It's Raining Setbacks!
Geez. When it rains, it pours, as they like to say. Life is really giving it to me lately, in my personal life and in this surrogacy journey. Shall I begin?
I won't really get into the first "setback" since it deals with the kids and I try to stay away from that part of my life on this here blog...Even though I totally could be writing a blog about that adventure. I actually wish I would've started writing about the experiences of our "instant family" throughout the last five years...It'd be fascinating, even to me. But somehow I feel like that'd be a betrayal of the kids' trust and their parents'. All I will say is that something heartbreaking happened, a mistake made, and it was frustrating and complicated. I'm really terrible with emotions and psychology and stuff so dealing with the kids in those moments is always a tremendous challenge for me. Dealing with my own emotions, the ones I do have, is a tremendous challenge! LoL. On top of this, Adan has been encountering his own family issues back in Mexico. Also tragic. We should all be seeing therapists. Haha. We're all "happy, happy, joy, joy" over here in our house! :-)
We've had two setbacks in the surrogacy journey. Most difficult is that our surrogate has suddenly backed out. If you remember, her name was Elizabeth and she was from Africa. Adan and I met her and her husband and kids in Sheboygan. Though we had some reservations about her, we ultimately really loved her spirit and energy. And her story, similar to Adan's, was wonderfully inspirational. It seems that she and her husband are having some marital issues. More specifically, it seems her husband's ex-wife is getting involved in their parenting. She is trying to get custody of their son or something like that. Seems kinda trivial but I know that divorce can be brutal and it must be pretty stressful, especially to Elizabeth who probably is frightened that her family could be ripped apart. Anyways, she is feeling like she cannot be a surrogate with all of this drama going on in her life. As the Surrogacy Center assured me, it's good that we found this out now and not later. We hadn't done any of the medical screenings or procedures on Elizabeth yet. Adan and I were shocked and saddended by it...But, as with everything, life goes on and we just gotta keep moving forward.
We do have a new possible surrogate option. Well, at least for now. We've only looked at her on paper. We will need to still meet her in person and confirm that "she's the one." Her name's Angie. And I don't want to write too much about her because what if she isn't "the one" and I've wasted your time and mine. According to her profile, she seems like a nice woman. She's 37, lives in Sheboygan, and has three kids. She's been very close to being a surrogate two times before but each time the couples ended up getting pregnant themselves last minute. In other words, Angie is completely ready to commit herself to this. Which by the way, this whole Elizabeth changing her mind thing reminds me of how delicate and intricate this process is and how it involves real human beings in every single fricken facet. Human beings are fickle creatures! And super untrustworthy. I mean, have you ever tried to make plans with a friend to get a drink?! It's nearly impossible! LoL. Obviously there'd be setbacks in all of this. And I'm sure there'll be more.
Back to Angie: One concern we have is that she is unwilling to terminate a birth if the baby has Downs Syndrome. Although Adan is too, I'm someone that sort of leans on the other side. Luckily we should be able to do a ton of testing on the embryos and we should know if they'll have Downs Syndrome long before the eggs are harvested. But you never know. Also, she doesn't have insurance that would cover the pregnancy costs. Elizabeth had amazing health insurance that covered everything. Ugh! Once again, this is gonna be expensive! However, we can sign her up for "Obamacare" which does cover much of it. Yay for Obamacare! (There goes my Republican readers.)
Also, a positive thing about Angie is that she might be okay with having twins. Elizabeth was not. Should Adan and I open up that door again? Two wee ones instead of one?! Hmmm....
The last setback? The genetic testing that was done on our egg donor (who was flown out from California a few weeks ago) came back positive with about two "diseases." Now, when Adan and I first heard about this we freaked out. And, to be honest, we were kind of mad. I mean, we had to pay to fly out a chick from California to discover this? Couldn't they have done this test back in Cali? Save us a couple thousand dollars?! Plus, now we've got a diseased egg donor?! Who the hell wants that?! But after much discussions with the doctors we've learned a little more about what's happened. You see, this genetic test, called the Sema4 Testing, tests for about 283 diseases. Every single person in the world comes back positive with 1-2 or even more. It only becomes an issue if the sperm source is also a carrier of those same exact diseases. Needless to say, Adan and I now need to have this Sema4 Testing done to make sure that neither of us are carriers of the same genetic stuff. Which by the way costs another few hundred dollars or so. And another appointment to Madison. Cheese and rice!
