It's been a while...

I honestly just haven't had much to talk about recently. We are still on hold as far as our last IVF goes. I had my WTF a few weeks ago with Dr. F, and we will definitely not be going back to cycle with him. He absolutely does not want to do a laparoscopy on me to check for endo. I don't want to attempt the last IVF without doing one (there are conflicting theories on whether or not endometriosis affects the outcome of IVF). Also he would basically not change anything for a 3rd IVf from the 2nd, and I am just not willing to redo a cycle that failed.

So we are going ahead with a consult with Shady Grove. They are quite a hike from us, but we are willing to put the mileage on our cars if it means we get the care we want. I am also going to make an appointment with SIRM in Philly at some point to see if they have anything different to say about our situation.

At this point I am honestly not sure my body will ever be able to get pregnant. I think there is more wrong with my immune system than we know, and I think it is making my body reject the embryos. We had talked about possibly using my sister's eggs before IVF #2, but now I think that is pointless. I believe my body would reject embryos made from her eggs as much as it did mine. We are talking about using my sister as a gestational carrier now. It obviously isn't my first choice on how I wanted to bring our children into the world, but it is better than nothing. And I think Garry will eventually come around to the surrogate option sooner than he would come around to adoption. If we decide to go this route we would do it with the 3rd IVF. That way our egg retrieval would still be covered under insurance and we would just have to pay for her testing and the embryo transfer out of pocket.

But right now Garry is still weirded out by the idea of our children being born to any other woman than myself. In his head who ever gives birth to the baby is the Mom. I tried to tell him that is like saying whoever releases the sperm is the Dad, but we all know that isn't always how it works. Sometimes I get very frustrated with how narrow minded he is about all things adoption and surrogate related. In the end, I don't care how our family gets made, but he does so we have to go by his time table. Hopefully we will be starting therapy soon to try and work all of this out.

Now if you made it through all of that I have a little reward for you. I started work on my newest (and biggest) tattoo yesterday. It is going to be beautiful, only about a 1/3 of it is done so far, but here is a pic for you all to admire:


It is a cover up of my first tattoo. If you look closely you can see the outline of the old tattoo under the shamrock. She will put a couple more coats of color over it, and eventually you'll never be able to tell there was once a little black heart there. In the new heart we are going to put my family crest, and it will be metallic colors with shading to make it look antique. I can't wait to finish it, but it will take about two more sittings.

That is it for now. Nest up will probably be the report for our consult with Shady Grove. Wish us luck!

Adoption Info Session...

I was so excited to go to this information session with a local adoption agency, and honestly I was a little disappointed. It is an adoption agency that specializes in foster-to-adopt. This is the kind of adoption we are leaning towards, mostly because we don't have thousands upon thousands of dollars sitting around to use for domestic infant adoption. I am OK with the knowledge that we may never parent a newborn baby. It is something I am sad about, but not something I dwell on too much. I just want to be a Mom and how I get there or what age our child comes to us at is not all that important to me.

I knew going into this meeting that the parameters we have set up in our minds were going to make for a pretty long wait, and I was right. We would be looking to foster children between infant and 5 years old. We have several reasons for that age range, the biggest being that we are not sure we could handle adjusting a child to a new family and a new school at the same time. We would want at least a year to bond with the child before we had to deal with the whole school thing. We would also be open to sibling groups of 2 children under the age of 5. We are open to children with mild autism, ADD/ADHD, and some drug dependencies from the birth mother. Now, the one that will make our wait really long can be a controversial topic. Right now we are only open to Caucasian children. Again there are lots of reason for this. The two biggest ones are: 1) there is zero diversity in either of our families. Zero. And on both sides there are some prejudices in our extended family members. It is not something either of us are proud of, but it is reality and we can't change the way our cousins/grandparents think. Neither of us would want to bring a child into a family where it would be possible for them to hear negative comments directed towards them or their race, no matter how small that chance could be. 2) Raising children of a different race involves a whole set of skills we aren't sure we have right now. Maybe some day, but for our first child, when we have no experience with the foster care system, we think the best way to go is the way we are most familiar with.

When we talked about this with the woman we met with she was very negative. It was almost like she was guilting us for knowing what we can and can not handle. I am sorry, but we know we can not handle a teenager right now. Especially a teenager that has been through half the things a typical foster-child has been through. Honestly sometimes the idea of a 5 year old that has been taken away from it's family scares the crap out of me. I understand that foster care professionals are probably pretty jaded towards people like us. We come in wanting to adopt a young, white, basically healthy child when they have so many children looking for homes that are the exact opposite. It must be incredibly frustrating.

But the way this woman talked to us was upsetting. She kept referring to domestic infant adoption as "buying a baby." As in "if you want a baby you will have to go buy one." I haven't even really started the adoption journey and I know that is horrible language to use. Also she kept cussing. She wasn't dropping f-bombs or anything, but she did toss around a couple other choice words like it was nothing. Don't get me wrong, I can cuss like a sailor too, but there is a time and place for language like that. And a first meeting with a potential client is not one of them.

With all that said, I am not discouraged, and I actually think Garry walked away from the meeting feeling a little bit better about the adoption option. He still isn't there yet, but he is considering it more now. I told him that the ball is in his court, by the start of our next cycle I want him to be able to definitively say "yes I am OK with adoption" or "no, I am not OK with it, if this doesn't work we will live child free." I can't go into our last IVF not knowing where we go after that. I will drive myself crazy.

Next up is our cycle wrap up meeting with Dr. F on Monday the 11th. We will most likely not be cycling with him again, but there are still lots of things I want to discuss with him, and I do still value his opinion, even if I no longer think he can help us.