Episode 1 Podcast > Full Transcript
Nicole Witt, Greeting:
Hi, listeners, I want to welcome you to the inaugural episode of Adopting! The Podcast. I am so excited to be your host for this journey. I'm Nicole Witt, Executive Director of The Adoption Consultancy. And we guide pre-adoptive parents, step by step, through the adoption journey.
In Adopting! The Podcast, we're going to focus on the issues, the questions and the concerns you have as you get started in your adoption journey. This is for people who are just considering adoption, who are brand new to adoption or very early in the process and trying to get their questions answered and figure out their best path forward, learn about what to expect and learn about just generally how the process works.
Nicole Witt, Intro:
In today's episode, we're going to start at what is the very beginning of the adoption journey for many people. We're going to be talking with a couple of experts about how to know if and when it's the right time for you to make the transition from medical fertility treatments to adoption. And if adoption is the right next move for you, how to make the emotional transition.
Now, we know that people pursue adoption for a variety of reasons. Same sex couples, for instance, have more limited medical options. For some people, it's just how they've always foreseen building their family. But for most of the people I work with, it's after an often very long struggle with artificial reproductive technology, often including multiple IVF cycles, sometimes having tried donor gametes and or maybe surrogacy, there's been a lot of money spent, a lot of time spent, a lot of emotions spent. So, people are a little bit burned out by the time they get to this point. And they also can be of the mindset where they kind of expect things not to work because that's what's happened so far.
So, I find that those who come to adoption because they have to, they often don't really stick it out, or if they do, they struggle through and have a much more difficult time and more of an emotional roller coaster than others.
The people who I work with, who I see are much more successful in their journey, they come to adoption, not looking at it as a next step of things that likely won't work, but rather as a first step on a new, exciting journey that is going to work.
Now, that's obviously a lot easier said than done. So, we're going to talk today about how to get to that place emotionally.
Nicole:
So, I would like to welcome my guests. We have with us today Kathy Fountain of Fountain Fertility. Kathy Fountain is a licensed mental health counselor in Florida and a national board-certified counselor specializing in fertility and infertility issues.
Her practice includes counseling individuals and couples experiencing the stresses that accompany fertility issues. She also works with doctors, lawyers and agencies specializing in reproductive technologies and is experienced in evaluating and counseling those considering IVF, third-party reproduction, egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation and surrogacy.
She's a member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and is also my co-facilitator for the Tampa chapter of Resolve, the National Infertility Support and Advocacy Organization. She's a certified professional instructor of the Mind Body Program for Infertility, having trained with Dr. Alice Domar at the Mind Body Center for Women's Health in Boston. Kathy is the founder of the Mind Body Program for Infertility in Tampa.
Welcome, Kathy. Thank you for being here.
Kathy Fountain:
It's delightful to be here. Thank you for having me.
Nicole:
Sure.
We also have with us today Dr. Deborah Simmons of Partners Infertility. Dr. Deborah Simmons has provided counseling for infertility-related trauma and pregnancy loss for more than 20 years. She offers clinical hypnosis, EMDR, cognitive behavioral therapy, couples therapy and energy work. She prepares straight and gay couples and single women and men who wish to pursue IUI, IVF, donor eggs, donor sperm, donor embryo surrogacy and adoption. She prepares gestational carriers for surrogate pregnancy.
Dr. Simmons consults with the Center for Reproductive Medicine in Minneapolis, where she screens potential egg donors. She's an active member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and Resolve. And on the Board of Fruitful Fertility. She frequently does decision making with clients who are considering a variety of paths to family building.
Hi, Deb, thank you for being here too.
Dr. Deborah Simmons:
Thank you for having me.
Nicole:
Sure.
And why don't we start with you, Deb. What are some of the factors that you see that lead people to end treatment and start to explore adoption?
Deb:
Interestingly enough, it's the psychological factors; it's feeling worn out. And people will do almost anything until they feel that they can't. There's also the financial factors.
Nicole:
Of course.
Deb:
If we could only put some amount of money into family building, what is our best path? Where are we going to get the best payoff?
