Dec

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Before our decision to Adopt

Filed Under Before Kids 

You’ll see that I’m kind of vague on dates because I don’t want to remember any more than I have to about what we had to do to become a family. I don’t want to dwell on the failed attempts. The reason for this chapter is to let others know about what we went through and that they are not alone. When you go through what Becky and I went through it’s easy to start feeling alone in the world. Good friends just don’t know what to say, hell Becky and I went through it and we don’t know what to say. I think the best thing a friend can do for you is to just be supportive. If anything a friendship is a great distraction from the rotten luck you may be facing. As for Becky and I, we are both loaners and probably shut more people out than have them pull away. It was more of our defense mechanism. We would satisfy our pain by taking expensive trips or buying things we really didn’t need, but this is going to be a story with a happy ending I promise.

Going through all that Becky and I have on our quest to have a child it’s hard not to have analyzed every aspect of life. Things like Why me? Why them? What’s wrong with us? etc. Then you can get into the broad range of spiritual stuff, which in our case has left us questioning everything. I’m not a very religious person but I suppose I believe in fate; however Becky is religious and has been left feeling like she’s being punished. That’s where I begin to have a problem with religion, but that’s not where I’m trying to go with this journal.

In April 1995 Becky and I were married. Like I had said before in analyzing life or over analyzing life humans choose a spouse for the same reasons as all creatures on earth choose a partner. There are attributes and characteristics that Becky saw in me and that I saw in her that we wanted to pass on to future generations. We were in no hurry to have children; however we did want children some time. We figured we could have a child any time we wanted; hey it works for everyone else right? About two and a half years after we were married we decided to start trying to make a baby. Six months later Becky told me that she was pregnant. All I could think is “I’m going to be someones Dad”. I wasn’t scared I was just shocked thinking about how this was just another step in life and how excited I was. We would talk about things like is this kid going to look like me or Becky, short or tall, boy or girl etc. This was our first child for the both of us and we had no idea what were getting into.

Everything seemed to be going normal until week 6 where Becky was having a problem with spotting so we went to her OB and had an ultra sound. Both the ultra sound Tech and the Dr. could not find the child so the Dr. told Becky to have some blood work and come back next week where they will look again and take more blood. We were devastated. The excitement was over. The baby was gone. A week later we went back and the ultra sound Tech took some ultra sound pictures and showed them to a young Doctor. The young Doctor looked at the pictures and proclaimed that the Baby had naturally aborted and that we didn’t need to do any further blood tests. I wish he had insisted that we do the blood test. If he had we would have known that Becky was still pregnant. This was mid week.

That weekend, we were in Beaufort visiting Becky’s parents and trying to come to terms with our loss. Sunday, Becky and I were getting ready to leave to go back to Columbia when she told me that she wasn’t feeling well. Becky collapsed in the floor while I was in the shower and we had her lay down for a while after that. When she finally got up she was feeling better. I was in a hurry to get her back to Columbia so that she would be near a big hospital not some local coastal hospital just in case there was a problem. We finally got on the road when Becky asked me to stop at the rest area 45 minuets out. When she got back into the truck she told me to take her to a hospital NOW! The closest hospital was Beaufort Memorial 45 minutes back tracking. I was proud of our Explorer; we broke many traffic laws and land speed records getting to the hospital. Now usually when I go to the Emergency Room I end up waiting all day, but not this time. Fortunately the nurse behind the counter was alert and quickly understood that my wife had a serious problem and the paperwork was going to have to wait. Becky had already started turning blue. They rushed Becky back into the exam room where they quickly decided that the pregnancy was ectopic and that the tube had ruptured. I quickly filled out the consent forms and informed my in-laws in the waiting room that their daughter didn’t lose the baby and that she was bleeding internally and that the Dr. would have to operate. As I was escorted to the surgical waiting room I walked by a room where they were doing the ultrasound on Becky and I swear I heard them say that they saw the baby’s heart beat. Becky said as she was coming in and out of consciousness, she heard the same comment. I’m still not quite sure how to react to that bit of news. The next 2 hours while Becky was in surgery were very long and frightening for all of us.

