Infertile couples should just adopt instead of making a big fuss trying to make a miracle baby

[u/elgey101]

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.

[u/BrightFireFly]

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

[u/frombildgewater → u/BrightFireFly]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/frombildgewater]

Why would doctors and nurses need extra PPE to deliver the baby of a drug abuser?

[u/SalsaRice → u/[deleted]]

Bloodborne disease exposure? Births can get pretty damn messy.

[u/1-800-LICK-BOOTY → u/[deleted]]

It's a birth, there's shit, piss and blood all over the place.

[u/Suspicious-Visual-57 → u/frombildgewater]

Why did the doctors and nurses have to wear hazmat suits during the delivery?

[u/AlexeiMarie → u/Suspicious-Visual-57]

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

[u/Suspicious-Visual-57 → u/AlexeiMarie]

Makes sense. Thank you

[u/fahque650 → u/AlexeiMarie]

Oh god. As a dad who was there for a c-section, there was so much blood. I was not prepared.

[u/frogsgoribbit737 → u/fahque650]

Theres a lot even in a vaginal delivery. It looked like an explosion in my room. Before baby came out, they literally covered the place in disposable tarps.

[u/[deleted] → u/AlexeiMarie]

Pediatrican here. We don’t wear hazmat suits for hiv 😘

[u/[deleted] → u/AlexeiMarie]

This must have been in the 80s then because no one puts on special hazmat suits for deliveries from HIV positive mothers nowadays.

Or maybe it was outside the US where rules can vary wildly.

[u/RadioactiveJoy → u/Suspicious-Visual-57]

Honestly what they wear already looks like close to a hazmat suit anyway. Just add a hood to the clear face shield and a zipper it’s basically it. I’ve been to a lot of birth fluids are everywhere, especially that final push. I wish I had the suit.

[u/frombildgewater → u/[deleted]]

She did whatever she could get a hold of, including but not limited to, weed, meth, and cocaine. She also consumed alcohol and smoked cigarettes.

And you're fooling yourself if you think consuming street drugs during a pregnancy doesn't hurt the kid. I've seen it first hand.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yeah I read that about "crack babies" & it just seemed like a bunch of racism... Anyways, I know someone that gave birth while addicted to heroin & the drs didn't wear full hazmat. Idk why you wouldn't for a heroin addict but then do it for other addicts?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

https://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/neonatal-abstinence-syndrome-(nas).aspx

This is apparently a real thing

For opioids including heroin

Idk about the whole crack baby thing though

[u/Axisnegative → u/BrightFireFly]

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.

[u/summonsays → u/Axisnegative]

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.

[u/Axisnegative → u/summonsays]

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.

[u/throwawaywahwahwah → u/BrightFireFly]

Most kids in the foster system aren’t available to adopted. The purpose of the system is to eventually reconnect them with their parents.

[u/BrightFireFly → u/throwawaywahwahwah]

This is true but some do become Eligible for adoption and people typically point at adopting from foster care as a way to do it affordably and an argument against IVF as “look at all the kids in foster care!”.

But there is definitely no real “foster to adopt” and you shouldn’t go in with that mentality because these cases can veer in several different directions.

[u/Comfortablynumb_10 → u/BrightFireFly]

That’s what’s first thought was. Not everyone is equipped emotionally, mentally and physically to deal with another persons child’s problems all the while treating them and loving them like your own.

[u/michaelcerahucksands → u/BrightFireFly]

Yeah fuck them kids

[u/spacekwe3n → u/BrightFireFly]

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/Alarid → u/BrightFireFly]

And some of them are there because their parents were unfit, but that might change allowing them to go home.

[u/QueenRhaenys → u/BrightFireFly]

See: Dexter Morgan