Infertility and why we are choose adoption

I woke up yesterday morning at 4:30 feeling so sick. I'm better today, but yesterday I was miserable. Not sure what was wrong with me, but I feel lots better today so I guess it wasn't anything too serious. Anyhow, on Facebook my status was that I was sick. A bunch of my sweet friends and family all commented that they hoped I was feeling better soon. My sweet friend, we'll call her M, remarked that she hoped it was the Egyptian flu and that I would be a mummy in 9 months. I had never heard it put that way before and remarked that I thought it was a cute way to put it. But that no, I can't get pregnant. I realized that I had never actually gone into detail about why we can't have kids biologically and why we have chosen to adopt. So I thought that should be my post today for National Adoption Month. (I apologize for how long this is. I tried to edit it, but I couldn't without leaving out some of our story, and I felt it was important for whoever wants to or needs to know our story, to "hear" the whole story)

A year after I had Tammy I was diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis. I was told that having any more babies would be highly unlikely for me. At the time I didn't think anything of it. I had my 1 yr old and I had no prospects of a relationship, and frankly, I didn't want to be in a relationship with anyone. I lead a mostly normal life. I had days where my pain was so extreme that I couldn't move, but most days I could ignore the pain I had. About 4 years later (Tammy was 5 by this point)I went to the dr. and he wanted to start me on a medical treatment plan that included medication and surgery. I was fine with this, because afterall, he was the dr. The treatment didn't work. In fact it caused me to gain a lot of weight. Almost 100 lbs. that I am still trying to lose. The treatment plan was fairly new at the time so the dr. had no way of knowing how I would react to it.

During the course of treatment I met a wonderful man who would become my husband. I told Jacob while we were dating about my condition and that my chances of having kids were slim to none. He said that he had a feeling before he even met me he wouldn't be able to have kids for some reason or another. The treatment they had put me on included putting my body through menopause, doing surgery, then shocking it back to normal so to speak, and then putting me on a high dose of clomid right before Jacob and I got married. The concept for this part of the treatment was that I would have a month to get used to the clomid and then we would get married and try to get pregnant right away because the dr. felt that it would be the "optimal time" for me to get pregnant.

During our 2nd year of marriage I was told I not only had endometriosis, but I also had Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS. Shortly after that diagnosis I was given a hystoselpangiogram to determine if my tubes were clear or not. The test showed that my right fallopian tube is completely blocked, and the left one if almost completely blocked. Any eggs that may get through that side have to work so hard that they are aren't viable. So my chances at that time of getting pregnant (not to mention staying that way) were zero. That was 6 years ago, they are now both completely blocked, so if they were zero before, they are negative 100 now. ;o) Jacob and I talked about it, prayed about it, discussed it at length and decided that adoption was fine with us. We had both always wanted to adopt. I had a best friend when I was younger who was adopted from Korea not to mention numerous famiy members who had been adopted, including 2 siblings who were adopted as infants. Jacob has wanted to adopt since he read the story of Anne of Green Gables when he was 11 or so and decided that if he married someone who couldn't have kids he wanted to adopt.

Shortly after my PCOS diagnosis Jacob and I decided that he would join the Army. We spent 6 years in the Army. During our time in the Army we lived in Kansas for 5 years and New Mexico for the last year before moving back home to Utah. During our 5 years in Kansas we attempted to adopt. We decided to adopt through the foster care system. We went through the classes, we were approved not only to adopt, but also to be foster parents. We were foster parents for respite care and emergency care which were both temporary foster parents. Or so we thought. During that time we had a sweet 8 yr old boy in our home, we'll call him "I". It was supposed to be for 2 weeks, but we ended up having him for a few months. He came to us with a lot of issues, but together we found ways for him to deal with his issues. He made huge improvements with us and our caseworker was amazed. He was supposed to be adopted by another family but that fell through. We decided to submit our application. Our caseworker was all for it. His caseworker however was not. She didn't beleive that military families should adopt and denied our request to adopt him because of Jacob's possibility of deploying. We were crushed and after a lot of thought and prayers, decided to close our file with them. I still think about "I" all the time and wonder how he is doing. I know he was adopted shortly after our request to adopt him was denied. And from what I was told, he is doing well.

A few months after moving to New Mexico we were sitting in church one day and I heard a lady talk about how they adopted their son. It was like a ton of bricks hitting me telling me that we needed to start our application process NOW. So the next day I called our church's agency and the rest is history. 3 months later we were approved for adoption. We have been waiting since April to find our Birth Parents.

People ask me all the time if it's hard not being able to have more kids. My answer I think confuses them when I say no. I can't explain it, but I'm at peace with it. It was devasting not being able to adopt "I". But being his parents for the time he was with us, taught us that you don't have to have a biological link to love a child as your own. We are excited to find our Birth Parents and to not only add to our family with the addition of a little one, but to add to our family with the addition of our Birth Mom and Dad and their families.