I paced the floor the entire time. We were the only people in a large room. When I called my parents to tell them what was happening I finally broke down. About an hour into the surgery the Doctor told us that everything was going to be all right but that it was close. The Doctor said that if I had taken Becky to Columbia she would have probably not made it. That scared me. The Surgeon told us that they didn’t use any blood in the surgery, however Becky ended up needing 2 units of blood during her 5-day stay in the hospital. When I finally got her home, she was out on sick leave for a month recovering. Had the young Dr. in her ob office caught the fact that this was an ectopic pregnancy, Becky would have had out patient surgery and only need a week for physical recovery.

After about a year and a half Becky regained some of her confidence and we started trying for a child again. Six months later talking to her New OBGYN Doctor we learned that the remaining tube may have scar tissue from the ectopic surgery that may be blocking egg passage. Ok, sounds good, so we had some sort of ultra sound and pressure test performed that proved that the tube was blocked. By applying more pressure the OB Dr was able to open the remaining tube; we even had a video of the event. Modern medicine is amazing, however that didn’t solve the problem. After more time went by and no pregnancy we started to become desperate. The Doctors, Family and Friends would keep telling us to just keep on trying. While trying was the fun part, Becky will tell you that every month was a death. She could hear the clock ticking and felt that her time to have a child was almost up. I tried to keep a positive spin on things for Becky, but remember for me becoming a Father was still just an Idea or dream not yet realized, Becky was living it.

Tic Tock. As more time passed the more desperate we became. Every failed attempt we went through thinking about never having children and what was that going to be like. We looked at the up sides like we would be very financially secure and we would be the coolest Aunt and Uncle to my sister’s children. Then we thought about how if we had our own child we could be the coolest parent full time and reap all the rewards. Bottom line we would conclude that we were both missing something in our life that our 3 cats just couldn’t fill. I asked Becky one day how did she feel about her parents and I got the answer I expected. She told me that she loved her parents. Then I asked her when you get older don’t you want some one to feel that way about you. Game, Set and Match. Deep down I (Pete) always wanted a child. I didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl. Our friends that have children will probably tell you that I pay more attention to their children than I do to our friends.

After months of failed attempts we finally broke and made an appointment with a fertility Dr. in Columbia. During our meeting we were told that Invetro fertilization (IVF) was the way to go for us, but we couldn’t do it in Columbia until January or so (this was June) because the Dr. was moving to a new office. We were then told that if we wanted to do IVF right now our choices were going to Charlotte, NC or New Jersey. The choice was kind of obvious. Tic Tock, Becky was feeling that clock and was in a hurry. I’m not blaming her, I completely understood and I let it be her call. There was no way we were going to New Jersey so it was a 2 hour drive to Charlotte.

You are number 436, life as a number in the Charlotte fertility clinic. Let’s sum what happened in Charlotte like they treated us. Purchase $1000.00 worth of fertility drugs, travel multiple times 2 hours each way for blood work and exams by a doctor looking at an ultra sound hearing him say “hummm, alright, ok, hummm see you in a few days” then he walks out of the room. Then after 3 or 4 weeks of that they call you and tell you that you didn’t produce 10 eggs so they are going to cancel us for this cycle. Being persistent we did that 3 times each time getting angrier. We never saw the Dr. assigned to us during that six months and only talked to him 3 times by phone when we decided to stop going to this clinic. We had an IVF nurse with an attitude (not a pleasant one). Remember we endured all of this in the hopes of a positive outcome. Let’s just say we paid for lots of golf and toys for that fertility practice. If I could I would warn everyone going near that place that you’re a number and bring a lot of money because they need to pay for their million dollar estates in Charlotte. That experience really left a bad taste for us if you can’t tell.

