Adoption or pregnancy. Which takes more work?

wholelottacats

Short answer: pregnancy. I find it hard to compare the two, but: Adoption can be mentally exhausting. Pregnancy can be mentally AND physically exhausting. Both are emotional - but adoption doesn't produce hormones that your body has to adjust to.

I've had to do a lot of paperwork, been fingerprinted, interviewed, investigated, answered pages of essay-type questions, read a million books, had my marriage and family relationships dissected. But paperwork is paperwork. Reading is reading. No matter how much of it there is, it is what is. Work? Yes. But it was my choice how short or fast I wanted to do it all. Want to go out to dinner with my husband tonight? Okay, I'll fill this out on the weekend. And, honestly, my husband and I ENJOYED the homestudy process. We used it as a marriage building tool - a time to actually step back and examine our life, see what we were grateful for, and see what we thought might need work.

A pregnancy is physical, hard work. A pregnant woman is CREATING a human being - her body is focused on actually growing a life. As you said, there are the medical procedures, physical changes, the many many many risks involved in L&D, the recovery. It requires a lot of work - even in an "easy" pregnancy.

Jennifer L

I've done both.

I'd have to say pregnancy was harder, physically (obviously) and emotionally as well (but adoption can be a lot of emotional work also!).

I think what it came down to was when I was feeling overwhelmed with pre-adoption work, I could set it aside and focus on something else for awhile. When I was feeling overwhelmed during pregnancy, you can't just forget that you're pregnant for awhile and give yourself a break.

When you're pregnant, it's your entire identity. I remember thinking my name was Jennifer-pregnant. It's always there. Always visible. And while I loved being pregnant, loved feeling my son grow, I was a pregnant teenager with an unplanned pregnancy and there was a LOT of "other stuff."

However, I'd like to add a third option. Trying to conceive (and failing) and dealing with secondary infertility was harder than adoption and pregnancy put together.

ETA: I would like to point out that since my pregnancy, I now understand my name is not "Jennifer-pregnant." My name is "*****'s Mom." (*****= any and/or all of my children's names)

Jen

Having never tried to adopt my view is probably one sided but currently being in my 40th week of pregnancy I have to say physically it has been hard work for me - & I haven't even given birth yet! I can't believe some people think it's easy - but that's just me...

I think it's such an individual thing that it's hard to generalise.

Freckle Face

Tough question. For me, its like asking which would you rather have amputated your dominate arm or your dominate leg? Kinda like comparing apples and oranges. I've done both.

Every one of my pregnancies were high risk. I've lost a daughter at 28wks of pregnancy although only measuring at 24 wks. One daughter was an emergency c-section and i've been pregnant with twins and lost one twin early on. The emotional and physical stress was exhausting.

For adoption, the paperwork, homestudies, background checks and letters was nothing. The money was nothing as well. Its the years of emotional turmoil. First you are dependent on someone else to bless you with a child. There is no control and nothing you can do. Second the joy of having your child is tarnished by the pain you know the first parents are experiencing. Then you question the rest of your life your parenting. Like with this lying she is experiencing is it because she's adopted and this is her way of acting out? Am i doing the right thing exposing her to her first mother even though again she has stopped contact. Does the pain of rejection out weigh the benefits of my child at least knowing her for a short time? Will my child love me still as an adult? Will she just cut all ties to me and consider her first mother her only family? And it goes on and on and on. I emotionally beat myself up and question everything i do as an adoptive mom. I also worry myself sick.

I guess to answer your question, as far as bring the child into your family pregnancy is harder from my experience. As for parenting and raising the children, adoption is harder because in the back of your mind you know you can be replaced someday, imho.

babywait

Questions like this one I term the "pain olympics" and it really serves no purpose other than to divide and categorize people. My pain is worse to me b/c it is MINE. That is how it is for all of us. I think it is unhealthy to try to say my pain is worse than your pain. Your pain (your in the collective sense) is always worse to you b/c it is YOURS. So whether we are talking work or pain to compare pregnancy to adoption it is a contest that has no winner. I hate to see women pitted against each other in this manner, can't we all agree that our own pain or work (regarding pregnancy vs adoption) is worse to us yet has no bearing on how bad your work or pain is to you?

