The “Pickable Factor”

February 10, 2009 | By:

 

Starting an adoption plan isn’t easy stuff for anyone.  Most prospective adoptive parents come to the process carrying a hefty amount of baggage.  Whether it is from infertility treatment, or being an “older” adoptive parent, or our marital status, most of us are really scared about what a birth family may think about us and who we are.  There is no doubt that the fear of rejection is daunting.  It’s amazing what we do to ourselves through this process.  How we compartmentalize our personalities and our features and try to “predict” what it is that might make us more appealing to a birth family or what might make us less “pickable”.  It has gotten so out-of-control in some respects that I now lovingly call it the “Pickable-Factor” or the “Pickable List.”

 

The Pickable Factor is anything that we think might disqualify us or make us less attractive to a birth family, ultimately causing her to choose another adoptive parent(s) over us.  Every one of us has our own list of “pickables” that we think will make our wait take longer.  I don’t care what is on your “Pickable Factor” or your “Pickable List”.  The Pickable Factor is a myth!  Birth families usually don’t care as much about what’s on our Pickable List as we do.

 

Now before you go dismissing me altogether, please keep in mind that I have been on both sides of the fence.  I am an adoptive parent twice over and I am adoption advocate and professional.   And I can count the number of times on one hand that a birth mother has “rejected” an adoptive parent because of a “Pickable-Factor.”   I don’t mean in any way shape or form to dismiss the fears that give rise to our list of Pickable Factors.  I do want to reassure you that most, if not all of the time, what we think is going to disqualify us or make it harder to be chosen by a birth mother are not really what birth families are focusing on when trying to find a forever home for their baby.  

 

Among those of us who may have even greater fears regarding rejection by birth parents are prospective adoptive parents who are cancer survivors or who have some physical disability.  You may think that having had cancer makes you somehow less “pickable” than another adoptive parent.  But in my experience, it really isn’t true. The right birth mother is not going to care about your medical history.  Just like the fact that she’s probably not as likely to care about your religion, or your age or anything else on the list you’ve created.  She’s going to pick you because of some inarticulable, beautiful quality in you, one that is completely separate and distinct from your medical profile.  Or, maybe she chooses you because of a random baseball cap you’re wearing in one of the photographs in your dear birth mother letter or your adoptive parent profile.  (And yes, it can be that random.)  My point is this, what most birth families want and what we think they want, are vastly different.  Your Pickable Factors are exactly that, your Pickable Factors, no matter how consequential you may think they are.

  

            I recently gave a seminar on adoption advertising.  Although the crowd was relatively small, it was a diverse group, including three women who are cancer survivors.  Two of these women have children through adoption and the third was waiting to be picked by a birth family.  One of the women was very open about her experience (we’ll call her “Adoptive Mom A”).  Adoptive Mom A talked about how scared she was that a birth mom would reject her and all the things on her “pickable” list.  Her greatest concern, however, was that the birth mom wouldn’t want to place a baby with her because of her history of cancer.  She also had been afraid that her age, her physical appearance and her religion would ultimately (and always) cause a birth parent to choose another adoptive couple.  Much to her surprise, however, she and her husband met their first birth mother within a few months of starting their search.  And they met their second birth mother – for their second adoption – fairly quickly too.  Surprising to her, neither of the birth mothers with whom she and her husband made adoption plans, cared about her history of cancer, nor her religion nor her age.  The other adoptive mom who is a cancer survivor, Adoptive Mom B, also spoke about what it was like to search for a birth parent with this (as she put it) “elephant in the room.”  When she and her partner finally met the birth mother who chose them to parent her baby, the birth mom didn’t ask a single question about the cancer even after Adoptive Mom B brought it up.  What made these birth families look past something like a history of cancer?  Adoptive Mom A said that her first birth mother chose them because she just felt more “comfortable” with Adoptive Mom A and her husband; their birth mom felt less “judged” by Adoptive Mom A and hubby than she had when she met with other prospective adoptive parents.  Adoptive Mom B said that their child’s birth mother says she picked them because they looked like a fun family and that their child would live an active, fun-filled life.  Cancer, apparently, wasn’t on these birth parents “Pickable List.”

 

What these two women shared is consistent with a recent informal survey published in Adoptive Families Magazine.  The survey presented the birth parents’ perspective and what they are thinking when they choose adoptive parents (see Adoptive Families Magazine September/October 2008 issue at p.40).  Among the criteria Adoptive Families presented as important to birth parents were a stable and financially secure home life for the child.

