OmegaMom

Shoes, ships, ceiling wax, cabbages, kings.  Etc.

Thanks for the nice comments about my mushroom pics!  I like them, and just wanted to share.

One of the comments was from John, at AdopteeNetwork, which is a new social networking site for adoptees, birthparents, and adoptive parents.  Of course, I checked it out before approving the comment, and it looks pretty neat.  John and his brother Peter, both adopted from Korea, have been absorbed by the ins and outs of adoption for many years.  If you check out the forum there and you’re a regular adoption blog reader, you may recognize some of the handles.  Looks like it’s brand new–like maybe two weeks?  Go check it out.

PretZel very sweetly awarded me this:

She likes my moose stories, apparently.  I blush.  Go read Prez’s latest post about dealing with a L.A.Z.Y. Teen, and console her in her travails.  In the meantime, I have to think up 7 blogs to pass the award onto.

Miss Cellania also passed on an award to me, the Arte y Pico award:

She did it so long ago (July 9) that I had to scroll through–holy moly!–nine pages of entries to find that one!  She has fun with her blog, also writes for Neatorama and a few other places, and actually makes a living blogging.  AND she’s raising two kids as a single mom.  I don’t know how she does it.  Anyway, I have to pass on the Arte y Pico award to 5 bloggers.

Any time I think that infertility sort of made me crazy for a while, I encounter a story like this, and realize, “Hey! I wasn’t that crazy!”  The worst of it is that this woman was charged and convicted of the same thing in 1990.  That is some crazy.  Really.

Then, just as lagniappe, I come across this article about the devastation from the pine bark beetle in Colorado.  Not to toot my own horn, but, hey, didn’t I write about this almost two years ago?!  How on earth can it take the mainstream media two years to catch onto something???

I will do the awards-passing-on tomorrow or the next day–this post is a quick round-up and the dotter is about to go to bed.

…poop after an embryo transfer.

Really, truly.

Yes.

Just think of trying to expel a tampon by pooping, ‘kay?  How many times have you done that?  Then think of doing the same thing with something that is teeny tiny and has been (hopefully) placed right near your uterine lining so it can snag in there and settle in and grow.

OmegaMom understands that you are very worried and protective and hoping you’re not going to waste money poured into an expensive and heart-rending procedure by doing a normal, everyday physical action.

But, Virginia, you should not be asking this particular question of Dr. Google.  Perhaps you should be asking this question of your own doctor?  Or his/her staff?

I hasten to add, Virginia, you can rest assured that you are not alone in asking that question.  Because OmegaMom gets hits from Google searches for that question at least once a week.

OmegaMom rolls her eyes and gets back to other things, with promises of a real post later on.

Those of us who have been involved in infertility treatments realize that it’s not a perfect science, but rather an imperfect ART (pun intended).

The docs can eyeball embryos and think they look good, transfer them, and the end result is a big fat negative on the pregnancy test.  They can toss in an “ugly” embryo or two, and voila, a plus sign.  They can transfer two embryos and the end result can be a triplet or quadruplet pregnancy.  They can transfer six embryos to an older potential mom who has tried multiple times, and end up with a singleton, or a negative.

The clients are presented with a multitude of forms to fill out.  What do you want to do with leftover sperm?  Leftover embryos?  How many embryos do you want to transfer?  Hold harmless agreements.  Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis?  And more.

Lots of those forms you fill out are to ensure that the procedure goes the way you want it.  Typically, you’re not supposed to change your mind at the last minute; while it seems simple, there are many people involved, and it’s a good idea to have the details spelled out first.

Which is why I’m not at all sympathetic to the lesbian couple in Australia who had IVF done, had signed a document saying they wanted one to two embryos transferred, and at the last minute, just prior to going under anesthetic for the transfer, said, “Hey!  We want only one embryo!” who are now suing because the end result was…gasp!…twins.

They want $400,000 to cover the expenses of raising the second child, including tuition for private school.  The lady who got preggers suffered from (gasp!) nausea…she needed to use a walking stick to walk in the later months of her pregnancy…she was perturbed because they had to buy a two-kid stroller…their love life was ruined because she has focused so much attention on two kids…

Oy.

I am rolling my eyes here.

