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Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley recently adopted a daughter from Korea, a 10-month-old girl who they named Naleigh.
Though there have been plenty of announcements about her impending motherhood and the subsequent adoption, I think the most interesting part is that she had the family building discussion with her husband prior to marriage. She stated on the Ellen DeGeneres Show that they discussed the idea of adopting specifically from Korea prior to their engagement: "I just wanted to make sure that I was marrying a guy who understands that this was going to have to happen."
And though few do it, prior to getting married is when people should be running through not only their ideal plans, but also their what ifs. When you're committing your life to another person, you better know what you are committing to--the number of children you think you want to have (since some of that may change as circumstances or preferences change over time), when you want to start family building, and how you hope it happens. At the same time, it's important to make sure you're on the same page if things don't go according to plan--are you open to considering fertility treatments, have strong feelings about adoption or donor gametes, willing to live child-free if Plan A doesn't work?
Karen from Chookooloonks began discussing her adoption plans with her husband prior to their engagement as well: "He mentioned to me that while he liked kids, he didn't need to be a parent. I responded that I felt the same way -- but that if we changed our minds, I wanted us to consider adoption. I have cousins who were adopted when I was very young (around 5), and I had always thought adoption was a very cool way to build a family. I remember at the time, Marcus said, 'Wow. I never thought about adoption before ... but, yeah, cool, I think that would be great.' Two years later, we found ourselves sitting in orientation at an adoption agency."
Karen states the obvious reality: "It's too important of an issue *not* to talk about before marriage. That said, we did continue the conversation after we were married, particularly when it came to how we were going to adopt (domestically v. internationally, and so on)."
Alexicographer agrees and while they had the conversation before marriage, the actual route they took after they found themselves struggling with infertility looked very different from what they placed on the table before the fact: " I now know that having to make a decision can change the decision you make. I know my husband and I can disagree emphatically about the value of something and still move forward together with a plan. I know that he loves me enough to support me in this. I thought I knew when I started down this path what I was biting off. We had discussed what-we’ll-do-if-what-we-try-first-doesn’t-work. I had no idea."
So while the conversation definitely needs to be an on-going one after the wedding, with both sides willing to be flexible and meet in the middle, hard and fast feelings about family building should be stated and heard prior to marriage and sometimes even used as criteria to decide whether or not you're compatible with one another.
Of course, hard-and-fast lines have a way of changing when circumstances change. The Tragic Optimist ate her words when she posted their premarital feelings on a parenting board and had to revisit them later after being diagnosed with infertility. "We both want children, but neither of us can justify fertility treatments if that was an issue. We’d both rather adopt." The lesson Ann learned was that "I cannot be certain of how I’d react in a situation until I’ve actually faced it."
And that is definitely a final point to keep in mind--that feelings often change when people need to accept their Plan B. But even knowing that, the conversation about family building--when, how, how not, and how many--should come before the commitment has been made to live your lives together.
Questions to ask:
- Do you want to have children?
- If yes, how many do you think you'd want to have?
- What type of parent do you think you'd be?
- When would you want to begin family building?
- What method of family building would you want to use?
- What if we run into fertility problems?
