Permanent Ink

I have had the desire to get a tattoo in memory of Lily since shortly after her death, but have been waiting to be sure that I came up with just the right thing and to ensure that it was something I really wanted to do instead of acting on impulse. I have never had something which held enough significance to me to get one in the past, but now that Lily is gone I’ve felt an intense need to have a permanent reminder of her on my body for others to see.

I had finally decided that I wanted something with cherry blossom flowers as these have great significance & symbolism. The intense beauty and short survival span have associated Cherry Blossoms with spiritual and philosophical ideas such as the beauty and fragility of human life. And then I decided to incorporate her initials into the tattoo as a reminder to anyone who sees it that it was done in memory of my daughter. It’s been two months since Lily left this world, but she will always and forever be a part of me.

Understanding donation & precious photo memories...

Thankfully our journey with embryo donation has been continuing extremely smoothly, in large part thanks to the amazing donor family we are working with. I cannot say enough how incredible this family has been and how thankful we are that God led them to us!

I know that embryo adoption/donation is something that not too many people are familiar with, so I thought I’d try to provide some more information for those of you who may be wondering about it. And by all means please feel free to ask questions, as most of you know by now I am more than happy to raise awareness & understanding about infertility issues.

Following an IVF cycle, if a couple is lucky enough to have 1 or more good quality blastocysts (70-100 cell embryos), they can be frozen in case the transfer doesn’t work or more children are wanted down the road. Some couples choose to donate their left over frozen embryos once their families are complete. Once all the details are worked out, the donated embryos will be transferred into my uterus using frozen embryo transfer; this is not only a lot less complicated than a typical IVF cycle, but it is also a lot less expensive. (Side note: it is also A LOT less expensive than infant adoption). Since the embryos have already been created there is no need to pump me full of multiple injections to make my ovaries produce lots of follicles. The only injections I will need are progesterone which will likely begin a few days before transfer and then continue daily until reaching 8-9 weeks into pregnancy. I’ve had several people ask if we would be receiving all 6 embryos from the donor family. The answer is yes. Because not all embryos survive the freezing/thawing process and there are no guarantees that following a transfer I will conceive, it may take several embryos before a live birth can occur. Also, the hope is that we will be able to have more than one child, thus needing more than one embryo. As a bonus, the children would be biological siblings.

The other piece of embryo donation consists of the legal aspects. We met with the attorney yesterday to begin the process of drawing up a contract. Because there are no laws in the state of Kansas regarding embryo adoption/donation it becomes contractual law. Thankfully our attorney is very experienced regarding reproductive medicine and cases such as this, so we feel we are in good hands & it shouldn’t take too long to have this contract drawn up. We will also go through a formal adoption process following the birth of a child since, genetically, the child is that of the donor family. My clinic does transfers at four specific intervals during the year so the next available treatment cycle would be in November. I also need to have a sonohystogram before that time to be sure everything looks good for transfer. Our goal is to have everything ready & complete so that we can hopefully be doing our first FET that month!

The donor mother has been so extremely supportive & compassionate throughout this process. As I said before we feel so blessed to be building a relationship with such an amazing family. I feel such a sense of peace & love towards this family and the process we are undergoing together. I have to share a beautiful poem that she found online which speaks not only to traditional adoption, but to our situation as well.

Once there were two women, who were destined to find one another.
One you never knew, the other you call Mother.
Two different lives brought together to make you one.
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.
The first one dreamed of your life, and the second taught you to live it.
The first gave you a need for love, the second was there to give it.
One gave you a nationality. The other gave you a name.
One gave you a talent. The other gave you aim.
One gave you emotions. The other calmed your fears.
One imagined your first sweet smile. The other dried your tears.
One sought for you a home that she could not provide.
The other prayed for a child and her hope was not denied.
And now I find you asking, through our laughter and our tears,
The age-old question posed time and time again to mothers through the years.
Heredity or environment, Which are you a product of?
Neither, my darling. Neither. Just two different kinds of love.

Lastly, we received our completed photo CD from Erin with Baby Bloom Photography tonight. Here are just a couple photos I wanted to share with you. We continue to be amazed at the people God has placed in our paths throughout this past few weeks. Erin, you will forever hold a special place in our hearts, the gift you gave us is one that we will always cherish. Thank you for allowing God to use you & your talents in such an incredible way!

