This has been a hard post to write because this has been a hard progression for me to make personally. I'm sure people are going to ask why did you choose this route? Simply told it's the next best thing to a natural conception that MAY be able to give us success. I am by no means against adoption. After working with the public, in a counseling job, etc...it's simply not my first choice. So with all honesty...
A little over 2 years ago, I could not even bear to think about using donor eggs. It was a failure. I wanted my children with blonde hair, blue eyes, and my spunk (or as Kanye would say, "musical genius" or sass...or whatever you'd like to call it...). I was seriously worried that I would not bond with a baby that was not genetically mine. It took a good year to year and a half to mourn my eggs, my genetics, my family line. That idea of a 4-year-old mini-me looking back at me as if she knew something I didn't...All of those hopes, dreams and desires had to be mourned.
It's not easy to let go of something you've thought about since you were a teen. This wasn't just my dream car, or house, or a pipe dream. This is something relatively simple and not monetary-related. It's just reproducing. What most couples can take for granted has been denied to us. It wasn't something with which we expected to have difficulty. There is a lot of resentment that goes along with that. Letting go of that resentment, really accepting the situation, and mourning all those "mini-me" moments I thought I would have, all those quirks I thought I would laugh/cringe about passing along, took time. I now know deep in my heart, without a doubt that I'd rather be a mother to BJ's biological children or to a stranger's biological child than none.
I'm sure when people find out we are pursuing egg donation the "just adopt" barrage will increase. On many levels it's so much more complex than "just". When we explain to these people we aren't actively pursuing adoption "just" yet, we get that, "but there are so many children looking for a good home." Somehow, BJ and I get turned into selfish people because we don't immediately drop everything and hire an adoption attorney and adopt up all those poor, starving children. As if it were just like going to an animal shelter and picking out a cat or a dog...Yet, I don't hear my friends who've had children the good, old-fashioned way complain about lectures from strangers telling them to adopt all the needy kids in the world. If you think about it, they have already proven themselves competent...I may start a new fad...Hey! Everyone I know that has a kid and it's turned out pretty good so far...JUST ADOPT!!!
A particularly bitter run-in with a total stranger who gave me the "This is God telling you, you don't need a baby, but a broken child,"spiel (yeah...that's what she said...) I actually looked at our state's website for children who were available through our foster-to-adopt program. Amazingly, BJ and I would not have been the preferred choice for many if any of these children. For instance, one child wanted a "2 Mom home"...Gender reassignment is a bit much for me to ask BJ to do. Several required previous adoption/fostering/parenting experience. Some warned "not good with small animals". I love my cats and dog too much to open my home to a child with sociopathic tendencies. There are good adults out there with training, education and experience to parent these children, but BJ and I are not those people. If we were to give birth to a child with problems such as these which is always a possibility we would be in a world of hurt and would need to rely on a lot of resources. Fortunately for us and our future children, we aren't alcoholics, we don't like to beat each other up, or play mind games so that lowers the chances of a child we raise from birth developing a major personality disorder a good bit. But we can't fix one that's already developed. Not even the professionals can...
Domestic Infant Adoption...can easily be more expensive than fertility treatments (IVF included). Long, possibly, really LONG,waiting periods. Super invasive process with social workers that hurts my feelings even thinking about (I mean babies who spend months in the NICU b/c their moms shot up drugs the entire time they were pregnant get to take their babies home, but you are going to make make me feel bad because we pursued fertility treatments before adoption?)...Oh, and there is no guarantee that the adoption will go through even after you've invested money that you will not get back if you are paying your birth mother's living expenses. You can't control what your birth mother does with her body while she's pregnant good, bad or worse. On the positive side...you can be with the baby as soon as it is born if the birth mother allows it. You can work out how open you want "open" to be. There are a few good agencies out there, but none of them are close to me. Different states have different relinquishing dates and my state is one of the longest and makes me not want to adopt here if we do adopt...Definitely still in our playbook, but not our current front runner until we've tried other pursuits first.
International Adoption...we'd love a newborn...not gonna happen with this. Still an option, however. All I have to do is show BJ the video of the young gymnasts training in China and BJ melts...
This all depends that these countries don't follow the lead of Russia and close the US off to adopting.
Embryo Adoption...definitely an option, but why deny BJ something he is capable of having? We have a great program right in our backyard with National Embryo Donation Center. Plus our clinic also does their own embryo adoptions.
So our current front runner option is to go ahead and pursue egg donation.
