How to get pregnant: Medication edition

I'm well on my way to transfer of embryo number 2. I am much more amused this time around at how this process works. First, I take birth control. High dose. No placebo pills. I also have to get on anti-diabetic meds (thanks PCOS!) and aspirin. Then, the Lupron shots start. Goal: chemical menopause. After about a week of this, I stop the birth control pills, keep giving myself shots every morning, and switch to estrogen. The estrogen dose increases incrementally as I get my lining checked, then decreases a bit and stays constant either until the cycle is over or until I'm out of my first trimester. Once my lining is sufficiently thick, I stop the Lupron and start progesterone shots. These are the ones that hurt like heck. 5 days later, we transfer, and the progesterone continues. In the couple of days leading up to transfer, I also add an antibiotic and an oral steroid to the regime. The day of transfer involves a muscle relaxer. Metformin and Aspirin can be dispensed with if I get a positive pregnancy test, otherwise they will probably continue through another transfer cycle.

Looks like this (not all meds are actually in this picture, just what arrived from the specialty pharmacy):

Ta-da! And this is just for a frozen embryo transfer. If I was doing full-blown IVF, the meds would be more numerous and significantly more expensive.

So far, I've made it to the end of the BCPs and through the first ultrasound. Apparently my PCOS induced "string of pearls" is very much intact and pronounced on the left side. Meh. Oh well. Next ultrasound is next week, estrogen starts Saturday. I've been pretty lucky in that I haven't had many side effects other than some nausea and cramping from the Metformin. No hot flashes or horrible mood swings from the hormones.

Hoping Again

I am having a major sense of Deja-vu. Well, no, I am actually past that point by a little bit. This week, we received, signed, notarized and mailed an update to our embryo adoption contract. We have a preliminary ok, and are waiting for the final word that everything is in order with Embryo Adoption Services of Cedar Park and our contract will be open for another 12 months. I weaned Ellie a week ago, and met with the Reproductive Endocrinologist this week to re-establish care.

It was approximately at this point in 2013 that I did *not* wean Hannah or sign a contract or go back to the RE's office. At that point in time I was nervous about proceeding with another embryo transfer (when  I thought we were going to do one). Right now, I am excited and hopeful. Other than the whole medicated cycle deal, I feel emotionally like I did when we were hoping to conceive 7 odd years ago. I have every reason to believe things will go well, and am looking forward to the process, and it's really hard for me to fathom that I am in this place again. Talk about restoring the time the locusts had stolen!

I am not the person who normally would post this sort of thing. With my previous pregnancies, I barely mentioned them online at all. That was largely because I was coming from a place of loss and self-protectiveness, which was absolutely what I needed at the time. Right now though, I am not in that cocoon mode. I feel very whole, and I am not afraid to chronicle this process as it unfolds, whatever the outcome.

That being said, here's what I know is coming up:

1.) I have to wait until my next period to put 1 full cycle between nursing and transfer prepping.
2.) I am waiting for the final word that the paperwork is complete, and that should come within a month; I'm not expecting any delays on that front.
3.) Once my next cycle starts, I have a script for continuous-dose birth control to start shutting down my ovaries. Last time I was on that for 6 weeks prior to transfer.
4.) I will need to have a hysteroscopy before I'll be cleared by the RE to be placed on a transfer timeline. (This is new, last time it was a sonohysterogram).

After that all clears, I'll get meds ordered and get a schedule for monitoring and transfer! Also, to my great relief, I learned that my RE's office has a satelite 20 minutes from my house so I won't have to make the 5 hour round trip again until the actual embryo transfer.

The girls went with me to the appointment and Hannah got to meet the doctor who put her in my tummy. He was so glad to see them, and I got to be properly mortified that all Hannah wanted to do was flip upside down in the chair and show her bottom side. *sigh* They even had her birth announcement in my chart- what an amazing experience to be in that office without the anxiety and sense of dread I remember from before.