Once again we contemplated life without children; however that idea didn’t last long before we were ready to try the doctor in Columbia. While the experience was much more personal this time we still started feeling like a number again. We just wanted to go to retrieval just once to say we tried and the doctor seemed to understand and agreed. Once again we purchased the drugs. To explain the process I was mixing fluids with a powder and giving Becky multiple shots in her abdomen 2 times a day and placing multiple hormone patches on her abdomen as well. Becky, I can’t put in words just how Great she did, I love her she’s the Best and she went the extra mile every time. Becky was taking the Maximum dose of the meds.

The first go at transfer went well. We had 3 eggs that fertilized and one egg had split into 4 or 8 cells before transfer. The Dr. was very pleased and we were excited. They called that one egg our miracle baby because it looked so good and healthy. The egg took and a few weeks later we were at square one again. We lost the pregnancy. We tried again with the same results. Finally, in our desperation to have a child and Becky’s desire/desperation to carry a child, we purchased donor eggs. We had 2 of these survive fertilization and they implanted one and froze the other. The transfer went great, Becky got pregnant and all was well with the world again. We followed all the rules about Becky being still for so long, not lifting things and even eating healthy. We finally decided we were in the clear and went on a weekend trip. While there, Becky started having these deep emotional concerns about the baby. Now, Becky was able to tell physically each time she conceived. Not sure how that works and I know that not all mothers had this experience. Becky felt that something had gone wrong with the baby because she no longer “felt” pregnant. A mother’s intuition turned out to be right. We got back and when to our next scheduled appointment that following week and the Dr. could not find the heartbeat of the embryo. They tried for what seemed to be an eternity and finally found a faint heartbeat. She sent us home with the knowledge that this could still end up a happy story but to be prepared that the embryo was not developing as it should and may not survive. Well, fate dealt us the expected blow. We went back a few days later and there was no heartbeat. We were told that we’d done nothing wrong that this just happened but those are hollow words when you’re sitting there again having your dreams dashed. We scheduled a D&C for the following week, which ended up being the Friday before Thanksgiving. Talk about some very un-thankful hearts that year!

About 8 months or so later, Becky was finally able to talk about children again and we made an instant decision to follow adoption. We know there are a lot of lucky families out there who have a better outcome with fertility treatments and we are very happy for them. We were just finished with that journey and were moving on to the next. If we had only known the joy that our daughter would bring to us, we’d have skipped the entire infertility fiasco and gone straight to adoption. We started meeting with different agencies and decided on an agency and country at Christmas and submitted our paperwork over the holidays. When the agency got back in after the holidays they processed our application and we were on our way. We were told the average wait for an adoption from China was about 15 months or so. Part of that depended on how long it took to prepare the dossier and then how long it would take China to match us with a child. With that in mind, we set out to have the fastest dossier submittal time in world history, just like every other first time parent adopting! We joined a local FCC group and met some wonderful lifetime friends. We got nervous after hearing about several families having trouble with BCIS (old INS) but kept our hopes high. After our social worker and a few SC representatives and Senators started leaning on BCIS officials in Washington and in the Atlanta office, approvals started flowing out of Atlanta. The roadblock had been busted wide open. Our luck had finally caught up with us and we had our I-171 approval in 2 weeks. We were stunned. Something had finally gone right. We got our dossier to China in 4 months and had our referral 6 months later. I don’t know how China does it but they are experts at matching children with families. Our daughter is perfectly suited to us as well as the daughters are to their families here in the FCC group. A naturally conceived daughter could not be more perfect than our Morgan. It hurts to know the time we lost with her during her first year but we are making up for it now. She is pure joy. She is laid back like we are although now that she’s walking, she’s a force to be reckoned with. She does not want to sit still which is a blessing for us. Now, maybe we’ll get rid of all the weight we both gained during the fertility treatments. Yes, another lovely side effect!

If we knew then what we know now, would we skip fertility treatments? We just don’t dwell on that. We have our beautiful, happy, healthy daughter and life couldn’t get any better. We hope to go back in a few years for a sister for Morgan. We’ve even picked out a name, Isabelle. Adoption may not be for everyone, but for those of us blessed with our little miracles, there’s nothing better.

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