The Myth

In August of 2010, I was infertile and childless, waiting for a call that didn't seem to be coming any time soon. Judge Royce C. Lamberth, whose parental status I don't know, was, at that time, issuing a ruling that President Obama couldn't single-handedly overturn congressional laws regarding federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. I was reading about it on the internet, in an article much like this one: http://chronicle.com/article/Federal-Judge-Overturns-Oba/124106/ I don't actually remember the article, or the news provider, and I honestly don't remember the articles "take" on the subject, if there was one.

Because I was moderately depressed anyway, and unable to tear myself away from the train wreck of opinions, I spent quite a bit of time reading the comments under the article. It contained the usual hate speech regarding presidents both past and present (but mostly past), protests regarding international conflicts, and a lot of wrath aimed at pro-life activists. There was, as always comes up when embryos are mentioned, a veritable stream of animosity aimed at people who can't have children, but pursue getting help in doing so anyway, since, of course, they should just accept their childless state as nature's way of phasing their obviously defective genes off of an overpopulated planet. 

And then, in the middle of all of that, there was this comment, edited because I don't remember the exact comment and had no wish to save it:

"The right-wing religious nuts want us to believe the myth that there are embryos available for adoption, but their lie is halting the progress of science"

And here's the kicker: nobody contested it. I was flabbergasted.  I almost, and I do mean I came thisclose, signed up for whatever news site it was, ready to brave the stream of spam it would bring to my inbox, just to address the issue. I wish I had, even though the comment was roughly 12 pages back on a small article that nobody would be reading even 3 days later.

You see, the call I had been waiting for was for one of those "mythical" embryo adoptions. We had put in our application, and were just waiting to be contacted. I was in contact with families who had children born from adopted embryos. I had gone through paperwork, bloodwork, house inspections, and fingerprinting to qualify to adopt an embryo. I was praying that even now a family was looking at our profile, asking themselves if we were the right couple to give their babies a chance to continue life. This was no myth.

That terminology has haunted me all the way through this process. I was reminded of it today as I spent half an hour dangling my hair in my baby's face and listening to her shriek with laughter, and I thought- "I'm not making this up!" There were hundreds of angry people on that website wanting to dissect her little life cell by cell and perform experiments with her remains, but we wanted her for her own sake. So this blog is, in part, for the unbelievers out there, those who think that there are only two options for embryos in animated suspension: death via discarding, or death via research, and that the possibility of life with loving, biologically unrelated parents is a myth:

We're here.

Paper Pregnancy

"Paper Pregnancy" is the term used to describe the mountain of paperwork and requirements to meet before being accepted as a waiting family with an adoption agency. It is possible to receive embryos from a clinic, and not go through an agency to do so. It is also possible to receive embryos directly from a family known to you without going through either a clinic or an agency. We chose to look for an agency to match us, mainly because we wanted it to be as close to a regular adoption as possible, out of respect for the babies involved.

EVERY baby needs a family. This is not in question. Our choice was a matter of making a statement about how we viewed a process the law calls a "transfer of property." We see it as an adoption- opening our family to a life that we did not have any genetic part in creating. To go through an agency was more expensive, which is why many couples do not choose the same as we did, but we saw it as completely worth the cost. 

Because we chose to work with an agency, we got to work through the "Paper Pregnancy" of a traditional adoption, which included:

-Homestudy visits and safety inspections of our house

-Interviews, both individually and as a couple, with a social worker

-Fingerprints

-A physical and bloodwork (STD checks, mainly)

-Child Abuse Registry checks for every state we'd ever lived in

-Exhaustive questionnaires about our backgrounds, relationship, parenting philosophies, etc.

-Letters of recommendation from 3 different non-related person, including a pastor

-An intro letter and picture page for potential donating parents

-A letter stating that I had no conditions that contraindicated pregnancy

-Financial budget worksheets

Some of the things were humorous- who has to baby-proof their house before they even are allowed to try to get pregnant? We did! Others were embarrassing, like the bloodwork and doctor's visits required, but most of this process was very helpful to us as a couple as we worked together and became more solid on what we wanted and who we were. Our homestudy was performed through Bethany Christian Services, and I can't speak highly enough of their professionalism and helpfulness. Our social worker was wonderful, and we felt more than comfortable meeting with her and discussing our plans.

We began the process in January 2010, and had everything turned in by June 2010. So, all in all, a 6 month "Paper Pregnancy." It was exciting to be working towards a goal, and also strange to see our entire lives written out in the homestudy report. I would say that the paperwork process was much less stressful than the waiting for us.

The draw of EA

When Sam and I first sat down and bold-faced our looming infertility, we did what we usually do when making decisions together: we made a list. This list included all possible paths we could think of that we could go down, and it looked something like this:

Non-medical interventions to try to conceive:

• More vitamins, herbs, & diet changes.
• More charting
• Ummm..... cross our fingers, don't think about it, stand on my head, and/ or quit our jobs and start an illegal drug habit?

