Appointment & research study....

Well my appointment at the new OB’s office with the nurse practitioner was a bit disappointing. I miss our RE’s office SO much, they are so incredibly kind and sympathetic to what we’re going through. I always just feel like a number at the OB and they just don’t recognize how difficult it is for some couples to get to this point. I guess working in the medical community myself, my expectations of the care I should receive are high. We’ll see. I’m hoping I feel a bit more reassured by the OB herself at my appointment in a week. It was far more difficult than I thought to sit in that waiting room. I tried to focus on my Kindle and push emotions aside to get through what I needed to. The NP really just took a history and then had some lab work drawn which should be back for the appointment with the OB next week. The history and all of the questions about my previous pregnancy were also a bit more difficult than I had expected. It would be nice if they at least glanced at my medical history before coming in the room to avoid asking unnecessary questions about my previous pregnancy. I was disappointed they didn’t offer to check the heartbeat with a doppler and had to ask specifically for them to do so when I was leaving. There reply was that they don’t typically do them this early into a pregnancy and that maybe the doctor would try next week when I see her…not exactly the answer or reassurance I was hoping for.

I recently came across a request for subjects from someone who is researching embryo donation and adoption in an attempt to “honor women’s experiences of embryo donation and adoption by allowing the women with whom I speak to define the issues within these experiences which have been most important, most terrifying, most fulfilling to them.” She is conducting this research through two sets of interview based questions which she will e-mail to you. If you have been a part of embryo donation or adoption and are interested in taking place in her research study leave me your e-mail address in the comment section and I will pass along the contact information for the researcher.

Lastly, loved this quote Franchesca shared today at Small Bird Studio; it seems fitting for the place in which I find myself today…

Quilt of love...

Yesterday we received a gift made with so much love and kindness it touched our very souls. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while might remember the following entry I wrote just a few days after Lily’s death…

One of the most profound acts of kindness that has touched us so deeply has come from a high school classmate in her offer to make a quilt of love using some of the clothes I had purchased for Lily. There really are no words to properly describe how much this has meant to both Nick & I. I had purchased a couple of outfits for Lily the day before she died, and the thought of having to return them was more than I could handle. Then, just a couple of days after her death, I received the kindest message from Audra saying she would like to do this for us. Initially, when I received this message I just cried; the thought that someone who lived across the country and whom I had not had contact with since high school was reaching out to me in such a selfless way touched me to the core. Audra, your generosity and compassion have given us such hope in the midst of our grief...I feel there is nothing I can ever redo to properly repay you for what you have done for us.

That beautiful, handmade heirloom quilt arrived at our door yesterday afternoon. It was an emotional moment to say the least opening that box. Looking at the quilt with tears streaming down my face, the thought crossed my mind that seeing Lily’s clothes as a part of this quilt seems somewhat symbolic of our lives over these past few months. After she died we were so lost, so uncertain of the future and how we would cope with this immense grief. With time though, we have been putting the pieces of our lives back together, just in a different manner than before. Our lives will always be different now that she is gone, but the pieces that have made the most difference in helping us to grieve and move forward have been the people. The people like Audra, who have given with their hearts and souls, showing us the goodness that exists in this world, helping us to have hope that in a world filled with so much compassion and love we will survive.
As the quote Audra shared with us says, “The best kind of sleep beneath Heaven above, is under a quilt, handmade with love”

Dear blog followers, if any of you would like a beautiful quilt yourself or would like to purchase one for a friend, check out Audra’s Etsy page…she is also available to make custom quilts!

Double digits...

As of today we are officially into the double digits! Even at 10wks into this pregnancy, it all still seems a bit surreal. I cannot wait for my first appointment with the nurse practitioner at my new OB’s office Tuesday; I need another heartbeat fix and the reassurance that those appointments bring. Thankfully things have really been going smoothly thus far, hopefully this trend continues!

One of my closest real life friends is scheduled to have her egg retrieval this morning, please stop by and wish her well. It has been a long road for her and her husband, and they are due for celebratory news.

Lastly, I wanted to share this beautiful poem that Franchesca posted earlier this week. It touched me so much, and I hope it does the same for others who read it for the first time.

