Grieving your infertility

A friend of mine's mother is an adoption placement worker with CAS. My friend says of all the aspects of her mother's job, the part that she understands least is the fact that all prospective adoptive parents, regardless of their fertility status or sexual orientation, must take a course called "grieving your infertility" before adopting.

That is to say, you may have birthed and parented a whole housefull of rugrats, and you are still expected to grieve your fertility. Because making your own decision on how to expand your family is so very TRAUMATIC, you see.

The other thing is, were I infertile, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to grieve my infertility alongside people who were clearly not infertile. I'm pretty sure it would piss me off.

When I let people know we plan to have a second child through adoption, the first question seems to be if there is some reason why we can't conceive the child ourselves (i.e. are we infertile). When they find out we are not, they don't know quite what to make of us. They bring up things like genetics, that people who are adopted have a far worse chance of x and y, and the whole obnoxious attitude of "they're so cute when they're little, aren't they? But when they're older, watch out..." as though adoptees were some sort of ticking time bomb, just by nature of the fact that they were adopted.

Here's what I think: genetics are a crapshoot either way. Señor Chickenlegs and I both have various mental and physical ailments represented on each side of the family, but we aren't sitting with baited breath waiting for our son to explode. We know it will happen in good time :)

As for having a child that looks like you. as I may have mentioned, my son, while breathtakingly gorgeous, doesn't look a hell of a sight like me. Granted, he looks much like my breathtakingly gorgeous Chickenlegged Man, but that's not why I love him. I love him because he is my son, because I hoped and dreamed that he would be the wonderful person that he is, just as I am hoping and dreaming that our second wonderkid will find its way to us, in due time.

What do you think, gentle readers? Do fertile potential adoptive parents have reason to grieve their infertility?

ps. To the reader who asked whether posting a comment would reveal her identity or link to her blog- not unless you want it to. You are free to post as "anonymous" if you so choose. I would love to hear from you, so de-lurk, de-lurk, wherever you are!