 

            Everything we list among our Pickable Factors is legitimate, to us.  But it isn’t always relevant for birth families.  A dear friend (Mel from Stirrup Queens) emailed me about this issue, and I took some time to really think about it.  I put myself back in “waiting mode” and I thought about things from the birth parent perspective.  Ultimately, I think what brings us together with our children’s birth parents is largely out of our control and that is very hard to deal with.  We can obsess about just about anything and everything as part of this process; it is so hard to live a life with so little control about how, when and where we’re going to become a mom or a dad.  But the reality is that at the end of the day the obsessing and worrying is for nothing.  Cancer, your religion, your marital status are all aspects of who you are, but they don’t define you.  It’s what defines you as a whole – not just itemized, compartmentalized things on a list, even elephant sized things – that make a fit for a forever family.  The right birth family for your situation usually is the birth family that sees the whole you and looks past elephants and minutia to see who you really are and what you have to offer a baby, even if the essence of you is somehow inarticulably summed up by the beautiful baseball cap you’re wearing in the picture you threw into your profile at the last minute.  

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What’s Up With Hollywood Part 2

January 7, 2009 | By:

So my rant about Hollywood actresses now out of my system, I have decided to undertake a new project.  I am going to start surveying (and my DH has agreed to assist me and provide his input) as many movies, books and other media stories about infertility and adoption.  I want honesty in this industry, so I want to see how honest and/or accurate Hollywood, the press, and authors are about infertility and adoption.  I love Adoptive Families’ Magazine’s Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down column.  I loved reading about gestational surrogacy on the front page of The New York Times Magazine.  But I want to see more about how people are addressing it.

I recently came across a book entitled “Motherhood after Age 35” at an adoption conference I spoke at.  I was curious.  It seems so common these days for women to have children after the age of 35, why write a book about it?  What’s different about being a mother after Age 35?  I’m going to find out.

I went online on the internet movie database and compiled a preliminary list of movies about infertility and adoption.  The movie Juno was awesome, how many others are as accurate or sensitive?  I noticed that one of my favorite new books Knit Two by Kate Jacobs has a sub-plot dealing with infertility.  The Discovery Channel has a show on adoption: Adoption Stories (hey why are there no infertility stories? There are a dozen shows on having babies but why aren’t their any on infertility?)

And so I begin.  Tonight my DH and I are watching a movie entitled A Smile Like Yours starring Greg Kinnear and Lauren Holly.  I have also purchased Miss. Conception starring Heather Graham.  These are just a few of what I suspect will be a very long list of movies and books.  I am hoping I will be pleasantly surprised.  I also am hoping that I will get to spend some quality time with DH and get some good reading in. 

I will post my reviews under a new category (Infertility In The Movies etc. under the Check This Out Blog category)  and I welcome feedback and suggestions for other titles to watch/read.  Maybe I’ll  add a suggested reading/viewing list to The Two Week Wait Care Package

We shall see . . . .

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What’s Up With Hollywood?

January 7, 2009 | By:

I have been thinking a lot about my Angry Infertile Woman thing.  Someone recently suggested to me that it wasn’t very professional.  I don’t care.  I am a very good lawyer and I am also a human being who is and always will be infertile.  I want more children and I face obstacles both physical and financial to that goal.  My clients don’t hear me rant about being angry about how infertility is treated in the news media and in Hollywood (unless they mention it).  This is my only outlet and forum for letting people know when I think something is whacked.  My clients get what they pay me for, good legal advice and a soft shoulder to cry on if they need it (no extra charge for that service either).  Right now I need to vent.

I think that the news media and Hollywood do NOT understand infertility or adoption at ALL (this thought is discussed in a separate post)!  And I am sick to death of all these Hollywood actresses who get pregnant with twins in their forties (or even late thirties) and are NOT honest about how they conceived those children.  Remember I was proud of Brooke Shields not too long ago (by the way, did VW pull those advertisements?  I haven’t seen them in a while.  Has anyone seen one??) because she was honest that she went through IVF.

I have a list the length of my arm of actresses that I either have reason to know or have reason to be suspicious (deeply suspicious) that they used some form of assisted reproduction.  Let’s take Jennifer Lopez as an example.  I don’t know her, never represented her, I don’t know her from a hole in the wall.  She is, however, someone I admire.  But I don’t believe for a nano-second that she conceived her twins miraculously from old fashioned intercourse after three years of TTC on her own.  That is BS.  Just the way People Magazine spun those babies’ delivery, with quotes from the doctor about how much the babies’ look like Marc Anthony as they were being pulled from Jennifer’s uterus during a C-Section, raised my eyebrows.  It was like they were setting the stage for people to expect the babies NOT to look like Jennifer.  It struck me as such an odd comment.  Three years of TTC, then pregnant with twins who look amazingly like their father but are never compared to their mother’s absolutely gorgeous face: Who wants to bet she used an egg donor???  Or at the very least went through IVF?  Again, I have no personal knowledge, these are just my suspicions.  But this wonderful singer and actress who is a phenomenal role model, well doesn’t she owe women in their twenties and thirties some honesty?  That waiting to get pregnant makes it harder to get pregnant.  That maybe she needed help beyond that provided by something divine (and you know I believe in the Divine).

