IVF
So what about IVF? What are the pros about IVF? Well, first of all, it’s cheaper than adoption. (Who knew?) And I hope that the first part of tome makes you realize that it’s not like there are dozens of adoptable children just hanging around waiting to be picked up. It’s a lot harder, expensive, time oppressive than it looks.
But IVF has very big risks, especially that it can fail. Adoption ALWAYS has a child at the end of the path. IVF does not. But with a successful IVF, I’d get to be pregnant again, and I’d be able to easily breastfeed. (Well, as easy as breastfeeding ever is. But still, it would be objectively be easier than adoption)
One big problem is that we don’t know where I fall in the IVF success risk. I get pregnant a lot more than the typical early 40ish woman. Am I more like a 35 year old? Will IVF be as successful for me as it would be for a 35 year old? And I’d like to point out that the rates are not all that encouraging, even for a 35 year old. But I honestly and truly do not think I’m a typical early 40’s woman.
That said, there is another option that we had originally thrown out: donor eggs. I originally felt that it was a very vain option: if I wanted donor eggs, then I must believe that I have to be pregnant to add to our family even if this child is not genetically related to me. On the other hand, if it is not important for me to have a genetic connection to my child, why wouldn’t I go ahead and adopt? That was my reasoning until we saw all this crap about how expensive adoption is and how fraught it is with failure.
And this IVF route is not as expensive as you’d think: $23,000 and the possibility of 6 fertilized eggs which could yield 2 or maybe 3 children! We could have a really big family! On a per child basis, it could be pretty cheap. Of course, daycare would set us back a bazillion dollars and we’d be 80 before everyone graduated from high school. (I’m kidding, folks!)
Of course, I’m being very positive in those statistics: It’s possible to only get 2 fertilized eggs and to have them not implant and then you are left with nothing for $23,000. That's a bad, bad thing. The current success rate is 60% at our clinic, but it all depends on how many fertilizable eggs the donor produces.
And then there’s the “issue” with donor eggs. I’m not supposed to let anyone know that we have even heard of it, much less considered it. It’s supposed to be a taboo subject that parents might want to (should?) keep this information away from their donor-egg children and even more so from the community around them. It might affect the children’s identity in the future, because they are not technically genetically related to their birth mother.
I would like to pause here for a moment and direct you to reread the beginning of this essay. I will even point to yesterday. A child who has gestated in his/her mother’s belly for 9 months is more susceptible to identity issues as a teenager and adult than the only black person in the family? More?!?!? Is that how “bad” IVF advocates think adoption is!?
I don’t get it. And I don’t get why women are so unwilling to talk about it. Women like Jane Seymour, Elizabeth Edwards, Joan Lunden, Holly Hunter and Geena Davis who appear to most likely have used egg donors to have their children. (In fact, pay the $2.95 and read the recent NY Times article yourself). How can IVF with egg donor be more identity shaking for the child than adoption? I think the real issue is the very high probability of being able to lie to child about his/her origins and get away with it. How can that sort of untruth ever be helpful? (For the 50% of you who have used donor eggs and are not going to tell, I do not judge you. I simply cannot keep my mouth shut for that long.)
The analogy I’ve heard about egg donation is that it’s sort of like a kidney donation or even bone marrow donation. Somebody had a need. Some other healthier person had extra. Once “it” leaves the donator for the donated, the donator has no claim on it again. This whole process has even spawned a new word: biogenetic child to distinguish that some children are both biologically and genetically related to their mother.
So there we are, people. You now know a lot of what I have learned in the past two months. (I should have entitled this “What I did on my summer vacation.”) That’s a boatload of information and I should get an A on this project. Nonetheless,
WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO.
Ok? We don’t know if we’re going to adopt, if we’re going to choose IVF, or if we decide to choose IVF whether we’ll use donor eggs. WE DON’T KNOW. I hope that all of a sudden I just get pregnant “naturally” with a healthy child and save us about $20,000 in the cost of finishing up our family.
I also don’t know that if we decide to use donor eggs that we’ll tell you. As Dave and I have discussed, you can’t unring that bell. And if we, upon further discussion, see why we should keep this a big secret, we really don’t want the internets knowing about it.
We’ve had to wrestle with putting this out here (for the three of you who are still reading the end of this loooong essay) because if we do decide to do IVF regularly, that idea that they are donor eggs is now planted in your head.
But it bugs me to think that there’s some myth that egg donor children are more fragile than adoptees in their self image and identity issues. I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to put my (in my head) egg donor child’s ego over my (in my head) African-American adopted child’s ego because I see a boatload of advantages for identity/adjustment/ultimate self-concept for the (in my head) egg donor child. The weird thing is how feisty I get in thinking about defending that in-my-head adopted child. The adopted child could have real issues of abandonment and difference that the egg donor child will never, ever have.
So there. That is where we are in the process. We have a great deal of information spread in front of us and we’re going to have to make some decisions soon. This essay is probably more for us to help sort out our decisions than for you to follow. And it really does help for us to get it out.