A Different Child

by Pandora MacMillian

People notice 

There's a special glow around you. 

You grow 

Surrounded by love, 

Never doubting you are wanted; 

Only look at the pride and joy 

In your mother and father's eyes. 

And if sometimes 

Between the smiles 

There's a trace of tears, 

One day 

You'll understand. 

You'll understand 

There was once another child 

A different child 

Who was in their hopes and dreams. 

That child will never outgrow the baby clothes 

That child will never keep them up at night 

In fact, that child will never be any trouble at all. 

Except sometimes, in a silent moment, 

When mother and father miss so much

That different child. 

May hope and love wrap you warmly 

And may you learn the lesson forever 

How infinitely precious 

How infinitely fragile 

Is this life on earth. 

One day, as a young man or woman 

You may see another mother's tears 

Another father's silent grief 

Then you, and you alone 

Will understand 

And offer the greatest comfort. 

When all hope seems lost, 

You will tell them 

With great compassion, 

"I know how you feel. 

I'm only here 

Because my mother tried again.

Quote and article...

Love this quote so much…thank you to Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope for sharing it on fb yesterday…

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~Kahlil Gibran 

Also had to share this incredibly moving article about the grief shared by these three men as each of them have experienced the loss of a child to stillbirth. 

Will be reaching 9wks Saturday, another milestone accomplished...looking with hope towards double digits next! 

Ultrasound update and graduation…

We had our last ultrasound at the RE’s office this afternoon and thankfully received reassuring news. I am technically 8wks 2days, and baby is measuring 8wks 3days at 1.94 cm. The heartbeat was strong at 182bpm! We had a bit of a snow storm here today, so I actually got to get in for my appointment a bit earlier than we had planned as they were trying to close early. So I’ve scheduled my first appointment at the OB’s office; I’m seeing a different doctor than I did previously and am hopeful for that first appointment. I’ve got my first appointment with her nurse practitioner on January 25th, and then my first appointment with the OB will be February 1st.  So now we wait and hope that this is a far more blessedly uneventful pregnancy than the last.

If you’re in need of some great reading material and haven’t already, swing by and check out The Stirrup Queens 2010 Crème de la Crème. It consists of the best posts for those in the Adoption/Loss/Infertility community over the past year; there are posts that are sure to make you laugh, cry, and be inspired. Mel, with another one of her great ideas, has also come up with a little something called “The Grateful Said” for the best comments from 2010, so stop on over to participate in this as well. I know there have been many comments by several of you who have meant so much to me over this past year; the words we share with each other on this crazy IF journey can be so incredibly uplifting and serve to encourage when we desperately need it, so thank you to each of you for stopping by and taking the time to not only follow our journey, but to lift me up in the process with your kindness & compassion.

Lastly, I have a special request. My dear friend Tiffany will be celebrating her birthday on the 15th, and as most of you who follow me know by now, she has had an incredibly difficult year with the loss of her son to SIDS. In honor of Julius’s life and to raise SIDS awareness, she has a goal of raising $5,000 for the CJ Foundation for SIDS. No donation is too small. If you’re able to please stop by, I know it would mean so much to her.

Talking about donor conception & book review...

I know I’ve mentioned on here previously how wonderful An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken is, but for those of you who haven’t read it yet here is yet another glowing review from NPR on what an incredible book it is. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to check it out. Those of you who have experienced loss will relate, and for those of you who haven’t, it gives you a glimpse into the remnants that the loss of a child leaves behind.

I know several bloggers who are in the process of TTC via donor insemination, donor eggs, or donor embryos. I’m sure some of the same concerns or worries have crossed your minds regarding how to be honest with your future children about how they were conceived and their backgrounds. We already know that if we are able to give birth to a child conceived through embryo adoption we will be open and honest with our children regarding their background and all of the love that went into bringing them into this world. I subscribe to the adage that knowledge is power. So in navigating this new world of donor conception and how I’ll share this information with our children, I’ve been researching materials that might be helpful. I was thrilled to come across these booklets on line put together through a UK group called Donor Conception Network. They have a lot of incredibly useful information for parents conceiving children via donors, and I encourage you all to check it out. Another thing I love about this group is that the materials are pertinent to all families conceiving via donors and are not specific to only heterosexual married couples. As a social worker and someone who personally loves several families who don’t necessarily fall into this “traditional” box, I am thankful to find these resources that appear to be inclusive of all families. Specifically, they have four “tell & talk” booklets which were written by a parent of donor conceived children, the materials are “based on children’s developmental stages and provide parents with a source of emotional support and practical guidance in finding the right time and the right language to ‘tell’ and continue conversations with their children over the years.” By clicking on the picture of each booklet you can access the pdf file and read these materials, or there is an option to purchase copies as well.

