Well Hello Spring or NOT.  With confidence we know that good weather is on the horizon.  It helps with the sting of freshly fallen snow.  Fertility on the other hand is not so easy on the confidence road.  No matter how much you bet, make promises and search the web for info there is no guarantee that parenthood is in the future...
With that said... this organization is here for financial access, information and support.
We need this blog to take off and become what YOU want it to be.  We just gave out a $7,500 grant and will wait on our own pins and needles for success.  whether its the burden of finances for adoption or fertility treatments this organization wants to help.  Created and made of of professionals who fought their own battles with fertility we are excited to give back.
For me, if you read the original blog you will get my history and resume both personally and professionally.
Recently, I spoke to a friend and past patient who after years of fertility and double digit attempts with IVF she is a mom of 3!  She reminds me of me only 25 years or so younger!  She will be jumping in when she can.
So, what do we want to talk about??  I am thinking about fertility options from IVF to adoption...  now a days adoption is wide open since it could be adopting via egg donation to adopting domestically, overseas or through your local child services.
For me, I looked at every option.  I have down IVF with and without success and also have an adopted child.  Getting to that decision was looking at very inward beliefs and attitudes.  My bottom line was always to hold a baby in my arms and know with love and a ton of work that child would call me "mom".  When I was starting my journey I did believe giving birth was going to be necessary.  Over the years that need was squashed like a bug.  Not once do I differentiate between the 4 voices in life that call me "mom".  I can say that being pregnant did let me into a society of women being donned my birthing badge with some kind of right given to me to be able to earn that right...  as I became a mom it changed...  getting pregnant has nothing to do with being a good mom...  easy for me to say now...
go ahead... give me your thoughts...  

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Good morning December 1rst!
 Hope everyone found something to be thankful for over this past thanksgiving weekend.  Even in tough times being thankful for something in your life is very empowering.  It gives you strength, confidence and appreciation in the life you have with control over some things but not everything.  With that said... this blog today is to start a string of comments to help one another.  I will be looking for comments and ideas to help make this blog something for its followers to gain every time they sign on. 
With all that said about thankfulness, I can say personally when I was going through diagnostics and treatments, I always remained hopeful in the treatment.  The diagnostics was waiting without being able to do something... not so hopeful.  The treatment was the work and effort towards a goal.  With adoption the work of the paperwork and documents was the effort of moving forward... waiting to hear how the caseworker interpreted your home study... not so much.  Talking to friends and family about your frustrations could work both ways.  The holidays as well worked both ways.  Hearing others good fortune of positive pregnancy test... always a bummer.  I did have a caring friend call me over the holidays to let me know she was pregnant.  She called, said hello then told me she was pregnant.  She also told me she realized that news would be painful on first pitch so she asked me to call her back when I wanted to.  She was a friend!  Caring and thoughtful.  Of course about three days later I called her back to let her know how happy I was for her after the sting of how it affected me had relieved itself. 
I think fertility is a misunderstood situation by so many.  Often times people would say... at least you don't have cancer... at least everyone you love is well... at least you have options.  I think what society needs to understand is that loosing your ability to procreate when you want to is as disabling as loosing a limb.


Thoughts??? 

       

Hello There 

Welcome to the Journey to Parenthood! 

                                                                                

Parenthood IS a journey and the detour of infertility can be a GPS clusterbuk.  

At 51 years old I can give you a quick lowdown of my own fertility journey and how working as a nurse for over 25 years in the field and related fields makes me an infertility jack of all trades.

