Some comments on a friend's blog have prompted this particular post. Since adoption was not supposed to be the main focus of that discussion and I didn't want to derail it further, and since this is something I love to talk about, I thought I would open up this topic on my own blog.
Myth #1: Adopting increases your chances of getting pregnant. Actually, no. I once read somewhere that the percentage of infertile women who get pregnant after adopting is around 2%. Interestingly, this is the same percentage of infertile women who go on to get pregnant and don't adopt. Now, just as a disclaimer, I don't know how they determined the definition of infertile, how the study was conducted, what the sample size was, etc. In my LDS adoption circles, I think that the rate is somewhat higher than 2%. But the point is, getting pregnant after adopting is still rather uncommon! Sure, we hear all the miracle stories. Those stories get a lot of attention, which makes it seem like they happen more often than they really do. After all, nobody is going around saying, "Guess what? Did you hear about my friend so-and-so? Well, she adopted, and she is still not pregnant! Isn't that cool?"
Why is this myth bothersome? It implies that adoption is just a means to getting pregnant, instead of a valid and wonderful family-building option in and of itself. "Oh, they had to adopt so that the real miracle, getting pregnant with their 'own' child, could occur."
Plus, it's simply not true!
Myth #2: If you just relax, you will get pregnant. I am including this with the adoption myth because sometimes that is the explanation for pregnancy after adoption. The couple are now happy and relaxed, and therefore pregnancy can occur. So what about all those other happy and relaxed adoptive parents who do not get pregnant? You know, the other 98%?
Here's what I think: Heavenly Father is intimately involved in planning our families, if we let Him. Sometimes a certain child or children need to come to our family, and adoption is the only way they can get here. (Because of God's efforts to meet the needs and situations of all His children, including birth families.) Once those missions have been accomplished, Heavenly Father can then send, if it is His plan, the remaining children to that family biologically.
Edited to add: Someone on my adoptive moms' email group posted some more accurate information. One book, Raising Adopted Children by Lois Melina, quotes the statistic as 5% and reiterates that the percentage is exactly the same for infertile women who do not adopt. Information at http://www.adoption.com/ (I don't have the exact link handy at the moment) puts the statistic between 3% and 10%. It cites one important study that put the pregnancy rate at, I believe, 7%. I polled the women on my LDS adoptive mother's email group and even though the sample was small, the statistics reflected what has already been shown. Out of 33 members who voted, only two had ever become pregnant (and carried to term--we decided that since recurrent miscarriage has been a form of infertility for many of our members, we would only include pregnancies that didn't result in miscarriage in the poll). That put the pregnancy rate at around 7%. Neither of the mothers got pregnant within the first year after adopting. For one mom, her pregnancy happened many years after adopting her first child.
Any way you slice it, very few women are getting pregant after post-infertility adoption. :)
Myth #1: Adopting increases your chances of getting pregnant. Actually, no. I once read somewhere that the percentage of infertile women who get pregnant after adopting is around 2%. Interestingly, this is the same percentage of infertile women who go on to get pregnant and don't adopt. Now, just as a disclaimer, I don't know how they determined the definition of infertile, how the study was conducted, what the sample size was, etc. In my LDS adoption circles, I think that the rate is somewhat higher than 2%. But the point is, getting pregnant after adopting is still rather uncommon! Sure, we hear all the miracle stories. Those stories get a lot of attention, which makes it seem like they happen more often than they really do. After all, nobody is going around saying, "Guess what? Did you hear about my friend so-and-so? Well, she adopted, and she is still not pregnant! Isn't that cool?"
Why is this myth bothersome? It implies that adoption is just a means to getting pregnant, instead of a valid and wonderful family-building option in and of itself. "Oh, they had to adopt so that the real miracle, getting pregnant with their 'own' child, could occur."
Plus, it's simply not true!
Myth #2: If you just relax, you will get pregnant. I am including this with the adoption myth because sometimes that is the explanation for pregnancy after adoption. The couple are now happy and relaxed, and therefore pregnancy can occur. So what about all those other happy and relaxed adoptive parents who do not get pregnant? You know, the other 98%?
Here's what I think: Heavenly Father is intimately involved in planning our families, if we let Him. Sometimes a certain child or children need to come to our family, and adoption is the only way they can get here. (Because of God's efforts to meet the needs and situations of all His children, including birth families.) Once those missions have been accomplished, Heavenly Father can then send, if it is His plan, the remaining children to that family biologically.
Edited to add: Someone on my adoptive moms' email group posted some more accurate information. One book, Raising Adopted Children by Lois Melina, quotes the statistic as 5% and reiterates that the percentage is exactly the same for infertile women who do not adopt. Information at http://www.adoption.com/ (I don't have the exact link handy at the moment) puts the statistic between 3% and 10%. It cites one important study that put the pregnancy rate at, I believe, 7%. I polled the women on my LDS adoptive mother's email group and even though the sample was small, the statistics reflected what has already been shown. Out of 33 members who voted, only two had ever become pregnant (and carried to term--we decided that since recurrent miscarriage has been a form of infertility for many of our members, we would only include pregnancies that didn't result in miscarriage in the poll). That put the pregnancy rate at around 7%. Neither of the mothers got pregnant within the first year after adopting. For one mom, her pregnancy happened many years after adopting her first child.
Any way you slice it, very few women are getting pregant after post-infertility adoption. :)
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