Dreams in Infancy

Adios, Colombia

2011-05-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

This will be my last post on this leg of our journey - I head back to Minnesota tomorrow, leaving my wife and baby behind.

We had a great day. More pictures that Angie will upload. We toured the Monserrate, a church on a peak overlooking Bogota. It was a great view, once the clouds parted. Bogota is huge.

Afterwards, we had plans on visiting the Gold Museum, and our taxi driver, Luis Alberto brought us there. Unfortunately, it was closed. Instead, we visited La Candelara (?), the old part of the city, that is being restored. Lots of lovely old buildings and churches. Luis Alberto was a great tour guide; he spoke in simple spanish, and threw in a lot of the english he knew so even I could understand what was going on.

We came back and grabbed some food with the other family staying here while Francisco slept in our room - he's been asleep for several hours, but that surely will end soon!

Good night all, thanks for reading.

Here's a little story

2011-05-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

Last night, Angie and I met up with one of my very good friends from high school, Sally. She's been living in the Bogota area for about 2 years. She met and fell in love with a really sweet Bogotano named with Camilo. We went out with them and their friends for a few drinks and a burger, and stayed out way later than parents should. We had a blast. Sally always seems to find the sweetest people wherever she lives. She also found people proficient with English, so Ang and I had no concerns with communication.

When we got home, Francisco pitched a fit. I found out later that he was the perfect angel while we were gone, but got really angry at us for leaving him. He let us know most of the night that we need to be by his side 24/7. In combination with some roadwork being done on our block in the middle of the night, we have had very little sleep again, which is becoming very familiar.

Today Angie, the other family staying here, and I traveled with one of our respected cabbies, Jorge Rico, to a coffee plantation in a town called Fusagusaga. I think. He gave us an incredible tour of the process of making coffee, and some botany lessons of a few of the local species of orchids, bromeliads, and other assorted plants. It was really a neat experience - he knows his stuff. I'll post some pictures later.

We stopped a long the way at a lunch counter and sampled some local soul-food. It was amazing and cheap - the nice thing about traveling with Jorge-you get a tour guide who wants to show you actual parts of Colombia.

One thing he focused on was some of the ecological troubles facing Colombia. There have been several initiatives put forward, like planting trees and adding sewer treatment plants, but they have a long way to go. His main pet peeve was the ecalyptus tree; apparently, years ago it had escaped from gardens, and has been choking out a lot of old rainforests. He should us the difference between native forests and new ecalyptus forests. It's quite sad to see their native habitat disappearing.

I know a lot of people call this tree-hugging, but I'm of the opinion that God made this Earth a certain way, and gave us dominion. Our choice as His children is to decide what kind of ruler we will be to His gift to us. Do we act like dicators, or as loving as He has been to us?

Our first photos of Francisco, for comparison

2011-05-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

Update

2011-05-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to let everyone know how things are going here in Bogota. We continue to explore our host city so we have some stories to share with Francisco when he gets older. The other family from Minnesota invited the folks from Betty's Place to go to a park a few blocks from the shopping mall on Tuesday. The park was pretty amazing - it apparently had once been a polo arena, but had since been repurposed. It was large enough for two soccer fields. There were also some playground structures put up for all the kids to play on. I ended up playing 500 with a few of the boys - felt good to toss around a pig skin.

We were supposed to go see our lawyer and the Defensor of Francisco on Tuesday, but the meeting was cancelled and rescheduled to Thursday. This was a bit of a bummer, since we couldn't get rolling on the court system until this meeting happened.

On Wednesday, Angie and I decided to go out for a little celebratory dinner. Our wonderful caregiver, Marie Elena, took care of Francisco for the evening. We went to a restaurant called Carbon de Palo, which had some wonderful food at reasonable prices. Angie had a shish kebab type dinner made of different sausages. I had a mixed plate of ribs, a steak, and chicken. We had some empanadas and platanos for appetizers. With drinks, it ended up only being about $55 or so.

We stopped by a gift store called Maku on the way there - it had some local trinkets to purchase. We've wanted to get items to pass on to Francisco in the future - little things to help him stay connected to Colombia. This store had just about everything. When we got home, a taxi driver visited us as well and sold us some beaded wrist bracelets his brother had made - they are neat little things with both the Colombian and American flags.

We finally had our meeting with the lawyer on yesterday. It was a short meeting, asking us a few questions about how things were going getting to know Francisco and our feelings about him. To this question, both Angie and I wanted to say that we love him. Unfortunately, we both ended up telling the Defensor that we love him. We all had a good laugh.