At 18 years old I had surgery for a removal of a tumor on my ovaries.  At 19 had surgery for multiple adhesion's causing issues with my bladder and other important organs...  At 19 years old my physician mentioned to my parents and I that fertility might be a small obstacle.  I was in college for my nursing degree and my fertility was not even on my radar, though, stoically in the back of my mind I kept that" I can deal with that later mentality".  I also should say that I listened to every story at the time of "the first test tube baby" being born and even went as far to write reports on it.  That way I could tuck information away by multitasking while getting my degree.  Fast forward, I become a nurse, marry my college boyfriend and start my career with more than a ton of excitement.  I even decide to keep my name since in the back of my mind I may be diving full into my career knowing that a family might not be on the list for me.  My husband devoutly said having a family would be great but we didn't need it to be happy...  hmmm.  Three minutes later I start talking to myself with many private conversations that I need to be on every level... a Mom.  I found myself turning down a job on a maternity floor and going straight to a CCU to avoid those private conversations from becoming public.  To no avail the conversation went viral with my good friends who were all getting married and pregnant and then just like a dangerous virus it ate away at some of the relationships and I became obsessed with solving my "problem".  My husband, the eternal optimist and 

basic hormonal male sat back and enjoyed the frequent sex that camewith "trying" to get pregnant a ticket to paradise.  Then I started the road to medical appointments and procedures that became of sorts a part time job and a complete downer.  My husband quickly saw the emotional pain and the actually detour to the road to starting a family became a true obstacle.  Every phone call from that "friend" with their good news was a dagger to my heart.  On top of it all... I kept thinking... "this is all my fault".

Not to omit everything in between (have to leave something for future blog conversations) I went through the in-vitro process 6 times and became pregnant with my "prince".  Remember, in the early 90's, this was groundbreaking... IT WORKED!  I also without thought, froze three embryos not thinking what even to do with them... I was pregnant... I had acquired my badge like a true girl scout  and made light blue my favorite color... I had hyperemesis with my first pregnancy and lost over 20 pounds in my first trimester but little to pay... I was lucky!  I wasn't even aloud to complain because I got what I wanted... we can even save all the parochial guilt for future blogs...  October 15th 1991 I give birth to our son, Daniel.  Life was good.  fast forward again... phone call from my fertility center... what do you want to do with your embryo's call?  Crap,  I didn't want to go through THAT again... I had already started the adoption process with "Adopt China" and never told either organization of my divided loyalty.  Well, I couldn't abandon the embryos so I had them "put back" and wool-ah, twin pregnancy... Welcome Alec and Michael, Jackpot!  I am higher than a kite and busier than a bee and found myself fast forwarding to an interesting Christmas Eve with my husband and kids thinking out loud... "My heart still feels like I lost someone the day I called the adoption center and cancelled the adoption process".  Wondering who didn't have the fortune of making their way into our family.  My husband looked at me and said if you feel this way I support it.  "Get moving Kate"  "I don't want to be in the diaper phase forever".  That's when I knew I loved that guy till we would be old and gray... Wait, as I type, we are old and gray.  We also have our wonderful daughter, Tess, who came to us via Cambodia.  My husband was the guy who hopped the plain in his cargo shorts loaded the pockets with bottles, diapers and formula and brought her home looking like a scene out of Rambo... He came down the runway like he had given birth... it was his little girl in his arms... I melted!  For me, I was a MOM!  Still had the need to never leave my career I started finding ways to compliment it with what I was living.  I was a childbirth instructor for a number of years, a school nurse, fertility nurse and now a postpartum nurse on a mother infant floor.  I LOVE my job... not as much on the weekends but even on a Sunday morning at 7AM,  holding a brand new bundle of joy does not get old.     

So this is my journey.  Now I have three sons 23, 20, 20 and a daughter 15.  I am a MOM.  I love my detour.  It was my detour and the fact that it is a road behind me replaced by all the rights of being a parent I will never forget the gloom and fear in my heart on many occasions.  When my kids drive me crazy I don't say I should love this because of that detour... its just part of the memory that until I started to write this blog I hadn't given much thought.   

When my dear friend from years ago asked me to join the board on her non profit organization I was star struck on the excitement that I may be involved in some way helping other women contend with this very private pain.  

So... with that being said this blog belongs to women and men who feel lost in their struggle from emotions to medical confusion and frustrated with trying to figure out how to solve it for them on their terms.

One last thought: The struggle with ones need to have a family whether you are in a traditional marriage, same sex marriage, single parent to be...  having a family is ones right... right down to the simple science.  It is for some of us our immortality... I know... Heavy stuff! 

  

Off to the gala... 

Write on!!!