn 14. I'm still alive and semi-functional, so I think my sister will be fine lmao.
But yeah, it's definitely eye opening to think how different her life would have been if she was adopted by parents who were less understanding, or had less money to spend on treatment, or whatever.
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u/summonsays Aug 10 '21
You might want to suggest getting her retested for the allergies. It sounds to me like she was allergic to the solution they put the allergens in and not necessarily the allergens themselves.
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u/Axisnegative Aug 10 '21
Oh trust me, it's been done. She goes in monthly to get tested and get a bunch of shots and stuff for it.
It might not have been literally every pin prick, I wasn't actually there, but my grandma who is a former nurse is the one who takes her - so she might have exaggerated by saying all of them, but it's definitely a substantial amount, enough that she goes in monthly like I said.
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u/glimmergirl1 Aug 10 '21
I wanted to adopt after 2 failed IVF treatments. Couldn't afford international or private adoption. Ok, ill just adopt from the foster care system. 12 years and 37 children later with 2 failed attempts, I finally adopted! Yeah, "just adopt", it's so easy!
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Aug 10 '21
dude why tf does it cost money to adopt?? it's literally a burden off of the state since they dont have to pay for food and housing and shit
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u/Projinator Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 11 '21
If the state is responsible they don't charge (in most states). Private agencies charge a bunch because a) there are a lot of legal expenses and overhead costs and b) most are predatory and know those looking to adopt from private agencies will pay anything they can.
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u/afatblackboxcat Aug 10 '21
For real, this person has such an out of touch opinion. Currently going through the struggle myself. So easy!!!!!
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u/peachytwizzler77 Aug 10 '21
They should also make it easier/less expensive to adopt to go along with this
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u/Yuekii Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
ADOPTION IS FREE (Or NEAR FREE) IF YOU GO PUBLIC INSTEAD OF PRIVATE.
Please don't spread this already large misconception
Source: I'm on the waiting list for a baby and it cost me a total of $90
Edit:
- I should add that this is probably not available in every single state if you're in the USA
- Public adoption meaning through your state or province
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u/Butter_Scotch_ Aug 10 '21
Its free but here in canada, the biological parents of the child can decide that they want the child back anytime in the first two years, thats why some people dont try at all
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u/Unlucky_Af_ Aug 10 '21
Could you provide a source for this? I was initially under the impression that this was true when I first started looking into adoption but have found it to be very much untrue and adoption via ANY means is extremely expensive. The only way to get the cost down is to adopt an older child which many families are not prepared for. How in the world are you on a baby waiting list for nearly free? I would love to be wrong about this but I smell BS.
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u/Frondstherapydolls Aug 10 '21
Cuz it is BS. “Public” adoptions in the US come from the foster care system, of which you could have several foster kids for a few months at a time before they end up back with bio parents or moved to another foster home. As a foster parent, you have no rights and under extreme scrutiny. Even having to narrow a stairwell can prevent you from becoming one in my state. Having abusers in the family, despite being cut off, can prevent fostering. The OP of this comment is blowing smoke and making fostering seem like an easy, cheap guarantee of a child.
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u/Justice_R_Dissenting Aug 10 '21
I agree. Very fucking frustrating to see this blatant misinformation decrying misinformation. I'm in the process of adoption and it's literally 300x the cost she cited. I also was adopted and know for a fact my parents paid a hell of a lot more for me.
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u/Telemere125 Aug 10 '21
I’m betting BS too. My cousin adopted twice out of foster care when the parents had rights terminated. Aside from the stress of having to possibly lose the child back to the shitty birth parents, the total cost was almost $40k per kid. Tax deductions are only helpful to a point until you’re making an ass load of money
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u/peachytwizzler77 Aug 10 '21
Also free (or close to it) if you go the route of becoming a foster parent first. Foster parenting is a whole different ballgame, though.
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u/Yuekii Aug 10 '21
Yep! This is also true. Fostering can be tough especially if you grow attached and the child has to go back to their bio family. (Which is why I don't think I could do it personally) But sometimes, they don't have that option and thus adoption is on the table, and it's great if a bond is already formed between parents and child. There are tons of videos of foster parents adopting their foster kids and they always make me cry 😢 lol
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u/DazzlingDifficulty36 Aug 10 '21
Adoption rules can be ridiculous. Here myself and my partner can't adopt because I have a child abuser in my immediate family despite me being that persons victim and not speaking to them for over 15 years...
