Friday, February 22, 2008

Another Day, Another Dollar

I wish. If I had a dollar for everyday I've been alive I'd have: $9,472.00. While that doesn't seem like a bunch, it'd sure be helpful. Makes me think I should start saving a dollar every day... hmm. I like that challenge. Want to see how many days you've been toiling around Earth? Go here. Mike would have $10,815.00, but that's because he's old. :-)

But I digress. I don't really have a lot to say today, so I think I'm going to be going backwards some.

I wrote recently about our Homecoming with Ché. I touched some on what it was like to be down in Guatemala, and how we pry utterly failed as parents the first 24 hours he was in our care, I mean he didn't die or end up maimed, but for goodness sakes, we didn't even take a thing with us when we left the hotel the first time, and we didn't change his diaper before bed. Anyway...

I don't think I've ever really talked about what brought us to adoption. It was a fairly easy decision. We didn't question what people would think, didn't think about what people would say, or whether or not we could love a child that "wasn't our biological," child.

***Warning, this post continues TMI, so if you aren't so interested just click away***

When I was 18, we were on a trip to Pennsylvania, and on the way home, somewhere in Ohio, I had such severe abdominal pain that my then boyfriend, Mike, and my mom made the two car caravan stop at the nearest hospital. Many pleasant and perfectly comfortable tests later, it was found that I had a cyst on my ovary, and was referred to a OB/GYN here in South Bend. Shot up with pain meds, I slept the rest of the way home.
I then ended up having surgery later to remove the cyst, which had grown to the size of a Coke can. During the surgery it was found that the cyst had lovingly entwined itself with my fallopian tube, and clung for grim death. It was subsequently removed and was found to have low malignancy cancer spots. So in essence, I have one connected tube, and yea, there you go.
Coincidently the Dr. that did the surgery and would later do some other things, told me that I would have no trouble later getting pregnant. Thanks for that.

I guess we came to adoption after other things failed, Clomid, Femara, Progesterone shots, it was all a lot of fun (Ask Mike about the California trip sometime...)
Now, I can't say that we did anything hardcore as far as fertility treatments, as two of the above were oral medications, and the progesterone was just a monthly shot. Nothing seemed to work, you see I could make follicles, but not big enough to be viable. We confronted our OB, who never referred us to an RE (now that I think back on that I'm a bit confused), about the possibilty of me having PCOS. She denied it, and never came back to it. We did about 6-8 months of the other treatments, with no results (obviously or we'd have a 3 year old running around), and did not give much thought at the time to multiple births, which now I shudder at. I mean do I really want multiple kids at a time with multiple diapers, multiple feedings, multiple shoes, egad no.

Anyway, we were faced with making the decision to go for an IUI, {read turkey baster method here} (which we were told usually only works on the 2nd time), at about $10000 a try, or well, we weren't really given any other options. We talked about it and decided that adoption was a better use of our resources. As I type that it sounds awful, so please don't take it that way. It just was the option that better suited our family. It turns out it is the best decision we ever made btw.

We had to have physicals to be able to adopt, and being that I hadn't been to my regular doc in quite some time, we consolidated and I went to Mike's doc. I went in he did the physical, which involved bloodwork(something not ever done through the OB/GYN), and he questioned PCOS. He then called my OB/GYN who agreed, and I was prescriped Metformin, Zocor, and BCP. I was amazed at the difference. PCOS is like the anti-diabetes. My body makes too much insulin which causes: weight gain, fatigue, infertility, and much much more. By this point our minds had been made up about adoption, so we didn't ever think about stopping.

So now here we are again. Ché is 2 and some change, and we're at a point where we're thinking about siblings. We can't afford adoption again, (that deserves a post all it's own), and so now what?
We switched doctors, got someone willing to listen and talk. We were referred to an RE, and so in late March/early April we'll see what happens.

Sorry for the TMI post, but hey, I can if I wanna!

On another note:

My child has gotten great at stripping himself. So much so that we are finding a naked child in the bed. Completely naked, which results in a soaked bed, but dry diaper. We tried putting a t-shirt over the zip up sleepers, he figured it out, we tried talking to him, didn't work, we tried letting him pick the jammies, no dice. Any thoughts? I would like to do something other than cutting the feet off of the zip up jammies and putting them on backwards, but we're desperate people... HELP!

2 comments:

AAWG said...

Not too much info for me! I am actually grateful that you shared your story. More people should just be honest about it. Fertility problems are not uncommon & I think you do a service to others when you share your perspective on the matter (for fertile and not-so-fertile women and couples alike.)

Wow! The turkey baster method is expensive. I would have done the same thing as you if I couldn't get pregnant. I guess I never thought that an adopted kid would be anything less than a biological one, so it baffles me why some couples go broke and tear their souls apart over this. Granted, I have never had fertility problems and I am SURE I would have to go through the gamut of emotions and mourn my loss. But with procedures that aren't foolproof (or else wind you up with a litter!) and super-expensive to boot - I would rather put my money where I am sure to get a return. ONE return at a time!

I guess that's a trumped-up way to say I couldn't handle too much disappointment so I'd go with the option that didn't require me to ask god "Why??" every month and get on with living and loving a child. MY child.

We love Che to pieces. He is a blessing and the girls think he's the cutest. (Well Romana doesn't 'think' yet, but she will...) The Beavers are glad you guys chose to bring him into the family.

Mikeropod said...

And hey, you know he's not a BLOOD relative.... *wink*


Just kidding, no offense to the Beaver gals, but Ché can't quite settle down just yet. Its a new beau twice weekly. I wish I had his confidence!