Nicole:
Yeah, yeah, those are all important questions, and I want to make sure that we dig deeper into a couple of those today.
Before we get to that, Kathy, what are your thoughts? What do you see in terms of how couples who are struggling with infertility tend to view adoption as an option?
Kathy:
Well, as Deborah said, they are emotionally worn out. They have the medical part, the psychological part, the hit it takes to their self-esteem, their feeling of being a masculine or feminine, being a complete family. It's can be exhausting. That's what I see, is they are just exhausted.
Most of the people that you see, and I send many to you, Nicole, it's kind of like their backup plan. They didn't expect this. They think, well, we can always consider that in the back of their mind. So, it happens to be a backup plan, maybe not their first choice. But I find that if they can see it as a choice, as an option, as opposed to a backup, if they can feel good about it, like, “I'm giving a child a home. This is going to be my special child that was supposed to come to me”, they do so much better emotionally getting over that hurdle than if they just see it as the backup and “It's not my first choice.”
Nicole:
And that also gives them a feel of some control over the decision and the process. It's something that they are doing not that is happening to them.
Kathy:
Right.
Deb:
Right. Correct.
And I think that if you think about this; there is a difference between, “I have to” and “I get to.”
Nicole:
Right.
Deb:
And when we can incorporate any of these family building patterns into, “I get to do something”, then you have a choice about what is it that you or you or your partner would like to proceed with?
Nicole:
That's a great way to look at it. And I think that really leads to an important change in perspective for every step throughout the process, not even just the transition to the beginning of it. That's a great way to look at it.
Kathy:
And Deborah, you touched on something that's really important there, too. And that is there is nothing like that feeling of being totally out of control in this process. People who are very goal oriented and goal directed find themselves up against a brick wall and nothing they can do to control it. And making that choice to move to the next level; to plan B, to Plan C, it makes them feel like I'm doing something about it and gaining some power back in my relationship.
Nicole:
Yeah, those are great points.
What do you guys see as some of the key questions people really need to ask themselves to decide if they're ready to make that change and to pursue adoption?
Deb:
I think one of them is how comfortable are you letting go of something; it could be letting go of your genetics, letting go of your biology, letting go of the dream that you had for family building, as there are a lot of different dreams that we can have about building a family.
Nicole:
Right.
Deb:
Another is, can you handle the waiting? Adoption is another process where there are uncertainties, where there is some invasiveness to it, similar to medical treatment. And what do you have in you? What kind of equity are we trying to build here? Can two people in a couple put more effort in a way that we can't do with medical treatment?
Nicole:
Yeah, I think that is an important point about equity. And I certainly see with some clients that they haven't gone through the fertility treatments first because it is important to them to have more of that balance. And even those that have gone through the fertility treatments first and then make the transition, I think that is a welcome aspect of it that maybe they hadn't considered.
But now, because those fertility treatments can really feel like often, the woman is the one putting so much more effort in and having everything done to her, that this is such more of an even place for the couple to be. And sometimes they forget how good that felt to be at that place of equality.
Deb:
Yes. An even playing field.
Nicole:
Yes.
Kathy:
And letting go of the feelings. You know, I find, Deborah, I'm sure you've seen this, too; women, more often than men, but they just feel like they've failed. They feel like they've been inadequate in some way to not be able to, like, even give their family a generational child. That that's been their reproductive story all along, “Oh, I want to have a child like grandpa. I want my mom's eyes.” Letting go of some of those things and seeing the child as a unique individual and not just a reflection of their genes.
Deb:
Yes. Yes.
So, they have to be able to address their grief.
Kathy:
Yes.
Deb:
And grief can go with us as we look for new opportunities.
Nicole:
Yeah.
And I think that's a great point. It's an unrealistic expectation that I'm going to grieve this and then be one hundred percent over it and move on. I don't know that infertility ever completely leaves you.
Deb:
I don't think it does.
Nicole:
All right.
Deb:
You don't have a chapter of a book and then rip out the chapter and think that like you're aware of where where's the missing piece?
Kathy:
You can resolve being a parent, but you may not be able to resolve the infertility, necessarily. That's part of your reproductive story and always will be.
Deb:
That’s right.
