Some people don't get it

Ann Landers' daughter, Margo Howard, has a generally interesting advice column: Ask Prudence. But her latest column got me annoyed.

A woman wrote in for advice in helping her friend, who has just been told that she can't conceive with her own eggs. The advice-seeker says:

I love her so much and can see and hear the pain, but I cannot empathize as I had my two children in the last six years and feel happy, even though their father traded me in for his second "fling."

I need some resources or canned answers to gently show her that she is fortunate enough to be able to carry a baby if she chooses (a few of our other friends can't) and that her husband would accept adoption -- though Anna hasn't decided about adoption. She isn't getting any younger. Her 40th birthday is next week, and I fear her depression will peak on that day.

How kind of her. We all need more friends to "gently" show us, when bad things happen to us, that we are, in reality, lucky. Perhaps, when the advice-seeker suffers a loss of some sort--a serious illness, death of a family memebver or friend, house burning down, unemployment--that after all, she's lucky.

What crap! When someone you love is hurting, it isn't your job to decide that she's too focused on the negative and it's your role to tell her to move on and be happy for what she has.

And if you haven't ever experienced infertility, it's not your role to decide how important or how sad or how infuriating that should be to someone else. (Actually, even if you HAVE experienced a particular misfortune, I don't think it's your role to decide that someone else should see that the way you do.) Especially if you acknowledge that you have no understanding or empathy for the infertile due to your own fertility.

And our advice columnist, given an opportunity to point out that unqualified support and perhaps some self-education might be useful--and maybe even a batch of homemade lasagna or cookies--says instead:

Prudie has a hunch that you, as a close friend, feel her disappointment, sadness and anxiety, while you as a "citizen of the world" understand that there are many unwanted babies that could use good parents, and that one's own genes aren't a guarantee of perfection.

As a rule, most women who cannot conceive get over the narcissistic injury and go on to make good decisions. Infertility technology is a major growth industry for a reason. All you can do is keep trying to get your friend to include her husband and agree on a solution; also remind her of the possibilities.

Oh good. Glad to know that we infertiles can eventually rise above our self-absorbed narcissism in actually feeling as if that infertility can be a big deal. After all, kids are kids, right?

Now, I myself am adopted. I say this not in any way to diminish or devalue the family ties created by adoption. But: adoption and traditional biological child-creation are not pure substitutes for each other. Both create families; both result in real children with real parents. In the long run, I do beleive that that parenting any child, who joins your family in any way, is more similar than different to parenting any other child.

But they're not exactly the same. Each offers some of its own challenges and its own joys. And to treat those differences casually, and to treat casually the idea that some people do not have free choice to build their families in any way they prefer, is to be, not to put to fine a point on it, an idiot.

Grieving one's infertility, or, in this case, in particular, grieving one's inability to have a biological connection to one's child, is trivilaized by representing it as some desire for perfection.

And adopting unwanted babies isn't like going into your local boutique and walkign out with a baby. Adoption involves expense, risk, stress, home studies, and long reflection on exactly what you can handle in a child.

Will you be ready to tackle a child with attachment issues from an orphanage in an international adoption? An infant whose mother may have had no prenatal care, or who may have used drugs? Will you be able to be a good parent to a child who has been abused or neglected? A child with special needs? Are you educated enough and commited enough to raise a child of a different race or with a different national heritage, acknowledging your extra responsiblities? Are you prepared to help your child through the issues of open adoption? Or through the issues of perhaps no information at all about her parents--as in many international adoptions? Are you ready to deal with your child growing up, in some cases, with no detailed or up-to-date genetic family medical history?

How much money can you spend? Do you want to meet the bio parents of the child? Do you want ongoing contact? How much? How much medical history will you have available? Will it be updated over the years?

I am beyond grateful that I was adopted by the best parents I can imagine, giving me a fabulous family-including my (also adopted) brother. I am not suggesting that adopting a child is not rewarding and joyful and (I hope my parents feel) life-changing in good ways. I am not suggesting that every adopted child will have or could have any or all of the above issues.

But adoption today is not simple, not cheap, not quick. It is a valuable and wonderful way to make a family. It is not the consolation prize that makes all your infertility issues vanish.

And to suggest that being hurt or saddened by infertility is narcissistic shows a stunning lack of understanding.

I hope "Prudie" gets a lot of letters pointing out this out. If you want to be one of them, write her here.