When we decided to adopt a baby, rather than an older child, we knew there would be lots of sleepless nights and alarming fluids. When we decided to adopt from South Korea, we knew the child would be Korean and that we would still be white Americans. Like all good stories – and most gambles – this one goes in directions I didn’t bet on. Adoption is not for everyone, but I do think there would be less misery in the world and more love if adoption felt like a viable option for more people, if it didn’t feel like second-best. Of course, there is heartbreak for children who need but do not have families. They are often harsh, painful, invasive, expensive procedures that may not have very good odds of success.
In vitro fertilisation, fertility drugs, donor eggs and embryos, surrogacy – these things are no joke. I like to say so because there is so much heartbreak for people who cannot, for whatever reason, get or stay pregnant. But I do think people look at my family and imagine that we settled for each other, that my husband and I would have preferred a child who was biologically ours but settled for adoption because the other option was childlessness. I fear it sounds smug or self-righteous, and I don’t intend it to. I don’t have as many opportunities to say that as I would like. So far as we know, I could have become pregnant and made a baby that way, but we chose adoption instead. My family is formed through adoption but not out of necessity. There is only one parent, perhaps, or there are two but they can’t get pregnant because of infertility, say, or being the same sex, or a medical problem. Here is a thing that is unfortunately true: most families formed through adoption have done so out of necessity. We decided in an instant because it felt good, it felt right, and there was no going back. And in the next moment, the very next breath, we said let’s adopt. It was maybe the most well-thought-out reproduction in history. Then we said we should have a baby, the culmination of years of conversation on the topic, the opposite of gambling. Then, as conversations do, this one took a turn. He said I’m glad you’re having fun, but I’m ready for you to come home now.
I said the sand is still warm from the sun I wish you were here. He said I miss you nothing is as good when you’re gone. I said the water is beautiful you would love it. I was in Florida on holiday with my mother and had wandered to the beach to talk to my husband on the phone in Seattle. So the conversation on the beach was not the first we had about whether to have children.
We loved each other, and we loved our life, and having a child seemed the ultimate gamble. For a long time, my husband and I were not sure we wanted children. A split-second decision following the opposite kind. Like most family planning that happens on a moonlit beach, ours was a split-second decision.
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