Talking about donor conception is without a doubt a very personal decision regarding who and how much you tell those in your lives. I know I’ve thought about this a lot recently as we progress with this pregnancy. I definitely feel that the more information I have at my fingertips, the more beneficial I can be in properly educating others regarding donor conception as well as helping my future children to understand their background in a healthy way. If donor conception is a part of your family building journey I encourage you to check out this useful resource.

Things are progressing smoothly so far; experiencing more fatigue, a bit of nausea, and already getting up several times a night due to my pea sized bladder. I’ll be 8wks along on Saturday and am scheduled for my last ultrasound at the RE on Monday afternoon. If all goes well at that appointment I’ll graduate on to the OB’s office!

Grief & hope....

When I look back on the past year I feel an intense mixture of emotions. So much has happened that often times I feel I have lived five years in the course of just one. 2010 started out as a year filled with hope as we embarked on our first round of IVF, and that hope only grew as we experienced our first pregnancy. We learned that we would be having a daughter, we celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary and it seemed that all was right with the world. And then we learned in an intimate way that in a matter of one day the world you once knew can come crashing down.

With that day everything changed. Our daughter, Lillian Grace, was born, lived, and died. We existed in a surreal place in which we never could have imagined. A place in which you plan your child’s funeral. You stand before your closest family with your daughter’s urn beside you and think this just all seems so unreal. We became acquainted with grief on a deep level. We felt sadness, despair, and wondered how we would move forward. We learned there is a whole world of other couples who have experienced this same type of loss and grief through other blogs, and we felt not so completely alone with our sadness. On the difficult days as I returned to work and saw the rest of the world was continuing forward oblivious to my deep loss, what got me through was that knowledge that I was not alone and that many of you knew my pain. We began to pick up the pieces and we learned how to incorporate the grief into our daily lives; how to move forward even when it’s the last thing you want to do. Our pastor said something really poignant that stuck with my husband. He read from the famous Psalm, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” and focused in on the word walk. Don’t run. Don’t stop and sit down. Walk through your grief and your pain, and I think we’ve tried really had to do just that.

Thankfully that is not where our story ends. Although 2010 as a whole was the worst and most painful year of our lives, there were glimpses of hope that began to reemerge and blessings that we never could have imagined that came into play. We learned of something called embryo donation and made the decision to place an ad on Miracles Waiting, and that is when, for the second time in a year, our lives were changed dramatically. We were contacted by a donor family who had seen my blog and knew our story. After many heartfelt e-mails this family came to visit us and the decision was made to move forward with open embryo adoption together. The hope this family brought us and the selfless gift they have given are something that will forever shape our lives. They are a part of our story now. This hope couldn’t have come at a better time; they gave us a lifeline when we needed it most. Sadly, we were about to be reminded again of how precarious this life can be. It was late in the day in October when one of my closest friends, Tiffany, called with the most unimaginable news. Her 4 ½ month old son was dead from SIDS. Again, grief was pushing its way into our lives; we were shaken and reminded of how little control we have to protect those we love. This year has been one of survival for many of us, and I am thankful we are all still standing and continuing in spite of all the pain that we have endured to feel hope that better days await us in 2011.

For us it is with mercy that this year began to come to a close. We had our first donor cycle FET and are now beginning the journey of a new pregnancy. We are different people as this year closes; we have felt more grief, compassion, and love in one year than we could have imagined. I will forever be thankful that you were all here walking beside us throughout the highs and lows of this past year. We hold so much hope that the New Year carries peace and dreams fulfilled for us and so many others.