We have some time to make all these decisions and hopefully be surprised with a healthy pregnancy. Until then, we’re going to keep plodding along until we find that next child who is supposed to be in our family, whoever he or she is.
Showing posts with label adoption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adoption. Show all posts
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Adoption Vs. IVF: Part 1
Adoption
Ok. Grab a cup of coffee because you might be here a while.
Last year, after the second miscarriage we started looking into international adoption as the way we’d build our family. Dave and I had often talked about adoption even when we were just dating thinking that we might be too old to get pregnant. That’s why when we got pregnant with Conor so quickly, it was a surprise.
So it was even more of a surprise was how much resistance I felt within myself when we started looking into international adoption. I know that international adoption is the preferred way for most American couples these days, but it, at least at that point, was not the path that was right for us to take.
Why? Breastfeeding. A very big part of my conception of myself as a mother involves breastfeeding and the bond that Conor and I have developed through my being able to feed him with my body. It would bother me tremendously if our second child did not get a chance to bond with me in that way.
Also, I know I’m not a developmental psychologist. Nonetheless, it concerns me what could happen (or not) in the first year (or two!) or so of a child’s life before we adopted him or her. Children are incredibly resilient. But our understanding is that many international adoptions occur with children at least a year old and often, you’ll be assigned your child and then still have to wait 6 months until you can go get him/her. With the likelihood high of me causing an international incident trying to hurry the process along, It just doesn’t feel like that’s the right path for us.
So, we put adoption on hold misguidedly thinking that we were too old for domestic adoption. Then we found out we were not too old and were thrilled to hear that people “our age” could domestically adopt infants.
Yes, most domestic adoptions are with infants, and the adoptive parents often take the child home with them from the hospital and sometimes are even in the birthing room with the biological mother. WOW! An infant that would come home with us within a few days of his/her birth! And we could breastfeed!! It’s not easy, but it’s certainly possible.
Also, it was crystal clear to us early in considering a domestic adoption that the child’s ethnicity did not matter to us at all. In fact, we were quite open to what is known as “transracial” adoption as well as biracial adoption. We don’t need for our adopted child to look like us. This helps the adoption process a lot. For one thing, it also makes the process much more likely to go quickly. By saying we’re open to all healthy children, we have many more opportunities to find our child.
However, there are still issues.
First, mothers change their minds. The process for domestic adoptions is that biological mothers look through the profiles (i.e., photograph albums) of a range of prospective parents working with an agency. Then she picks the family who could be the parents of her child. The adoptive parents and the bio mom most often meet and decide to proceed with the adoption. However, the bio mom has every right in the world to change her mind. And after birth, 20 to 50% of them do. (As a statistician, it bugs me that the agencies can’t give us exact numbers. It’s an objective data point: either the adoption placement did or did not occur. How many did not occur out of the total number of adoption processes that started? Easy peasy, folks.)
Second, it takes a long time. Catholic Social Services has quoted us at least a year for a healthy non-Caucasian child and well over 2 years for a healthy Caucasian child. A Child’s Hope in NC has suggested that it’s 6-12 months for an African American or an African American biracial child and well over a year for a Caucasian, Latino, or Asian American child. Adoption consultants, charging $2500 to represent you to up to 30 or 40 agencies around the country, can shorten the time for placement with some guaranteeing placement in less than a year. But we discovered that they tend to work for the most expensive agencies, and we just don’t have that kind of money. (We’ll talk about why we have ruled out foster care adoption at this point in our search in another blog)
So that takes us to drawback number 3: Money. Before I quote numbers, remember that in the US, you can take $10000 off your taxes the year you adopt. And this is right off your taxes, so it’s essentially a refund from the government for the adoption. Catholic Social Services (CSS) charges $12,500 for any and all adoptions. That is an appealing option. A Child’s Hope charges (I think) about $13,000 for an African American adoption, $15,000 for an African-American Biracial adoption and $23,000 for everyone else. (Does that information bother you? It should.) The agencies the consultants work with start at $23,000 for African-American adoptions and go on up to at least $35K to $50K for Caucasian adoptions. There can be additional charges for the mother’s living expenses and searching for the father to give up his rights for all of the agencies except CSS.
So CSS seems like a good option, no? It certainly does to us. They are also one of the few agencies that do not make you pay half the money up front and then the other half when/if you get the baby. CSS only has you pay upon placement of the baby. The problem is that it’s just no way of knowing how long it will be until we have a child placed with us. (6 months? 2 years??)
And I haven’t even started to address that adoption causes for the children of same ethnicity adoptions (e.g., abandonment) much less transracial adoptions (e.g., identity, feelings of difference) reported by adult transracial adoptees . There are no insurmountable issues involved here. It is clear to us that we would not back away from adoption because of these issues. In fact, we want to arm ourselves and protect our child from having to deal with this.
