Freaking Out: Will the Economy and the World Leave Me Childless?

A few days ago, after yet another economist went on TV holding the proverbial The-End-Is-Near sign, I confessed to J (and to myself) that the state of the economy is really starting to freak me out. (I actually heard an economist on NPR talking about the problems the US would face even “if” we came through this crisis. “If!?,” I hollered at my radio, “did you just say ‘if’?!?”)

J and I are in such a tenuous position right now. We had to take out a second mortgage to pay for our shared-risk IVF plan, and we still have to come up with about $5,000 a cycle in incidentals (more, obviously, if we switch to donor sperm).

Even scarier, what if IVF doesn’t work? Our next step is to adopt, and I was counting on our ability to borrow more (and not go bankrupt) if needed. If only I safely had a child in my home, I could live with having to do some penny-pinching, belt-tightening, etc; you pick the metaphor, I can handle it. But for the economy to crash while I’m in the most expensive phase of my life, trying desperately to just get my hands on a baby, any baby—it’s terrifying.

J did nothing to assuage my fears, instead reminding me that he has virtually no work lined up for the next year. Mid-sized theatres are closing their doors all over the country, and those that are staying open are likely to pay even less for their designers. My job, as a government defense attorney, is about as secure as a job can be, but J’s job––risky in the best of times––rises and falls with the goodwill of theatre sponsors.

Sometimes I feel like the world is plotting against me. Why now? Why couldn’t the economy fail a year or two from now, when we’re more settled? Or years ago, when we had nothing to lose? What if, at the end of years and years of searching and trying for a child, I discover the world’s final answer is “no”?

To make matters worse, J e-mailed me an article yesterday that had us both freaked out. For the last two years, we have soothed our souls with the knowledge that, if all else fails, we will adopt a baby from Ethiopia. Ethiopia is (relatively) fast, (relatively) affordable, and you can get a (relatively) young child. No other countries work for us. (For those of you who’ve researched international adoption, you know what I’m talking about. Out of hundreds of countries in the world, adoption is available in maybe 8 of them.) We don’t want to adopt a toddler (goodbye Russia, Ukraine, and half of Latin America); we can’t afford to go live in the country for three months (goodbye Columbia); we don’t qualify for the Asian countries due to various limitations on mental health (goodbye China) and weight (goodbye Korea); and we don’t want to wait 4+ years after we are on the list (goodbye anyone else, not that anyone else was left at that point). And domestic adoption is out of the question for us. We can’t take the idea of competing with others for a baby, especially given that most birth mothers probably would reject us due to our atheism. And J, open minded about most things, can’t cope with open adoption or the risks associated with having a birth parent try to reclaim the child.

So Ethiopia it is. At first, we were freaked out about the hostility we might encounter adopting a black baby (there is a fading-but-not-gone notion in the black community, at least around DC, that it’s wrong for whites to adopt blacks), but we’ve come to terms with that, even gotten excited about such a future.

Then J e-mails me this, an article describing the state of international adoption right now, as compared to just a year ago. International adoption is WAAAY down, and not due to a lack of people wanting to adopt. The top three countries are all shutting down: China and Korea are now taking 4-5 years to process, and Guatemala is virtually closed. As a result, Ethiopia has become the new hot spot to go for a baby. A year ago, I felt like Ethiopia was our own best-kept secret, our safe haven in the storm whirling around us. Now I’m completely freaked out. If the trends from other countries are repeated, by the time we get to Ethiopia (and we’re at least 8 months from starting the adoption process) it will be much harder to adopt from there. It probably will be even more expensive, almost certainly will take longer, and almost certainly will mean adopting an older baby.

None of this is surprising to me. When the US finally passed its Hague Convention protocols last year, I knew Guatemala was going to close. That alone was likely to send desperate couples running to Ethiopia.

It was a year ago, almost exactly, that we went to our first meeting on international adoption, and it was a year ago that we decided that, despite the risk that Ethiopia might become more popular, we weren’t ready to give up trying for a bio-kid. So I had the surgery, and we pressed on. But now I wonder if we made the right choice. Had we jumped into adoption a year ago, we might be making travel plans right now—our baby would already have been born, just be waiting for us to bring him/her home. Yet here we are, waiting and hoping, while Ethiopia becomes more and more popular, and likely less and less appealing as a result.

Can a country run out of babies? Because that’s what I feel is going to happen. Is it possible that I could end up childless, after all my promises to myself that I would never let that happen?

What happens now?