We've set up a tour of a coffee plantation for Saturday - more details and pictures to come!

Video-a-go-go

2011-05-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

First meeting video:

Hangin' with Mom

Momma kisses:

Holding a bottle

I'm checkin' in

2011-05-23T09:09:00.000-07:00

Another semi-sleepless night. I'm glad, though, that Francisco is getting more and more comfortable with us. Angie and he went down around 8pm and he woke up around 10pm for a bottle. It was really a 'bloody murder'-type scream. I could still hear him in the kitchen while making his bottle. As soon as he had about 4 or 5 ounces, he fell back asleep. He got restless around 2 am, so off to the kitchen I went. After he had his bottle, neither he or I could go back to sleep, so we just kind of stared at each other. He didn't fuss; just rolled back and forth, looking for the comfortable spot on the bed. Just like me. I hope he doesn't get 'blessed' with my insomnia.

He got tired right before breakfast, and went back to sleep - still sleeping now, going on hour number 3.

We've been laughing that we are in a really neat city with a lot of wonderful tourist attractions, but we might as well be in Minnesota. We get out a little bit here and there, but we mostly have been taking the time getting to know the wee one. He's pretty fun. The other night, he held his bottle as he sucked on the last little bit of formula. So neat to see him try to take charge in his feeding. The same night, as Angie was rocking him to sleep, he decided to show some affection back to mom by sucking on her face. It's really cute to give him kisses, because he hasn't quite grasped the concept. He opens his mouth, and out comes a three-foot long tongue. You have to be careful, or he'll get ya!

Yesterday we went to a baby-shop in the area. We had heard about it from the other family that lives at Betty's Place. It was really neat to be in a baby store with a baby, but I was a little disappointed that it seemed very commercialized - not a lot of local stuff, just things you could get at Babies R Us and Toys R Us.

I hope we have more to report later on!

This Colombian Life

2011-05-20T13:08:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a quiet couple of days in Lago Woebegon. Not a lot to report. We continue to have a lot of fun getting to know our Colombian angel. We bid adios to the family that had been living in Betty's Place with us - they flew back to Virginia this morning. It's funny how quickly people can become such an integral part of your life. However, we have been getting to know a new family from Texas. They moved in a few days ago, and are in the process of adopting a 16 year-old. She is really special, and loves Francisco. Francisco seems to be taking a shining to her as well.

It's really neat to get to know people from all over the world and hear their adoption stories. The key theme running through every story is this: not only are we adopting Francisco, but we are adopting Colombia as well. Colombia will always be our son's first home, and consequently our home as well. Even though we are late to the game, we are Colombian.

There's a little something I've wanted to get off of my chest, and it's taken me a few months to figure out how. Not really sure if I still do, but here it goes: I don't want people to feel like we are doing Francisco a favor.

A year or so ago, a co-worker mentioned how wonderful it is that we are choosing to adopt, giving a home to an orphan. This same theme has been repeated by many people. It's a great sentiment, and I appreciate the words. But it is definitely not why we are adopting.

We heard this theme from adoption professionals prior to pursuing adoption as the means to form our family. We were cautioned to take it too seriously. A child who hears what a great thing it was that their parents adopted them feels like they always have something to owe to their parents. They feel like the can never repay them, and can never live up to their adoption. They may feel that if they aren't perfect, their parents may send them back to their birth country, away from those they love. Or they may resent their parents for acting like saviors by taking them away from their original home.

Francisco could have been adopted by anyone. He's a healthy, fun little guy, and would have been a wonderful addition to any home. We are the lucky ones. We are the ones who've been blessed by his presence in our lives.

Additionally, Colombia isn't that bad. It has its problems with crime and government, but what country doesn't? The people here are wonderful. Very loving and caring.

We aren't taking him out of Colombia when we leave. Rather, we are bringing part of Colombia to the US. We will raise and provide for his security when he is young, but he - like any other child - is not our property. He will get to decide when he is older how he wants to be involved with both his birth country and his adoptive country. Indeed, he will continue to have citizenship in Colombia. Our job will be to give him enough access to both cultures so he can find his place in this world. It won't be an easy job for him, but we will be there helping hold his hand if he stumbles along the way.

So if you tell me it is a wonderful that I've done for him, I may not correct you. I will thank you, and tell you we believe he has done more for us than we for him. He helped complete our family. But know that adoption is not a one-time event; this will be a defining moment in Francisco's life, and every situation that he faces will be seen through the adoption lens. Like I said, it won't be easy for him to discover who he is, but we hope to offer him enough opportunity to do so, through books, food, culture camps, and eventually, return trips to Colombia.