Nicole:
Yeah. And that actually leads me to an important point, Kathy. I think that's probably the most important question that people have to get to before they're ready to make the transition to adoption is; do I want to be pregnant or do I want to be a parent? And when becoming a parent becomes the goal, that's when people are truly ready to make that switch. Is that what you guys see?
Deb:
Absolutely.
Kathy:
They have to make the same decision when they choose to use donor gametes as well; “Do I want to be a parent?” or “Do I want to have a genetic child?” or “Is it time for me?” And then the same thing; “Do I want to be pregnant?” or “Do I want to have a child?”
And it's part of overcoming the fears of a lot of the myths that they've heard about adoption that they have to battle in their head. And everybody comes in with a story about, I don't know, Deborah, about you, but I'll find that people say, “Well, I knew somebody who was adopted and it happened this way” or “I knew somebody who was adopted and that was terrible”, or “This is good.” And they come in with a preconceived notion of how this is going to play out, because they've seen it in friends and family and it colors their decision sometimes.
Deb:
Kathy, you're exactly right. It's very similar to these negative predictive judgments that people make about will cycles work or will cycles not work, that people pre-decide things. And yet when we're curious about any of these processes, we find out that some of those fears just aren't true or they're not universal, that there are as many good stories as perhaps the myths that they've heard.
Nicole:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And, Deborah, you alluded to something earlier that I wanted to talk more about. It was in terms of if people are pursuing this as a couple, what do you tend to see in terms of how often are both members of the couple exactly on the same page at the same time, or should they expect that that's not going to be how it is? And how do you recommend people work through that?
Deb:
I seldom see that people are on exactly the same page at exactly the same time. I've used the metaphor of walking down the road, one person maybe sitting in the road, the other person may be running down the road. We have to sort of turn around and look at each other and say, “Okay, why are we… We are where we are and how do we get to more alignment?”
And it's not judging the other person for their fears. It's not deciding that that other person is wrong. It's figuring out where are we in this moment and where is it that we want to go. As Kathy said, do we want to be pregnant or do we want to be parents?
And if people will be honest with one another and not fear what the other one is thinking or might say, we do a whole lot better.
So, it turns into a couple’s conversation about where are you right now? What does your imagination say? And probably most important in my practice is what does your intuition say about this? You can vet all kinds of things analytically, and we should. Ultimately, it's our gut instinct or it's the thing that says, “This is what feels right.”
Nicole:
Yeah, and having that faith and trust in that. Which is something I think that people, during the course of going through infertility, sometimes they shush that voice inside of them. So, learning to listen to it again.
Deb:
Yeah.
It's something that I like couples to really hash it out very honestly. Even if there are things that they're afraid, go ahead and put it on the table and then we can find out often, like, “Oh, I didn't know you thought that. Okay, we can work with that.”
Nicole:
Right. Right.
Kathy, what are some of the other big stumbling blocks you see when your clients are considering this transition?
Kathy:
Well, I think the first thing is they ask themselves, “Can I love a child? Can I bond with a child that is not of my body, not of my genetics?” That's the first thing they ask themselves.
And they torture themselves sometimes with, “How will I feel?” Like Deborah said, they're trying to predict what they might feel. They might presuppose that, “Maybe I won't feel the same way about the child.” They might worry that their families might not see the child as being as legitimate as other biological children in their families. They might be worried, I mean, this is when I send them to UNICOL, “What are those birth mothers doing? What am I getting?” So, those are some of the things that they have legitimate concerns about and fears about.
Deb:
Adding, Kathy, to what you've just said, people often are very fearful about what does open adoption mean?
Kathy:
Oh, yes.
Nicole:
Yes.
Kathy:
I agree.
Nicole:
I agree.
Deb:
What do I have to do with the birth mother versus what would we all like to do with each other?
Kathy:
Agree.
Nicole:
Yeah, and certainly some of those in terms of, you know, what is the typical potential birth mom like and what are the myths versus the realities, that can often be overcome with just having the information and the facts about it.
But when you're dealing with more of the emotional side of things like, “Am I going to bond with the child?” for example, how do you help people work through that in absence of, you know, before they have the child and realize that they have bonded?
