Instead of complaining, do something about it

So my last entry I was complaining about how someone can treat their kids so bad and yet not care about them.  Well long story short, the parental rights on the two kids had NOT been completely terminated (the Grandmother was trying to get her to sign her right away and she said she was going to).  Mrs. S had misunderstood.  Anyway, Friday morning the mom called to say she wanted her kids back.  After many, many months and her mother trying to get custody of the kids she's changed her mind.  She gave them less than 10 hours notice (they live 6 hours apart) to get the kids back to her.  The grandmother called DHS, but they say their hands are tied.  *sigh*  So Friday night those precious children were sent back to their mother and step-father who didn't want them in the first place.  How heart breaking.

So last week after my post and thinking about all the complaints I have about the way kids are treated in the foster care system, we've decided to do something about it!  I spoke with DHS last week and we are now in the process of becoming a foster/adopt home.  Who knows.  Maybe this is now we complete our family.  Maybe this is our way of giving back to kids who are not as fortunate as our son is.  Maybe this is a good learning experience for us all in compassion for others.  Regardless of what comes out of this I know that it will be a blessing for someone.  Probably for us.  Probably for the kids too.

What I dread is the possibility of a child coming into our home and we get attached and then they are taken away.  However, my Mom made a very good point.  She said that the one thing that we could hold tight to is that regardless of how long a child stays in our home, at least for that period of time they will know they are loved.  We will work VERY hard to make sure they DO know that they are loved and that they matter to someone.

Give them to me! I'll love them like my own!

That's what I wanted to say Friday when my son's new sitter told me about 2 children she is caring for during the day.  DH's job changed his hours up so now we need to have someone keep our son after school for a couple of hours until I can get off work.  So anyway I found out that a distant cousin (Ms. S) of my husband has been keeping kids and was looking to add another child to her home afterschool program.  I took our son by there Friday afternoon so he could meet her (he'd met her before but years ago so he didn't remember her) and so I could check things out and make sure we were ok for her to start picking him up on Monday.

Anyway, as we came in there was a lady and what I thought were her 2 kids about ready to leave for the day.  The lady was talking sternly to the little girl about how she acted at the babysitter's that day and making her say she was sorry for her actions.  After they left Ms. S began to explain to me the family situation.  The lady I saw was the grandmother.  The kids' parents were unfit and didn't care about the kids at all.  DHS had been called on them and they had signed their rights away because they didn't care anything about their kids.  The grandma got word of it and she stepped in and took the kids to keep DHS from taking them.  She was overwhelmed with them, but didn't want to see them to go to a foster home or be split up.  These babies were a 2 year old boy and a 4 year old girl.  I just couldn't take my eyes of them.  They were SO precious.  Then to find they had such a hard beginning and that they're grandmother was struggling to take care of them.....well all I could think was "give them to me!!!  I will love them and care for them just as I do my own son."  I wanted to scream, "Let me adopt them!  I'll make sure you get to be Grandma and make sure they have a good life."

The little boy just kept smiling at me and trying to say "hi".  He was SO precious.  The prettiest dark curly hair, dark complexion, and long eyelashes.  Reminded me so much of my son as a baby.  The little girl had the blondest hair and prettiest blue eyes.  Just precious, precious children.  Why would anyone not want them?!?!?!

I know it goes on all the time.  So called parents who don't care for their children and Grandparents who don't want to lose their grandkids, but can't care for them on their own.  Still it just broke my heart to see it happening right in front of me.

As much as I'd LOVE to give birth to our child (whether adopted or genetic), I would adopt 1 or 2 little ones in a heartbeat and never look back if given the opportunity.  I just pray that these kids will be ok and that God will bless this Grandma for what she's trying to do.

An appointment date and answering a comment

Friday I got a call from the RE's office here.  The nurse said that since I haven't seen him in a year that I'll be treated as a new patient.  I don't know what difference that really makes in my treatment, but whatever works for them and gets me in is fine with me.  So I have an appointment for December 16th.  2 months away.  Seems like a long wait, but really it works for me.  It gives me time to get my records from CA and time to get ready physically and financially to try again for a pregnancy.  (Lord willing we'll have a pregnancy)  The nurse said the RE would like to see my records from CA to check the quality of the embryos and make sure that wasn't the issue.  According to my RE in CA the quality was good so I don't expect my RE here to find anything new on that front, but we'll see.

A fellow blogger, Britany asked me a question and I thought I'd share it and respond.

have you ever been tested for a gluten sensitivity?