Crazed People Rule The World

Personally I think both are kind of hard because there is still a child that needs to be taken care of. But I think that pregnancy would be the hardest.

Professor Dingbat

I don't think of it as work at all. Work is something you do to gain credit - in both the material and respect aspects of the word - whilst having a child - either natural or adopting - is simply preparing.

However, there is more to giving birth as adoption takes a long time but it's mostly wait. With pregnancy, you're constantly having the physical aspects of the child invading on your personal time.

Heather B

Given the complicated twin pregnancies I've had, I'd have to say pregnancy and childbirth

It is far from just PHYSICAL pain as one poster put it. Try miscarrying twins at 4 months gestation and saying 'oh well, it's just physical pain

Or explaining to your little girl that her twin brother didn't make it . . .

Or spending a whole entire pregnancy worrying for the health of your babies. Or wondering if they are going to survive on delivery. Certainly NOT just physical pain

It's so dismissive of people to flippantly say 'oh anyone can get pregnant and give birth' It's not so easy, really. If it was a matter of filling out a ton of paperwork and an anxious wait, that would be far easier IMHO

Torrejon

I have not adopteed. I am an adoptee. I have two kids. Being pregnant for me was both wonderful and awful at the same time. My first pregnancy symptom was nausea, I threw up for nine months...even threw up during the birth. I remember telling my husband that if I knew I would feel this bad for the rest of my life, I would definitely commit suicide. Thank goodness pregnancy eventually ends, and my nausea went away as soon as I gave birth. Being pregnant is a temporary event.

As far as my own adoption is concerned, to get my records opened I had paperwork, court costs, legal fees, dear bdad letter, and a lot of emotion to deal with.

My vote: PREGNANCY is definitely harder.

Nurse Answer Mama

Although I can see by helping my Sis go through the adoption process that adoption is intense and difficult, no one ever died from filling out the paper work. My Sis feels having her birthchild was harder than what she is doing now. She had HELLP Syndrome and came close to death (and so did her son).

tish

hmm...

i think adoption might be a longer and more expensive process; but i think the risks of pregnancy largely outweigh the inconvience of adoption.

here's why:

-there is no risk of illness, injury or death during adoption.
-there is no need to modify activities (drinking, smoking, diet, et al) during the adoption process.
-adoption *is* intrusive; yet medical procedures during pregnancy, background questions (history of STDs, abortions, drug use, nature of the relationship with the father) can be perceived as intrusive, as well.
-preparing for a baby, paying for prenatal care, co-pays, et al is pretty darn expensive. not everyone has great insurance that will pick up a $6K+ hospital tab, with just a $200 co-pay.

although i agree that they both require work, i think the work required is different, with pregnancy and delivery being a bit more.

ETA: oh... i almost forgot: if the baby turns out "not-perfect", you can't simply "canel the contract" and start all over again. in other words, what you get when you push the kid out, is what you have. there's not "failed placements" or renigning on the deal if the kid is the wrong gender/color or has a disability.

IDK!!

Pregnancy.....

Been there and done both, yep pregnancy. Adoption isn't life threatening.

Adopted Jane

OMG there is no contest Pregnancy and Giving Birth

ETA : A thumbs down ? wow well ok I can see that only the ones who are adopting a child who have not experienced pregnancy and childbirth would say adoption is harder

No one that i know ever *nearly* died from adopting a child..........
Or had the agony of giving birth to a still born baby after carrying it inside her for 9months and watching the baby on a Ultrasound .........and if any one DARES to say that having a child on the adoption book only for the birth mother to change their mind is the same thing I will have a few choice words to say....

As I said there is NO Contest
get real people

PS NO this didnt happen to me (thank God) but it has to some very close friends of mine............