Would this couple be suing if one embryo had been transferred and implanted, then split into identical twins?  Would the pregnant lady have been so utterly devasted by that result?

If the couple had wanted only one embryo transferred, they should have specified so from the get-go, in the forms.  A form was signed that said one to two embryos.  They had every opportunity to–at that time–specify the one-embryo transfer.  Why didn’t they?

Bah.

As someone on a board I frequent said, thank heavens the girls who resulted from this IVF aren’t identified, nor are the plaintiffs.  Imagine finding out at 16, googling your own name, that your parents sued for wrongful birth.

This whole thing seems like an attempt to milk some rich reproductive endocrinologist for some extra dollars, frankly.

Dear OmegaMom:  I have a blog and want to increase traffic to my site.  What should I do?  Signed, Sorta Lonely

Dear Sorta Lonely:  The best possible thing you could do is write a post about a very contentious issue related to two bloggers with lots of traffic.  If you’re very lucky, you’ll see your hits turbo-charged, rocketing from 60 per day to more than 200!  You may even gain new readers!  Signed, OmegaMom

Har.

Ahem.  My previous post seems to have lured a bunch of folks over, and gotten a certain amount of approval from some people.  (OmegaMom waves “Hi!” to all the visitors.)

There were a lot of things left out from the prior post.

For instance, I have firmly come down on the side of “homestudies are really, really good, and if I were Queen Of The World, every single person who had a chance to get pregnant or impregnate someone would have to go through a homestudy.”  (Let’s just set aside the fact that I’m not Queen of The World–what a shame!, and the incredible violation of civil liberties that I am contemplating there.)

For another:  I firmly believe that when someone gives you custody of a child–whether directly by a birthmother, or via an agency or orphanage–you’ve been given a precious trust.  Anyone who is in charge of deciding these things needs to examine the people who come along wanting to adopt, to be sure that they’re not really seeing it as a substitute for a “real” baby.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  If I were forced to relinquish my darlin’ dotter, you can be damned sure I’d want whoever was in line to adopt her had been examined with a bloody microscope.

The adoption process is not meant as a torture chamber.  It’s not aimed at making people feel unworthy from the very start.  It’s a simple attempt to try to ensure that the people who do adopt are, in general, Nice People.  It’s not about the potential adoptive parents, see–it’s about ensuring a relatively good home life for any child who is going to be adopted.

Thirdly:  There are people who adopt who just plain shouldn’t.  The process isn’t perfect.  There are overworked or just incompetent social workers.  There are harried, desperate birthmothers.  There are really sickening people who deliberately hide the facts and make up a nice looking facade so they can adopt a child to do…things…to him or her (read up on the case of Masha Allen).

In a perfect world, everyone who wanted a child could have one biologically, and everyone who had a child would be in a position to raise him/her and want to raise him/her.  But it’s not a perfect world, and there are children who need homes. 

Singing Bird posted an interesting comment to my last post; she suggested we turn the process on its head, think of someone who couldn’t adopt “having to settle” for IVF.  How odd many people would think that!  I think she means it as an intellectual exercise for people who consider adoption “settling”…

At one time, I did consider adoption “settling”.  But I moved on, and learned, and became committed to the idea, and met my lovely dotter who is our pride and joy.  Having never had a biological child, I can’t objectively rebut the “you can’t love an adopted child as much as a biological child” idea.  But I love her with all my heart, would run in front of a speeding car to knock her out of the way, and have lovingly dealt with puke and poop and pee and snot and other ew-icky bodily fluids without batting an eyelash.  Subjectively, the idea of loving a child any more than this is kind of scary, because my heart is already full to bursting as it is.

So.  Anyway.  Go congratulate Singing Bird on getting her Travel Approval, and welcome Johnny and family back home.

Technorati: Adoption, adoption issues, infertility

If OmegaDad and I had actually been able to start a second adoption from China, we would probably have been DTC in, oh, February 2006 or March 2006. That was shortly after the referral train slammed on the brakes, and the wait to referral was suddenly stretching from a breezy 7 months to, at that time, 12 months.

No one could ever have imagined a time when it looked like it was going to take three years from LID (log-in date) to referral. But right now, with the latest batch of referrals covering a grand total of two days, people who were LID in February or March of 2006 are now looking at a referral in February or March of 2008, and people logged in since then are looking at waits stretching out even longer.

