Baby 81 and Post tsunami Adoption Thoughts

Last night dh and I met his parents at their house before going out to eat. Unfortunately, this included meeting up with BIL and M. Also. Once again she displayed her ignorance by pretending to know more about dominant and recessive genes and Labrador retriever breeding then she really does. I was rather amused when BIL actually corrected her for a change. Apparently, she believes having a degree to teach secondary life science is equivalent to a Ph.D. in genealogy.

We went to a restaurant we hadn't visited before, apparently because it was convenient for BIL and M. At least the food was good. I ate grilled amber jack in Parmesan cream sauce with mushrooms, peppers, onions, and shrimp. Yum!

Of course, after dinner we were obligated to return to the in-laws house. MIL asked me if I had seen the article about baby 81 in the paper, which I hadn't. However, I felt obligated to read the cover story about the baby who is being claimed by 9 mothers in Indonesia, which is so heart breaking. There was a couple of sentences in the article talking about how one of the alleged fathers had told the authorities that he would kill his wife and himself if they didn't get the baby.

That statement really impacted me, and I ended up reading it out loud. Apparently, MIL didn't understand my thought process. She declared, "If they are going to make a statement like that apparently they don't need the baby."

I paused for a moment in shock. I counted to ten. I definitely decided that I had something that needed to be said in relation to her thought. So, I proceeded to inform MIL that it after all was possible that the couple in question could have tried for years and years to have a baby, in a country where they most likely didn't even have access to fertility treatments. I couldn't imagine finally getting pregnant naturally, with odds of 1%, and then losing the baby in a natural disaster only months later. I couldn't imagine the emotional pain of finally conquering infertility only to lose the baby knowing that I would once again be a social pariah. I informed MIL that dh and I probably would have reacted the same way.

She was silent. Insert foot into mouth and swallow silent.

However, the whole conversation brought to mind the out cry about adopting the orphans in the affected countries, and all of the statements about homes for those children that would be "more appropriate" after all of the upheaval in their lives. The news was essentially agreeing with some of the general opponents of foreign adoption who state that foreign adoption if 4th best. I thought of Karen, from The Naked Ovary. Not so long ago she was talking about one of those very adoption books that stated a child's family member was the second best home, a family in the same country was the third best home, so that would leave a foreign family as the fourth best home.

Ouch! I can see the truth in that statement, but the reminder still hurts. It was interesting that some possibly fertile but well-meaning Americans who thought that they only intended to help were finally getting the opportunity to be slapped in the face by the same logic. It's interesting that some of them are so hurt that they can't help those children by bringing them into their homes. Perhaps the fertile population is finally getting a microglimpse into the lives of the infertile. Yet, of course, it's not the same when they still have their own children to love after the slap they get on the wrists for bothering to inquire.