But in any case the adoptive family needs to take many extra, important steps to make sure they don’t screw it up. I’d argue this is even more an issue when there is already a biological child in the family. (A strike against us, btw, in having a bio mom choose us)
There is humor in this, as always. The funniest thing I’ve heard is that an advantage for transracial adoptees occurs when they are teenagers and their parents start acting like parents of teenagers do all the time: embarrassing their poor children. Transracial adoptees can act like they have no idea who those old embarrassing farts are and can generally get away with it! I think that’s a hoot!
So now you know what we know about adoption and what we perceive are the big pros and cons for us.
Tomorrow, we’ll present the IVF issues.
Ok. Grab a cup of coffee because you might be here a while.
Last year, after the second miscarriage we started looking into international adoption as the way we’d build our family. Dave and I had often talked about adoption even when we were just dating thinking that we might be too old to get pregnant. That’s why when we got pregnant with Conor so quickly, it was a surprise.
So it was even more of a surprise was how much resistance I felt within myself when we started looking into international adoption. I know that international adoption is the preferred way for most American couples these days, but it, at least at that point, was not the path that was right for us to take.
Why? Breastfeeding. A very big part of my conception of myself as a mother involves breastfeeding and the bond that Conor and I have developed through my being able to feed him with my body. It would bother me tremendously if our second child did not get a chance to bond with me in that way.
Also, I know I’m not a developmental psychologist. Nonetheless, it concerns me what could happen (or not) in the first year (or two!) or so of a child’s life before we adopted him or her. Children are incredibly resilient. But our understanding is that many international adoptions occur with children at least a year old and often, you’ll be assigned your child and then still have to wait 6 months until you can go get him/her. With the likelihood high of me causing an international incident trying to hurry the process along, It just doesn’t feel like that’s the right path for us.
So, we put adoption on hold misguidedly thinking that we were too old for domestic adoption. Then we found out we were not too old and were thrilled to hear that people “our age” could domestically adopt infants.
Yes, most domestic adoptions are with infants, and the adoptive parents often take the child home with them from the hospital and sometimes are even in the birthing room with the biological mother. WOW! An infant that would come home with us within a few days of his/her birth! And we could breastfeed!! It’s not easy, but it’s certainly possible.
Also, it was crystal clear to us early in considering a domestic adoption that the child’s ethnicity did not matter to us at all. In fact, we were quite open to what is known as “transracial” adoption as well as biracial adoption. We don’t need for our adopted child to look like us. This helps the adoption process a lot. For one thing, it also makes the process much more likely to go quickly. By saying we’re open to all healthy children, we have many more opportunities to find our child.
However, there are still issues.
First, mothers change their minds. The process for domestic adoptions is that biological mothers look through the profiles (i.e., photograph albums) of a range of prospective parents working with an agency. Then she picks the family who could be the parents of her child. The adoptive parents and the bio mom most often meet and decide to proceed with the adoption. However, the bio mom has every right in the world to change her mind. And after birth, 20 to 50% of them do. (As a statistician, it bugs me that the agencies can’t give us exact numbers. It’s an objective data point: either the adoption placement did or did not occur. How many did not occur out of the total number of adoption processes that started? Easy peasy, folks.)
Second, it takes a long time. Catholic Social Services has quoted us at least a year for a healthy non-Caucasian child and well over 2 years for a healthy Caucasian child. A Child’s Hope in NC has suggested that it’s 6-12 months for an African American or an African American biracial child and well over a year for a Caucasian, Latino, or Asian American child. Adoption consultants, charging $2500 to represent you to up to 30 or 40 agencies around the country, can shorten the time for placement with some guaranteeing placement in less than a year. But we discovered that they tend to work for the most expensive agencies, and we just don’t have that kind of money. (We’ll talk about why we have ruled out foster care adoption at this point in our search in another blog)
So that takes us to drawback number 3: Money. Before I quote numbers, remember that in the US, you can take $10000 off your taxes the year you adopt. And this is right off your taxes, so it’s essentially a refund from the government for the adoption. Catholic Social Services (CSS) charges $12,500 for any and all adoptions. That is an appealing option. A Child’s Hope charges (I think) about $13,000 for an African American adoption, $15,000 for an African-American Biracial adoption and $23,000 for everyone else. (Does that information bother you? It should.) The agencies the consultants work with start at $23,000 for African-American adoptions and go on up to at least $35K to $50K for Caucasian adoptions. There can be additional charges for the mother’s living expenses and searching for the father to give up his rights for all of the agencies except CSS.
So CSS seems like a good option, no? It certainly does to us. They are also one of the few agencies that do not make you pay half the money up front and then the other half when/if you get the baby. CSS only has you pay upon placement of the baby. The problem is that it’s just no way of knowing how long it will be until we have a child placed with us. (6 months? 2 years??)
And I haven’t even started to address that adoption causes for the children of same ethnicity adoptions (e.g., abandonment) much less transracial adoptions (e.g., identity, feelings of difference) reported by adult transracial adoptees . There are no insurmountable issues involved here. It is clear to us that we would not back away from adoption because of these issues. In fact, we want to arm ourselves and protect our child from having to deal with this.