No, I've never been tested for gluten sensitivity.  Thanks for the heads up though.  I'll add that to my list of things to ask the RE about in December.  I've actually not been tested for anything related to pregnancy.  I do have PCOS (diagnosed 11 years ago) and I've been tested for thyroid issues (negative), but otherwise I've not been tested for much else.  I have an issue with B12 and thus take high potency B12 sublingual every day.

Now I'm going to go research gluten sensitivity and educate myself on what I'll be asking the RE about.  =)

Update....so much to has happened this past month.

First of all my son.... we got the paperwork for his genetic testing appointment.  The appointment is not until January 6th.  Really?!?!?!  You got scared, worried parents and we have to wait that long???  Do they really do that much genetic testing that it requires 3 1/2 months before you can get an appointment.  Other than that he's doing well.  We took him to have his eyes checked a few weeks ago.  One of the signs of neurofibrometosis is spots on the whites of the eyes (tumors on the eyes also).  So we took him to the eye doctor.  Praise God!!!  Not only does he have 20/20 vision, but he has no signs of anything on his eyes at all.  We are so relieved.

Next is our embryos in CA.  I have been meaning to email the coordinator and see about returned the embryos for over a month now.  However this week I finally bit the bullet and did it.  Some people close to me don't understand why I've had such a hard time turning lose of embryos that weren't biologically mine.  For me it's more about seeing those embryos as babies.  I feel like I've given up on my babies and 'given them away' so to speak.  Even thinking about that now makes me want to cry.  I've wondered why I would be given 16 embryos only to miscarry 4 of them and give the rest away.  I was thinkthing about this recently and had a thought cross my mind....maybe I was brought in to 'hold' those embryos long enough for someone else (who was meant to be their parents) to finally decide to move on to embryo adoption.  Instead of being their Mom, maybe I was simply the place holder for them.

On the same day that I emailed the CA clinic I also called my local RE.  I am now waiting for them to call me back with an appointment time to talk with the RE about testing for recurrent pregnancy loss and about doing IUI with DS.  I've heard/read that this RE is one of the best for those with recurrent pregnancy loss.  They state that 75% of the time they are able to find the cause of multiple miscarriages and help those women carry a baby full term.  Matter of fact, one of my friends had another friend who lost a couple of pregnancies and then after seeing this RE and going through all his testing found that she had a blood clotting disorder.  Now she is Mom to a 3 year old.

One last thing I want to talk about.  How do you make people understand that it's ok to talk about their new baby or baby on the way in front of you?  I went through that issue with my sister when my neice was born and just the other day a friend wanted to tell me she was pregnant again, but was afraid to upset me.  While I am SO grateful to have friends and family who want to protect me and who consider my feelings important, I also don't want to miss out on the joy of their pregnancy and have them feel awkward telling me about it.  When my sister found out she was pregnant, everyone knew before me.  That hurt me more than anything.  Yes the fact that my little sister was pregnant after just a month of trying and after 10 years I still wasn't pregnant did sting.  However, what REALLY hurt was the fact that I was the last to know and my sister didn't even tell me.  My Dad 'accidentally' told me.  When I complained to my Mom about it I found out she was the one that told my sister not to tell me.  I was SO hurt by that.

Now this friend of mine was trying to protect me too and ended up telling me.  I am SO thrilled for her.  She and her husband waited a very long time trying to get pregnant the first time and that baby is under 1 year old.  Now she's pregnant again and SO surprised how quickly it happened.  They didn't even know if they'd ever have one, much less TWO pregnancies!!!  So obviously I'm VERY happy for her.  I just wish I knew how to make people understand that yes it does hurt when others are pregnant and I am not, but I would NEVER EVER wish infertility on anyone and I am SO happy they are able to get pregnant.  I don't need to be protected.  How do you explain to someone that trying to protect me actually hurts more than just including me in their journey.

Putting things into perspective

Last week as we were making plans to call the RE here and start the process to see if DS IUI was an option for us, and having that woe is me feeling that things hadn't gone as we wanted over the past year with donor embryos and our pregnancies, we got a reality check.  While taking our son to a routine yearly doctor's checkup the ped found some suspicious spots and has now started the ball rolling to have genetic testing done on our son.  These spots are the first sign of neurofibrometosis.  After going home in shock and looking up this disease we were devastated to find what all could be wrong with our little boy.

Just a little bit about it for those who don't know (I'd personally never heard of it until last Tuesday).  It can cause tumors to grow anywhere and everywhere on the body, it can cause cancer, blindness, developmental issues, seizures, and the list goes on and on.  On the flip side it can possibly never progress past the simple spots he has now.  To say we're scared is an understatement.  We are shocked, worried, scared, you name it.  The sad part is there is no cure.  Only lots of monitoring, x-rays, MRIs, and removal of any tumors that come up.