Again, I may not be able to have the child with the ADHD hyper-active focus-type, but who's to say that's not a good thing, anyway. I still would LOVE to experience a pregnancy, and no, I don't want to hear condescending remarks about how miserable [insert placating, condescending person here]'s pregnancy was. That was her pregnancy and she got to be pregnant and all of her complaining could never take that away from her, yet it could never give that experience to me, either. Let me have the chance to be miserable...but also let me have the chance to see the heartbeat on the ultrasound, feel the baby move, talk and read to him or her in utero, play music for the baby, eat all the right things, avoid all the bad things, do prenatal Crossfit...umm, I meant yoga. Let my cats enjoy my baby bump as their new perch, let me hopefully have my own horror story/birth story to tell, dang it! Just let me enjoy the small things...I promise you I'll be scared to death through it all without worrying about whatever wives' tale you tell me to worry about.
Now if only BJ could pick out a donor...I think he owes us blog...
I'm sure when people find out we are pursuing egg donation the "just adopt" barrage will increase. On many levels it's so much more complex than "just". When we explain to these people we aren't actively pursuing adoption "just" yet, we get that, "but there are so many children looking for a good home." Somehow, BJ and I get turned into selfish people because we don't immediately drop everything and hire an adoption attorney and adopt up all those poor, starving children. As if it were just like going to an animal shelter and picking out a cat or a dog...Yet, I don't hear my friends who've had children the good, old-fashioned way complain about lectures from strangers telling them to adopt all the needy kids in the world. If you think about it, they have already proven themselves competent...I may start a new fad...Hey! Everyone I know that has a kid and it's turned out pretty good so far...JUST ADOPT!!!
A particularly bitter run-in with a total stranger who gave me the "This is God telling you, you don't need a baby, but a broken child,"spiel (yeah...that's what she said...) I actually looked at our state's website for children who were available through our foster-to-adopt program. Amazingly, BJ and I would not have been the preferred choice for many if any of these children. For instance, one child wanted a "2 Mom home"...Gender reassignment is a bit much for me to ask BJ to do. Several required previous adoption/fostering/parenting experience. Some warned "not good with small animals". I love my cats and dog too much to open my home to a child with sociopathic tendencies. There are good adults out there with training, education and experience to parent these children, but BJ and I are not those people. If we were to give birth to a child with problems such as these which is always a possibility we would be in a world of hurt and would need to rely on a lot of resources. Fortunately for us and our future children, we aren't alcoholics, we don't like to beat each other up, or play mind games so that lowers the chances of a child we raise from birth developing a major personality disorder a good bit. But we can't fix one that's already developed. Not even the professionals can...
Domestic Infant Adoption...can easily be more expensive than fertility treatments (IVF included). Long, possibly, really LONG,waiting periods. Super invasive process with social workers that hurts my feelings even thinking about (I mean babies who spend months in the NICU b/c their moms shot up drugs the entire time they were pregnant get to take their babies home, but you are going to make make me feel bad because we pursued fertility treatments before adoption?)...Oh, and there is no guarantee that the adoption will go through even after you've invested money that you will not get back if you are paying your birth mother's living expenses. You can't control what your birth mother does with her body while she's pregnant good, bad or worse. On the positive side...you can be with the baby as soon as it is born if the birth mother allows it. You can work out how open you want "open" to be. There are a few good agencies out there, but none of them are close to me. Different states have different relinquishing dates and my state is one of the longest and makes me not want to adopt here if we do adopt...Definitely still in our playbook, but not our current front runner until we've tried other pursuits first.
International Adoption...we'd love a newborn...not gonna happen with this. Still an option, however. All I have to do is show BJ the video of the young gymnasts training in China and BJ melts...
This all depends that these countries don't follow the lead of Russia and close the US off to adopting.
Embryo Adoption...definitely an option, but why deny BJ something he is capable of having? We have a great program right in our backyard with National Embryo Donation Center. Plus our clinic also does their own embryo adoptions.
So our current front runner option is to go ahead and pursue egg donation.
Again, I may not be able to have the child with the ADHD hyper-active focus-type, but who's to say that's not a good thing, anyway. I still would LOVE to experience a pregnancy, and no, I don't want to hear condescending remarks about how miserable [insert placating, condescending person here]'s pregnancy was. That was her pregnancy and she got to be pregnant and all of her complaining could never take that away from her, yet it could never give that experience to me, either. Let me have the chance to be miserable...but also let me have the chance to see the heartbeat on the ultrasound, feel the baby move, talk and read to him or her in utero, play music for the baby, eat all the right things, avoid all the bad things, do prenatal Crossfit...umm, I meant yoga. Let my cats enjoy my baby bump as their new perch, let me hopefully have my own horror story/birth story to tell, dang it! Just let me enjoy the small things...I promise you I'll be scared to death through it all without worrying about whatever wives' tale you tell me to worry about.
Now if only BJ could pick out a donor...I think he owes us blog...
Peace, Love, and Genius,
MK
Very honest and raw post. You and your husband are doing what you believe is best for your family. No one can fault you for that.
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