Of course this was mostly a formality, but nonetheless I was a little bit nervous...
We had to have a psychological evaluation done in order to proceed with the embryo donation/adoption process. It is something that my clinic requires when using third-party reproduction.
I went Thursday with my husband, we met a lovely lady who specializes in these sorts of evaluations. I'm not sure why I was really even nervous... I guess it was just one of those things. I mean there was a chance she could say that we were not ready for this... I mean what if she just didn't like us? Of course in hindsight those worries seem silly. But hindsight is always 2020 isn't?
The meeting started and we began to just share with her a little bit about who we are as a couple and as a family. She asked a lot of very deep and probing questions, especially after learning about all of my consecutive losses. It felt good to be able to answer her with assurance about like girls since all of that .
You see I have done a lot of growing in the last year and a half to two years since we really stopped with treatments. I went through about a year of intense grief where I was extremely better and angry(i'm sure you could see it in every post).. I wasn't thankful for what I had in my life and I was not sure that I would ever feel that way again... It's not because I didn't see the blessings that I had, it was because the grief overshadowed everything so very much.... It was all consuming and so very heavy... Then over the last year and a half , I had a crazy health scare, it's was a result of some of the immune medications that I was taking. There was a period of time where they thought I might've had lymphoma... That really redirected my entire frame of mind. Suddenly everything had so much value... And at the end of the day I didn't care whether we had another baby or not, I was happy to be alive. I was happy with my family and everything around me ...Then about six months after that I begin the journey to really start dealing with at the deep grief and hurt and envy and jealousy... It was not easy to see the ugliness ... But I sucked it up and decided I needed to deal with this.
And then... embryo adoption fell in our lap...(well actually we almost did IVF with donor sperm but I had absolutely no peace about it- I kept going back to embryo adoption)
All that to say, it felt good being able to tell her all the things that I went through in the process that it took to get me where I am today. It took a lot of tears and sitting on my good friends couch pouring out my heart, and listening to some very hard advice. I felt like it was an accomplishment to be able to sit there and fully articulate everything we went through and how I/we got on the other side of it, emotionally.
Then we moved on to some other very difficult questions as to how we would deal with questions from strangers and exactly how are going to deal with telling the child about their origins. You see some people decide that they just don't even want to tell the children that they are not genetically theirs... I couldn't imagine being untruthful... Or hiding the story that is so very precious... Our snowflake babies story is going to be so incredibly special, it would be a tragedy to try and lie about it.
The counselor explained that because we have a blended family already we have already dealt with some of those strange questions that come from others, and The emotional aspect of having children that are already not genetically ours together. Not that it's ever been an emotional strain on us ever... For us genetics just don't matter. She also validated how incredibly healing it would be for me to have a pregnancy go to term in my own body. Which is nice to have somebody else validate those feelings.
At the end of the meeting we asked her if there was anything we should be concerned about or if there was anything she was concerned about in regards to us, decision to adopt embryos and bring one into the world. I'm pleased to say she said "you know I rarely ever say this but I actually have no concerns whatsoever"... We walked away feeling so excited and very very happy! Not Just because we got the stamp of approval, but also because she saw in us all of the things that we bring to the table as parents, even with limited information she could see how incredibly important it was for me to have a pregnancy go to term even if it wasn't genetically mine... She could see how important this is to us... She realized that this wasn't just a means to an end, but something we really feel like we are being called to.
I certainly don't believe God brought any of the last 4 1/2 years on me for A reason , but I do believe he works all things together for the good, and in this instance he led us to embryo adoption/donation... If I hadn't have gone through everything that we did in the last few years, my heart would have never been ready to do something like this...
And at the end of the day this Isn't just us having another child, we are being blessed with an opportunity to give a child a life that it otherwise wouldn't have... A precious precious baby that was chosen by God, Who could be the next Mother Teresa or the next president... I am ever grateful for the donors who decided to put up their much wanted and much love to embryos... Their gift is one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced in my life. And while we don't know whether or not this is going to work, we are walking into this with hope and faith.
I don't think I've ever felt this much peace in my entire life and especially not in the last 4 1/2 to 5 years... It's like I can breeze and I can see clearly. I'm not anxious or worried about the outcome... I'm just so thankful to have the opportunity at all.
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