                                      

                                      

Friends...

There really is nothing like a good friend to get you through difficult times, and thankfully I have some really amazing friends. It’s been quite evident over these past few weeks who our true friends are. It’s interesting when tragedy hits how differently people react. We have been disappointed in some people, those who we thought we were close to who didn’t even offer a single condolence. And then there are the friends & family we will always treasure, those who have been there for us with calls, cards, and messages. It doesn’t have to be a lot; a single card or even FB message lets those who are hurting know you care. Letting us know that although they may not know the pain we are going through, they are walking with us, beside us, and remembering. For each of you who have been there and listened as I cried, who have sent words of love and support, and who have prayed for us in our grief, thank you. It is not always easy or comfortable being there for a person in their sadness, in the midst of grief, but to be there in those moments means more than I can begin to put into words. It is the epitome of what love and friendship are all about and for each of you I will be forever grateful.

This evening the sadness of losing Lily hit me particularly hard. Those of you who have experienced a significant loss know that grief hits you at odd times and sometimes without much warning. So when a close friend called after work it was such a gift to be able to voice my feelings and give in to those emotions. It’s amazing how a good cry can make you feel a bit better. Then I went to check the mail and I was greeted with an incredibly touching gift from a wonderful friend... the beautiful necklace you see below, one of the smaller circles says Lily, another says, 6-27-10, and the larger circle says I carry your heart in my heart. One of the jewels is Lily’s birthstone and the other is a pearl. Needless so say, I shed some more tears and then called this friend; we cried together & talked about all that has happened in the past few weeks. So thank you dear friends, may you always know how much I cherish each of you and that your kindness has had a profound affect on my life following the tragedy of losing Lily.

For those of you who want a similar necklace go to www.lillyellen.com

Beautiful song....

Welcome ICLW...

So to put it lightly the past year has been a crazy, unexpected roller coaster ride that my husband & I could have never expected or anticipated. It has been an intense, emotional year, but we are here and we are thankfully surviving. So for all of you stopping by for ICLW week here is the very condensed short story of our journey to date. My husband and I found out about a year ago after TTC for a couple of years that our only chance for conceiving a biological child would be through IVF/ICSI. We started our first round of IVF in January and were blissfully surprised when we got our first ever BFP. We cherished every moment of my pregnancy and were thrilled to find out we were expecting a girl. I had a splendidly uneventful pregnancy until tragically at 22wks 6 days I unexpectedly went into preterm labor. We sadly lost our daughter Lillian Grace on June 27th and have been coping with our grief while trying to honor her life & decide how to move forward in our desire to become parents again. We had just begun the process of completing a home study for adoption purposes when the next step in this crazy journey came about. A family chose us for embryo adoption!!! You can read all about that in my last post, but needless to say we are again feeling hopeful that our future will include holding & loving a healthy, live baby. What an intense year it has been! I never could have known how fitting the title of my blog “The Road Less Traveled” would prove to be when I started out, first infertility & IVF, then infant loss, and now embryo adoption. Although it has been a difficult year I also feel I am a stronger, more determined person. I am a survivor.

On a side note there is an amazing article on infant loss in Glamour magazine this month. It’s called “The Baby I Lost…and the Life She Gave Me”…trust me it is an article worth reading & an incredible story of survival.

Change of plans...

Just when we think we have it all figured out God reminds us that sometimes He has other plans for us. I have some very exciting news to share with you all and can honestly say tonight I feel such an incredible joy that I haven’t felt since being pregnant.

First let me start at the beginning. Recently we had started to consider embryo adoption as one of the routes in which we could build our family. After contacting another blogger who has been successful with this I was led to Miracles Waiting, a website that allows both embryo donors and recipients to connect in the hopes of finding a match. We had responded to a couple ads, but nothing really felt right. We had started to think that maybe this was not the plan God had for us, hence our beginning to pursue domestic infant adoption. And that’s just about the time that things changed.

