Did you ever receive a diagnosis for your "unexplained infertility?"
I did not. What my doctor told me, is that unexplained infertility isn't necessarily that it's unexplained, it's that the doctor's can't figure it out. T and I had the normal tests done. I had the ones done for a woman, the HSG, blood work testing my FSH levels and other things, a sonogram to look at my uterus. All came back normal. T had the one test that is done for men, the Semen Analysis, and that was normal. So, that put us at a complete loss. Our doctor told us because nothing had been found wrong, that we could conceive on our own. He also said that if it takes longer than 1 year to conceive, the probability of it happening each month is lower and lower. I believe he quoted our odds at 3% chance a month of conceiving.
Do this day, we still don't know why it took as long as it did. We also don't know why we did IVF and had it fail, yet we were eventually able to conceive without medical intervention. There are unfortunately so many unknowns, that once again prove to me that we aren't in control.
How do you know you are adopting a boy? Did you request a boy, or is it that there are more boys than girls available for adoption in Ethiopia?
My husband and I requested a boy specifically. Honestly, T and I didn't care at well whether we had a boy or a girl. However, we were told that girls in Ethiopia are a longer wait than the boys, so if we went on the list for either a boy or a girl, we realized we'd most likely end up with a boy, but we decided to take the guess work out of and just request a boy. . . seeing that that is what we most likely would have gotten. We are very happy that we did request a boy. It has allowed us to really plan for all the boy stuff we're going to need around our house. :-)
I thought when adopting from overseas, it took years, not months?
Every country is different in terms of their timelines. When T and I went to visit adoption agencies to find out the best option for us, we realized just how different some countries were. China was by far the longest wait, and we learned the wait for a Chinese baby was over 3 years. That quickly ruled out China for us! I'm not sure why their wait is so long. My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that you can really only adopt girls from China. Because of the restriction China has on how many children each family can have, many baby girls are put up for adoption. I also think the wait is long because China is probably the most popular destination for people wanting to adopt. We also learned that domestic adoption of a white baby can take up to 6 years. Then there were certain countries like the one we choose that take a lot less time. This is because it's somewhat of a newer country, and also because there are a lot of orphans in this country. Also because there are both boys and girls available for adoption. It really varies greatly depending on what country you want to adopt from. When our adoption is all said and done, my best guess is that the entire process will take a year, to a year and a half. We started the process in June, and then June until November involved getting an approved homestudy and filling out a lot of paperwork. We weren't on the waitlist until November, 5 months later. Once we get our referral, we will then wait a few months for a court date before we can travel to pick up our son.
Regarding the 99 Things post, why did you have to ride in an ambulance?
My stupid heart got stuck in a bad rhythm, and I had to take an ambulance to the hospital and they gave me some meds to get it back in the normal rhythm. That 10 minute ambulance ride was spendy! I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. ;-)
With regards to heritage, do you have plans or ideas as to how you will handle your son's heritage, and national history?
This is such a wonderful question, and something that T and I think of constantly. It is SO important to us that we honor our son's heritage, and at the same time, we are also trying to bring in my husband's unique heritage, as well as some of my heritage. It starts to get really complicated when we think of all the heritages that will be in the mix! The first step T and I have taken is trying to learn about the birthcountry of our someday son. The more we know, the more we can teach him. I know I haven't come right out and said it on this blog, but I'm pretty sure everyone knows, we are adopting from Ethiopia. We are lucky that the Minneapolis community we live in has a huge East African population. T and I plan to seek out those neighborhoods and restaurants for our son. We are also building a network of other adoptive parents who have or are adopting from Ethiopia. We always want our son to see other people that look like him. We also plan on going back to Ethiopia when Khalil is older. Luckily, it's a short flight from Egypt.When we travel to pick up our son, we plan on buying Ethiopian art and other things to put in our home. We really strive to be a multi-cultural family, and we want Ethiopia to be a big part of who we are as a family. T and I also plan on celebrating Ethiopian holidays along with the American holidays, the Christian Holidays and the Muslim holidays that we already celebrate. More than anything, we want to have dialogue from a very young age. We are going to strive to be open and honest. We always want our son to have so much pride in his homeland. And if anyone has any other ideas, I would love to hear them. I'm always trying to brainstorm ideas on this topic.
