So lately, I've been thinking a lot about these four things:
a) Becoming a momma/parenting
b) World population
c) HIV/AIDS orphans/war orphans/orphans in general
d) Giving birth.
And the more I think, the more I realize that I so easily fall in love with kids (all the kids I have nannied/do nanny, know I love them,) that there is no reason for me to have my own biological kid, when I would be able to love any kid, in a matter of weeks, with the fierceness and tenacity of any momma bear. I love kids, period, doesn't matter skin color, biological origins or anything else...I just love kids.
So, with the world population skyrocketing (according to some, if the world population continues to increase the way it is, by 2,500 the body heat of humans alone would blow the world up! So obviously, we would not be sustainable at that point..) and knowing that giving birth is the biggest environmental impact of any activity a human can do; I've decided I won't be giving birth....
But I do want to parent sooooooo badly! I also want to breastfeed; I really don't need to give birth...I've already seen enough birth to know that although this is an amazing right of passage for many, I don't need to personally experience it.
So what is a wannabe momma to do? Well, listening to a classmate talk about the growing population of AIDS orphans, I thought "aha!" There are plenty of babies out there, waiting for love, and possibly, young enough for me to take hormones and produce milk for them; that there is no reason I shouldn't join the hordes of Angela Jolie's and Madonnas in the new trend in parenting...
Or, as a future midwife, I thought I could offer my services for free to mommas here in the US who wanna give up the baby they are carrying after the birth...that way, I'd experience the birth of my own baby first hand, help out a momma who doesn't want to parent, basically, make us emotionally and spiritually tied together, hopefully in a good way. I've heard of other midwives who have taken the babies of mommas they've helped give birth, after the momma told them they didn't want the baby...
So anyway, this is my new inner struggle/resolution....I still, deep down, have a desire for that passionate and beautiful moment of conception, and the nine months of lugging a growing baby around in my uterus...a biological "need" if you will, but when I really think about it, I fall in love so easily, I don't think I really need to "pass on my genes" or "see my traits in my baby" to feel like a successful and blessed parent.
Love ya,
Carrot
Having your own child is way more different than adopting a child. I know. I use to be like you also until I had my baby. I wanted to breeastfeed, and take care of her. But the breast feeding thing only worked out for 2 weeks. My breast only wanted to produce milk at certain times. Having a baby is not as bad as you think. So many people say its painful. It really isn't . When I had my baby, the epidural really helped. I had to get a c-section with her becuase of my car wreck situation. I didn't feel any pain until 2 days later. That pain lasted for a week, and then I was ok afterward. But if you want to do the Angelina Jolie thing, go ahead. That is good also.
I never wanted any of my own children and now I have two. One came natural the other by c-section (prolapse cord). Kids have always loved me probably because I treat them like people not slaves or little idiots like so many people/parents do. Lately I fear becoming prego again because that would probably impede my financial ability to one day adopt a child. I really have a passion for that and get excited about the prospects of the oportunity.
Both experiences are worth having, I would say if both needs are there then have one rip through your vagina in a blessed experience and you can get the others by way of adoption (get was probably the wrong word)
~T
All truths are easy to understand once discovered; The point is to discover them ~Galileo
I want to give other kids a loving home, but I crave the experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and subsequent rearing of said biological offspring. I'm going for the best of both worlds. I hope to have my own child first around age 27 then adopt once I turn 30 and qualify to adopt a little girl in China. I then hope to adopt a Guatemalan boy a couple years after that. That's just what I'm thinking...plans can change in an instant.
www.progressiveu.org/blog/americangirlinchina
I think that this determination is a hard one to make. If you have enough love in your heart, then adoption is an extremely wonderful and admirable thing to do. So many children (of all ages) need loving, caring parents.
But it might be (I don't personally know you) tough to make the decision right now. You may (if you haven't already) meet someone that you truly love and feel so connected to that you want to have the intimate experience of creating a baby that shares both your and their DNA.
Its certainly something to think about, and you may change you mind many times.
I've had similar thoughts. With all the poverty and strain on the enviroment, it seems irresponsible to have a child. Especially since I want four kids. It just seems like the perfect number. I don't really look forward to giving birth, and breastfeeding is certainly something I can live without. I want my birth to be as natural as possible, while still taking place in a hospital, but I'm relatively certain drugs will be necessary for the pain. Also, I plan to be very involved with my job, and thus may not get around to having kids until it is too late. I have plenty of time to decide obviously, being as I have not come close to marriage and am still in college and don't feel like an adult. I also have fears about what my DNA will do to the poor hypothetical kid. lol.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
When I was about 25-27, my biological clock was going crazy. I just kept hitting snooze on the alarm, though, and now, I am perfectly okay with the idea that I may never conceive. I will parent, for sure, and whether I have a child, my partner has a child, or we adopt, it will be my family. If there's one good thing about my father disowning me, it is that I value my chosen family more than my biological family, so I'm not all hung up on genetic ties or passing anything on. All i want to pass on is love and a stable home.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
I'm 26 right now, so parenting is heavy on my mind...also, being in midwifery school, it isn't a subject you can really avoid. I'm not scared of giving birth...in fact, I spent a lot of time submerged in my bathtub last night thinking about all the aspects of parenting...pregnancy, birth, nursing, giving your life over to a little 'un.....anyway, I realized I'd love to give birth, but I think there are several reasons why, for me, it would be irresponsible to give birth.
