Monday, October 17, 2011

Babble



My younger sister Melanie writes for Babble at Being Pregnant. She and her husband have infertility struggles of their own as well and she writes about that. She is currently doing a series called Real Women's Stories. It features different women and their infertility journey and hope. My story was featured recently of a success of adoption.
You can read it here

Here is another great story about Sarah and Chance's adoption: "I know people say that, ‘Well it’s different when they’re your own.’ It doesn’t matter. They don’t have to be blood. She was mine.”

Also have you ever wondered about adoptive breastfeeding? My story of this was also featured. You can read it here.
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Come and get to know us...

This is our story: Ryan and I were set up on a blind date by my sister and his sister-in-law. I was living in Utah at the time and he was in Washington. I was going to go up there for my nephew's baptism and it would be great timing to go on a date with Ryan. Nicole and Danna were thrilled that we actually were okay with going out. We emailed back and forth a few times and sent some pictures. In an email he asked if it would be okay to call me, so we got to talk on the phone a couple times before we met each other. We knew that we would get along well after those emails and phone calls. We went on a fabulous date to dinner and an Arena football game. It was great and Ryan loved that I knew what was going on and loved sports. At the end of the date he asked if he could see me the next day before I left to go back to Utah. We played games with his family the next night and had a great time. We talked for a long time that night and wondered when we could see each other again. And he kissed me good night!
Ryan called me every day that week and one day he asked if I would go to a concert with him on a Tuesday night. I didn't think there was anyway that I could fly up and go, but I worked it out that I would fly there on Tuesday and fly back to Utah on Wednesday. It was great to see him again.
He flew to Utah a couple weeks after that. We were just hitting it off so well. One night as we were talking he opened up. I knew that he had had cancer and had been through so much a few years earlier. We had talked about that, but this night he went into much more depth--especially the side effects of all the treatments that he had undergone. He told me how he would probably never be able to have children; he had saved some sperm, but it had been after a full round of chemo and was not very healthy sperm. This kind of shocked me, but I cared about Ryan and wanted to pursue this relationship. I wasn't going to end things because of this news.
We continued our long distance relationship. In June, after about 6 weeks of going back and forth, I made the decision to move to Washington to be closer to him. Timing of the blind date was perfect so that I could make this decision. I had recently graduated from BYU and was working at two part time jobs that I could easily leave. In July I moved to Washington. I found a job and in August Ryan proposed. We were married in October. From the first date to our wedding was not quite 6 months. I swore I would never do that, oh well, he was the right one, at the right time, in the right place. We went on a cruise for our honeymoon. It was awesome! After being married for about 6 months, we both individually decided that it was time to add to our family of two. We knew that we would need to see the fertility specialist and do invitro fertilization (IVF) in order to have a baby. As we went through the IVF treatments, we had all the faith in the world that it was going to happen. The doctor told us that there was not a very good chance that Ryan's cryoperserved sperm would work, but we had faith.
I went to the doctor every other day for ultrasounds, gave myself shots, and prayed that this would work. We went and visited my parents and family. One of my sisters told me that she had just found out that she was pregnant. She wanted to let me know before anyone else. I was excited to think that we would be pregnant at the same time. The next week I went in for the extraction of my eggs. They were going to inject the sperm and let us know if any of the eggs were fertilized.
On Friday morning we got a call from the nurse, "I am so sorry, none of the eggs were fertilized." I couldn't believe it. I hung up the phone in sobs. We had faith, why didn't it work? Why did we get the impression that we were supposed to start our family? My mom called shortly after that and I just cried, "It didn't work, it didn't work." Everyone's hearts were breaking with ours. We went to Ryan's parent's house. His dad gave us both blessings and gave us some good advice. I don't think I stopped crying all day. Every time one of my sisters would call I had to relive that pain and heartache.
Over the next few months we had to grieve with the loss of the child we never had.
We eventually felt blessed that without being married a year, we knew that we were infertile and didn't have to deal with the month to month pain of not being pregnant. By the end of the year we were ready to start the adoption process. When we called LDS Family Services, they told us that we would have to wait until we had been married for two years before we could proceed. We asked for them to make a special exception, but they couldn't. So we waited. We toyed with the idea of the foster-adopt program, but after attending classes and filling out paperwork knew that it was not the right decision for us.
We have now been married for three years. Paperwork has been filled out, reference letters have been written, and we have met with our caseworker. We recently moved into our new house and have completed our home study. There is a room that has no other purpose than the future baby room. Now that we are in our house, things are feeling like they are moving along and things will happen sooner than later. It is starting to feel more real and that we could be parents soon.
I have learned that adoption is not going to cure our infertility. I may still yearn for the desire to be pregnant and have a child that looks like me, but I can find joy in adoption, and more importantly motherhood. I know that Heavenly Father has a plan for us and our little family. He loves us and cares about us. I don't know what to expect in the next few months as we are approved for adoption, but we will take it step by step. We know it may be an emotional rollercoaster, but in the end we hope to have the chance to bring a child into our home and someday take him or her to the temple and be sealed together as a family. "The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in His own way. While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude." -Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin "Come What May, and Love It"