But in any case the adoptive family needs to take many extra, important steps to make sure they don’t screw it up. I’d argue this is even more an issue when there is already a biological child in the family. (A strike against us, btw, in having a bio mom choose us)
There is humor in this, as always. The funniest thing I’ve heard is that an advantage for transracial adoptees occurs when they are teenagers and their parents start acting like parents of teenagers do all the time: embarrassing their poor children. Transracial adoptees can act like they have no idea who those old embarrassing farts are and can generally get away with it! I think that’s a hoot!
So now you know what we know about adoption and what we perceive are the big pros and cons for us.
Tomorrow, we’ll present the IVF issues.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Oh, Just Lots of Things
We had another "event" this month. I will probably refer to this as the Month Where I Used A Gazillion HPTs. I took a test on Monday afternoon and got the faintest of faintest lines on my First Response Early Response (FRER) test. In case you were wondering, that was 9 dpo, so it was very early and certainly reasonable to have a faint line.
However the next morning, 10 dpo, it was still way too faint and I knew it wasn't going to stick. Nonetheless, I took another test Tuesday afternoon with an Accu-clear (which I've later found out was panned on Peeonastick.com) and still had that faint line. By this point, I'd broken down and let Dave inspect the sticks, too, instead of saving the test for a big "You're Going to Be a Daddy" surprise, which one might admit is pretty foolish at this point. In any case, he saw a line, too.
And BECAUSE I AM PATHETICALLY OPTIMISTIC, I took another Accu-clear test on Weds morning, 11 dpo, and finally got a faint but clearly visible positive test line. It was gone by Thursday morning (12 dpo) when I peed again on a FRER. I won't even mention the three tests I took Weds afternoon with one positive (FRER) and two negative (Answer, New Choice/Dollar Store).
I am my own HPT testing lab. And I'm sticking with FRER because I think they are still the most sensitive. However, if I was really pregnant, then all of them would be flaming with two hot pink lines right now and it wouldn't really matter which test I used.
So there. Bleah and crap. I continue on my quest to be the oldest miscarrying freak of a woman in these United States this year.
In other news, we have an evil bunny indulging him/herself in a fresh vegetable garden buffet every night. It's amazing how this rabbit can eat the insides of a tomato clean out and leaving a soon-to-be rotting hull on the vine. Oh, what a talented bunny haunts our garden. At least it's not a rat. (And I just realized that I didn't blog about our rat problem from the spring. Hmmmm. Go figure)
I like not this bunny. And I like not our dog who lets this bunny run free in our garden. It is shocking that Patches lets the bunny roam, much less live, considering the incident with the bird and the other bunny. I know he's an older dog now but he still chases squirrels around the yard, and God(dess) forbid that Scarlett should do anything out of the ordinary because he'll rat her out in tail wag. Speaking of rats, I should have realized his hunting days were over when he did nothing as a rat ran across his paws and under the deck earlier this spring (see Rat Problem, above). Yes, nothing more than a quizzical look from our bird killing dog should have been my first clue that He Has Changed.
We try and try to explain to him: Scarlett, good! Don't bite or bark at. Birds, good! Let live!! Rats, bad. Attack! Bunnies in garden, bad, Bad, BAD! KILL BUNNY, KILL!
And on a big change of subjects but more on my mind that evil bunnies, I believe we are going with Catholic Social Services for our domestic adoption. I promise you that soon I will devote an entire blog on how FREAKIN' confusing adoption is, the range of prices that are out there and why, and why we are making the decisions that we are making. I keep making these offhanded comments about what we are doing on this adoption journey, but each decision point we get to is really, really hard.
But enough for this Friday post. I wonder why I always blog my longest on Fridays because no one comes around to read it. If you are here on Friday, well, thank you for stopping by!! I do miss having your company on Fridays.
Have a good weekend, y'all!
Oh, one last thing: it is one of my biggest pet peeves when people misspell y'all. It is the contraction of You All. You All: Y'all. It is NOT the contraction of Ya All. What the hell is that?? Ya All? Ya'll?!?!?
The only time the "ll" goes by itself is when you are contracting: You All Will. That becomes Y'all'll. Yes, that is a word. We use it all the time down here when we are inquiring about others' plans in the future. "Y'all'll be at the park on Sunday? We will, too! See you there!"
However the next morning, 10 dpo, it was still way too faint and I knew it wasn't going to stick. Nonetheless, I took another test Tuesday afternoon with an Accu-clear (which I've later found out was panned on Peeonastick.com) and still had that faint line. By this point, I'd broken down and let Dave inspect the sticks, too, instead of saving the test for a big "You're Going to Be a Daddy" surprise, which one might admit is pretty foolish at this point. In any case, he saw a line, too.
And BECAUSE I AM PATHETICALLY OPTIMISTIC, I took another Accu-clear test on Weds morning, 11 dpo, and finally got a faint but clearly visible positive test line. It was gone by Thursday morning (12 dpo) when I peed again on a FRER. I won't even mention the three tests I took Weds afternoon with one positive (FRER) and two negative (Answer, New Choice/Dollar Store).