1) As a future midwife, I don't want my birth experience to change how I view other women giving birth...I don't want any pain or trauma or joy or whatever I would experience to creep into my care of other women. I hear from midwives all the time that giving birth changes how they view their clients...they start putting their "shit" onto their clients...I don't want to do that. I feel that somehow, giving birth would not allow me to be as good a midwife as I would be otherwise...although many women would probably argue the other side of it.
2) It just feels super-irresponsible to bring another child into this f-ed up world. At almost seven billion strong, we are really, really crowded! I can't go anywhere these days it seems and really be alone! The last thing this world needs is more people! Besides, I feel like my genes aren't particularly special ones to pass along...my family has a history of mental illness, insomnia, greasy skin, an average IQ....you know, the typical American blend of Irish/Scottish/German/English genes...nothing special. I feel that it is more important for me to take in kids who need a home then for me to pass on genes that aren't "all that."
I do, however, really, really want to breastfeed...we'll see how that works.
Love ya,
Carrot
While everything else you've said in this blog makes a lot of sense, I still don't get this need to breastfeed. Is this something you just plain want to do, or is it some sort of biological urge? :-B
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
you know, I'm still puzzling this out myself...I think the desire to breastfeed is a mix of things.
1) I've heard it (nursing) releases a cocktail of hormones in a mom such as oxytocin and prolactin which make her feel extreme love and peace...actually, giving birth releases these hormones too, but since I won't be doing that, for reasons listed, I guess I want to experience that "mom bliss" breastfeeding moms talk so highly of. And, if you watch a mom breastfeeding, you'll see it in her face...she'll get this Madonna-holy bliss on her face that you don't see in people in our world very often...I want that!
2) Also, the whole bonding piece. If I'm gonna be adopting babes, I want to bond as tightly with the little youngins as I can...and I'd love it even more if I could turn heads nursing say, an Ethiopian baby...I mean, what a great conversation piece eh?
3) I guess I have a little wannabe cow fetish or something. I want to make milk. I want to nourish another little human with that milk. I think it is one of the loveliest things we ladies get to do. I think it boils down to a basic desire to nourish a hungry little orphan...I give my money to save starving kids, but it doesn't feel like enough when I know that part of the reason they are hungry is so that I can drink coffee grown on their homeland, or eat sugar from fields where their parents could have grown food, or whatever. Bottom line...capitalism makes starvation. So I want to give back a little by literally giving straight from my tits. You know, breast is best. If some orphan gets my milk, rather then disgusting soy formula, more power to that orphan! Maybe I can nurse lots of little babes who've been displaced by capitalism! That would rock!
Down with capitalism and greedy white mutherfuckers (including myself!)
love ya,
Carrot
This portion goes to Misonmer. Sorry if I spelled your user name incorrect. When you breastfeed, it gives you that emotional bond between you and your child. A lot of people can't completley understand this until they try it.
1. Carrot, you are not everybody else. Every single person is different. Those people that do that know what they are doing. They know they can be respectful or helpful in other ways but they want to put their sob story on a mother- to- be. If they feel that way they should have not had a baby. I had to get cut open to deliver my baby and you don't see me complaining.
2. The population will never be right.Everyday a person dies, a baby is born. So good luck on helping the census bureau.Your genes don't have to be special to have a baby. The baby becomes special because it is a part of you. You can't get any specialer than that.
1) I am well aware that my experiences are my own and no one else's...and I think other midwives see that as true as well. However, their birth experiences still cloud their thoughts from that point on...it isn't that they complain to the women giving birth or even say anything out loud about it..but it is still in their minds, which means they may change the care they give, perhaps even subconsciously, because of a birth experience they have. I just don't want to do that. Some midwives think this makes them a better care provider. I don't know if it would make me better or worse at my job, but I want to look at every birth as that woman's own, with absolutely nothing to do with me. Because I am a person who so often uses events in my life to shape my frame of reference, I believe I would react no differently to birth...and so, I think it would be better for me to abstain from having biological children. (I do strongly want to parent, however.)
