Question: Why do people choose pregnancy over adoption?

[Keisaku Hakurei]

There's a lot of children who need homes and families in the world. Pregnancy is not by any definition an easy thing to go through... morning sickness, cramps, pains from having to carry all that weight in your abdomen...

I don't know... maybe I'm not the one to ask since I don't intend to have any "natural" children (I have a hereditary learning disorder which I have no intention of passing on, and children with learning disorders are harder to raise) but other than the cost why do people choose to go to the work of making babies rather than both saving some work AND giving a home and family to a child in need of a home and family? He/she may not be your child biologically, but that shouldn't make a difference.  

[Koichi Wing]

mmm i would have to say time, expenses, interviews, more interviews, getting certified to adopt, going through adoption papers, waiting years and years to adopt a kid, having inspections of current living conditions, having inspections after you get the child, the post adoption interviews, the post adoption paper work, and then finally they leave you alone?

Idk for sure. but honestly I would say, the morning sickness, the prenatal pills, vitamins and the doctor visits and the child birth and the pain of child birth and the birth certification process is slightly easier than the adoption process. I do know that pregnancy is 9 months. I do know that there have been cases in adoptions where people have waited years and years for their adoptions to go through.

in short? Pregnancy is shorter than Adoption? idk statistics but i would say that most pregnancies are shorter than adoptions?  

[Keisaku Hakurei]

I see. I didn't know much about how long the adoption process took, but I hear the wait is shorter if you're not picky about race, and that white couples are willing to wait YEARS just for a white child.  

[starblazer66]

Not to be funny but why do people always say that pregancy is 9 months if they want us to carry a baby for 40-41 weeks at most. 37 weeks is the considered full term and even that is technically over 9 months. =p

But back to the topic at hand, I understand how you feel even though I'm a bit different from you. I'm stuck with bipolar disorder and that's a nasty bug in itself too. My daughter also has a chance of developing it as well and probably much worse because her father's family has some metal health issues that are clearly unaddressed but I see them. The only thing I can do besides feed her as much organic food as possible (I believe exercise and our diets play a hand in mental health) is hope nothing manifests.

Whatever you decide, love that child like your own but before you do that, you have to love and accept yourself fully. That means instead of saying that you're autistic, say that you have autism. You're not your disability. That's what society what's to label people like us. smile  

[Koichi Wing]

i have to agree with star blazer. biggrin

That's a very interesting fact about pregancy that i didn't know.

I can understand adoption in your cases. biggrin i spoke generally on people who are healthy and do not need to worry about those problems. but agreed. it does seem a bit easier for those people to have a baby than to wait for adoption processes to go through.

Agreed. there are those who wait years for white children. and I'm sure they have reasons and such. but there are also people who aren't picky biggrin  

[The Goddess Eclaire]

I have no idea. I have had a son, and chose to give him up for adoption, because I know I would be no fit mother. And I was lucky to find a couple who sends me information on him, updates me on how he is doing. They are good people and I am so happy that my son could have a life and opportunities he could never have gotten with me. And I think more people should adopt children instead of having them. Because there are so many children in need of a good home.  

[The Goddess Eclaire]

Kanjite Knight

I see. I didn't know much about how long the adoption process took, but I hear the wait is shorter if you're not picky about race, and that white couples are willing to wait YEARS just for a white child.

I actually went out to looking for someont to adopt my son....they had been through the prossess before and had the mother back out. And had been trying to adopt for a long time. It took them about 6 years to find me and my soon to be born son.  

[TequilaRose]

I want to adopt and have natural kids. I never wanted to have kids of my own until I got married. I am looking forward to seeing what we can create together. I had always had a plan that I would look at adoption when I turned 30. I thought I'd be stable and ready but things don't always go as planned. Although I do agree that adoption is a show of ultimate humanity, It, unfortunately is one of the hardest things to go through. There are road blocks at every turn. And as far as the 9 months and prenatal car and all that. Even after you go through caring for yourself and doing what is best for the child inside of you there is no guarantee that the child will survive. I know this from first had experience. I really think that people should try at least to have 1 kid of their own before they try and adopt. I don't think it's easy to judge if you are ready until you've gone threw some heart ache.  