Let’s consider the statistics.  I deal with them every day with my clients.  I face them when I consider having more children in my mid-forties.  It is statistically, if not virtually impossible to conceive twins (even using IVF) at or above the age of 44 using your own gametes (eggs).  It is extraordinarily hard (although possible) to conceive twins using your own eggs at age 40.  You would likely need IVF to do have twins at age 40.  I’m not saying it’s not possible to conceive twins at age 40 the old-fashioned way; it’s just not really something that happens very often.  Certainly not as often as it seems to happen when you live in Hollywood.  And it is very hard when you’re even say Jennifer Aniston’s age, she’s 38 or 39 right? (and btw, Jennifer is my favorite actress in Hollywood and I see many reports in the media that she may be trying to have a baby, I LOVE her and would love to see her become a mother – not to mention the fact that her mother is responsible for me being with my husband today, so I have some additional fondness for her family.  And No, I DO NOT KNOW Jennifer Aniston and I haven’t seen or spoken to her mother since 1988, so nothing in this blog should be construed as validating any tabloid report). 

Statistically, at least some of (if not the majority of) these actresses used some form of ART to get pregnant. So, let’s assume for purposes of this blog that they did conceive, especially those with twins, with the assistance of ART.  Now let’s assume they also were honest about that fact . . . what’s the downside? 

My point is this:  Maybe the knowledge that so many public figures struggle to conceive children and that it is just plain harder to conceive a child after age 35, would HELP someone!  Hollywood seems to be on the “helping others” bandwagon.  Angelina Jolie (okay bad example in a rant on infertility, although she is an adoptive mother) travels to war torn countries to bring attention to them.  Brad Pitt raises awareness and helps Katrina victims.  Who do we have in Hollywood standing up for the fight against infertility and explaining it being honest about it?  It’s a devastating disease.  RESOLVE has a spokesperson who is a former playboy model.  I believe she used a gestational carrier.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t think one person is enough.  Is it enough for just Angelina Jolie to be travelling to Africa, of course not.  The more media attention focused on an issue, the more stars involved, the more awareness is raised.  I was thinking about this issue while listening to a Christmas song, We Are The World (is that the title?).  Half of the world’s most famous recording artists came together to raise money and awareness for AIDS and AIDS victims in Africa.  That song is being played every five minutes on the radio every Holiday Season twenty years after it was recorded.  Why does infertility get such little attention?    

So let’s just say that Hollywood actresses were honest?  What would happen?  Maybe, eventually, people would start paying attention to their reproductive health?  Maybe they wouldn’t wait as long to have children? (I am not advocating rushing to have children before you’re ready, I just don’t think enough people understand that it really and truly gets harder the older you get and the first big age landmine is 35).  Or maybe fewer people would feel alone or ashamed.  If Hollywood actresses are ashamed to admit to their infertility then isn’t that sending the message that infertility is something to be ashamed of? 

Let’s assume for a moment that some of these women sought the generous services of an egg donor, as I suspect they did.  I understand that is private information and the intimate details of their personal life.  They may even have an anonymity provision in their agreement with their egg donor (again, assuming they used one).  But don’t they have to rise to some higher moral authority because of their status as celebrities?  How many women are misled everyday because they see these gorgeous women in their forties giving birth to TWINS!  At least Marcia Cross admitted she used IVF (although I do wonder if she really hit the genetic jack pot or whether she used a donor, alas I will never know). 

Please people.  Do a service to the young women in this country who have no clue what it means to WAIT to conceive a baby.  Our ovaries do not join us on the treadmill nor do they benefit from Botox.  Not to mention the fact that everyone in Hollywood can easily afford IVF and egg donors and gestational carriers when the rest of us are worried about our mortgage payments.  Let’s be real. 

I want some honesty out there.  I want someone to come clean.  Alexis Stewart (Martha Stewart’s daughter) is spending millions of dollars trying to raise awareness about what happens when you wait to conceive a baby.  While I don’t agree that egg banking is a medically recommended procedure for every Jane Doe, I agree with her message.  And I think that if women in Hollywood would just be honest, that maybe Alexis wouldn’t have to spend so much money and I wouldn’t be so pissed off everytime I see some 40-something starlet showing off her babies in People Magazine.  I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see a little honesty in those baby announcements in People Magazine. 

 

to be continued . . . .

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