“Have you considered adoption?” A loaded question which I have been asked hundreds of times in the past 9,5 years and one I have answered with just one simple answer; Yes, I have. Even long before I found out that I was going to be childless by circumstance and when I still had the expectation that I would one day be a mother, I had already considered adoption.

The ideas that family bonds don’t form just because someone is a blood relative and that it takes a village to raise a child, are ideas I believe in. So adoption was something that had crossed my mind when I started to get broody in my late twenties. When I read up about adoption, I came across many stories, the good, the bad and the ugly ones and this made me rethink my thoughts about adoption and even forget about it for a while.

This all changed again when I got diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 33, after a period of trying to get pregnant without success. Adoption was no longer just a thought or a consideration, it turned out to be one of the few options my partner and I were given by my doctors at the hospital when it became clear I would lose my womb, cervix and my fallopian tubes as part of my treatment for the cancer diagnosis.

An option that was given in the form of a leaflet from the national adoption organisation, without any further explanations from my doctor about the application process, the costs, the impact of adoption on me, my partner, our environment or anything else that would have helpful to know at that point. “Well, that isn’t up to you doctor”, some of you might think as you read this, and do you know what, you are right, it isn’t.

However, when you are a 33 year old woman with a desire to become a mother and then get diagnosed with cervical cancer (which turns your whole world upside down) and are asked once, just once, by your doctor (who has just given you your diagnosis) if you have a wish to become a mother to which you answer; “Yes, but I want to live to raise this child, so please make me better first” and that doctor then gives you a leaflet about adoption, that leaflet becomes your beacon of hope for a chance of motherhood.

Hope that came crashing down harder than the summary of my surgery during which I nearly lost my life, harder than the diagnosis of cervical cancer and harder than the news that I would not be able to be pregnant and give birth. Hope that was shattered into a thousand little pieces of broken dreams when we learned that to be eligible for adoption, I had to be cancer free for 10 years (this was the guideline from the Dutch adoption agency back in 2012, the guidelines may since have changed) and that there was a limit on the maximum age difference between the eldest parent and the adoptive child (40 years).

With a partner who is a bit older than I am and with the rule of having to be cancer free for 10 years, adoption soon became something that we could no longer consider as we would simply be too old by the time I reach that 10 year milestone. I will be nearing the age of 44 and my partner will be 56 when we meet that requirement and the adoption of a nearly adult person that wasn’t on my mind when I first considered adoption as a way to become a parent.

So, before we even had a chance to seriously consider adoption, we were “rejected” for this process. Not based on our character references, our morals and values, our financial status or our parenting skills, but simply because of that 10 year rule. Never getting a chance to explore the adoption process was a tough blow for us both. Dealing with the physical and emotional aftermath of the cancer diagnosis, the treatments, the surgeries was tough enough already, adding what felt like such an unfair rejection and the realisation that we were not going to be parents, made things much harder.

Over this past decade we have grieved the loss of our dream to become parents, we have found ways to move forward with the sadness, the feelings of rejection, injustice and the what ifs. We have nearly lost each other a few times as we navigated our own roads in this landscape of grief that descended on us when the dust of those thousand little pieces of broken dreams had settled around us.

Grief that became all consuming, grief that was misunderstood by so many and grief of which we were reminded every time someone asked us the question; “Have you considered adoption?” as a suggestion when they learned that “sadly no, we don’t have kids”. Grief that, over time, has made room for love, for gratitude, for understanding, for new opportunities, for emotional growth and for deeper connections. Something that we both carry with us and that has a place in our hearts and our lives.

The next time I am asked the question; “Have you considered adoption?” I might change my answer and share this story instead…

Karin Enfield, 42, Belgium