Of course, the nature of international adoption being what it is, that could change in an instant.

I am not here to tell those folks who were hoping to get a referral this time, only to be told “Nope, sorry,” anything about how the wait vanishes once you have your referral in hand.

I’m not going to talk about “In His own sweet time,” or “This was meant to be,” or “This just means your destined child isn’t ready for you yet,” or “Maybe this is God’s way of telling you to do x, y, or z instead.”

Because I know just how horribly infuriating all of those are.

I especially know how frustrating and infuriating it is to be venting about it and have well-meaning friends say this kind of thing in response. They mean well, but it’s dismissive and condescending.

The right response is: “I’m sorry. The wait sucks. I’m sorry it’s taking so long. You must be feeling so upset and frustrated and worried right now. I’m here to listen.”

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On to other adoption stuff…You may think that sentiments like “you never know what you’re going to get when you adopt,” or “Often, these kids are physically ill or weak, or mentally unwell,” or “Even if a kid is perfectly normal, somehow adopted kids tend to just not turn out ‘right.’” are all things of the past.

Aren’t we beyond that? Doesn’t everyone have experience with at least a few adopted kids who grow up to be happy, successful adults who just happen to have been adopted? And doesn’t everyone have at least the sense to realize that making sweeping generalizations about any group of people is pretty silly, because it doesn’t take long to find just one exception…at which point, the sweeping generalization is rendered moot?

Ah, well. I am here to tell all of my readers that there are people who will string all three of those sentences together, plus a few more, and then defend it when called. And add on the ever-lovely, “You can’t love an adopted child like a biological child”! (For those who think I’m pretty blase about whatsername, Alice Walker’s daughter, saying just about the same thing, I have to say that she was careful to make it “I couldn’t love an adopted child like a biological child.” The one is an admission of a deficiency within oneself. The other is, as I said, a sweeping generalization about the entire human race.)

Be prepared!

(And, no, I’m not going to link to it. I’ve already said my say there, and I just want to vent here.)

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Okay, a quick clarification: I am not talking about Julie’s post. I am talking about a post at ParentDish, and actually, it’s not the post I’m talking about, but the very first comment responding to the post.About Julie’s post. Hmm. While I don’t like the “settling” comment (really!), I have to ask: Am I alone in having started off very ambivalent about adoption? I’m so very glad that the local adoption agency made us wait until we had been married three years, because (a) it moved us in the direction of adopting from China (because the Chinese didn’t care how long we had been married), and (b) that extra year between that sentence from the local agency and the official start of our adoption process was needed by *ME*, so I could take the time to grieve my dream-baby, take a year off from testing and tryouts and shooting up meds, and shift my dreams in another direction, towards my darling dotter.

I do think Julie needs to wait, to process some of those feelings. Finish off the IVFs, close off that process, say, “That’s done. Time to heal. Time to do other stuff for a while.” Other stuff being…just live life. Enjoy her son. Then, at the end of that time, then is the time to examine adoption again.

Something for people to remember: “Second choice” doesn’t mean “second best”. Our dotter was our “second choice”. She is in no way “second best”.

Technorati: Adoption, The Wait, prejudice

“While we love Baby Jessica as our own, we are reminded of this terrible mistake each and every time we look at her.”

A couple is suing a fertility clinic for using the wrong sperm in their successful IVF treatment.

The “terrible mistake” is obvious because the child is…well…”darker” than her parents.

I can understand being upset at getting the “wrong sperm”.  Usually, when you’re deep in the throes of IF treatment, you’re stuck on that unique-and-beautiful-mix of you and your spouse.

But…dayum…”terrible mistake”?

They look at their daughter and think “terrible mistake”?

Or, more likely, they let their lawyer put those words down on paper to make it a better case, rather than actually thinking it each time they look at her.  I hope.

Let’s hope they win enough money to pay for Jessica’s therapy when she’s an angst-filled teen who knows that everyone in the world knows that her parents thought she was the result of a “terrible mistake”.

Maybe fertility clinics should just start putting a “you git what you git and you don’t throw a fit” clause into their service contracts…

Technorati: IVF