This blogpost brought to you by Google

2011-05-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

As I write to you on the blogging website sponsored by Google, I have to say, I am really glad that Google brings many great Google products into our home, both in Minnesota and abroad!

A few days ago, we spoke over the internets to a couple from Minnesota who are also staying in Bogota. They are in the process of adopting a beautiful 3 year-old girl with special needs. When the Gerri, the mother, called us, she gave us a Google-phone number. Both of us were confused as to what a 'Google-phone number' was, but I remembered I'd seen a 'call telephone' feature on Gmail (brought to you by Google) as a chat option, so I tried it out. I was surprised how great the reception was, and that it was free. So, I immediately started dialing random US phone numbers to share the news of the day. What a blessing.

Today, I needed to share some news with the caretakers at Betty's Place that the couple from Minnesota would be coming for dinner, so a few extra spots would be needed at the table. It turns out that 'a few' was a gross exaggeration, but that's besides the point! Anyway, I pulled up Google Translate, typed out what I needed to explain and a few answers, and they understood exactly. Google Translate came in handy a few minutes ago as well when the mirror fell off the wall in our bathroom and I had to explain to Maria Elena that I needed a screwdriver. Seriously, who has the Spanish word for screwdriver handy in their mind?

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog. Today was a good day, despite having little sleep leading into it. Francisco was only interested in being held upright all night long, so we ended up taking shifts with him. Again, we are a team in parenting. We're a little clunky at it, but the rules are starting to set in. We rested most of the morning with Francisco, until his smiles started showing up again in the afternoon. We took a walk around the town for a bit, enjoying the cool weather and the warm sun. It was a great day.

As I had mentioned, we had invited the couple from Minnesota to come eat with us. What we didn't realize is that their whole family was here as well! They have three other children in addition to their recent addition, so the house was full of children! We've also had another family move into Betty's Place, so our quiet seven person meals had more than doubled in size for the night. What a great evening. We have made some great contacts for Angie to rely on when I leave at the end of May, which really is starting to set my mind at ease.

P.S. Google. Google Google Google.

Day 2

2011-05-17T21:39:00.000-07:00

Day two was not without it's ups and downs! The day started with me frantically trying to find the satchel I keep our passports in. I noticed right away that it wasn't in my pants-pocket where I was sure I'd left it. After tearing apart our room and cursing myself, I let Angie in on the disaster. In about 5 minutes she had found the secret hiding place I had stashed it so I wouldn't lose it. Which I did. Just a reminder to myself that we are a team, and together we are raising this child.

We had our first outing! The other family at Betty's Place invited us to a restaurant at the shopping center in town. We had a lot of fun, but it was the first really sunny day in Bogota, and we had prepared the kiddo for a cold day. Over prepared. We needed to strip him down of a few layers when we got to the restaurant. But Francisco was a trooper and didn't complain in the least.

Until later. He got a bit clingy and has cried off and on, wanting to be held most of the day. We are more than willing to oblige. He had been on the verge of a breakdown when dad did the mean thing and tried to put some clothes on him. Nuclear winter!

The worst was our first attempt at a bath, which he was not in the mood for. He fought a lot during the 5 min we were in there, and ended up leaning forward and bopping his head on the side of the basin. It took about a half an hour for him to calm down.

We're now tag-teaming him to get him to go down. He'll fall asleep in our arms, but has no desire to lie down on the bed or the carrier. I'm not sure if he's testing us, or worried about losing us, or if it's just something else. But we're not leaving his side.

P.S. I apologize for any spelling errors. I somehow got the spanish version of blogger, and am too tired to figure it out!

Reflections on day 1

2011-05-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

They say it takes a few weeks for parenthood to set in during adoption, but I don't buy it a second. At least not in our case. We are warned that often parents find that only after weeks of parenting do they feel that 'this is their child.' It's very common during the attachment process for both sides to not feel completely attached for quite some time. But I see Francisco's smile of recognition when I walk into the room. He knows us both. He is comfortable. He squeals in delight when we tickle his sides or eat his toes. Seriously, he tried for 10 minutes to show me his foot under his sock so I could kiss his digits.

Each of these moments between poppa and momma and baby make the transition to family easier. They help seal the bond. He is a willing contributor to the process. He knows what we are trying to do, and helps out.