What tips do you guys have for that?
Deb:
I encourage people to talk with other adoptive parents. Just straight out, what fears did those now friends have and what's the reality? We're so worried about things that we can't control. And how does any of us know, regardless of how we become parents, that we're going to bond with a child? We don't. There's a leap of faith and there is a belief that we have the ability to open our hearts to a new human being.
And I think that people do a whole lot better when they again, they go back to curiosity; how might it be? That's a different question then, “Can I?”
Nicole:
Right.
Deb:
Of course, you can.
Kathy:
And sometimes I say to them, “Okay, you're sitting on this couch and you're telling me how much you want a child. You've been through fertility treatments. If someone were to knock on the door right this very minute and walk in and say, ‘I found a baby just lying here on the street. Would you like it?’ And they just put this baby in your arms, what would you do? Wouldn’t you go, ‘Oh, my goodness gracious. Of course.’ Because the baby is a stranger to you and you're a stranger to the baby, and you learn together what it means to be in a relationship. And that happens whether it comes from your body or not.” And they seem to get that.
Deb:
That's right.
Nicole:
Yeah.
And I think another important point with that is they're often there with their partner, who they love so deeply and they want to build a family with and who they are not related to except possibly through marriage, right?
So, the question of can I love somebody who I'm not biologically related to is answered right there with their partner. And obviously, you can.
But I think the point of talking to other adoptive parents is so important as well, because the questions that you're not going to have the experience until you get there, it's so great to talk to people who have had that experience.
Because almost all adoptive parents have a lot of these same questions and concerns or had them when they were starting out, although people can feel like they're the first ones to be dealing with some of this and that, “No, there's no way anybody else can understand this.”
There are people out there who have been through and who understand it. And I think that's a great tip to have those conversations with them. And again, that helps to dispel some of those myths and fears.
Deb:
It's been really interesting how the adoptive parents have welcomed those conversations, that it feels like a calling to them to, “Please, let me tell you where I was and where I am now.”
And what they'll say is they hear the same fears that they had themselves. And you get a sense of the journey and the gross and the acceptance of the situation. And with the acceptance, we can like it or not like it, but we can we can still move forward in a loving, compassionate way that allows us to regain those dreams.
Nicole:
Yeah.
Kathy:
But don't you also find that when I talk to parents who I've seen in the past and then they adopt, is that they almost come to a like a spiritual moment of, “This was meant to be my child. This is the one who was meant to come to me.” And, boy, does that level out a lot of those anxieties if they see it as something that was maybe not fate, but just a special thing that happened that was supposed to happen exactly the way it happened.
Deb:
Yes.
Nicole:
Because once they adopt, they can't imagine not parenting that child.
Deb:
Right.
Kathy:
That's right.
Deb:
Exactly.
Kathy:
And people psych themselves out with this anticipatory anxiety. That's what a lot of the fears are. And then the reality is like, “Oh, here we are right now and we're living it. And not only is it not scary, but we're in it and we're going.”
Nicole:
Right.
Kathy:
And it's pretty great.
Nicole:
Okay, jumping back to one of the other stumbling blocks that we have alluded to is the finances. Obviously, finances are a huge consideration for everybody, and infertility treatments are expensive, and adoption is expensive and people have limited resources. So, how do you help people come to terms with that and to make sensible decisions on this topic?
Kathy:
Well, I think that for some of them who make the decision, well, first of all, I encourage them to go get the facts. Go get some information. There's a myth out there that adoption is so expensive, I would never be able to afford it. So, I have some resources I give to them and I say, “Do your research. Know the facts before you prejudge that you will never be able to afford this.”
But some also realize that even though it might take a while, that as opposed to a fertility treatment that doesn't carry a guarantee, with adoption, you eventually, no matter what the cost ends up being, you bring home a baby. And that is appealing to a lot of couples.
Deb:
That there be some certainty.
I do what I call a value analysis with people, and that happens for people who are trying in the bed or people who have been through a lot of medical treatment, that I have them look not only at the pros and cons, but the advantages and disadvantages of where they are or where they can go. I have them look at intended consequences, as Kathy said, that eventually you will come home with a baby. The unintended consequence could be that it's in two months, that nobody considers that. And it is possible.