[Areashine]

I don't plan on having children or adopting, I'm no good with children. However, I've heard that there is just something magical about having you and the person you love creating something of your own to love and cherish. I'm sure that feeling of having something growing in you that is part of you is something you can't replace through adoption. I'm sure that also plays a part in not many people adopting.

Also, there is a stigma out there that those children in foster care are rough, mentally challenged, or have so much baggage from being in the system, that they are hard to control. I'm sure that also plays a part in people not wanting to adopt, especially those children who are older.  

[Keisaku Hakurei]

I plan on marrying someone with children, and maybe adopting if I and/she want more. The only case in which I KNOW I'll adopt is if I marry a woman who doesn't have children already.

I don't want to be surrounded by little versions of me, seeing as how I was an even bigger pain than most kids are due to my learning disorder... and I wouldn't wish what I have on anybody anyway.  

[Zelite-Sama]

I'm not married, yet, but I do know my soon to be husband wants to have a son, and I've always dreamed of adopting a little girl. But, I'll just have to wait and see what happens in the future.  

[HardQuor]

This is a sensitive subject, I know as my last girlfriend was adopted and she was offended when I expressed my preference to have a child of my own.

The bottom line, I think, is that like many other things, adoption is an unnatural suggestion that goes against our genetic programming. Society, over years and years of domestication, hadn't so much overridden our natural instincts, rather than struck a compromise with them.

Society tells us that violence is bad, most people are very non-violent, but violent crimes are the leading cause for arrest. Society tells us that polygamy is wrong, yet half of our marriages end in divorce, i'm assuming a large portion of those divorces are due to infidelity.

No wonder, then, that when genetics tells us to pass our own genes, we feel compelled to have our own children with the mate of our own choosing, not raise the genetic offspring of another couple.  

[Noble Legolas]

I think, well I actually know.. that every woman that chooses abortion has a damn good reason to do that.

To answer your question:

When you get pregnant, your whole body and hormone system tell you that you love being pregnant... You become a mom. It's mother nature at work and it's hard to fight. You don't even want to fight it, naturally. But yeah sometimes lots of other modern stuff, like debts or missing manfigure.. and lots of other stuff makes it that you have to fight it. And that is never an easy choice. It goes against your whole being. Even though you were so rational about not having kids before it happened. It's kinda hard to explain, but I think the moms on this site kinda know what I mean.  

[Keisaku Hakurei]

Having read of the things pregnant women have to go through, I wouldn't wish that on my wife no matter what the reward is.

But I would gladly accept any children she had before meeting me as my own. If the "right one" is childless, I'd rather adopt than have a bunch of autistic/possibly ADD and near-sighted mini-mes.

I wouldn't wish my learning disorder or bad sight on anybody, I've even considered that maybe I should preemptively get a vasectomy. I really have NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER of passing my overbearing physical flaws on to the next generation. As far as I am concerned, my bloodline ends with me.

I don't understand why a person would take more pride in raising his/her own children than in raising someone's children that they took in as their own, nor do I really want to. Nor would I want to create a bloodline of people with bad eyesight and learning disorders, because nobody wants those things.

Before I would have said I wouldn't want to marry a woman who needed glasses/contacts, but that was before I decided not to have children of my own. Now I wouldn't care.

(I guess I come off as sounding like a genetic perfectionist... what with choosing or not a potential mate based off of hereditary factors prior to deciding not to reproduce and not wanting to have children because of my own hereditary factors.)  

[Keisaku Hakurei]

Plugabugz

I think, well I actually know.. that every woman that chooses abortion has a damn good reason to do that.

To answer your question:

When you get pregnant, your whole body and hormone system tell you that you love being pregnant... You become a mom. It's mother nature at work and it's hard to fight. You don't even want to fight it, naturally. But yeah sometimes lots of other modern stuff, like debts or missing manfigure.. and lots of other stuff makes it that you have to fight it. And that is never an easy choice. It goes against your whole being. Even though you were so rational about not having kids before it happened. It's kinda hard to explain, but I think the moms on this site kinda know what I mean.

As a Christian, I was taught that abortion is murder, based on the ancient Mosaic/Jewish law that anybody who attacked a pregnant woman and harmed her or the unborn baby must be put to death.

My personal view: What did the baby do to deserve to die?

But I respect the beliefs of others, and don't force my beliefs on other people.