One of the many things that made me crazy when I was trying to have a baby was the people who said, “have you ever thought about just adopting?”

There’s nothing “just” about it: 

It also needs to amplify the perspectives of adoptees and birth families, especially when they raise uncomfortable issues that challenge the prevailing adoption narrative. “Children are cute, children are acceptable. Everybody likes babies,” McKee notes. “When these babies grow into adults like myself, an adoptee who also studies adoption, we’re less cute.” The idea of adoption as “a blessing for all involved” is a narrative that serves ethically dubious adoption facilitators, while pulling double duty as an anti-abortion talking point.

Mr. A and I did meet with a local adoption agency, one that did a lot of transracial and open adoptions, and might have gone further down that road if I hadn’t gotten pregnant. We have friends who’ve adopted children and others who are adopted, and being flip about it like you can just run down to the store and get a baby erases the work everybody involved does to make adoptions happen.

A.