It isn't JUST a word

I've been thinking a lot about the word "Just" recently.  It's a small word I know and it's used every single day with no problem (as far as I know).  In fact, I often times use it when I'm asking for a favor from H.  "Can you really quickly just run down and grab me a drink", "Can you start my car, it'll just take a second".  See, it works in my favor most of the time.

Where I start to have a problem is when the word is used in relation to adoption.  As we've moved through the minefield that is infertility (seriously, you get hit with shrapnel all the time), I can't tell you how many people in my day to day life have said to me, "You should just adopt".  I've never been able to properly express to those well meaning people just how condescending and unbelievably arrogant that statement is. 

To say that we should "Just Adopt" is so presumptuous and ill informed that it's often hard for me to not react in a way that is let's just say, less than ladylike.  That statement implies that they understand what infertility means to me or H for that matter.  It implies that a child is so invaluable that it can simply be picked up at Targ.et in the baby isle whenever the mood strikes.  It implies that my heart won't be ripped out countless times along the path to adoption.  It implies that it's the easier choice second to giving birth.  It implies that giving birth is a dream that you can easily move aside and replace with adoption (for some people that is like trying to fit a square peg into a circle hole).  It implies that as infertile women, we are so singularly focused on childbirth that we have never considered adoption as an option until they came into our lives with this valuable nugget of wisdom.  It implies that their opinion holds any weight on my decision of how I am to someday become a mother.  Most importantly, it implies that the adoption journey is easily maneuvered and can be completed on a whim with no muss and no fuss. 

What I want to say but can never quite find the words to in that moment is that the fact that they may know lots of adopted children at their child's school, through their church, or through that women who used to babysit their kids, might make them think that the process is no big deal. Guess what, that isn't a testament to how effortless or mindless the process is. The fact that you know so many adopted children is a testament to how relentless their parents (both birth and adopted) were to make that family happen.

There is very little that I wouldn't do to become a mother either through childbirth or adoption, but you random nurse at my OBGYN's office, you Great Aunt who I only see at Christmas, you friend of a friend who is having your first night out after getting pregnant on your second month of trying, are in no position to tell me how to make that happen.  So while you may think you are being helpful, you really really aren't.

It is nearly impossible to just adopt!