My friend starts IVF this month. Do you have any advice on what I should do? Say? What would you have wanted your friends to do?
Thank you so much for asking me this question. IVF was the most stressful experience of my life. That probably sounds crazy to some people, but if you've ever been through it, you'll probably agree with me. It's stressful! What was hardest for me while going through IVF, is I really wanted to be open with the people closest to me about what I was going through. Therefore, my closest friends and family knew the days I had to give myself shots, knew the days where I was going to have my eggs retrieved, and knew the day I was going to get a blood test to tell me if I was pregnant. Well, my IVF experience didn't work out, so a lot of times, I was given bad news. It was very difficult when I would have calls, emails, and texts from family and friends asking the results, when I just wasn't ready to give them. I needed time to mourn on my own. So, as a friend, I would just let your friend know that you are always there for her, and that you will only bring it up if she does. I had some friends who did that with me, and I appreciated it so much. It gave me time to process everything before feeling pressure to articulate it to the people who knew what was going on with me.And my other advice is to simply be a friend. Be empathetic. I had people in my life who thought that I had mourned long enough, and just needed to get over it. Well, we all get over things at a different pace, and some people never ever get over infertility. Just let your friend know you care, and that you are sorry for her hurt and pain. Have compassion, but not pity. Sometimes just having a friend tell me they were sorry for my pain made all the difference in the world.If anyone else has questions they would like answered, I'm always willing to answer them. :)
Do you ever feel nervous about sharing so much on a public blog?
The thought has crossed my mind, of course. But I am picky about what I share here. There are many aspects of my life that I purposely don't discuss on this blog. I share what I'm comfortable with, and I think I share enough that my readers have a good idea of what kind of a person I am. But in the grand scheme of things, I still feel like the majority of my life is not being shared. At this point we aren't ready to adopt, but I don't understand why people think this type of comment/story is supposed to bring one comfort. I know they mean well, but I don't get it. How are you handling the comments you're getting? For the majority of the comments I receive, I try to use it as a learning opportunity for the person that made the comment. I'm sure my co-workers are tired about hearing how rare pregnancy after adoption is, but if I can get that through someone's head, and teach them something new, than it's all worth it to me. Most comments I receive, I truly believe the person means well, and I hope by educating them, maybe they won't make the same hurtful comment to someone else.
Will you blog when your children arrive?
I haven't fully decided yet. I suppose I will for a while. I've always said that I will blog as long as I'm getting something out of it and enjoy it. So far, I still really enjoy blogging, and I get SO much out of it from all of you. So, there is no end in sight to this blog, but I have a feeling with two babies at home, my blogging will become limited. And if there ever comes a day when blogging becomes a chore to me, I'll take that as a sign that blogging has run a course in my life.What does Taher think about your blog?When I first started the blog, he used to comment all the time. . . But I've noticed he hasn't been commenting much lately. Hmm. . . I think I need to get on his case about that. ;-) In all actuality, Taher loves my blog. He sees it as a great creative outlet, and a way to really discuss what's going on in our lives at the moment. Anytime I'm going to write something of a personal nature, I ask his permission because I realize this is OUR story I'm sharing, and not just MINE. I'm a lucky girl. Taher does sometimes get confused when I refer to "my friend who is adopting a baby from Ethiopia" or something along those lines. He'll ask who this friend is because he didn't know I had a friend adopting from Ethiopia. Then I need to explain to him, well. . . this isn't a friend I've ever met, but I met her through blogland, and if we met, we'd be great friends. That always makes him laugh. :-D
Does your agency allow you to adopt while pregnant?
Yes, and I feel so fortunate that they do! The country we are adopting from doesn't have any restrictions on being pregnant while adopting. We knew that going in, but many agencies have restrictions regardless of the country's restrictions. We feel very fortunate that our agency doesn't have those restrictions. So, the adoption can proceed as normal. And as far as I know, the original timing we were quoted won't change due to the pregnancy.
Will any adoption updates be needed due to the adoption?
I just heard from our agency today that we will need to update our homestudy, and send those papers to Custom and Immigration. This won't delay anything thankfully.
Will you still travel to the foreign country?
