I have honestly wondered if I am somehow offending/damaging/warping my kids because I am NOT all that sensitive to the wrong words being used – provided that the overall intent of the speaker isn’t negative and provided the speaker isn’t putting my kids under a microscope. I just respond with the more socially acceptable word choices and try to educate as much as I can, usually with more general examples of the process than with specifics about our story.

And I’ve become quite comfortable taking the “some people just don’t get it” approach with my kids when that is appropriate – this also applies in many other areas of life as well.

The single most challenging conversation was with a woman who was childless due to infertility and an unwillingness to adopt – she chose to question me about adoption but made her negative feelings about adoption very clear. I finally just had to say “It is a good thing you didn’t try to adopt if you feel that way.”

Also, one more perspective to offer on word usage – a fellow adoptive parent and I were discussing an acquaintance who works with a home for troubled girls. I asked “Does she have any kids of her own?” and he responded “Oh yes, she has two boys of her own. They were both adopted from Russia.”

I believe that most of the insensitive questions and comments on infertility and adoption are due to two different types of ignorance. One type is based upon lack of knowledge and experience. The other is based upon the same, plus a lack of imagination and sensitivity. We can gently educate the first type, but the latter won’t be receptive.

I think it would be good for an infertile person or an adoptive parent to study your suggested responses and take them out in a verbal toolkit to use when confronted by insensitive questions or comments. The problem that exists is when we are hit unexpectedly by a comment so rude, ignorant or combative that it takes our breath away. That sets us up for hours of self-talk about how we should have responded.

I don’t know whether someone who easily conceived and gave birth, can ever really understand what part of you infertility or loss touches. In the same way, a person who hasn’t adopted can’t know the desire, not only to parent a child, but also to love a child who needs a parent. I wouldn’t presume to know whether an adoptive parent loves their child any differently than I love the children I had naturally. I know that love can reach across huge divides and it doesn’t have to make sense or be justified to someone else.