ETA Wow 15 thumbs down ? Gosh well I guess there are 20 thumbs ups :)

Lets see, hmm, how about having a very VERY long needle shoved through your tummy past the baby into the surrounding area to take a sample..all the while worrying the hell out of your that this could cause a miscarriage.
How about having numberous falls during the pregnancy DUE TO THE pregnancy, and wondering if something bad had happnend to the baby, and having to go a lot more often for check ups and special scans..
How about having bleeding during the pregnancy and having to rush to the hospital because there could be something wrong with the baby

So not only is there the physical side, but there IS ALSO The emotional upheaval and the absolute terrifying moments that you might lose your baby....
So I beg to differ with the people saying that pregnancy is just hard physically very emotional as well, and as I said about especially what about the mothers that have a miscarriage or carry the baby to term only to have it still born...
Don't flatter yourself that adopting a baby is the most emotional thing you can go through...

mommy2squee

It's about the same amount of work, just different types of work. (except for labor! most AP's don't have that 12-60 hour intensive block of work!)

Erin L

I guess I think thereâ€™s no one answer to this question. First, each adoption and each pregnancy is unique and has a unique amount of work needed, so itâ€™s not like we can assign a level of difficulty for adoption and a level of difficulty for pregnancy/childbirth. Secondly, the work required is different for each and different individuals may not agree on which type of work is harder.

I have never endured the physical or emotional rigors of pregnancy, so I canâ€™t compare from personal experience. Obviously, adoption doesnâ€™t contain the hormones going crazy (although many people who have adopted have experienced fertility treatments and so have experienced hormones going crazy!) and adoption doesnâ€™t contain the physical pain of childbirth, which I canâ€™t even imagine. I think in both pregnancy and adoption, the expectant parents worry about the safety, health, well-being of their child. Again, in individual adoptions and in individual pregnancies there may be more cause for concern than others, so each individual situation is going to have its own stresses.

I totally agree with the poster who said each personâ€™s own pain is the worst because itâ€™s their own. Thatâ€™s why it is so insulting when someone tells someone else how to feel. It is dismissive of someone elseâ€™s experience. So let me use this as an opportunity to share my experiences rather than do the â€œI had it harder than youâ€ debate with the understanding that I donâ€™t think I had it any harder than anyone else. The hardest part of the adoption process for me was certainly not filling out papers, it was the feeling of having so little control. In the adoption process, you donâ€™t even get to decide whether or not you get to have a child, someone else does. One of the hardest periods in our adoption process for me was the period of time between getting our referral for our daughter and the time she was in our custody. She had known medical needs and it was so hard to know that but not know exactly what was going on medically. Even though we knew she was in a place where she was likely getting good care (and she was) it was such a helpless feeling to be unable to make medical decisions or be there to comfort her during medical procedures. There are, of course, unknowns with pregnancy, but I think often times adoptive parents have to endure the unknown for a longer period of time than biological parents and you often have no idea how long you will have to live with the unkowns, and that is very difficult. Iâ€™d also like to say that adoptive parenting, if done responsibly, adds the responsibility, and benefits, of the addition of a whole other family in oneâ€™s life and contains the lifetime work of educating oneself about adoption issues.

Iâ€™ve enjoyed the answers to this question. I think itâ€™s good to share experiences. Maybe it will help some people not to be so flippant about what others go through.

Ems N

I'd say, by the looks of things, pregnancy takes more physical work, whereas adoption takes more paperwork and legal work.

Gaia Raain

Pregnancy, hands down. Not even debatable. I've never been pregnant (well, not for longer than a few weeks), but I've seen many pregnancies. I've got NO illusions that I have it "harder" because I have oh so much paperwork to do. Pshyeah, right.

Shelby

Pregnancy is harder. Anything that can be life threatening is harder. My sister thought she was going to die giving birth to her second child and it scared her enough not to go for another one. In fact I find child birth very scary.
I myself didnt find the process of adoption hard at all (maybe the waiting tested my patience, but I wouldnt call it hard). It took almost 3 years of very intrusive process, but didnt bother me one bit as it was all for the child's benefit to make sure we were suitable to parent. Anyway, that's my experience, others will have a different view.
I think you can compare the two though, because the end result is still a child. But I think childbirth really wins hands down because of the life threatening element as well as all the physical discomfort your body goes through.

HappyMomAnna

I have given birth twice and adopted two children and actually find the comparison of child birth and adoption to be odd.

Yes, the end result is parenthood but other then that the two processess are unrelated.

