Apparently, Saturday when we got the news, was the numb stage of grief. Yesterday started the anger stage (which remains) and today is definitely starting the sad and for some reason anxious stage.
I really want to have another child. I'm afraid if we only have Conor, I will smother him with my love. I need to spread out all the attention and affection I have to give or it will be too much for one little boy to grow up healthy. And because we are not made of money nor covered by insurance, I feel like we need to be very calculated in what we do next.
One option we are seriously considering is going to a fertility inclinic on the west coast. They have outstanding success rates for women of my age and for problems like what I have. It's not convenient and it is likely to be a bit more expensive. However, it is also significantly likely to be more successful.
I really just want to have one or two "good tries" and this last experience does not seem like a try at all. If the path for us does not lead to a child, then I will eventually accept it. But I feel like we really have to TRY before I can say we've gotten there. And I just don't feel like we have.
Oh, Anita, I'm so very sorry. I wish I had some heartwarming advice to give, but at the very least, consider this message a long-distance hug from inside the computer.
ReplyDelete:-(
ReplyDeleteI totally hear you about the reason for wanting #2, Anita. That is exactly how I felt when our first son was a toddler. Having been an only child myself, I knew some of the pitfalls, and I just really wanted to avoid any possibility that I would end up expecting him to be perfect.
Listen, if that West Coast clinic happens to be in the Bay Area, please know that you could have a free roof over your head, and all the hospitality we could muster for as long as you'd need to be here. Seriously! We've got a nice private guest "suite" (doesn't that sound much more grand and appealing than "room with your own bath"?) and if you say the word it will have your name on the red carpet!
Carroll
If the problem is 'old eggs', you can 'buy eggs'. I know someone who did that. Not married, didn't want to be married, didn't want a man in her life, just wanted to have a child, over 40. She bought the egg and the sperm. Not a problem. She's got a healthy daughter.
ReplyDeleteIf what you want is a 'not only' child, then the alternate route can take you there. However, if what you want is your own DNA in a child, then that's different. It seems to this reader that your issues have to do with proving that YOU can reproduce and produce YOUR genetic offspring. I'm not so sure, from reading your blog, that for you it is not this that matters. I know women who had to, absolutely had to prove that they, regardless of everything, were fertile females who could give birth to their own children. It got gruesome especially when babies with 'issues' were born weighing less than a pound.
If you bought a donor egg, your husband would be the biological father. So at least the DNA of the offspring would be 50% belonging to your relationship.
Possibly you need to figure out, really, what it is you want here. Given what you claim you want and given what you are prepared to do, there's some discordance.
After what you've gone through, in re: health emergencies over the past 2 years, is it an egg issue or is there more?
Being overweight doesn't help much. Hyperinsulinemia, for example, will have adverse effects on quality of eggs and uterine environment. High estrogen levels from fat will create problems as well.
Fertility clinics can't create magic. A woman needs to optimize whatever she can to improve the chances of success. Also there is the matter of biological age and chronological age to consider. Are they the same or at variance? Given the health issues, they may be at variance.
It would be wonderful if things would work out the way you desire. But as I told my daughter when she didn't get accepted to the local universities for teacher's college and will be going out of town "sometimes you don't get what you want. You get what you need." Unrealistic expectations create so much suffering. We oftentimes choose to suffer. Whatever the reason. And if it's not one thing it's another. Quite probably you are not receptive to any of this.
I'm sorry that you are suffering.
Anita, I told you my "first try - two eggs - one beautiful daughter" story recently. It's a Stanford baby, just that you know.
ReplyDeleteAll the best luck!
Hi Anita I am so sorry you are having to go through this. I am sure you are simply crushed by all of this.
ReplyDeleteMy comment to Gabi is -- "You don't buy eggs" you compensate an egg donor for her time.
And no one knows what we who face infertility go through unless they walk in our shoes. While I realize all the advice is indeed well meaning -- sometimes I'd like to place cloths pins on the lips and fingers of those who feel the need to tell me what they think I should be doing.
Gabi - my guess is that you haven't ever had to experience any of this?
Hi Diva,
ReplyDelete'compensating an egg donor' is merely a euphemism. It's like saying that "my patients compensate me for the time I spend with them". Huh?
The university compensates Anita for the time she spends lecturing students, marking their papers and preparing research and course material. Everyone gets compensated for something when money exchanges hands.
I have been reading Anita's blog for quite some years now. There's advice I've proferred that she's accepted.
No one wants to consider the possibly that there are underlying issues that decrease the likelihood of bearing a child. Of course not!!!! That is totally understandable. But it does not justify ignoring the possibility, does it?
This is my view of the situation: Anita has a child. She also has some sort of health situation that resulted in the emergency colon surgery. She has experienced several serious infections in her sinuses. She really does need to explore the situation in greater depth not only because she wants to have another child but because she wants to be a healthy mother to the child she already has. It would seem that in the focused aim of becoming pregnant, there is a lack of global concern for general health, quality of life and longterm maintenance of functionality in order to parent an already existing child.
Do you see my point?
Your role in Anita's life is to be a cheerleader. I make a lousy cheerleader. Anita appears to have a slew of them though, so my input can't possibly be all that horrible, can it?
It's much easier to mindlesslessly encourage someone than to ask them to stop and think for a second. People who ask others to think are oftentimes criticized.
Magical thinking and wishful thinking are for little kids. They are not for grownups who are making life altering decisions.
Unlike people who start their comments with things like {{{{Anita}}}}, possibly because I spend my working life making decisions and more decisions, and yet more decisions, I don't join people in their emotionality. I couldn't be terribly effective if I did. This does not preclude a lack of care or concern or empathy which is what you have more than implied in your comments directed at me.
If Anita wants me to stop reading her blog and stop caring or thinking about her situation, then she can do that. It's her blog, after all.
I am sorry Gabi chose to share with the world your personal health history and issues without your permission.
ReplyDeleteHi Gabi,
ReplyDeleteI typically don't continue to have running commentaries with strangers in other people's journals. However, as a woman who herself has spent over 16 years treking through the jungle of infertility -- I am going to stick my neck out here and say that no one but Anita or her personal physician has the right to suggest to Anita when she should be finished attempting to have children. Not you, me, her pastor, her partner, no one but her.
And while I don't know you personally I will venture to say what I have read through your comments is enough for me to get an idea of how you probably are. And the fact you choose to leave your long drawn out comments here AND email me more of the same speaks volumes.
I don't mind thinking, in fact I invite it, I do a lot of it. I have also for the past twenty years been dealing with people who feel the need to tell me how to live my life.
So let's not tell Anita how to live hers. Let's just support her in regards to the decisions she makes.