Medical things to try to conceive:

• Clomid
• IUI
• IVF
• I can't think of anything sarcastic to add to this list, but I'm sure there's something. Somebody give me some ideas!

Non-conception options:

• Foster-to-adopt
• Domestic infant adoption
• International adoption
• Embryo adoption
• Forget about kids and I can go back to school to become a nurse practitioner, which may in fact result in pregnancy if I manage to get us heavily into debt to do so.

Given all of those options, after I got done reading the list, Sam said he wanted to try EA first. I asked him why. I mean, I secretly agreed with him, but I wanted to know his reasons before I told him that. He said that he wanted me to have the chance to breast-feed, because he knew that was important to me, but that he really wanted to adopt too. The funny thing? He was right! 

There are a myriad of other reasons we wanted to do it, not the least of which being the sheer moral weight of the knowledge that we could be part of a solution to a problem few people knew about. I felt pulled, obligated to the little frozen babies as soon as I learned there were some that needed homes, and that I had arms that longed to be filled. We also knew that while older and medically needy children were waiting for placement too, we had no experience parenting yet, and didn't feel equipped yet (maybe in the future!) to address the needs of children who had had different caregivers before they came home with us. 

But I am not kidding, we picked EA so that I could have every opportunity to nurse the baby. Everyone has a reason for what they choose that goes beyond the standard "I saw a need that I wanted to fill." Mine was both the most self-centered and the most giving thing I can think of, but it still blows my mind a little that my husband knew what it was before I even voiced it myself. The rest of the list was never even touched- we found what we wanted and didn't ever have a reason to look back, for which I have absolutely no regrets.

What's wrong with you, anyway?

Before we could completely commit ourselves to pursuing embryo adoption, we had to make sure it was actually a viable option for us. So we found an infertility clinic "near" us (it was actually a 4 hour drive away), and made an appointment. We wanted to get a full work-up and see if there was any hidden problem that would make it dangerous for either me or the babies should we try to get pregnant.

That visit convinced me of the value or seeking an expert in the field of infertility to work with you towards your goals. It took the doctor a couple of minutes to diagnose me with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and probable endometriosis, after every primary care doctor and gynecologist I had ever seen had failed to see anything wrong with my history of long-ish cycles, acne, and severe period pain. In fact, when they did the ultrasound that day, they found not only cystic ovaries, but also that my uterus was swollen out of proportion ("like a tennis racket instead of a pear shape") from adenomyosis, which meant that not even laproscopic surgery would be able to remove the endo pockets that were buried in the muscle of my poor uterus.

This explained a lot of things, like why my cycles weren't normal, why I was in so much pain when my period came every month, and, of course, why we hadn't been getting pregnant. They also ordered a whole battery of tests for me, including anti-thyroid antibodies, insulin/ glucose tolerance testing, and more in-depth hormonal studies. These tests revealed that I was just barely in the abnormal range for most of the PCOS markers, and wasn't insulin resistant. They did put me on a low-glycemic index diet, but it honestly didn't do a thing for me, probably because my PCOS doesn't appear to be insulin related.

The big news was that nothing I had was something they felt would prevent me from being able to experience a normal, healthy pregnancy! So much so, that the doctor didn't think we should be pursuing EA, because he thought I would get pregnant easily with a couple of "minor interventions." We took his opinion for what it was worth, and left with the determination to turn in our application, because, after all, our visit wasn't to see if he could get us pregnant on our own, and his conclusions had further drawn our hearts to care for babies in a freezer.

PCOS resource page- A simple overview of what PCOS is. After my own research and experience, I don't agree with everything on this page, but it's good for giving a general idea of what PCOS is.

Adenomyosis- I picked this page because the picture at the top looks like what my uterus looked like in the ultrasound. The information is a good and simple overview of the condition. I have not, to date, gone through surgery to see if I also have endometriosis or not.

Closing doors and expanding horizons

I learned the hard way about the "happily ever after" stuff. I mean, I never expected my marriage to be perfect, but I did expect life to go roughly as planned. Which it did, for about a year, and then we started trying for a baby. I had a miscarriage the day after my positive pregnancy test that first month. I never even told family or went to the doctor. But wait, at least now I knew I could get pregnant!

Never say that to a woman who's just lost her baby, by the way, because it might not even be true. It wasn't true for me. I've never conceived since. I wonder, now, if that pregnancy wasn't ectopic. I mean, I've never had my tubes looked at, but it makes sense for them to be scarred, given what I was eventually diagnosed with.