I am my own HPT testing lab. And I'm sticking with FRER because I think they are still the most sensitive. However, if I was really pregnant, then all of them would be flaming with two hot pink lines right now and it wouldn't really matter which test I used.
So there. Bleah and crap. I continue on my quest to be the oldest miscarrying freak of a woman in these United States this year.
In other news, we have an evil bunny indulging him/herself in a fresh vegetable garden buffet every night. It's amazing how this rabbit can eat the insides of a tomato clean out and leaving a soon-to-be rotting hull on the vine. Oh, what a talented bunny haunts our garden. At least it's not a rat. (And I just realized that I didn't blog about our rat problem from the spring. Hmmmm. Go figure)
I like not this bunny. And I like not our dog who lets this bunny run free in our garden. It is shocking that Patches lets the bunny roam, much less live, considering the incident with the bird and the other bunny. I know he's an older dog now but he still chases squirrels around the yard, and God(dess) forbid that Scarlett should do anything out of the ordinary because he'll rat her out in tail wag. Speaking of rats, I should have realized his hunting days were over when he did nothing as a rat ran across his paws and under the deck earlier this spring (see Rat Problem, above). Yes, nothing more than a quizzical look from our bird killing dog should have been my first clue that He Has Changed.
We try and try to explain to him: Scarlett, good! Don't bite or bark at. Birds, good! Let live!! Rats, bad. Attack! Bunnies in garden, bad, Bad, BAD! KILL BUNNY, KILL!
And on a big change of subjects but more on my mind that evil bunnies, I believe we are going with Catholic Social Services for our domestic adoption. I promise you that soon I will devote an entire blog on how FREAKIN' confusing adoption is, the range of prices that are out there and why, and why we are making the decisions that we are making. I keep making these offhanded comments about what we are doing on this adoption journey, but each decision point we get to is really, really hard.
But enough for this Friday post. I wonder why I always blog my longest on Fridays because no one comes around to read it. If you are here on Friday, well, thank you for stopping by!! I do miss having your company on Fridays.
Have a good weekend, y'all!
Oh, one last thing: it is one of my biggest pet peeves when people misspell y'all. It is the contraction of You All. You All: Y'all. It is NOT the contraction of Ya All. What the hell is that?? Ya All? Ya'll?!?!?
The only time the "ll" goes by itself is when you are contracting: You All Will. That becomes Y'all'll. Yes, that is a word. We use it all the time down here when we are inquiring about others' plans in the future. "Y'all'll be at the park on Sunday? We will, too! See you there!"
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Hey Y'All
Conversation while driving 5 hours* to the beach:
"I can't wait until the kids** are older and I can stay in my wood working shop for a couple of hours."
"With them?"
"Without them!"
Happy Father's Day, indeed.
*This is normally a 3 1/2 to 4 hour trip sans children. But considering it took us 3 hours to go 90 miles, we actually did make good time.
**Yes, we are seriously moving quickly down the adoption path, at least mentally. For the first time in 2 years, we know we're going to have another child.
Well, howdy from Myrtle Beach. I thought I'd have more time to blog dozens of witty entries, but we've been too busy having fun. Of course, that doesn't stop my panic attacks at 4 am of all the work I have to do, but I grasp onto that tiny sliver of meditation zen I still have left and believe it will all work out.
So, apart from being "on board" with adoption at this stage---as in, chickens are on board with breakfast, pigs are committed---we have other baby news. The OB called about 30 minutes before we left on Friday. Knowing that Friday is his surgery day, I was happy he worked in this call for me.
There is/was nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong with me as far as the bloodclotting and auto-immune issues they checked for. (There's plenty wrong in other aspects!) And there was nothing wrong with the baby, chromosonally. And I would like to officially point out that I TOLD YOU SO. (Imagine how much fun it is to be married to me!!!)
I have to repeat that: I knew it. I told everybody that this was supposed to be my perfectly normal baby. Yet there is still nothing in my belly right now. On the one hand, I am validated. On the other, I am so sad that I will not have my baby girl and there's no way to keep this from happening again. (Yes, girl. I said that before, too.) There was one abnormality: the too-fast heartrate. But we'll never know what that means.
And in all honesty, I may never get pg again. We're going down this adoption path. Do you have any idea how relieving it is to KNOW we're going to have another child? Pregnancy, at best, is: maybe. Pregnancy when dealing with infertility and multiple miscarriages is without a doubt: maybe, maybe not. Adoption is a sure thing. Even if the first adoption match falls through and the mother or father changes his/her mind. Eventually, there is still a baby in your arms.
Do you have any idea what that means to me right now?
Time to get back to vacation.
"I can't wait until the kids** are older and I can stay in my wood working shop for a couple of hours."
"With them?"
"Without them!"
Happy Father's Day, indeed.
*This is normally a 3 1/2 to 4 hour trip sans children. But considering it took us 3 hours to go 90 miles, we actually did make good time.