In my expereince the adoption process was much more like getting a college degree and finding a spouse. than being pregnant and giving birth.

One is a physical process and the other is a paperwork, education and matching process.

poo.

depends what type of person you are, what you're up to and all that...

holy molar :)

If the person/couple wants a child bad enough...they don't see the paperwork, legal fees and background checks as work. The same way a women who chooses to get pregnant, she doesn't see it has work. It's life.

terpalummls

Having never given birth, I cannot compare but...

adoption itself isn't the hard part. yes, there are homestudies and paperwork and $ but many (not all) people come to the decision to adopt after trying to conceive on their own. These experiences may include infertility treatments, drugs, surgeries, miscarriages, and heartache. The lack of choice or control over your own body and life can be disabling to some. If the adoption process goes smoothly, great! And yes, you dont' have to gain weight, have cravings, and cramps, and hormones, and labor... But, there are no guarantees with adoption either. My husband and I worked with an expectant mother for 6 months- we supported her emotionally and financially. We flew to her home state for EVERY doctor appt., ultrasound, etc. We were in the hospital when the baby was born and we took "our" son home from the hospital. After three weeks of feeling complete for the first time in the four years since we started trying to build a family, his first mother changed her mind and took him back. We are devestated and miss him terribly.

I won't try to say pregancy isn't hard, but until we all walk a mile in each other's shoes....

Sophie

I started writing out a list of issues to compare, but come on... it's like comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruit but so DIFFERENT. Adoption and Pregnancy are both WORK, but are so different.

Obviously it's easier to sign your name on the dotted line comapring it to the act of giving birth... but the whole entire process (from beginning to end) to become a PARENT is long, hard, financially daunting, emothionally draining, joyful, exciting.... etc.

MY answer is: BOTH ARE EQUAL, when every aspect is laid out on the table, while considering all possible positive and negative outcomes... both are equal.

Santa's Lil' Helper

It's apples and oranges.....the two do not compare.

Old Fashioned Mother

I think raising children takes the most work. Are mothers so pathetic that they need to debate who had the hardest time having children? Pfft.

oopsydaisy

this is an interesting question, but I dont think its one you can really answer unless you have experienced one or the other.

If your not an adoptive parent, then you cant possibly understand the emotional turmoil they may go through

If you have never experienced pregnancy, then you can possibly understand the discomfort, body change etc.

I noticed that you didnt mention about adoptive parents having any emotional feelings. Well They do.

Pregnancy isnt an illness, its a condition. You carry a baby for 9 months, and the whole pregnancy thing is a risk. But its a risk loads of women take all of the time. Some people hate being pregnant, some people like it.

I dont think there really is a straight forward answer to this.

Adopting isnt just about paperwork, its about the journey the PAPs go through before the actual adoption.

Both things have their ups and downs, both can be just as harmful as each other, and both can be just as draining as each other.

opedial

Do'nt forget for adoptive mothers having to apply for the job, fear of beign rejected, being called names, false start and stops, and dealing with burearcratic tendencies.

I just do'nt think the two should be compared, they are different, why can't we leave it at that. Why do people attempt to stir the pot by saying one segment of mothers have more work.

I just don't think this is a good question.

ETA: ACtually I take that back. I think the real question is which takes more work in making the child, then you ahve an actual comparison.

Becca

As the mother of 2 bio children and one adopted, for me the answer is hands down adopting.

I did not have care free pregnancies at all. I was in and out of the hospital for preterm labor and fought the whole time to stay pregnant. I had countless IVs along with oral meds to stop the contractions but during all of that I knew where my baby was.
With adoption I worried about her nonstop. Was she being taken care of? Were her foster parents being nice to her? Did she feel loved? Etc, etc, etc.......
That was the emotional side of it.
As far as work, even though I had troubled pregnancies and many hospital stays it was still harder letting a stranger into our lives (SW) and pick apart every aspect of our lives.
As for the money part of it again adoption was much harder. When I was pregnant insurance picked up almost the whole cost. With adoption we were responsible fro every dime.

C Wood

It's not a competition, you know.
Both are a lot of work, and I suspect the level of work and commitment is fairly equal in both adoption and pregnancy.
cw

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