As with everything in life, Adan and I are moving forward step by step and trying to be as positive as possible. I keep thinking "oh a baby will make everything better." With all of this complicated drama happening in my life, I have been feeling extremely lonely lately. What's the point of all of this? No one loves me. Or even likes me! Maybe I should just move to an island where I don't have to deal with this shit? Lets have a baby and make it all better! Haha. I'm guessing though life and all of its emotional ups and downs won't magically disappear with a baby. As my friend Caitlin told me, who has been through this journey too and has been a wonderful inspiration to us, "everything's better because my daughter is in my world" but it doesn't fix everything. I mean, this is all part of the adventure, right? Wouldn't life be boring if it didn't have these setbacks? If it was all perfect, it'd be...Well, mundane. And who could grow and progress in perfection? How would we become stronger? How would we learn about ourselves? In a way, that's why we're having a baby. Although we'll try to protect the baby from life's harmful truths as much as possible, it'll be exciting and fun to watch our child go through life's adventures, through the good times and the hard times. It'll be a joy to watch our baby move forward when life is telling them to "go back, run far away!" It'll be the proudest moment ever to watch our child attempt to stay positive through all the shiznit. Like their dads did. Life's the greatest adventure of them all. To share that with a child will be quite simply a ton of fun.
By the way, thanks for all the feedback on the previous blogpost. Seems like most of you don't think we have any obligation to involve the surrogate in the pregnancy announcement or the baby shower. This should be about Adan and I and our little family. Thanks for all the advice with that! I agree with you guys :-)
Also, thanks to my sister Shawn and Grandma Shenks for writing recommendation letters to us for a grant application. We've applied for two now. A third application is currently being completed. Wish us luck!
Peace!
Back to Angie: One concern we have is that she is unwilling to terminate a birth if the baby has Downs Syndrome. Although Adan is too, I'm someone that sort of leans on the other side. Luckily we should be able to do a ton of testing on the embryos and we should know if they'll have Downs Syndrome long before the eggs are harvested. But you never know. Also, she doesn't have insurance that would cover the pregnancy costs. Elizabeth had amazing health insurance that covered everything. Ugh! Once again, this is gonna be expensive! However, we can sign her up for "Obamacare" which does cover much of it. Yay for Obamacare! (There goes my Republican readers.)
Also, a positive thing about Angie is that she might be okay with having twins. Elizabeth was not. Should Adan and I open up that door again? Two wee ones instead of one?! Hmmm....
The last setback? The genetic testing that was done on our egg donor (who was flown out from California a few weeks ago) came back positive with about two "diseases." Now, when Adan and I first heard about this we freaked out. And, to be honest, we were kind of mad. I mean, we had to pay to fly out a chick from California to discover this? Couldn't they have done this test back in Cali? Save us a couple thousand dollars?! Plus, now we've got a diseased egg donor?! Who the hell wants that?! But after much discussions with the doctors we've learned a little more about what's happened. You see, this genetic test, called the Sema4 Testing, tests for about 283 diseases. Every single person in the world comes back positive with 1-2 or even more. It only becomes an issue if the sperm source is also a carrier of those same exact diseases. Needless to say, Adan and I now need to have this Sema4 Testing done to make sure that neither of us are carriers of the same genetic stuff. Which by the way costs another few hundred dollars or so. And another appointment to Madison. Cheese and rice!
As with everything in life, Adan and I are moving forward step by step and trying to be as positive as possible. I keep thinking "oh a baby will make everything better." With all of this complicated drama happening in my life, I have been feeling extremely lonely lately. What's the point of all of this? No one loves me. Or even likes me! Maybe I should just move to an island where I don't have to deal with this shit? Lets have a baby and make it all better! Haha. I'm guessing though life and all of its emotional ups and downs won't magically disappear with a baby. As my friend Caitlin told me, who has been through this journey too and has been a wonderful inspiration to us, "everything's better because my daughter is in my world" but it doesn't fix everything. I mean, this is all part of the adventure, right? Wouldn't life be boring if it didn't have these setbacks? If it was all perfect, it'd be...Well, mundane. And who could grow and progress in perfection? How would we become stronger? How would we learn about ourselves? In a way, that's why we're having a baby. Although we'll try to protect the baby from life's harmful truths as much as possible, it'll be exciting and fun to watch our child go through life's adventures, through the good times and the hard times. It'll be a joy to watch our baby move forward when life is telling them to "go back, run far away!" It'll be the proudest moment ever to watch our child attempt to stay positive through all the shiznit. Like their dads did. Life's the greatest adventure of them all. To share that with a child will be quite simply a ton of fun.
By the way, thanks for all the feedback on the previous blogpost. Seems like most of you don't think we have any obligation to involve the surrogate in the pregnancy announcement or the baby shower. This should be about Adan and I and our little family. Thanks for all the advice with that! I agree with you guys :-)
Also, thanks to my sister Shawn and Grandma Shenks for writing recommendation letters to us for a grant application. We've applied for two now. A third application is currently being completed. Wish us luck!
Peace!
Comments
Post a Comment