My plea to the unborn.

[caliban18]

How do greet you, my unborn? How do I call to you, craft a plea for you to see the beauty of this world and rejoice and join us? How do I bind your souls to the tiny collection of cells I saw about a week ago? What can I say to make you whole, alive and breathing? How can I find the words that will help you to our family

Comments

[redshira]

I'm sorry to bother you with what may be quite a presumptuous request, but I don't know who else to ask. My husband and I did ICSI last year - the only round we could afford, and we're now in debt to my stepdad - and I miscarried at six weeks. I'm not coping at all with childlessness. I've needed to be a mother all my adult life, spent eight years trying, lost eight babies, and now I am finished, I have no purpose and no hope - I can't work, I live in a different country to all my friends, and everyone here has children so I couldn't break into their circles even if I were healthy enough to have hobbies and a social life. Last night it turned out that my husband (who wasn't at all bothered about fatherhood until he married me, and who had the same operation as you for severe varicoceles) is not averse to the idea of sperm donation (we're both infertile, but if there had been no male factor then the treatment would have been far less invasive and much much cheaper). I am wary. I don't quite know how I feel about the idea of having a

[caliban18]

No bother at all! I am sorry for the pain you have endured. I know how this can tear you apart. I wanted to let you know that I have seen this and I would be happy to discuss this with you. If you would like to take this to email, please do send along a note to bsandler(AT)rogers(DOT)com

If you have access to youtube, I did a video talking about my own reaction to the option of sperm donation here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQWeKTwUvIY

It is not an easy thing to come to terms with, but ultimately, your husbands willingness to accept this option is in his own hands. I am going to post another reply a bit later once I have had a chance to collect my thoughts.

Take care!

[redshira]

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply - we have extremely poor and patchy internet access here in rural Ireland, and it's taken until now for me to be able to watch the video link, and a few more that you posted. I think your responses to infertility and the donor sperm issue are closer to mine than his - he didn't grow up in a family where having children was a big deal, he had never really thought about being a father until he and I got together, and has only really wanted it for a couple of years. He seems absolutely fine with the idea of donor sperm - he would rather be the biological father of our child and he acknowledges my grief that I won't be able to see his features in our child's face, but he genuinely feels that it's the raising of a child that is more important than having a genetic link to it. I can't fathom that way of thinking myself, but I can easily believe it of him.
I really relate to the things you've said - and the way you've said them! Maybe it's a Sandler thing :)

[caliban18]

I think if this isn't that great a concern for him and he is ready to welcome a child into his home, that is a blessing for you both. It means that you can move forward and that is fantastic. In the end, we decided to accept the option because on the day of the egg retrieval during the ivf process, if I wasn't going to be viable, we had to do something or risk wasting the whole process. I think I've made my peace with the decision even though in the end, we didn't have to resort to the option.

[redshira]

I'm glad you managed to make your peace with it, and even more pleased that you didn't need to use donor sperm in the end anyway. I'm very aware of how extremely fortunate I am to have a husband for whom it's not a problem. Now all we need to do is start the long hard slog all over again, of trying to find a clinic who will agree to treat me; my BMI is about 46 and the universal cut-off is a maximum of 30, so I have to spend ages waving the letter of explanation of lipoedema (the main reason for my weight - it makes weight gain inevitable and loss literally impossible) and justifying myself to various doctors and nurses, strangers who know nothing about me yet have the power to decide whether or not I get to try and be a parent.