**Yes, we are seriously moving quickly down the adoption path, at least mentally. For the first time in 2 years, we know we're going to have another child.
Well, howdy from Myrtle Beach. I thought I'd have more time to blog dozens of witty entries, but we've been too busy having fun. Of course, that doesn't stop my panic attacks at 4 am of all the work I have to do, but I grasp onto that tiny sliver of meditation zen I still have left and believe it will all work out.
So, apart from being "on board" with adoption at this stage---as in, chickens are on board with breakfast, pigs are committed---we have other baby news. The OB called about 30 minutes before we left on Friday. Knowing that Friday is his surgery day, I was happy he worked in this call for me.
There is/was nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong with me as far as the bloodclotting and auto-immune issues they checked for. (There's plenty wrong in other aspects!) And there was nothing wrong with the baby, chromosonally. And I would like to officially point out that I TOLD YOU SO. (Imagine how much fun it is to be married to me!!!)
I have to repeat that: I knew it. I told everybody that this was supposed to be my perfectly normal baby. Yet there is still nothing in my belly right now. On the one hand, I am validated. On the other, I am so sad that I will not have my baby girl and there's no way to keep this from happening again. (Yes, girl. I said that before, too.) There was one abnormality: the too-fast heartrate. But we'll never know what that means.
And in all honesty, I may never get pg again. We're going down this adoption path. Do you have any idea how relieving it is to KNOW we're going to have another child? Pregnancy, at best, is: maybe. Pregnancy when dealing with infertility and multiple miscarriages is without a doubt: maybe, maybe not. Adoption is a sure thing. Even if the first adoption match falls through and the mother or father changes his/her mind. Eventually, there is still a baby in your arms.
Do you have any idea what that means to me right now?
Time to get back to vacation.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Getting Paranoid
In the weeks after our m/c and our trip to the infertility clinic, we heard more than enough stories on NPR on the ills of society when older women give birth.
Today's Diane Rehm's show is on the evil's of adoption.
Either someone is following my life WAAAAAAY too closely or I'm on the "cutting" edge of what is wrong with this world.
Today's Diane Rehm's show is on the evil's of adoption.
Either someone is following my life WAAAAAAY too closely or I'm on the "cutting" edge of what is wrong with this world.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
So Where Are We Now?
Apparently, "we" (in the royal sense) are getting it back together. As in we are finally getting back in gear. I really didn't realize how out of gear I was until I started trying to move forward again. I'm finally meeting my work commitments. I'm finally starting to exercise again. I'm finally not drinking nearly as much wine as I was.
Oh, yes. The wine. Well, I'm not worried about that. My therapist said.... Hmmmm. I guess I had better explain that one. About the middle of the last pregnancy (only 6 weeks in!), I started freaking out that things were not going to work out well. So I called a friend who has also had multiple miscarriages and got the name of her therapist, a woman who specializes in infertility. (If you live in the area, email me and I'll share her name) We have been getting along well, and really, after that one freak out, I have "graduated" to seeing her when I feel I need to as opposed to every week or every other hour.
IRONICALLY, the session three days before before the baby died focused on "letting it go" and trusting the pregnancy would be ok and putting it on the back burner while I got on with the rest of my life. Even more ironically is the acupuncture session before the baby died again focused on "letting it go" and believing it would all be ok. I should have pointed out to everyone that the "it" in that phrase referred to my worries and not my baby, eh?
Ironical indeed.
So, anyhoo, at my last session, when my therapist asked how I was doing ("Great! How are you?"), I said that I was enjoying my wine of late. She pointed out that it was ok and that I could consider the wine as medicine and not to worry too much about it. And if I did, we could switch to Xanax. Ironically (again!), after she said that, I stopped drinking as much wine. I'm not sure whether it was simply the permission to drink wine and not feel guilty about it or whether I simply don't need that medicine as much any more. But I'm not drinking wine as medicine any more.
You do know the phrase: "W(h)ine: noun or a verb, you choose" don't you?
Well, now you do.
So I'm doing better. That doesn't mean I don't still miss my baby-to-be. On my drive in to work this morning, I was patting my belly and telling my baby how much I missed her. (No, I don't know it was a girl. I just think so)
But we're moving forward. And part of that move forward is a pretty serious start down the path towards domestic adoption. We had considered international adoption before, but I'm not sure that's the right path for us. So we are now seriously looking at domestic adoption. We're going to a support group meeting next week and we've contacted a consultant and are considering her services.
We feel very lucky about some other events that have happened in our lives recently that I don't want to share here because I don't want to break confidences. (Others don't always want to share intimate details of their lives on this blog, oddly enough) But we have just found some unexpected support in this process that I am so grateful for and shocked by that I stop, drop my jaw, and thank God(dess).
I feel really good that we are on the right path, wherever this path takes us. I am sure it's going to lead to a baby and I'm very excited about that.