Last week, barely a day after our initial home study visit, I received an e-mail from a family who had seen our ad on MW. She initially asked if I might be the same Rebecca from this blog which she happened to come across on Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope! They had been so touched by our story and felt drawn to us by fate. For the past several days we have shared information back and forth to determine if we were a good fit and the right home for their remaining 6 blastocysts. As most of you know, I had mentioned before that we have been praying that God lead us in the right direction and that we would just know when the right path presents itself. Well tonight it happened. This incredible family told us that they have chosen us and feel that we are the perfect family for their embryos! To say we feel incredibly honored is to put it lightly. First of all, for a family to make the decision to donate their embryos to a family in need is such an immense blessing. Secondly, I cannot imagine how difficult it must be for them to try and choose the right family to be the parents to their potential biological child(ren). And finally, how they were eventually led to us is nothing short of divine intervention.

Tonight I feel humbled knowing that this family has chosen us and that God has allowed our paths to cross. I am reminded that we continue to be carried on this journey by the One who loves us far more than we could ever imagine. This family is giving a gift that is given in the deepest sense a selfless act of love. A gift that we can never properly repay and will forever be grateful for.

New journey...

We had our first visit with the adoption agency social worker to begin the home study process tonight. We both feel hopeful & excited to be starting this process. It’s still hard because as with almost all things in the world of infertility there is so little control, but we’re trying to let go and trust God at this point. After all I, think we’ve realized after everything that’s happened in the past year that some things are just out of our control. She had some really positive things to say and it sounds like we have several things to our advantage. She said three things that birth mothers here tend to look for are childless couples, younger couples (which apparently at 30 we are in the adoption world), and those who live in Kansas. Kansas is a very popular state to adopt in because the laws in our state are very adoptive family friendly. Parental rights can be revoked by birth families as early as 12hrs after birth & once the parents sign these rights away there is no overturning this decision. She answered a lot of our questions and overall we’re feeling good about moving forward on this journey. So now we wait for our background checks to come back & the home study process to be completed…most likely 2-3 months and then we’ll move forward with putting in our application at a couple of agencies in our area.

Off topic a bit, but wanted to share with you all an article brought to my attention by another blogger. This past week the first woman born as a result of IVF in the United States gave birth naturally to her first child. This is definitely a wonderful step showing how far we have come since the beginnings of this type of science. Sadly, as Kristin at Stress Free Infertility pointed out, we still have a long ways to go in regards to the general public understanding IVF and infertility in general. This is one reason I’m so open about our story, both in blogland and also in my real life…I think it’s vital that more people are exposed to what it’s really like to go through infertility. After all, it is through understanding that acceptance & tolerance come about.

Lastly, I’m super excited to announce that a local blogger in my area that I’ve recently come into contact with is planning an amazing event on October 15th for Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day. There will be more details to come…check out the blog she has created just for the event. I hope that if you’re in or around the Wichita, Kansas area you’ll join us that day to honor to our babies and join together in raising awareness for pregnancy & infant loss.

Carried through...

Today I finished reading I Will Carry You: The Sacred Dance of Grief & Joy by Angie Smith. It is an amazing book that has helped me a great deal and one that I know I will read many times. Angie talks about the loss of her daughter, questioning God's plan, and her journey of faith in spite of her pain...I cried a lot while reading it, but found hope & strength through it as well. There are so many parts of this book that I loved, but I’ll just point out a couple of sections here.  For anyone who has experienced significant losses in life, you probably know all too well that when people are unsure of how to comfort you they say things that they think will help. As Angie so perfectly puts it, “It means so much more to me when people just tell me they’re sorry and don’t try to make all the pieces fit or explain it into something that it isn’t…sometimes the right thing to say is nothing at all. It’s just to be there, available, willing, authentic.” She talks about the grief and loss that we will always feel for our children who are no longer with us and reminds us that God is not threatened by the difficult questions and feelings that come with this journey of deep loss. “We aren’t going to feel whole in this life, and we will long for something we don’t have…He is not threatened by my doubt nearly as much as He is glorified by my faith.”  I take comfort that He knows our pain and is also saddened by the loss of Lily’s life, and that even though it was so short her life has been felt by many.

Overall, I feel like we're surviving pretty well considering all we've been through recently. I still cry every day, but I now also smile every day, and I carry with me faith and hope that our future will hold happiness and joy.

This is a song that Angie Smith’s husband wrote after the loss of their daughter…the video is a beautiful story of their families amazing journey.