The other highlight of the week was getting Ellie's next clothing size unpacked and discovering that one of the little dresses matches one of Hannah's. It must have been a really popular style, both of them are hand me downs! Here are the little darlings the morning of my RE appointment.

BFP: Why is it so hard?

I used to fantasize about having a surprise pregnancy. You know, just feeling off, or something. Not trying. Testing "just in case." I thought, maybe after we transfer all the embryos, that we could just let things be. Maybe we'd get surprised. I'd imagine the elation, the joy, imagine getting to come up with some creative way to tell Sam since he would have no idea it was coming.

The key to that statement was "after."  Then it happened before. The cycle I was waiting on to end so I could start back with the Reproductive Endocrinologist.... it didn't end. I had been careless for once in using our family planning, presumed upon on our history of infertility as justification, and rather than realize I was late with excitement, I put off testing with a sense of dread.

I would never have imagined that I didn't want to be pregnant. There I was, though, standing over a pregnancy test early in the morning 7 weeks after my last cycle, willing the blank space to stay blank. We all know it didn't. There was no denying this one.

So what did I do? I crawled back into bed with Sam, woke him up, told him we'd made a baby, and cried. I cried. The miracle of life, even more amazing to us than to 85% of the population at large, with the added blessing of it being a surprise, and I was inconsolable. I wanted Hannah's sibling to be there instead. I felt like I had abandoned the embryos. It was like that second line brought with it an enormous wave of guilt and I was drowning in it.

 So my husband took my hand, dried my tears, drew me out of bed and onto my knees, and began to thank God for the baby. He prayed for its health. He prayed for our fitness as parents. Most importantly to me at the time, he prayed for the safety of the remaining embryos as they would have to wait a while for their turn. And my heart began to change. I was able to thank God too, and start to value and love this baby who God had wanted to create. It was a very bittersweet moment, very bitter, and very sweet.

My heart still feels the blow. It was difficult to get people to understand that no, we didn't want to just send the other embryos back now that we could apparently "do it on our own." It was difficult to explain that we had emotions other than "thrilled," and that those emotions included shame and guilt. There are times I look at Hannah that I want desperately to have her full sibling in our arms, when it doesn't seem fair to her that her sister has such different features, that I don't have to tell the doctors about Ellie's "biological parents" like I do for Hannah. 

Maybe though, it's better this way, assuming that we will be able to bring home the other embryos in the future. Maybe it's better that a genetic child of ours isn't the last "special miracle baby" of our family, but simply one in the middle of a group.

I am reminded of Psalm 127, where it says that unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain, and unless the Lord guards the town, the watchman keeps awake for nothing. God is constructing our family- He gets the final say. He wanted Ellie here with us, and her presence has made me more open handed as I approach the throne of grace with our blueprints as we prepare to hope for another embryo sibling to come out of the freezer and home with us.

P.S. I thought if I scheduled it, it would publish when I scheduled it for, but it didn't, so I'm sorry this post didn't show up until Friday 5/23. I need to learn a lot of things about this blogging business. :-(

Pregnancy after Infertility

Pregnancy after Infertility was a very surreal experience for me. I had had one loss early on, and had met many other women who had miscarried or had stillbirths as I sought out support for our journey, and the thought that nothing was guaranteed for 9+ months scared. me. to. death. I can honestly say I savored every moment, because every moment I also had the lingering thought that it could be the last one.

I was spared a lot of worry because my clinic was not extremely intervention happy if there was no indication for testing. I had a light but positive home pregnancy test 6 days after a 5 day transfer (if I remember correctly), and an HcG (blood test) that registered in the 70's 9 days after transfer. The level was 78? Maybe? Most clinics will do a second blood test 48 hours later, and sometimes even a third 48 hours after that, but mine didn't as long as the number was "high enough," and mine was high enough for them.

