So you’re saying an adoptive parent will never get the oxytocin experience that a biological parent would? How about my colleague of 7 years that had a surrogate give birth to her twins created by fertilization of her egg with her husband’s sperm. She had hemolytic anemia during her first pregnancy and almost died, so she couldn’t safely get pregnant again. Would she not get the oxytocin experience as well? She couldn’t breast feed but could bottle feed and do everything else.
And then there’s me raising my 3 youngest sisters from birth (less so with the eldest of the 3 that is 7 years younger than me, and 100% so with the youngest of the 3 that is 11 years younger than me). The babies (especially the youngest) slept in my bedroom while my mother slept on another floor of the house (narcissist mother with mental health issues). I was the one up in the middle of the night changing their diapers and feeding them. Do I not get that oxy hit bottle feeding my younger sisters, exhausted as an 11 year old changing diapers and rocking a crying baby to sleep at 3:30am, and experiencing the blissful joy of a sleeping baby that had just woken me up at a very dark hour? I got REALLY REALLY good at getting my younger sibs to go down for a nap to get some peace.