Oh! And the skin problem? Excema. It doesn't have anything to do with miscarriages, as far as I can tell. But it does have to do with crappy skin and stress. So it has to do with me. At some point, I have to tell you about this dermatologist I see. I have never met anyone in my life who is so painfully awkward in interpersonal interactions. He is the definition of geek when geek wasn't good. Every time I see him, I want to say "Dude! It's ok. Relax. I'm not going to hurt you." Really. If we could video tape our awkward doctors and compare them, he would win as the more self-concious, uncomfortable doctor in the world.
Oh, yes. The wine. Well, I'm not worried about that. My therapist said.... Hmmmm. I guess I had better explain that one. About the middle of the last pregnancy (only 6 weeks in!), I started freaking out that things were not going to work out well. So I called a friend who has also had multiple miscarriages and got the name of her therapist, a woman who specializes in infertility. (If you live in the area, email me and I'll share her name) We have been getting along well, and really, after that one freak out, I have "graduated" to seeing her when I feel I need to as opposed to every week or every other hour.
IRONICALLY, the session three days before before the baby died focused on "letting it go" and trusting the pregnancy would be ok and putting it on the back burner while I got on with the rest of my life. Even more ironically is the acupuncture session before the baby died again focused on "letting it go" and believing it would all be ok. I should have pointed out to everyone that the "it" in that phrase referred to my worries and not my baby, eh?
Ironical indeed.
So, anyhoo, at my last session, when my therapist asked how I was doing ("Great! How are you?"), I said that I was enjoying my wine of late. She pointed out that it was ok and that I could consider the wine as medicine and not to worry too much about it. And if I did, we could switch to Xanax. Ironically (again!), after she said that, I stopped drinking as much wine. I'm not sure whether it was simply the permission to drink wine and not feel guilty about it or whether I simply don't need that medicine as much any more. But I'm not drinking wine as medicine any more.
You do know the phrase: "W(h)ine: noun or a verb, you choose" don't you?
Well, now you do.
So I'm doing better. That doesn't mean I don't still miss my baby-to-be. On my drive in to work this morning, I was patting my belly and telling my baby how much I missed her. (No, I don't know it was a girl. I just think so)
But we're moving forward. And part of that move forward is a pretty serious start down the path towards domestic adoption. We had considered international adoption before, but I'm not sure that's the right path for us. So we are now seriously looking at domestic adoption. We're going to a support group meeting next week and we've contacted a consultant and are considering her services.
We feel very lucky about some other events that have happened in our lives recently that I don't want to share here because I don't want to break confidences. (Others don't always want to share intimate details of their lives on this blog, oddly enough) But we have just found some unexpected support in this process that I am so grateful for and shocked by that I stop, drop my jaw, and thank God(dess).
I feel really good that we are on the right path, wherever this path takes us. I am sure it's going to lead to a baby and I'm very excited about that.
Oh! And the skin problem? Excema. It doesn't have anything to do with miscarriages, as far as I can tell. But it does have to do with crappy skin and stress. So it has to do with me. At some point, I have to tell you about this dermatologist I see. I have never met anyone in my life who is so painfully awkward in interpersonal interactions. He is the definition of geek when geek wasn't good. Every time I see him, I want to say "Dude! It's ok. Relax. I'm not going to hurt you." Really. If we could video tape our awkward doctors and compare them, he would win as the more self-concious, uncomfortable doctor in the world.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Good News? Bad News? Still Not Sure...
We went in for our follow-up for the D&E last week. Nothing big to report there. I talked with the doc a while and both of us tried to figure out what the heck happened. Actually, I think the exact phrase the doc used was "can't wrap my head around..." and I'm really not sure what he said next, but what I filled in the blank was "why I lost that baby."
The next day was our consultation with the local infertility clinic (Reproductive Endocrinologists). But before I talk about that, I have to speak of my amazement about what my regular OB did: I told him I was going for the consultation. And he made sure that instead of the regular 10 to 14 day wait to transfer the files over, they were faxed over the next day with a two page summary of my case for the infertility doc.
Wow. Really. Wow. He wants to help us get pregnant.
Cuz the news from the RE was not so uplifting. First, we're not keen on IVF what with the 9% success rate for women my age. I'm not a gambling woman with the $15k it would take for one IVF cycle. I was honestly hoping the doctor would say: oh, but YOU! YOU! You! Are the exception! We think YOU will have a greater than 50% chance of getting pregnant! Alas, he said, I'm glad you're not that keen on IVF because I don't think it will improve your chances over what you're currently doing. (Oh! One tiny glimmer of good news: my ob and the RE both agreed I get pg faster than most other old hags my age. Yippee!)