At 7 weeks, I had an ultrasound, which happened to coincide with an episode of bleeding, so seeing the heartbeat on that screen was the best feeling in the world after the worst morning I could have imagined. Hannah was measuring about a week behind at that point, so I went in again at 8 weeks and she was growing just fine. I think I cried on the table. I could have had an ultrasound every week if I had wanted, but my clinic was fine with me not doing so too, so I didn't make the hour and a quarter drive after that.

I continued taking progesterone shots/ suppositories (we used the progesterone in oil up so as to maximize our investment- that stuff's expensive!) until 11 weeks, and then I was released from the Reproductive Endocrinologist's care. I was just... pregnant! And low risk at that. I called a midwife, and started normal care.

But I didn't feel normal. The infertility feelings didn't go away. We took a picture every week, and every week I wondered if that would be the last one. I blushed and changed the subject when people would comment on my pregnancy. I felt that I was not allowed to experience negative emotions regarding or complain about the discomforts of morning sickness or exhaustion. I didn't prep a nursery. I wanted to run away when the time came to register for baby items, and I was intensely uncomfortable at my own baby shower.

Don't misunderstand, I was certainly overwhelmingly grateful, but I was not overwhelmingly happy. I wouldn't say I was fearful, but my emotions were definitely reserved. I remembered what it was like to be naively excited and optimistic before I experienced the loss of a baby, and those feelings did not resurrect themselves after 3 years of grief in not getting pregnant again.

Every woman experiences this differently. A lot of my situation, I believe, stems from my naturally introverted personality. Some women are nothing but excited after years of trying, but I have also met several others, like me, for whom pregnancy after infertility is a very private and protective experience. I have since learned that infertility can predispose a woman to pregnancy and post-partum depression, neither of which I experienced, but I can definitely see why this would be true.

Once I was in the third trimester, I began to get a little bit of that excitement that seems to be expected. A friend of ours, who was a budding photographer, gave us a photo shoot, and those are some of the best memories I have of that sweet and special time. She perfectly captured the intimacy and preciousness of how I felt savoring the life inside me. I'll end by sharing a few of my favorites.

Transfer of Property, or, Adoption of the Heart

The process of contract to transferring an embryo is very medical and seems very sterile on paper. While I have never been Catholic, their criticism of assistive reproductive therapy as "clinical" and "unloving (their term, not mine)" has its place in the experience, for sure. What they seem to miss is the emotional aspect that nobody wants to go to the doctor to get pregnant. And for us, getting pregnant clinically was the *only* way we would ever have the chance to meet these babies and welcome them into our lives. As I stared at the paper outlining the medication and procedure calendar, I realized I was understanding how parents become willing to do anything for their children, without reservation, without second thought, no matter how far removed a decision had seemed from them previously.

To start with, I had to start taking hormonal birth control in mid-February 2011, something I had never done before in my life (I realize that some women have been able to do natural cycles without medication and hormones, but this wasn't possible for my body). Then I had to start giving myself shots of Lupron (a hormone suppressant) in the stomach starting early March. To that, we added a "baby" Aspirin per day, and then started mimicking a the early phase of a natural cycle by taking estrogen in increasing doses after about a week on the Lupron. Half-way through March, I had an ultrasound to check my lining and make sure I wasn't trying to ovulate through all those meds trying to stop me from doing so.

A week later I had another ultrasound, and when it was determined that I had built a sufficiently thick lining with the Estrogen pills, I started taking intramuscular shots of Progesterone. Lucky Mr. Myth got to give them to me, and yes, I can assure you, if this had been a dream, those shots would have woken me up. It wasn't a dream though, and I also started taking an antibiotic and an oral steroid to make sure no infection or immune system flare could hinder implantation. Prednisone, I discovered, tastes like gasoline, no matter how you attempt to take it, but even that failed to jolt me out of any sort of delusion. This was real.

