Letter to Family and Friends

I had business cards made with our contact information on them to give to our family and friends.  They are kind of like adoption pass along cards.  My project for this week is to send the following letter and a few of the contact cards to everyone we know.  What do you think of our letter?  Again, my husbands name has to be omitted due to his job.  (We need an adoption blog and I don't know how that's going to work when we can't show his face or say his name.... Don't worry though, should we find a potential birth mom we will be more than happy to show his face and say his name, but just in a more secure place.)

Dear Family and Friends,

As many of you may or may not know ***** and I have found out recently that the chances of us having biological children are less than 1%.  We have recently spent a lot of time and a great deal of money to have all of the necessary tests to come to this conclusion.  We were informed that the problem lies with both of us.  When we received the news we were left wondering what our next step should be.  After much prayer, thought, discussion, and soul searching we decided that we will not pursue any further fertility treatments.  Even with the best medicine and doctors  our chances are still very slim.  We feel good about our decision and are at peace with it for now. 

With that being said, we are on the adoption road again.  We believe that adoption is the way we will expand our family, it feels very right for us.   We were so incredibly blessed with our son DC through the miracle of adoption and we are hoping for another miracle.  As I’m sure you are aware adoption through a private agency is currently between $30,000-$50,000.  YIKES.  What you may not be aware of is that private adoptions without and agency are between $2,000-$6,000.  Not so bad.  The only catch is that when you go totally private you have to find your own babies, there is no agency to help you find available babies/children. 

That is where all of you come in to play…  We would LOVE it if you would keep us in mind if/when you hear of someone who is considering placing a baby for adoption.  We are open to babies of all races, ages, and even babies who are drug exposed. We are also open to open adoptions.  We have enclosed a couple of cards that would make the sharing of our contact information a little bit easier for you should you come across someone. 

Thank you for your friendship, love and support.  It means the world to us to have you in our lives.

Much Love,

Laura and *****

Quick Update

Since we last spoke I have been inseminated again.  We decided to heed the doctors advice and give it one more go round.  I am supposed to take a pregnancy test on Sunday.  Although it would be fabulous if the insemination worked, I am certainly not holding my breath.  I'll let you know on Sunday what I find out. :)

Also, some BIG news (it's big to me) is that I got a lead on a potential birth mom this week.  I was fortunate enough to meet with her and spend an hour talking with her.  I don't believe she is 100% decided on placing her baby for adoption.  I really stressed to her that this is HER choice and that she needs to be absolutely sure no matter what her decision is. I'll post more on that later.

Handing it Over

I can't help but think that there are things I am supposed to be learning from this experience.  The Lord works that way, he tests us so that we can grow and become stronger.  Just as trees in windy areas grow stronger, I too will become stronger because of the wind that is blowing. 

I wish I could say that I am one of those people who can easily hand every thing over to the Lord and allow Him to shoulder it.  I should be that way, that is what He is there for, that is why He came to this earth and gave His life.  He came to earth an atoned for us which also means He is there is bear our burdens if we will just allow Him to.  By handing Him my sorrows it requires me to have total faith and confidence in His plan for our family and by doing that I also have to have total faith in His timeline.  By handing Him everything I have to give up control (or at least the idea that I ever had the control.)  I have to realize that as long as I am faithful and do what I am supposed to do that the Lord will provide what is best for our family.  I also need to pray that His will be done and I need to realize that sometimes His will is not my will.  I have to remember that He knows what is best and I need to have faith in His plan for me no matter what the plan may look like.

Allowing the Lord to carry my burdens doesn't mean that I just stand idle and wait for things to happen for me.  I still need to work, I need to do my part.  I still need to tell everyone I know that we want to adopt more kids.  I need to get my body healthy so that I can help the fertility process.  I need to continue to be prayerful about what is the next step for us to take along this road.  I also need to remain positive and hopeful.  I think that is the hardest part, remaining positive.  I start to get sad and cry sometimes and I think that's ok as long as that isn't my focus.  I allow myself 5 minutes a day to feel sorry for myself and to cry,  when my 5 minutes are up I need to get back to work mode.  If I dwell any longer than that it doesn't do any of us any good.  Thankfully I don't feel the need to take my 5 minutes everyday, it's usually just after a doctors appointment when I get more bad news. 

I am very thankful that I don't have pregnancy envy (good thing because 5 girls I work with are pregnant right now.)  I am TRULY happy for other women when I see them pregnant or with new babies.  How could I not be happy for them?  Babies are miracles and I am so thankful when anyone gets pregnant, it's beautiful.  I actually don't even get upset when I see a teenager pregnant.  I do however, always want to ask them if they plan on parenting or placing for adoption.  I sometimes want to say, "you don't look like you're ready.  Can I have him?"  Awful of me I know, but I can't help but think it.

