Does adoption fill the infertility void?

Surely if your heart desires a child so much that you would put your faith, and every ounce of hope in, let’s face it, a long shot – then the failure of that must always pinch a little bit?

We were told, after all, that adoption is not a replacement for conceiving your own children. Until you do it of course – you never know.

Infertility can be a dark hole; it strips you down to your core, something that requires a great deal of soul searching. The void that infertility creates can be filled with a manner of superficial emotions.

Back in the day, my own soul searching going on; the void in me was filled with a concoction of anger, confusion and bitterness, but masked by normality.

I was at the age where my friends would announce pregnancies on what seemed like a weekly basis. When I finally plucked up the courage to congratulate them face to face, I often wondered if my artificial smile would trigger a red flag in their brain. If it did, they didn’t let on, or possibly didn’t know what to say.

To me, celebrating their success in life where I had so painfully failed was not something I became accustomed to. The stench, as I saw it back then, of their virility poured out of them, and filled my nostrils prompting me to squirm like I had just stepped into a slaughterhouse.

Time is often said to be a great healer, and when our local council advised us to wait six months after the [failed IVF treatment] before applying to adopt, we felt like they were being condescending. It was however, the right thing to do.

Infertility is a loss, and it needs to be grieved. Like any loss, the time you need is entirely dependent on the individual, and the council’s six month period was arbitrary, but for us, as it turned out, quite accurate.

We had shifted our stance and prepared to step whole-heartedly into adoption.

To be told that adopting a child will not replace the need to procreate was somewhat of a downer though; we wanted these people to be positive, and to sell it to us, not fill our heads with ‘alternative parenting techniques’ and ‘specific treatment for behaviour’ talk.

I can’t tell you the number of times we heard the phrase:

“Yes it is just as rewarding, but you need to parent an adopted child in a different way.”

It was like the social worker’s caveat in the agreement, just in case things went wrong.

Just as time is a great healer though, knowledge is most definitely power. As our knowledge of adoption, and the adoption process grew, so did our desire to adopt, and I am certain, our ability to parent.

Had it not been for the adoption process, we would not have had the pleasure in looking after our friends children. I recently wrote about how [adoption has changed me for the better]. My attentiveness to my son now was borne out of knowledge of adoption, not some pre-ordained ability to father a child. My natural desire sparks the passion, my knowledge controls it.

I am now three months or so into fatherhood, so I hear you ask – does adoption fill the infertility void?

There is a part of me that wonders what life would have been like – pregnancy, hospital, and a certain deficiency of social workers, but it is no longer something I crave. Infertility and adoption took its toll, but I am better for it. As I said at the start, you get stripped to your core.

Sometimes, that is what is required. Like a car being broken down and rebuilt better than before – with a superior engine size, greater torque, and a few more horses under the hood.

Let me put it another way.

The hole in my heart was the size and shape of my son…

… but my sat nav took me the long way round to find him.

Theonehandman is in his mid-thirties, married and very new to parenting having just adopted his toddler son. His blog details his journey into fatherhood through infertility, IVF and adoption, and now focuses on his new role as a stay at home dad. Currently on adoption leave and gracelessly lumbering his way through life, he does what he can to shoe horn in a few hours a week on the Xbox. A big fan of movies, sport, BBQs and reading, he is hoping to complete his first book before he returns to work. He blogs atThe OneHandMan, he Tweets and you can find him on Facebook too