The morning of March 29th, 2011, we drove the 4 hours to our clinic (have I mentioned we live in the middle of nowhere?) and signed into our clinic for our transfer. The only choice we had made prior to the transfer was to only thaw and place 1 embryo, since the babies were all frozen individually. I have no idea what "grade" had been assigned, and the staff didn't volunteer the information. All I know is that when we were pulled back to the room, we were told that 1 thaw had been attempted, and the embryo had survived. I wanted to express some emotion- laugh, cry, but the truth is that I had a very full bladder for the procedure to come, and couldn't really breath deeply for fear of losing it and having to wait while it refilled. I just remember smiling, nervous as all get-out, feeling relieved, and sitting very, very still.

Unsurprisingly, my bladder was actually too full, and they sent me to relieve *some* of the pressure, which was its own special form of torture, but made me much more comfortable and able to focus on what was going on. Placing the embryo was very quick- maybe 10 minutes? Maybe less? The doctor came in and reviewed my chart. They asked me my name and date of birth for the umpteenth time, just to make sure, and then brought in a very normal looking catheter. Sam and I could watch the ultrasound on a very big screen right above the obstetric table. They put a very small bubble of air in the catheter where the embryo was, so that the first time we saw our daughter (not that we knew she was a girl then), we saw this:

It's rather surreal, when it's all over in just a couple of minutes, and you're lying there, holding your husband's hand, thinking, "That's it?  Now I'm pregnant?" The doctor wished us luck and left the room. Them embryologist came in next, and handed us a picture of the embryo right after the thaw. I remember looking at it and saying "Hi baby!" She was 120-something cells, just expanding after being rehydrated and warmed, (and yes, there is a thin spot where assisted hatching had been performed, for those who are interested), and looked like this:

In our contract, to protect the embryos from abandonment by the adoptive parents, the adoption isn't actually finalized until the baby is thawed and transferred. The law calls agreements regarding unborn lives a "transfer of property." It is abundantly clear, however, that we had not just become the *owners* of this little life, we had become parents for however long its life continued. We just stared at the picture, marveling at the details of the tiny speck of white in the ultrasound, and prayed that God would be the sustainer of life, acknowledging that any and all ownership rights belonged to Him alone.

And we were very, very happy.

The Match

Writing this post is kind of like writing about my first kiss. What I'm about to share is so wonderful that I'd like everyone to be able to feel what I felt, but at the same time it's so personal and intimate that I just feel kind of exposed and hopeless trying to communicate what it was like. I wonder if I should even put something so intimate out there, or instead just Emily Dickinson it away in my personal chest of unpublished posts, away from the prying eyes of those whom I don't know will ever possibly understand.

We received a packet of information and pictures from the couple who was hoping to donate their embryos to us. It contained pictures of their children, a written medical history of their family, a worksheet about their personal lives and decisions they've made in regards to the freezer babies, and a packet of information from their clinic about the egg donor they had used. These words are already completely inadequate. It was a packet of distilled hope for their children from them to us, threadbare in its facts, but swollen with unspoken importance behind every fact and picture.

The first thing I saw was a picture of the most adorable little boy with wide eyes and rosy cheeks, that his mother must have been so proud to show off. I had to keep mentally reminding myself that I wasn't trying to adopt him, and that his siblings would be just as precious. After having spent so long aching for a child of my own though, holding that picture almost felt like he was mine in some cathartic sense. This feeling escalated as we showed family and friends who had been praying with us for this match, and they oohed and ahed over him and his brother. They all commented how they thought the baby in the picture could easily be mistaken for "ours" in the biological sense.

Sam and I had decided a long time before this that we weren't going to reject any embryos offered to us based on family history or physical characteristics. Our goal was never eugenics in any sense, and we knew there were no guarantees anyway, so the medical information included was really just that: information. There was cancer mentioned. There was deafness and diabetes and lung disease. I wonder what it was like, writing those things down, wondering if anything would cause a potential adoptive family to say that the babies weren't good enough, might not be healthy enough. I hope that this thought never crossed their minds, because all we saw was data that our children would use to complete forms- important to know, but not scary or worrisome. 