Lately so many of my posts have been focused fertility and getting pregnant.  I think that is just because I have had so many tests in the last month.  However,  it needs to be said that I would be SO HAPPY if I adopted the rest of my children.  I don't care how the Lord gets them to me, I just want them here.  So PLEASE tell everyone you know that you know a great family looking to adopt! :)

Testing Re-do

I went in on Saturday for a re-do of my Day 3 testing.  They did another ultra sound and another blood test.  The ultra sound didn't go as well as I was hoping.  The doc said that I didn't have as many follicles this month as I did last month.  (Remember that follicles are what develop the eggs.)  It was disheartening news for me to hear.  Lately I've been feeling like every time I go to the doctor the news gets worse and worse.  UG!

Meeting with the Doc

Up until last Monday (Jan. 30th) I hadn't talked to the actual doctor about my situation.  He would tell me bits and pieces after each test but only the nurses had talked to me about the situation as a whole.  So last Monday we had an appointment with the doctor to go over all of the tests and to figure out our next step. First of all we looked like crazy people to everyone in the waiting room of the fertility clinic because we had our son (8 months) with us and we also had my niece (7 weeks.)  Anyway, the doctor went over everything with us again that we had discussed with the nurses.  I hated hearing all of that AGAIN.  It's like salt in the wound every time I have to hear it again.

So bottom line is-- My eggs are not only running out but they are actually expiring.  I used to joke around all the time before I was married that I needed to snag a man fast because my eggs were expiring, little did I know that was actually happening.  The doctor also said that it is very likely that I will go into menopause earlier than the average woman.  I told him I didn't care because I didn't want to have babies in my late 40's anyway.  Then he proceeded to tell me I will become infertile 10 years before menopause...fantastic (can you sense my sarcasm here.)  I then said "so you're saying we need to get on it fast?"  And then the doctor said, "yes, you need to get on it."  I feel like we are doing all we can at this point...  I mean really what else can we do?  I guess we could do in vitro, but by the time we have an extra $35,000 I will be totally expired.  We aren't totally ruling in vitro out, but we need to be realistic. 

The plan we decided on with the doctor is to continue taking Femara for two more months and trying IUI (insemination) 2 more times.  After that our only option really is to do in virto.  I don't have a lot of faith in the IUI, but it is worth a shot.  The doc said he'd give us half of our IUI money back toward in vitro if the IUI doesn't work.  Apparently the chances of the IUI working for us is 5% and the chances for in vitro working for us is only 30%.  I was asked if I would be willing to re-do some of the tests I have already had.  They want to double check my results and see if they can gather any more information to help me.  As we were wrapping up our meeting with the doc I asked if what his feelings were on the Holland researcher guy.  The doc got super irritated and ended our meeting short.  It frustrated me because I was trying to explain to him that I am doing all I can to help my situation and to make this happen.  I told him that I was asking him because I valued his opinion and wanted to know his thoughts on it.  Now I'm worried that he won't want to help us as much because he thinks I don't totally trust him or something.  Anyway...

When we got home we had a Skype appointment with Holland.  I really liked what he had to say, it all made sense.  He seems to think that my husband and I are an "easy fix."  He said that he believes if we follow his program for 12 weeks we will get pregnant.  I questioned everything and he had answers for it all....  I asked him if this program will make my husbands swimmers swim and he said yes.  I asked if my AMH hormone will be put where it should and he said yes.  I asked how this works and he explained that we need to get our bodies back to the "factory settings."  When you eat foods that your body is allergic to or that cause negative reactions such as inflammation, it  affects you. (He explained it so much better than I am explaining it.  I'm making it sound lame, I promise it's not.)  Let me try and explain it this way...I have a friend who worked with the Holland guy.  She followed the program he created for her exactly and now she has a baby.  In her program, for example, she couldn't have any root vegetables.  That means no potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, etc.... It sounds crazy because who would think carrots could be bad for you?  Well, they aren't bad for everyone, but they are bad for her.  In her body they cause inflammation and create problems for her.  Is this making any sense?  So what we need to do is have the Holland guy figure out what we should and shouldn't be eating.  Even if it doesn't work we will lose weight and be healthier for it and the cost is only $3,000.  I can do $3,000, what I can't do is $35,000.  Right now this seems to make the most sense for us and I really do believe in his work.  We are thinking we want to do the IUI in February and then take a break before we do the next IUI.  We are hoping that we can get on board with Holland, do that program for a few months and then try the IUI again, maybe that is the magic combination we need.