It is looking unlikely, and I'm very sad about it. :-( Unfortunately with adoption, we don't know when we'll get our referral, and then after that, we don't know when we'll travel. I'm due July 7th, so I wouldn't be able to travel much before that for obvious reasons. Besides the fact that I don't want to deliver a baby on a plane or in the foreign country, I also won't be able to receive the vaccinations needed to travel to that country. And if we are to travel right after my due date, there will be some healing necessary and things like that. Really, the only way I'll be able to travel is if the referral comes a few months after delivery. That way, I could leave the baby with the grandparents or something. We've already made alternate arrangements however, and if I can't travel, my Mom and T's Mom will travel with him to pick up our son. (goosebumps!) Isn't there any way you could stop, or at least delay the adoption? Sure, we could stop right now. If we wanted. Or we could delay it, although we would have paperwork that would expire that we would have to pay for all over again. Here's the thing. We don't want to delay this. This baby boy who we've never met, and who may not even be born yet is part of our family. We love him. . . to pieces. No differently than we love lil monkey in my belly. (yes, we are calling the belly baby lil monkey) I've mentioned this before here, but we've ALWAYS wanted to adopt. Sure, it wasn't our plan to do this all at once, but we were never in control of that plan anyway. Stopping the adoption was never an option for us. It didn't once run through our minds. Not once. Do you want to know just how much I love my husband? When I told him that I was pregnant, one of his first comments (after asking me if this was a sick joke of course) was that we were going to have two little babies. Not once did we think any differently. Not once have we seen adoption as second choice. How close will the babies be in age? We aren't really sure. T and I have been thinking that Monkey will be born sometime this winter. Of course, this is nothing but a guess. But based on the timing the agency quoted to us, we think monkey will be a winter baby. Because of that, we think monkey will be older than lil monkey. And with that being said, we are guessing I'll deliver lil monkey before we have monkey home with us Confused yet? So are we!!! I spent hours on Christmas trying to explain this to people, and the truth is, is that we really just don't know. What we do know is that we'll have two babies, very close in age. So close in age that they'll probably be in the same grade. If I had to venture a guess, I would say these babies will be 4-5 months apart. And yes, I'm overwhelmed with that thought! ;-)
How far along are you, and how long have you known?
I am 13 weeks today. I put a little ticker thingy at the bottom of this blog. I found out I was pregnant in October. To be honest, I'm not sure why I even tested. I guess I tested because I had one laying around. I got up for work, and thought. . . why not. I had been feeling really tired, and my blood sugar felt low if I waited too long to eat, but besides that, I had no symptoms what so ever. Imagine my shock when I saw a positive test! It's been hard for me to not say anything, but the last year has given me a huge vision of reality, and I know all that can go wrong. I know things can still go wrong, but my tummy is getting big, so I figured I had to tell sooner or later.
When did you and Taher first start talking about adoption?
Taher was the first one to bring up adoption to me. We were just married, and no where near ready or wanting to have children yet. But, we were on the topic of children and Taher made a comment that he doesn't know if he ever wants to have a biological child. He said that there are so many children in this world that need families and the world is so overpopulated already. That was interesting, and not a viewpoint I've ever considered. But, over 5 years ago, the seed was planted in terms of adoption.
Why don't you mention the country on this blog?
I've heard from some fairly good sources that the country we are adopting from frowns upon fundraising for adoption. This country thinks that if you're adopting, you should be financially stable. Well, we are financially stable, but that doesn't mean we have $25,000 laying around either. Taher and I would love not to need the help, but we do need help. I feel like most of you already know the country, but if you don't and you're curious, please shoot me an email. I'd love to share the country with you. :-D I'm definitely not trying to be secretive with any of you, just following our agencies recommendations regarding blogs. 3. When do you expect to have have your child? This is something I think about. . . DAILY. I hate to even say, because I may realize how naive I was. But if I had to be honest, I'm hoping for a referral by June/July. And I'm hoping to travel to the country by September to bring our son home. There is always a few months between the referral and actual travel because a lot must happen in the meantime. So, Taher and I are REALLY hoping to have our child home by this time next year. That means, that some woman is already pregnant with the boy who will become our son. That thought gives me goosebumps!
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