Then there was the personal information. We learned about a few of the interests, occupations, and physical characteristics of this family. It struck me that although they had used an egg donor, the donating mom still included her own information, that she wanted us to know her, not just put down "genetic" info, including her husband only, and I am profoundly grateful. I want to know her, because without her, our babies wouldn't exist. I suspect that without her, my family wouldn't have been picked. And without her, I wouldn't feel this connection to another mother who had also longed for a baby and knew exactly what I was feeling as I waited for a miracle that only another woman could give me. 

As I read, I found myself drawn in spirit to this woman who shared my faith, who stated that "Life is sacred, and if God gives us a gift, He calls us to nurture and value it." She went on to ask directly, knowing that I would be reading it, if their embryos might be ours to nurture? As I read, I wept. At that moment, I was committed, body and soul, to following through with doing everything I could do to accept the charge of motherhood for the babies that this family had waiting. It was less of a hope and more of a reality, now that I had the words of this precious mother ringing in my head as permission and commission to love her children and make them my own. 

 The unique nature of embryo adoption, among other things, is this: the donating couple and the adopting couple are almost always joined by the bond of infertility. This is a fear on everyone's part, I am sure. The adopting couple wonders if the embryos might not be viable since their parents couldn't conceive naturally, and the donating couple wonders if the embryos might not survive since the adoptive mother hasn't successfully carried her own children in her womb. Our donating family took this fact as an opportunity to minister to us, not knowing if this match would result in living children. They said, and I echo to everyone I know who is waiting:

"May God bless you with children! But, if He does not, I pray that His generous hand will more than fill your lives with joy, purpose, and peace." 

Amen, and Amen.

The Call

It's funny what makes us remember certain things. I'll remember this date forever, but not because I'm good with dates. Rather, I remember that The Year of Waiting was bounded, largely, by my little sister's pregnancy. I got her phone call telling me she was pregnant as we were on our way to visit friends and ask them if they would write us a recommendation for our homestudy. While I love my sister, and I truly enjoyed our homestudy process, that particular weekend was marked with tears, self-pity, and lots of cake as it really hit home to me how simple becoming a parent is supposed to be, as opposed to having to get referrals and affidavits just to have the chance to try.

Our friends took pictures for us to put into our profile to send to donating families. I had been so excited about it, but I remember forcing the smiles for the camera as it flashed through my head over and over again that we shouldn't "have" to be doing this. I completely understand the need for adoptive parents to go through a screening process, and I agree with it, but there are times when a couple who is adopting after infertility especially feels awkward about selling themselves as good potential parents. Of course, I didn't include these captions on our real profile, but I was thinking something along these lines.

Look! We're happy, healthy, and we love each other! Pick us!
Plus, we may or may not actually live on this beautiful beach!

We have a clean kitchen, and Mr. Myth even washes dishes!  What a great guy!
Why no, this picture wasn't staged at all!!

Aaaaaand, we have books! Lots of books! Books in every subject and category!
 More books than a potential child could ever read in a lifetime! We will educate said theoretical children very well!

That was April. By late autumn, as our "should have been matched by now" date had come and gone, I was trying my very best to hold it together emotionally, but I was on thin ice. I missed my sister's baby shower because I didn't trust myself to be any kind of good company for her. I started running to lose the pity-cake-eating induced weight I'd gained that year, and to get myself out of the house after work. I hate running.... I did it anyway. I figured if I couldn't have kids yet, I could at least be healthy and thin- I don't know if that's a good reason to run, but I do know that the running did help my mood!

