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Geelong Deanery |
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The Pain and the Joy - A Personal Story of Infertility and Adoption
Once there was a little girl who loved to play with her dolls and dreamed of being a mother. At the age of eight she even chose names she liked for her children and sealed them in an envelope for future reference! This little girl loved to read and really enjoyed poetry. In Year Seven she committed to memory a poem that really touched something deep inside her. The poem read, ‘Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone, but never the less, my very own. Never forget not even for a minute. You may not have been born from under my heart, but you were born in it.’ Maybe God was preparing this little girl way back then for the biggest cross she was ever going to have to carry! The little girl grew and enjoyed the company of her many beautiful nieces and nephews. Her love of children led her to teaching. Eventually she met and married her husband who also loved children and together they dreamed of a large family. Then tragedy struck ... Sorry Jacinta, sorry Mick ... no hope, no pregnancy, no family ... the words ran into each other. The little girl inside wept and the husband and wife felt the heavy cloak of grief wrap around them. Numbness, anger, total despair, resentment, jealousy ... feelings chasing feelings. So began angry conversations with God. Mum had died just eight weeks before we were married. We were still grieving her so greatly. With no Mum to talk to and to find that we were never going to be a Mum and a Dad ... it was devastating. In the dictionary ‘waiting’ is defined as remaining inactive and to stay in one place. The Christian notion of waiting is opposite to this. It embraces an active waiting, a waiting that compels us to keep living through the desperation and to keep humming in the darkness. In the words of Isaiah, ‘They that wait upon God shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles.’ So Mick and I, and those we love, waited ... we waited for a miracle. There were many struggles as we waited. Celebrating with friends as they had babies, dealing with relative strangers who queried our ‘no kids status’. Enduring being judged as voluntary DINKS (double income, no kids!). The pain of being placed in the maternity section of the hospital after surgery, the exultation and devastation after blood test results were found to be mixed up: ‘Sorry it’s not a miracle, we gave you someone else’s results.’ The dreams of pregnancy and the harsh reality of the morning light. Perhaps the most difficult period of all was when there was a supposed breakthrough in IVF technology that failed for us and resulted in a long hospital stay. Because fertility treatment is such an emotive time you tend to be disempowered and place much of the decision-making in the hands of virtual strangers. When researching what I had after leaving hospital we discovered that it was ‘relatively common and potentially fatal’. None of the pre-treatment reading had mentioned this rather significant information. So much for technological advancements! With great anticipation we joined the adoption program at Centacare – Catholic Family Services – and began a very long, gruelling and intensive process of interviews, counselling and education. At times we resented having to prove we were going to be good parents. It seemed unjust when biological parents were not placed under the same scrutiny. But we realised that this process was in place to protect the child and to reassure birth parents, so we got on with the task at hand! The years rolled along. Birth families are encouraged to be involved in the selection criteria for their birth child. Non-identifying criteria such as educational qualifications, life philosophies, employment positions, hobbies, family support networks and autobiographies are reflected upon. Birth families, in this way, are then more empowered and better able to make an informed choice that may realise some of the dreams they aspire to for their birthchild. Statistics show that adoption has come to a virtual standstill. According to a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (The Age,15 February 1999), just 577 children were adopted in 1997–98. At the same time 91,900 abortions were performed in Australia, which has the second highest abortion rate of any ‘developed country’. Some tragic things may have happened years ago to birth mothers who were afforded no choice. Surely though this is a reflection on society then, rather than on adoption now. It is important also to recognise that many well-adjusted, happy people from all sides of the ‘ old adoption’ story do exist. Happy adoption stories do not seem to be good ‘media fodder’. Our elder son’s beautiful birthparents endured pressure from some ‘professionals’ who tried to dissuade them from choosing adoption. We support people’s right to choose but the pendulum has swung so far the other way that the ‘choice’ for adoption has all but been removed. We read once that ‘birds don’t sing because they have a statement, they sing because they have a song...’ On 18 February 1994 and on 18 August 1999, the reasons for this story and the reasons for our song came to fruition. Thomas Damond Foster Raimondo and Benjamin Shane Foster Raimondo came home. Tom was just six weeks, having been born on Christmas Day 1993, and Ben was almost five months, having been born on the 25 March 1999. Tom and Ben are the greatest joys to us and are so greatly loved by us, our extended family and our friends. Not one, but two miracles! Tom knows, and Ben will grow to know, that they came to us through adoption. We do not hide the adoption but equally we do not label our children as our ‘adopted sons’. Just as we do not hear other people comment on their ‘breech-birth or Caesarean-section babies’, Ben and Tom are our sons, but we freely tell people that they did come to us through adoption. Our boys also came home to us because of the courageous and loving decisions of two sets of birthparents. Birthparents who recognized the limitations of their situation and then chose a different parenting option for their sons. Our birthparents own their pain, but they don’t regret their decision. For they have also recognised the pain of some of their friends who are suffering from post-abortion trauma or unhappily struggling with the demands of unplanned parenthood and the loss of many of their aspirations and dreams. We do not live in a perfect world and pain is an inevitable part of living and loving. Conscious of this, all involved in adoption commit to a process of education, counselling and support, both pre- and post-adoption. None of us own our children. ‘Roots and wings are the only two things we can give them.’ Our beautiful sons have two sets of roots – biological and nurturing ones. For all the obvious reasons we were anxious about any possibility of forming relationships with birthparents at the beginning of the adoption process. We can honestly say now though, that we love our sons’ birthparents and, while respecting their right to privacy, will do all we can to maintain some form of relationship with them. Through correspondence, our birthparents are constantly reassured that , like them, these oh-so-precious little men, whom we all love so much, are living life in the fullest measure. The last word should be left to our older son’s birthparents. When they discovered that we had a new son and that Tom had a baby brother they sent flowers and on a beautiful card wrote: ‘We are so excited for you with your new son and a brother for Tom. We cannot think of anyone who deserves it more than you. Tom, we know you will be the best big brother in the world too. You have made the most difficult decision in our lives so much easier. We know the love and security and fun that surrounds Tom and we know it will be the same for Ben. We just hope Ben’s birth family understands how lucky they are! We love you.’ And the last, last word should be left to our son, Tom. This is Tom’s response to his little mate who was asking about adoption: ‘All adoption means is that you’ve got more people who love you and that you got borned [sic] somewhere else before you came home.’ Whether single or married, parenting is a responsibility, not a right. Let us admire those people who choose to parent their children and do a good job of it. Let us also admire those people who recognize the limitations of their situation and choose a different parenting option – this kind of selflessness has made us and our two sons the happiest people in the world. Jacinta Foster-Raimondo and Mick Raimondo |
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