The RE then said that he thought that the last m/c was a trisomy problem, which maybe it was. (However, I really don't think so) and the RE maybe misinterpretting my attempts at humor as being carefree instead of carefully-timed-to-keep-me-from-crying went on to say he thought that maybe I was one of those women who have sticky eggs so the divisions likely lead to trisomy and that I'm like to continue having trisomy miscarriages and pretty much I will likely keep miscarrying until I can't get pg any more. (or that's what I heard at least)
Can I repeat ONCE AGAIN that we have ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE at this time that there is a trisomy problem!??!?!? The nuchal translucency was BETTER THAN AVERAGE. The growth rate was BETTER THAN AVERAGE. The heart rate was FASTER THAN AVERAGE (bad, but not a sign of trisomy problem). SO EFF YOU, RE, because there is no evidence of a trisomy problem. Yet. Yes, we'll know for sure in 3-4 more weeks. And yes, if you hear hoofbeats in North Carolina then it's more likely to be a horse than a zebra (a phrase he used!), but might I point out that so far, we ain't heard no hoofbeats.
So our current options right now at the infertility clinic are....nothing. Nada. No hyperovulation stimulation because I don't have a problem with ovulating. No IVF (fine by me). No any other thing. Unless the genetic exam for the baby comes back normal. (And even then, if it's a girl, the RE suggested that it could be MY DNA and not the baby's)
Well, he did give some advice: a baby aspirin a day and 2 mg of folic acid per day. That's a boatload of folic acid, folks. Prenates contain 400 micrograms. I'm taking four (4!) additional 400 microgram pills of folic acid to get up to his suggested level. The baby aspirin helps with implantation and the folic acid is supposed to help with egg development and separation. So that, I'm doing.
However, I'm also going to go back to my regular OB and start the bloodwork to try to detect if I have a clotting disorder. I'd also like to test for some auto-immune problems. There is some possibility that women can develop clotting disorders even after having a healthy live birth. Some people think that miscarriages can even cause them. It's a bit controversial, and if you've heard anything about Dr. Alan Beer, let me know.
That's it.
I'm doing better emotionally and ready for life to get on. We're even thinking of when we're going to start trying again.
And also of seriously pursuing domestic adoption.
There could be a lot going on around here sooner rather than later.
The next day was our consultation with the local infertility clinic (Reproductive Endocrinologists). But before I talk about that, I have to speak of my amazement about what my regular OB did: I told him I was going for the consultation. And he made sure that instead of the regular 10 to 14 day wait to transfer the files over, they were faxed over the next day with a two page summary of my case for the infertility doc.
Wow. Really. Wow. He wants to help us get pregnant.
Cuz the news from the RE was not so uplifting. First, we're not keen on IVF what with the 9% success rate for women my age. I'm not a gambling woman with the $15k it would take for one IVF cycle. I was honestly hoping the doctor would say: oh, but YOU! YOU! You! Are the exception! We think YOU will have a greater than 50% chance of getting pregnant! Alas, he said, I'm glad you're not that keen on IVF because I don't think it will improve your chances over what you're currently doing. (Oh! One tiny glimmer of good news: my ob and the RE both agreed I get pg faster than most other old hags my age. Yippee!)
The RE then said that he thought that the last m/c was a trisomy problem, which maybe it was. (However, I really don't think so) and the RE maybe misinterpretting my attempts at humor as being carefree instead of carefully-timed-to-keep-me-from-crying went on to say he thought that maybe I was one of those women who have sticky eggs so the divisions likely lead to trisomy and that I'm like to continue having trisomy miscarriages and pretty much I will likely keep miscarrying until I can't get pg any more. (or that's what I heard at least)
Can I repeat ONCE AGAIN that we have ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE at this time that there is a trisomy problem!??!?!? The nuchal translucency was BETTER THAN AVERAGE. The growth rate was BETTER THAN AVERAGE. The heart rate was FASTER THAN AVERAGE (bad, but not a sign of trisomy problem). SO EFF YOU, RE, because there is no evidence of a trisomy problem. Yet. Yes, we'll know for sure in 3-4 more weeks. And yes, if you hear hoofbeats in North Carolina then it's more likely to be a horse than a zebra (a phrase he used!), but might I point out that so far, we ain't heard no hoofbeats.
So our current options right now at the infertility clinic are....nothing. Nada. No hyperovulation stimulation because I don't have a problem with ovulating. No IVF (fine by me). No any other thing. Unless the genetic exam for the baby comes back normal. (And even then, if it's a girl, the RE suggested that it could be MY DNA and not the baby's)
Well, he did give some advice: a baby aspirin a day and 2 mg of folic acid per day. That's a boatload of folic acid, folks. Prenates contain 400 micrograms. I'm taking four (4!) additional 400 microgram pills of folic acid to get up to his suggested level. The baby aspirin helps with implantation and the folic acid is supposed to help with egg development and separation. So that, I'm doing.
However, I'm also going to go back to my regular OB and start the bloodwork to try to detect if I have a clotting disorder. I'd also like to test for some auto-immune problems. There is some possibility that women can develop clotting disorders even after having a healthy live birth. Some people think that miscarriages can even cause them. It's a bit controversial, and if you've heard anything about Dr. Alan Beer, let me know.
That's it.
I'm doing better emotionally and ready for life to get on. We're even thinking of when we're going to start trying again.
And also of seriously pursuing domestic adoption.
There could be a lot going on around here sooner rather than later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)