10 months later, I knew without a shadow of a doubt we had a problem. I know, I know, it takes 1 year of unprotected intercourse to be infertile, but I had no doubt whatsoever that we would get there. That guideline  applies to every couple, regardless of whether or not they know enough to time things correctly, and because we had been using the Fertility Awareness Method to chart my cycles since we got married, we knew when we could potentially conceive. Each perfectly timed cycle has between a 20-25% chance of resulting in a pregnancy in a couple of normal fertility. If you can do math, that's 4-5 cycles, 6 to stretch the chances out a bit.

Now, I don't say that to scare anyone. I personally know several women who had charted and timed intercourse and conceived on their 8th, 10, 13th months, for example. But I'm a little a lot scientifically oriented, and I knew we should be pregnant by now. I also knew my cycles weren't nice and textbook, and it looked like things were getting worse. So I started looking for help. I started supplementing with Maca root (which did help my cycles, by the way), futzing with the amount of light I let into my bedroom at night, drinking more water, and I scheduled an appointment to get some bloodwork done.

I also started researching what our options might be once we were actually classified as infertile, beyond the hope/despair/try harder cycle. A good friend of mine pointed me to an online forum for offering Christian support to infertile women, called Hannah's Prayer. There I found all I wanted to know and more, from women who had been through medical treatments, the adoption path, fostering, you name it.

It was there that I found a new thing. Something that had not been mentioned once in my years at a Christian University. It hadn't been mentioned in my nursing classes, nor in my ethics classes, nor in my philosophy classes,  no matter how much we covered conception, the beginning of human life, and the issues surrounding high-tech infertility treatments. Hannah's Prayer had a section dedicated to embryo adoption, and it seemed like I couldn't learn fast enough. What an obvious arrangement- why had I never heard of it before?

Once Upon a Time

Sam and I met in high school, and were dating by our senior year. As proof, here is our senior prom picture: 

Haha, yeah..... awkward, but fun. I'm glad for high school for many reasons, not the least of which is because I met my husband. However, in reality, I have no idea how I even ended up with a boyfriend, much less a spouse (who was, unsurprisingly, my only boyfriend). Like it was for a lot of other people, high school was a very strange in-between time for me, and I'm glad I don't have to relive that phase of my life. And I definitely made that dress.



*Ahem* Moving on.

We dated through college, which for us was 700 miles and 4 states apart. It was a good time of growth and excitement, both for us individually and as a couple. It's amazing what nightly phone calls and no physical contact does for your communication skills! I studied nursing, Sam studied math education. We talked about everything, but mostly about the future. We wanted to get married right after college. We wanted to wait a year or so before having kids, but not wait too long! We wanted "several" children, the exact number indeterminate, but somewhere greater than 3. We wanted to take these theoretical children and move them to a foreign country as missionaries. We had great plans.

So, like a good girl, I waited for Sam to propose. And I waited. And I waited. Then I graduated, and I got a job, this time only 2 hours away from my hometown, where Sam was living and looking for a job. And then I started crying and asking questions.... turns out my dad had told Sam we couldn't get married until at least a year after college, when he was "settled," had a house, and roughly 40K in the bank as savings. He also told Sam not to tell me that they had talked.

Whose dad DOES that? (*Hint: Mine)

Apparently he never got the message that the whole dragon-guarding-the-maiden-in-the-tower-dad thing is supposed to be something of a myth. But that's ok, because I talked some sense into him, and made him grudgingly admit that since we could, in fact, get married if we darn well wanted to, it being the 21st century and all, that he would go ahead and give us permission. And for the record, both my dad and Sam were great about it from that point on.

And then Sam proposed!

This is my favorite engagement photo. It's also the only one I have where you can kind of see my ring. Amazingly enough, we managed to pay for our wedding and Italian honeymoon by ourselves, debt-free, without either of us owning a house or having 40K in the bank. That being said, we did have a pretty good savings account since we had both been blessed to get through 4 years of school debt-free, mostly via scholarships, and had each been working in our fields for a year by the time we got married. That was even after Sam bought me a very nice engagement ring.

I hope my dad is proud (and I know he is).



So, on July 7, 2007, on a Saturday clearly chosen for its numerical qualities by the Math Major in the relationship, we became Mr. & Mrs. Myth. It was, of course, a fairy-tale wedding, performed in our hometown, in the same stone church where Sam grew up, and where my parents were married. I remember being deliriously happy. Sam, of course, says the same thing, and I believe him, because I saw it all over his face.

I could share lots of pictures to demonstrate how happy we looked, but it would take a lot of space. Thankfully, my sister has already put together a slideshow of our wedding, which I will share instead. She did a very nice job, I think, plus the song's lyrics match the theme of this blog quite nicely.

The pictures did get grainy on the upload to YouTube though, so I will end with a nice still shot:

And we fully intended to live happily ever after, doing all the things we'd ever dreamed of!