Fourteen years ago I was pregnant and started having a sharp pain in my right side, then came the spotting. The Dr. I worked for told me to have my husband pick me up and take me to the emergency room were they examined me. They saw no fetus in the uterus and sent me home. The next morning the doctor who was covering for my regular ob-gyn called and said that something wasn’t sitting right with him and that I should go straight to the hospital for a real ultra-sound – Now. I knew when the ultra sound tech got all grim-faced and left the room it was not good. She came back seconds later with the radiologist and I was wheeled back down to the E.R. to await my emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy.
That doctor saved my life. He said however that he could not save my tube, I had massive ammounts of abdominal scaring and that his attempts to pass dye through the other one were unsuccessful. (A result of my post abandonment “looking for love in all the wrong places”) In his opinion I would never get pregnant naturally again, and he referred me to an IVF clinic.
That next January, when our insurance added fertility treatments were added to our insurance plan it seemed like it was meant to be, so we made an appointment and started the process.
Now this may be the time where I say that I was feeling very guilty and selfish about going that far to have a baby that was mine when there are so many children who need families in the world…my mom was adopted, I spent years in foster care. I know first hand about the need out there. I must say that IVF was free made me willing to try.
We harvested a whopping 23 eggs, 3 were put back and when they did the blood test weeks later I was not pregnant. I was given instructions to call the clinic on the first day of my next cycle.
About 6 weeks later the nurse from the IVF clinic calls and says “You forgot to call us on the first day of your cycle.”
I was like all “um, no I didn’t. I haven’t started yet; I assumed that the infertility drugs got me off schedule.” (Seeing that I had just eaten an entire chocolate cake for breakfast, I should have known something else was up.)
“You need to come in right now for an ultra-sound.”
I grabbed my purse and drove over to the hospital just knowing that I was about to be told I have another ectopic pregnancy and I would be heading in to surgery in a couple of hours. Much to all of our surprise the ultra sound revealed a teeny-tiny heart beat located right where it should be.
My one in a million baby Mad was born 35 weeks later.
…And were done, one miracle baby was enough for us. We were blessed and lucky and that was enough.
What would you do?
What did I do?
November is Adoption Awareness Month; family preservation should always be the first goal in any family intervention.
For more on the subject of adoption and family preservation, please check out my fellow bloggers, listed under foster care and adoption.
* This post is a part of my National Adoption Awareness Month, a post every day in November campaign, to remind perspective adoptive parents that there are 140,000 kids for whom family preservation is not an option, who through no fault of their own are currently available for adoption in the U. S. foster care system, right here in our own back yard. If you are considering adoption please consider adopting a foster child or becoming a foster parent. It could change a child’s life.
