Friday, January 6, 2012

Reader Question: What's Harder Trying to Conceive and Fertility Treatments OR Foster Care? (Part I)

Reader Question: 
What's Harder....
Trying to Conceive and Fertility Treatments
OR
Foster Care?

Well, that is a tough one to answer.

So let me open this up to my Readers... What are your thoughts, questions, answers?  And then I will share mine.

7 comments:

  1. TTC & ART –
    PROS:
    1. Can do if single
    2. Limited invasion of privacy once healthy child is born
    3. Child won't be removed unless warranted

    CONS:
    1. no guarantee of a baby
    2. very expensive
    3. can be one very one-sided as far as treatments are concerned
    4. clinics are limited
    5. Slightly negative public opinion (why don’t you “just adopt/relax/try yoga?”)
    6. Advanced age reduces outcome
    7. No real tax incentive
    8. Ethical concerns (multiple reductions, storing embryos, surrogacy, etc.)

    FOSTERING -
    PROS:
    1. both sides of couple involved, can also do single
    2. Besides normal expenses of child-rearing, not too expensive
    3. Agencies are plentiful in more urban areas
    4. Large support network
    5. Positive opinion from general population
    6. Age has no impact on the ability to bring a child into the home
    7. Tax incentive

    CONS:
    1. no guarantee of a baby
    2. Dealing with the bureaucracy of the system
    3. Loss of privacy (visits, home study etc.)
    4. Child can be disrupted/removed at any time for any reason outside of your control.

    I vote that TTC/ART is harder.

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  2. I couldn't even begin to answer that question! That's a tough one...going through fostering/adoption right now myself...gave up on fertility assistance 3yrs ago :). Can't wait to hear your thoughts!

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  3. Personally I found TTC to be extreamly life altering. I had to learn a lot about myself, our personal family goals and learned what it means to be a true friend. Once we made our choice to go the adoption from foster care route it has been less life altering. BUT the matching process has proven to be brutally aquward. I do wonder what I will think once we have finalized.

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  4. I don't really have any perspective for foster care except for the blogs I read, but if you were talking about fertility treatments versus adoption, I think adoption is a lot harder. There are a lot of reasons why I think that but mostly because you have to advertise, sell yourself to someone else, and you don't have really any control of the wait. Now I understand you don't have control of fertility treatments either but in a way you do. You choose when to proceed, when to stop. It is a maybe 2-3 month at a time decision you make to do the next step, you do it, it is done. It's personal and doesn't involve others for the most part. It's your life as a couple alone.

    With foster care, I think this would also be difficult because it involves others and not just you, your DH, and the office. The timeline isn't set. The decisions are not necessarily yours.....

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  5. I think the two are hard to compare. Both have their own very unique challenges, highs, lows, disappointments and celebrations. Both have things that are answered, and things that are unanswered. I don't think you can say one is more difficult than the other, just that one was more difficult for you personally. Some people may think that the TTC and Fertility Treatments were the worst thing in the world to endure, so the Foster to Adopt wasn't that bad. Others may feel the exact opposite. And still others may say that they both sucked equally. In the end, the reward is (in my opinion) worth all of the heartache it took to get there!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are absolutely right.. both are worth the heartache.

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  6. I have another way of looking at it...emotionally, spiritually and physically.

    TTC - Emotionally I felt like something was wrong w/me. I was broken and couldn't be fixed!
    -Spiritually I argued w/God so so so much. WHY WHY WHY did He give me this desire and not the ability??
    -Physically my body was put 'through the wringer'. I was tired of being a science experiment, which tied back into the emotional part. Some procedures HURT so bad, I'd rather die than do that again.

    Foster-to-adopt (we've done it once so far and hope to do it again soon!) - Emotionally it was a roller coaster, but when you get right down to it, the overwhelming sense of beauty over the fact that we could fill a need for a child and she could fill a need for us...
    Spiritually - we believe as followers of Jesus, it is our duty to care for widows and orphans. After my initial anger at having to 'give them back', I realized that God created me/us for this. To have a desire and to help 'fix' others' families. To help them as they grow as a family.
    Physically - getting to hug all sorts of kids, various ages w/o any more than the average wear and tear on my body is nothing to complain about!

    I guess for me it's a no brainer. I could go on about a bunch of these points I mentioned, but I think you can understand where I'm coming from when I summarize. But I do agree that everyone's situation is different. There is no wrong or right answer to this question! Both can be so difficult at times! But yes, whatever way you are lead to your child, the reward is great!

    ReplyDelete

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