Yesterday I shared that we said no to the donor embryo’s. But, I neglected to mention a few things, because I felt it most important to share that we had made a decision. But, like most things, there was even more that we considered and decided/realized in coming to our decision.
First, the other family who is interested in the embryo’s indicated they may be willing to be a gestational carrier for us in the future, if they can try for a child for them first and assuming there are enough embryos left for another attempt for us. Honestly, it felt like a pretty significant offer, and something we had to discuss. But, in the end, we decided this just wasn’t something we were ready to commit to for a few reasons:
- We feel pretty strongly that no-one can predict if they will want to be pregnant for someone else in a few years time. Assuming they get pregnant with one of the embryo’s, who knows what their pregnancy would be like and how they’d feel about carrying for someone else in the future.
- While this offer is pretty impressive, it’s not something we were prepared to agree to without a lot more discussions and knowledge of the possible gestational carrier. We don’t know this other family and I would assume when agreeing to using a gestational carrier we need to discuss things like the individuals mental health, physical health, payment, etc. There is so much more that we’d need to discuss that we aren’t even close to being ready to figure out.
- We still don’t understand the Canadian gestational carrier laws. Seriously, I’m still confused by it all.
- We don’t know if we want a second child, and making any sort of agreement to potentially have a second child just doesn’t feel right to us. Somehow it feels unfair to those little embryos – as if we’d be committing to them, but also knowing in our hearts that we aren’t fully committed.
Second, we did state that if the other family decides not to proceed for any reason, we would be willing to pay for a year of freezing to give us more time to think about growing our family. Basically, we want the other family to have their chance now, while they are ready, no strings attached (at least no strings attached from us). But if, for whatever reason it’s not right for them, then we would be interested in keeping the option open since the cost of another year of freezing is pretty minimal.
Third, and probably most important to Mr. MPB and I, is our realization that we simply may never be ready for a second child. Honestly, if we could have children like “normal” fertile people and weren’t in massive amounts of adoption debt with significant fears around pregnancy, we are both pretty much positive we’d have another one. But, that’s just not our reality, so there is no point in going there. And, Mr. MPB is pretty set in his opinion that Baby MPB is all he needs and wants when it comes to having kids. And, while I’m not quiet there yet, I also realize a lot of the reasons I want a second child (i.e. past dream for two children, sibling friends, more baby love) are not reasons enough to try for a second child, especially because of everything we will have to go through for a second child regardless if we chose embryo adoption or any form of adoption again.
So, I guess, to sum it all up, I think at the moment both Mr. MPB and I are pretty realistic that we may be one and done. But, we are not quite at the point of saying no to the possibility of a second child one day. Instead, at the moment we have simply said no to the possibility of a second child via gestational carrier right now. And maybe one day we’ll re-consider, but we just aren’t ready to make a final decision today.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
It took us months. In many ways this decision has been scary for me because it feels so final. In fact, once we made the decision it took me a full two weeks before I could tell them. I was so afraid it would be the wrong decision I felt paralyzed. Mr. MPB gave me the time and space I needed, and so did our friends.
In the end, Mr. MPB and I have said no to the donor embryo’s.
Ultimately, once another family was interested and ready to proceed with the donor embryo’s we simply couldn’t keep procrastinating. For us, this fact was a game changer. It was no longer just about our future family, it was about another family too. And no matter how we looked at it we simply could not stand in the way of another families possible future.
If we had a ready, willing and affordable gestational carrier, we may have made a different decision. But, the fact is, we don’t have this person in our lives right now. And, we aren’t willing to take on more debt right now to pay someone for a possibility. And, honestly, I don’t think we’d be ready even if we had that person simply because of the risk of going through another loss. We aren’t in a position where we feel comfortable investing ourselves in the pregnancy process and therefore open ourselves up to the possibility of another miscarriage. These scars are still with us, and to open those wounds again isn’t something we are ready to do.
And, since I’m being honest, we honestly do not know if we even want a second child. Part of me is desperate to give Baby MPB a sibling so he has a friend for life, yet rationally I realize having a sibling does not guarantee friendship. I also know I’d love to experience those tiny baby snuggles, the smiles, the first Christmas, the first laugh, etc. all over again. Back in my innocent and naïve days (pre-recurrent pregnancy loss), I always just assumed we’d have 2 kids, and part of me isn’t ready to let go of this dream. But another part of me is truly enjoying life right now and we cannot over look just how fortunate we are to have Baby MPB. When we chose adoption we decided that international open infant adoption was the best path to our future child, and it worked out for us. While we made many calculated decision to get to this decision, in many ways we also threw caution to the wind and jumped into a process we didn’t understand (and truthfully still don’t fully understand) and just hoped that we would end up with a healthy child and a have a positive relationship with our future child’s birth family. In the end, this is exactly what we got, and right now it just feels right and and I’d even dare to say it feels so perfect in so many ways.
And so, all of this means right now, we also cannot predict when/if it ever will be right for us to have another child. And therefore we realize that the donor embryo’s aren’t meant to be our possible future child, but hopefully they will become someone else’s and someone else will have their dreams come true.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
My Perfect Breakdown 