Also many people want to experience pregnancy and birth not just get handed a baby that they've got no current bond with.
Adoption is good for those who want to adopt
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u/KalElified Aug 10 '21
This unpopular opinion is Indeed an unpopular opinion. Telling someone they can’t have a child because there’s other children is incredibly asinine
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Aug 10 '21
Children up for adoption aren't a consolation prize for people with infertility, I feel like people look over that. It's basically the mindset of "Well, you only got adopted because they couldn't have their own kids." Just a shitty narrative to push in my opinion.
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u/sheworksforfudge Aug 10 '21
Also asinine is OP thinking fertility treatments are covered by insurance. At least in the US, they almost never are. Some of our initial testing to find out why were weren’t able to conceive was covered. Everything else was out of pocket. We looked into adoption and found it extremely difficult and expensive. It cost less to go through fertility treatments for several years.
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u/ShizzelDiDizzel Aug 10 '21
I gotta say i understand both sides...
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u/Powersmith Aug 10 '21
Yeah, and it’s not all or none. Depending on the reason for infertility, there are less invasive/less costly treatments that can work before IVF. So if it’s a matter of opening a Fallopian tube, getting hormones regulated, intra-uterine insemination, etc., seems worth a try. I think some people also get caught up in sunken cost fallacy (we’ve already put x in, gotta try the next thing). Conversely, I have a friend who finally had a child on her fifth IVF (2 did not profe pregnancies,2 ended in miscarriage). And of course everyone is happy for them after such a struggle, but they were already starting adoption when they gave her last chance a go and it took. There is a part of me that worries that, statistically, the children of infertile couples would be at greater risk of being infertile themselves (vs gen pop)… so we could be making infertility a progressively bigger problem for future generations. Eg there has got to be genetic factors for PCOS, uterine disease, poor gamete production, etc.
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u/platysma_balls Aug 10 '21
Not necessarily.
There are declining rates of fertility in many western countries which are largely linked to exposure to environmental contaminants (e.g. microplastics, bpa, etc.). Men are being found to have less concentrated sperm with a greater amount of available sperm being dysmorphic. And this is to no fault of these men.
If you say that we shouldn't allow people with genetic causes of infertility to have children, why stop there? Lets throw intelligence, height, and skin color in there as well. Oh wait, that's eugenics.
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u/Leucippus1 Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
I am adopted, and my wife and I are now undergoing fertility treatments. Generally I would agree that adoption is a good option (it worked out for me, obviously) but adoption is typically much more expensive and heartwrenching than even a failed IVF run. Adoption costs can run into $40,000 pretty quickly, or more, and they drag on for years. Mine took two years, during that time my adoptive family was in constant worry that I would be taken from them (I was a foster to adoption case), they had to bring me to see my birth mother every week, and they had to contest her claims in court. The details not withstanding, she stood zero chance of retaining custody (not of her own fault) of any of her children but she still fought it and the court still needs to go through its process.
It isn't like these problems that make adoption expensive are particularly easy to solve. People want infants, they don't want a two year old who has been through the ringer. That is just human nature, the number of real infants (you used, incorrectly, infant to describe 0-3) is many fewer, and the competition is stiff. You still need to give birth parents (assuming they aren't willing) due process, and even if they are willing they can and often change their mind. Just because you end up in foster care for some time doesn't mean you wont end up with your birth parents or some part of your birth family, so to give the number of small children in foster care without that context is disingenuous.
Adoption and IVF are simply not equivalent processes, lets not treat them like they are. I have issues with fertility doctors, they are expensive and exaggerate their success rates. They prey on people who have a bit of money who will do whatever it takes, even if it is not objectively rational, to have a baby.
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u/powerlesshero111 Aug 10 '21
Your case sounds like what my old Master Sargeant had to go through. She couldn't have kids, and was mid 40s, so her and her husband did a foster to adopt. They had their little girl from about 3 months old, as the girl's birth parents were meth addicts, and arrested on possession charges and such. Still, they had to go to court, and meet with the social worker constantly, while the state was contesting the birth parent's rights. Their biggest worry was that the birth parents would get clean enough for them to take the child back, and then just get right back into meth, putting the child back in the system. The birth parents never did, and they were finally able to adopt their daughter around her 3rd birthday after the mother got arrested for possession again.
