Monday, November 7, 2011

Are You Coming to Adoption from the Infertility Angle?

If so, then maybe this is your question . . .

What do you do if God doesn't put a baby in your tummy?
That was what my four-year old, Rob, wanted to know. I was taken by surprise because he had no idea his daddy and I had been trying to have another baby for two years. I couldn't begin to explain the struggle of infertility to a small child.

My doctor was using everything he learned in med school including a few tricks he picked up in Medieval Torture 101. Pills, shots and scopes,and dye tests. An x-ray revealed that my fallopian tubes were blocked.
"Blocked with what?" I asked.
"Debris."
No wonder I couldn't get pregnant.My tubes were blocked with old tires and beer cans. Surgery fixed my plumbing and then it was on to shots. I needed injectable drugs to jump-start my ovaries. My husband, Chip, gave me the shots at night. To practice he used real drugs, real needles, and an orange. Shoving the needle into the skin of the orange showed him how it would feel to stick me. He pumped the fruit full of powerful fertility drugs. That orange was seedless no longer.

We tried a high dose of the drugs and my ovaries produced four eggs. We envisioned 2 a.m. feedings with four babies and decided not to fertilize the eggs. I was already considering adoption, but when the doctor said we could try again, Chip wanted to make the effort.

"Mama, when are you going to lay another egg?" Rob asked.
"When it's the right time for us to have a baby, " I clucked. I wondered if it was time to discuss adoption with Chip, but I was afraid he would be against it. One night lying in bed I blurted it out.

"If these shots don't work, I'm afraid I'll want to adopt and you won't." In the dark I couldn't see his reaction.
"When did I say I wouldn't consider adoption?" Chip mumbled into his pillow.
"I don't know."
Chip turned over to face me.
"I want to be pretty sure we can't get pregnant first," he said. "But we can do some research on adoption if you want."
"Oh. Well . . . good." I settled back onto my pillow.

We had not reached the end of injections and lab tests. But it couldn't hurt to start gathering information on adopting a child.
It was worth a shot.