If people, again, will use their analytic brains and their intuition, even if we were to lay out exactly in that value analysis, all of the things that people think about, there's going to be a couple of factors or values that jump off the page. Is it that you value time, is it that you value the equity in the relationship? But there will be something.
And it's been fascinating to watch people who will say, “I never thought about this before.” This is giving me this opportunity to, as you talked about earlier, Nicole, about perspectives. There are a number of perspectives. There's no one path, one right way or one right path.
Nicole:
Right, right. Now, that's a great point.
Deb, you and I had spoken previously about this idea of milestones or markers for ending the infertility journey and moving on to adoption. Do you want to chat about that a little bit more and how that can help people to make the transition?
Deb:
Sure, sure.
People tend to mark milestones in terms of time; here it is December and it's another year, another Christmas where you don't have what you want or need. Sometimes it's this overwhelming sense of can't do one more shot, can't throw another shot. That’s one more time. Can't take one more bad news phone call.
There was even a woman at a fertility clinic who talked about when the receptionist took her chart and put it on the desk and it made a {indistinct 24:16} sound, which indicated that it had been a long time. It was a very big chart. And that there was something about that sound that said, “Gosh, I've been at this for a long time. I'm done.”
So, these milestones can be physical. They can be auditory; in that case. They can be the sense of trauma like, “Oh, can you drive past the clinic or walk into the clinic?” It can be all kinds of things.
Nicole:
Yeah, no, those are really good points.
I know, Kathy, you had alluded to some of the myths that tend to hold people back, and that's something that we could and perhaps will do another whole episode on and getting into the openness, which is something that holds a lot of people back. But along with many myths, once they learn more about it, it's not nearly as much of a barrier.
So, just to kind of start to wrap up this topic, and obviously a lot of what we've been talking about has been addressing this already. But if people really want to get to, you know, like you were saying, Deborah, they know that they're done. They can't move on with the treatment and they know that they're done and they want to emotionally be ready to start adoption. Any tips you guys want to wrap up with that really might help them start making that emotional transition?
Deb:
Individual and couples therapy. Because one person might be perfectly willing to do whatever is necessary and the other person may just be having a harder time. It depends on the level of trauma.
I also think, as Kathy said about the research, talking to other parents is hugely important. It's not what you read. It's what you get in conversation from other people who have walked the path.
Kathy:
We've had the really nice experience. We're lucky down here, Deborah, that that Nicole and I have co-facilitator this resolve group. And Nicole will talk about it sometimes in the group and just hearing her sit there and talk about her experience, what she does for a living, and other parents making that same consideration. You can see the faces around the room going, they sort of nod like, “Oh, yeah, maybe I could see that. I could see that.” And just knowing that they're ready to be to be parents.
Deb:
Yes.
Kathy:
And it's time to sort of resolve the grief of their reproductive story, not being what they wanted. And then hearing somebody say, “You can do this.”
And then I usually either send them – Luckily, I have Nicole in my area, but, you know, a couple of other resources of either agencies or counselors who specialize in this. And I said, “Go try this on. Go try on this self and see how it feels to you.”
Like you mentioned intuition, Deborah, which I think is so important because people tend to override their intuition all the time.
Deb:
That’s right.
Kathy:
And if they just listen to it and go, “I could see this happening for me”, then it helps them move across that barrier a bit.
Deb:
Yeah, second guessing and self-doubt don't help anyone. They block the process.
Nicole:
Well, those are some great tips. I think on that note, we're going to wrap things up.
Again, I'm Nicole Witt, Executive Director of The Adoption Consultancy. We help guide people, step by step, through the adoption process. I'd like to thank my guests again, Dr. Deborah Simmons of Partners Infertility. And you can find her at www.partnersinfertility.net. And Kathy Fountain of Fountain Fertility, and you can find her at Kathy, (K-A-T-H-Y) kathyfountainfertility.com
And for those listening, thank you again so much for allowing me to be part of your journey. Take care of yourselves and stay well.