Finally, December 12th 2010, my sister delivered. Sam and I had gone to the drive-in with friends, and ended up texting back and forth with my dad the whole evening about her progress (we live 6 hours away). She and my new niece did beautifully, and I don't think I cried, but I definitely felt numb. Infertility does that- it takes away your normal emotions and filters everything through a meat grinder, before spitting it out mangled and ruined into your consciousness. I don't honestly even remember if I called my sister directly to congratulate her. I really hope I did.

The next day was Monday. At 9:45 a.m., right after first period let out and my students had left the classroom, I drew in a sharp breath, and burst into gasping tears. Sam, who taught in the next class over and could hear everything, came running faster than I have ever seen him, convinced that something terrible had happened to me. I couldn't even speak. All I could do was turn my computer screen towards him and show him where I had opened my e-mail, and was reading the subject line that said:

We have a family that is excited about you! Congratulations!!

On December 13, 2010, we were introduced to a family who wanted us to consider giving their embryos a chance to continue their lives. Our wait to be matched was over, and our dreams were beginning to take shape in reality. 

Insecurities

I used to have day-dreams that a baby would be abandoned on our doorstep and I would get to keep it.

Adoption apparently doesn't work like that in real life. It involves waiting in almost every circumstance. Couples sit on a waiting list for a domestic infant adoption for months and years, easily. EA waits vary based on the agency and the clinic, but typically are shorter for a couple hoping to adopt embryos than for most other types of adoption. Our agency gave us an estimate of 2-4 months. We turned in our stuff by June, but had heard approximately nothing by October. I was starting to get worried, but determined that it wouldn't be that much longer. I mean, after 2 years of infertility, what was a couple of months?

Then, a computer friend of mine who was adopting through the same agency got matched, and they had turned in their profile only a couple of months before. I had been doing really well up until that point, thinking "the list" was just longer than normal, because after all, we had been very clear that we weren't "picky" regarding donating families. (I had actually secretly hoped we might get matched with a family of a different racial background, because, well, wouldn't that just be the neatest thing ever? A living testimony that we are all part of the human family no matter our heritage?)

Naturally or not, at this point I started to wonder what was wrong with us. Why weren't we good enough for the families that wanted to see their embryos given a chance to live? I imagined all sorts of "us vs. them" scenarios, like:

-We're too young, and couples who do IVF are normally older than their 20s. They must think we're too immature, or will regret not trying for a bio kid first.
-We don't own a house. They must think we're poor money managers.
-We work for a ministry. They must think we're flighty and can't find real jobs. Or maybe they think we're too religious and will make bad parents because we must be extremists.
-We sent pictures of the ranch where we both live and work. They probably think we're living in a commune and just want kids to give kool-aid to!

Aaaaaaaahhhhh!!! I caved on my goal of not bugging the case worker, and called. I wasn't totally sure, but it sounded like our profile hadn't even been shown, because she didn't think we were a good match for any of her current placing parents. This made me feel both better and worse. I mean, obviously no placing family had rejected us, but at the same time, what if the case worker was the one thinking all of the bad things about us? What if she never found anybody who she thought would want to donate to juvenile loafer religious extremists?

She must have heard the desperation in my voice and the well-repressed tears, because she followed up by saying that she had a "maybe" prospect that she would send our profile to, and that they had several new couples who were in the process of getting their paperwork turned in to donate their embryos. She also reassured me that God had a plan for the right match. I mean, I knew this, but I wasn't sure if her telling me that was a hint to back off and let her do her job, or if it was a sign that she thought I would be matched soon.

Gah. Insecurities abounded.

This part of the journey was tough. I think my feelings of infertility were newly stirred with the realization that we were kind of on hold indefinitely. I briefly toyed with the idea of trying to conceive again (Sam didn't agree though... he's always the voice of reason!), but mostly just felt sub-par. I wish I could say that I had some grand revelation or spiritual breakthrough that gave me a joyful spirit about the wait, but I didn't. I just survived. Which, in the end, means that I can take absolutely no credit for the fact that our match did eventually happen, and exactly, I'm sure, when God meant for it to.

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.

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?