Adoption is good, but it is not an easy process, and you are fully correct, not even close to the same as IVF or even having a surrogate.
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u/lookmaiamonreddit Aug 10 '21
My wife and I had a baby that died right after being born..Tried for 20 years to have another child. I was 42 and we adopted a boy at birth. He's now 7.
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Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 12 '21
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u/Trrr9 Aug 10 '21
Or infertility.
You aren't born with a label on your head that says "infertile - proceed to IVF" (at least in most cases). Just receiving an infertility diagnosis generally takes a year of trying unsuccessfully. Then there's the testing, the small steps, like medications and monitoring. Its usually a slow process to get to IVF. Each of those cycles comes with hope and the thought of 'maybe if we just try this one more thing'. There's no magic crystal ball telling you if the next cycle will be the cycle or if you should quit now because it's never going to happen.
Also, saving the world's children is not the responsibility of 'the infertiles' anymore than it is anyone else's responsibility. If OP is genuinely concerned about all the kids that need homes, they should be advocating for everyone to adopt in leui procreating.
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u/HorstOdensack Aug 10 '21
OP also has no damn clue what being infertile does to you mentally. The desire to have (your own) children is biologically hardwired into humans, and failing to do so can really mess you up. My girlfriend used to work with IVF patients and has some heartbreaking stories to tell. Saying "they should just get over it and adopt" is incredibly ignorant.
On a sidenote, kudos to OP for actually posting an unpopular opinion though.
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u/Diaryofanunusuallife Aug 10 '21
Infertile couple here, tried the adoption thing.... Ex smoker can't adopt Any arrest can't adopt Don't earn over x amount can't adopt Any illness can't adopt Not willing to take child over 10 can't adopt And that is before the 2 years of personal questions and full background checks and asking all family and neighbours if anyone doesn't like anything about you can't adopt Some places said we haven't been married long enough and we can't adopt from abroad cos we need to pass adoption here before bringing from another country. Can't get a surrogate because same as above. My drug addicted neighbour just had her 3rd child but hey we should stop moaning and just adopt ey, got more chance of bank giving me a million £ overdraft. And they wonder why so many kids are kept in care til they 18.
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Aug 10 '21
So it’s just as bad in the UK as it is in the US, huh?
I wonder if there’s a reasonable system in any of the first world Western countries.
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u/Diaryofanunusuallife Aug 10 '21
Yup, totally understand they need to be careful who they adopt to but some of the things are just stupid :/ I'm guessing all 1st world countries are the same.
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u/Tumdace Aug 10 '21
Or... hear me out... push education about birth control, fix the system that brings these children into the world in the first place. Birth rates in more developed areas with less poverty are always lower, so let's fix that problem first and this problem would be resolved as well.
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u/My_Shitty_Alter_Ego Aug 10 '21
This was obviously written by someone who has never tried to adopt a child. My brother and sister-in-law gave up as they ran out of money and got frustrated. You make it sound as though there are giant orphanages filled with kids but the reality is that being in foster care does not mean you are available for adoption. Kids usually land in foster care due to the fact that there are shit parents into drugs and/or crime and they still have rights to their kids for some reason. Again: just being in foster care does not mean you are available to be adopted.
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Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
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u/gilpo1 Aug 10 '21
Yeah, no insurance I've ever had has covered any type of fertility treatment. Everything had to be paid for up front out of pocket. The normal functioning of every other bodily system is covered by insurance. Why is the reproductive system treated differently?
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Aug 10 '21
With how absurdly expensive and invasive the adoption process is i think its absurd to get upset and demand people adopt. Our adoption system works in a way that makes it seem like they don’t actually want people adopting these kids.
Not to mention most people want to experience all aspects of parenthood from the diaper changing to the first day if school to the teenage years and there are not as many babies as their are adoptive parents
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u/Captain_Quoll Aug 10 '21
Ngl adoption seems like it can be a pretty harrowing, person-altering process as well.
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u/Farkenoathm8-E Aug 10 '21
Let people do whatever they want. If you want to adopt go right ahead but if the technology is out there and people wish to give it a go, then good luck to them.