Now the other possibility which we are SO praying for is that he got a bad case of chiggers (he could have since he and his Grandpa fish alot) and we didn't know it.  I don't check his groin on a regular basis (where most of the spots are located) and when he has a brown spot here or there on his legs or arms I just chalk it up to a scare from a bite or scratch.  He HAS complained of itching a time or two and I've just given him cream and told him to tell me if the itching didn't stop.  I mean he's NINE.  I don't look 'down there'!

So where do we go from here.  Do we continue to go down the path of trying to do DS IUI or do we hold of and wait for the results of the genetic testing (3-6 months at least) before starting anything new?  If we wait, what will change exactly.  If we wait and find out he has this disease will it change our desire to have another child?  These are all questions I don't have answers to.

Right now we are just focused on praying that our son does NOT have this horrible disease and thanking GOD for ALL the blessings we have.  Times like this make the daily worries seem so silly.

Going back to public!!!

Several months ago I chose to go private with my blog because of some issues we were having at home and wanting to keep things out of the public eye.  However some things have changed with the family situation and I now could care less if the person I was 'hiding' from reads my blog anymore.  Long story and not one I'll go into here.

Anyway.... point is that I'm back in the open blogging world!!!!  I've been reading everyone's blogs still, but just not commenting.  Congrats to all the new babies and the pregnancies of my fellow bloggers!!!  I continue to think about those waiting for their 'turn'.

As you will see if you read my post just before this one, we have taken a different route in our journey to add another child to our family.  While not a decision that was easily made, at this point it's a decision we felt we needed to make.

Now back to blogging!!!

We've made a hard decision to....

We've made the hard decision to relinquish our rights to our donated embryos.  We have talked about what to do the last few weeks and after much thought and many conversations, we have decided it's time to call it quits with the embryos we currently have.  This was not an easy decision, but one we felt was the right decision for us.  We have several reasons for making this call....travel back and forth to CA is stressful AND expensive.  Leaving my son and my husband for each trip is stressful.  Flying is stressful.  Having to coordinate between my OB here and my RE in California is stressful when the OB's office doesn't always understand what I need.  Then there are the embryos.  We have transferred 4 of the 16.  Both transfers I got pregnant and both transfers ended in miscarriage.  According to my OB and RE it's not me, but the embryos genetic makeup.  Now grant it, we could transfer 3 or 4 on a third try and get one or two that take, BUT we could also transfer all 12 left and never have a full term pregnancy.

If our embryos were here we would probably try again, but because they are half way across the country we just don't think we should continue to try.  So we will donate them back to the clinic and they will find another family to donate them to.  It feels a little like giving my babies away, but then I think about what good keeping them does if I can't/won't go back to CA to transfer any of them again.

So where do we go from here..... well we see three options.  One we go to a local RE (whom we started with in the beginning, but since he didn't do donor embryos we moved on) and do the testing he has available for women who have been through multiple miscarriages.  Then we look at doing IUI with donor sperm.  (more on that later)

Second choice would be to pay off our bills over the next year and in November 2012 when we are able to take a loan against my 401K, we use that money to adopt a child or newborn.  I'm perfectly happy with this option because I don't care anymore if I carry a child or not.  I'm finally passed that.

Third choice, and the one I pray God doesn't choose for us, is to be a family of three and move on with our lives.  This one is the hardest to accept.  I love my son to death, but the idea of him being our one and only child breaks my heart.  So not only can we not give birth to a child, but we can only have one child?????  That would be the hardest for me to accept.

Now back to IUI with donor sperm.  I told Greg about this option several months ago, but I was really against it.  I just couldn't get over the idea of a child that is biologically mine and not his.  Then someone brought to my attention that there was no difference in that and a child from donated embryos.  Their point was that even a donated embryo would get part of me because I was the one carrying the child.  While I don't agree 100% with this thought process, I did understand where they were coming from.  I mean look at my son.  He is in no way blood related to me or my husband, but he acts and sometimes looks so much like us that it's scary.  So many times people have thought he was my bio son and are stunned when they find out not only is he not, but he's also a different race.

So the plan is this.  Go to our RE here locally and see what he says about my miscarriages and the possibility of IUI with donor sperm.  If he agrees with doing IUI then we will look at finding a donor through one of the donor banks and try a few IUIs.  If after say 3 tries it doesn't work then we will call it quits and wait for next year and at that point decide if we want to adopt or if we are just ready to be done completely and be happy with just having our son.

Well here we go down yet another path.  I feel like we are SO all over the board.  I just pray that we can feel God guiding us one way or another really soon.