2) I'm not worried about the census bureau...I'm worried about a calculation that Steven Hawkins made, that if, we as a species continues to have babes the way we are, by 2500, the friction of us moving alone would be enough to cause our planet to explode! Obviously, at that point, there would be no way we'd be alive, since there would be standing room only and no way we'd grow crops, much less do anything else. My point is, even as we are now, we are not at a sustainable number (we actually aren't dying as fast as we are being born, even with all the natural disasters we've had lately,) so for me, personally, it doesn't make sense to reproduce. I'm happy you are happy with your children...I'd be worried if you weren't. I know every babe is special and that is exactly why I'd rather adopt a babe someone else couldn't care for, rather then add my own bland, white, Irish/Scottish/English/German genes to the mix...God knows we've got enough Irish folks on this planet to go around! Whew, if we don't reproduce like bunnies, I don't know who does...
3) I personally, would rather help a poor little girl in Ethiopia or Malawi or some country I've never heard of get an education, avoid female genital mutilation and grow up healthy and strong and beautiful, then add another brat to the world of brats through my own vagina..(although sometimes I daydream about pregnancy and birth...oh the crazy daydreams of a midwifery student!)
love,
Carrot
1. Ok now I get what you are saying.
2. With so many people dying in the Iraq war, earthquake, tornados, cyclones, I think that lowered our poulation some sadly. Well hopefully I still won't be living in 2500 to see the world end. I'd rather die in my sleep than know I am going to die because the world is ending. Plus I only have 1 child
3. I do support you on that. I never said it was not good to adopt. I think it is a good idea to help others out in need. I strongly support that.
I think the world could use more pale irish folk-it will make me look less sickly. jk. I would think that giving birth would make it easier for you to relate to what the mother is going through when she gives birth. Also, I think you need to have a little more faith in yourself to separate your own situation from the mother's when it is needed. But maybe not. After all, I compare things constantly to my own experiences, so I guess you know what you're talking about.
When did Stephan Hawkings make this calculation? Demographers make predictions like this, and while the results are similar to their predictions, it is usually not as bad, because wars and natural disasters are not predicted.
I don't think capitolism is bad, I do believe that it is horribly misused by the greedy and businesses need to be socially responsible when considering their choices.
Your decision to adopt is still a good one, and you should probably not let any of us who are commenting influence your decision, unless one of us has a point that you did not consider.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
I'd be interested in knowing if you have any specific plans about how you'll deal with your child's identity as an adopted child. Adopted children, or should I say children who have been relinquished or abandoned, have a bunch of special issues that they have to deal with throughout their life. For children who have been adopted from foreign and /or impoverished countries, the issues can be greater and more complex.
Common sense is as rare as genius. ~Emerson
Colorado November Ballot Measure to Legally Define A Fertilized Egg As A Person
I've begun to think about that. I have a good friend who was adopted as a small child, and she feels that, at thirty, she is still dealing with that fact that her mother gave her up for adoption. I realize that in some ways, adopted kids have issues that are difficult to deal with. This doesn't dissuade me from wanting to adopt because the issues I deal with will just know these issues as my child's issues, and, like any parent, I'll deal with them as they come up.
Love ya.
Carrot
Knowing that adopted kids have issues shouldn't dissuade you from adopting. It's just something that's crucial to be aware of.
My mom's boss adopted two daughters from China. They were abandoned on the streets of China by their parents as infants because they were born female. They're quite young now, but someday they'll learn that their parents abadoned because of how they were born. Not to mention they'll have to deal with their ethnicity vs. their mother's ethnicity (she's white) and their lack of cultural ties to their birth country. But my mom's boss isn't cognizant of the fact that they'll have these problems when they get older. Which means she'll either ignore them or deny them. Not a good idea. So in addition to dealing with issues common to adopted children, her daughters will have issues specific to children adopted from a foreign/impoverished country and from being adopted into an interracial family.
Common sense is as rare as genius. ~Emerson
Colorado November Ballot Measure to Legally Define a Fertilized Egg as a Person
Interestingly enough, as I was reading all of your comments about the issues related to adoption, NPR was running a program about the exact same thing; parents who had adopted kids from overseas where calling in about the problems they had run into with their children.
What I found interesting was all of the things they listed: 1) behavioral problems 2) identity issues 3) angry 4) bonding/attachment issues are happening at a greater rate in the world overall, not just among adopted kids. I think maybe we need to look at our systems/methods of parenting overall, not just how we parent adopted kids.
That being said, I had a great conversation with my friend Heather, who was adopted at eleven days old, and who now, at thirty, claims to still have emotional baggage to deal with in regards with not knowing her "roots" so to speak, and not understanding why her teenaged mom gave her up. I told her I would probably only adopt children and she cheered me on. She said "I like how you are always thinking about these things...there are plenty of kids in the world who need love and stability and I am all for adoption..."
Love ya,
Carrot