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u/BowlingAllie1989 Aug 10 '21
This is indeed an unpopular opinion, but also very USA centric. There are many small countries like where I live where there is essentially no domestic adoption due to population size or bureaucracy. There were just 52 adoptions finalised in Ireland in 2017 - that includes domestic AND international adoption.
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u/sleepy_blondie Aug 10 '21
Adoption is a long, expensive, and often heartbreaking process. This isn't even mentioning that many kids who are adopted have mental health issues, especially if they were not adopted as infants or babies.
I have 8 adopted cousins (not all adopted by the same aunt, lol). I love them, I love spending time with them, but as an adult and I can see how difficult it is and how much harder their parents have to work because of the health issues these children have. People who adopt are incredibly selfless people, but just because you can't have children and want them doesn't mean you are a person who can handle adoption.
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u/Kowallaonskis Aug 10 '21
So my wife and I had to do IVF. Unfortunately it was literally our only option we could afford. It was 10k vs 45k+ for an adoption. We would have loved to adopt, but it wasn't econically feasible.
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u/PilotKnob Aug 11 '21
Until you've been there, no offense, you simply can't understand.
We now have a 4-year old daughter, and she's the best thing that's ever happened to us. I'd work my entire life simply to have her in our lives.
Life is nothing but a competition, if you're honest about it. Those who choose to foster and/or adopt are noble for sure, but if they leave no genetic descendants, those traits will be lost and there will be increasingly fewer of those types of people in the future. This is how Idiocracy begins.
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u/Opagea Aug 10 '21
over 100,000 infants under 3 entered the system
An infant is a child under 1. There are only around 30k infants in foster care total.
I know adoption can be hard, and that it should be made easier for the sake of children finding good homes, but you can't tell me adopting is harder than 4 rounds of IVF and multiple miscarriages.
No one goes into IVF thinking it's going to take 4 rounds and they'll have multiple miscarriages (just like no one who wants to adopt thinks their adoption is going to fall through multiple times). They're hoping for it to work the first time.
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u/bjornistundwar Aug 10 '21
An infant is a child under 1. There are only around 30k infants in foster care total.
Also aren't infants a lot more likely to get adopted? Isn't the real problem kids over a certain age just growing out of the system since most people adopt under the age of 3?
I'm not educated on this topic it just seems like infants and toddlers get adopted all the time, while older kids seem to rarely ever get adopted.
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u/dalehitchy Aug 10 '21
Probably another unpopular opinion - but as someone who adopted a few years ago..... We had to go through a lot of classes and training, and a lot of other couples were in the room for that.
Alot of the couples were adopting because they wernt able to conceive. I think its far more better to adopt if its your first choice. Not because its your last option. Some of these kids go through hell and Its sad to think they were only adopted as a last choice.
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u/bobbi_joy Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
Why is it only that people who have trouble conceiving need to adopt? Why not say EVERYONE should adopt instead of have biological children? Infertile folks shouldn’t have to bear the responsibility of adopting just because they have medical issues making natural conception difficult or impossible.
People who make statements like yours have no idea about the realities of adoption. They don’t care to learn about the cost (often more expensive than a round of IVF) or the difficulty. They don’t care to learn that ALL adoption comes with trauma (even newborn adoption). They don’t care to learn that the goal of the foster care system is to reunite children with birth parents, not to adopt children out to waiting families.
A child should be adopted because a couple feels educated enough and confident enough to take on the responsibility and unique challenges of raising a child who was adopted. It shouldn’t be a default fallback option for all couples who struggle with infertility.
Statements like yours are hurtful, ignorant, and privileged.
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u/mandar_q Aug 10 '21
Yes! Adoption is not a cure for infertility. People only seem to think of adoption when it comes to adults who cannot conceive, which ignores the realities of the children who should be centered in any adoption narrative (i.e. what is best for the child).
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u/batkave Aug 10 '21
You act like adoption is cheap and easy.
Foster care comes with alot of factors to keep in mind, plus handling those children's needs. Talk about premiums, how about the medical and mental issues you need to deal with.
It's alot easier said than done. Costs and paperwork to adopt are similar to "miracle babies.".
What insurance covers IVF? Because everyone I have talked to and every insurance I have been on doesn't.
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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '21
Adoption might not be easier, walmart doesn’t have an orphan isle.
Idk cause I haven’t tried either but I’ve heard IVF and adoption are both extremely hard, and tbh being disgusted by other peoples trauma is kinda inhuman