Te amo, mi hijo.

Gotcha!

2011-05-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

After months of waiting, the big day is finally here! We got up early in the morning, put on our Sunday-Best and headed down to breakfast. Marelena, one of the many caretakers here got breakfast ready for us. We were joined by our new friends from Virginia; John and Nancy, and their kids, Louis and Viktor.

Luz Clara, our representative here met us for breakfast to take us over to Los Pisingos. She is amazing. She had to tell us about a hundred times that whatever we want, she will meet that need. She cares about all the kids and the families of Los Pisingos. She is knowledgable about the whole process, and has only been in her job since January!

We met Carlos, the director of Los Pisingos and one of his assistants. They told us through a little bit about Los Pisingos, while someone got Francisco ready. And then we got to meet him.

He greeted us with huge smiles. He is such a happy baby. So much love already.

We hung out with him for a while until the doctor arrived. She wanted to give us an update and some historical information on his medical file. Everyone was really concerned about some mosquito bites - they don't realize he's headed to the mosquito capital of the world!

We fed him in front of the caregivers - he gobbled down most of his bottle in a few seconds. Then we were off!

Luz Clara and Reinel brought us back to Betty's Place with our guy. Luz Clara took me to the market to buy a few things, and then we were back to feed Francisco. His morning meal - papayas! Seriously, I was a bit jealous.

The first feeding was messy! I held him and became a wash cloth.

We played a bit after food, and then he was down for the count. That's all for now.

Bogota, day one

2011-05-15T12:33:00.000-07:00

We arrived at our guesthouse late on Saturday evening after a day full of travel. Our taxi driver was Reinel, a very smiley and patient man. Angie and I fumbled through a conversation with him, and he seemed to get most of it.

We met a nice couple at our guesthouse from Virginia. They had adopted four children eleven years ago. Since Betty, the owner of the hotel was not there, we were able to ask a few questions about the layout of the town and how to use the wi-fi before we crashed for the night.

This morning, we slowly made our way downstairs, not entirely rested. It is difficult to make up for weeks of not sleeping well in one fell swoop. The couple and two of their sons greet us and we joined them for breakfast. We had a wonderful meal of pineapple, bread, cheese, eggs and coffee. I am now spoiled - I don't know if I'll be able to eat store-bought pineapple ever again.

After breakfast, Angie and I went for a short walk. There seemed to be some sort of festival going on - some of the streets had been shut down, and thousands of people were riding bikes in them, or running/walking with their dogs. The air is fresh and cool. We are so close to the equator, but the temperature is comfortable. You can definitely tell we are at a higher elevation - we both started to get light-headed after about a half an hour.

We stopped at the super-market on the way home to pick up a few essentials, and then headed back home. As Angie drifted off to sleep, Luz Clara, our contact in Colombia stopped by to explain how tomorrow will work and to say, 'hello.'

Tomorrow, meaning the day we meet our son. It's been a long time since we first heard of him - 2/23/11. And it seems even longer still since we accepted the referral -4/1/11. But the long wait is coming to an end - Gotcha Day - 5/16/11

Adoption

2011-04-05T17:09:00.000-07:00

Life is so amazing. It throws you many hoops, but when you choose to you remain undefeated...and can do anything. Charlie and I are becoming parents. A little boy awaits us in Colombia as many of you know. He is so beautiful and I already love him...

Repeating life all-over-again.

2010-11-16T07:33:00.000-08:00

Hear we go again.

Hard to believe, but it has almost been a year since our home study. Our social worker contacted us a few weeks ago to set up another home visit. A lot has changed in our home since that time, and we haven't cleaned up much from it, so we will be spending nights and weekends rearranging furniture and painting and cleaning to get ready for her to come out to Chateau Lafond early in December.

I really feel like I've been living in a trance. Time has flown by very quickly.

Since our social worker came out last time, the biggest shift in our home has been our room. We had been in a smaller room, and our plan was our child would live in our master bedroom. At some point, the dogs revolted against this plan. We had had them sleeping in a bedroom on the main floor of our home, with us living on the second floor. Beginning a month after they moved down there, they started waking me up in the middle of the night to go our, and wouldn't be sated until they were allowed into our bedroom to sleep the rest of the night.

Our small room, already packed with 2 humans and a lot furniture, was bursting at the seams.

So, we made plans to remodel the master room so we could fit everything and 2 dogs. After a lot of paint, sanding floors, and staining, our oasis has been completed. We really like how it turned out. And a big plus is that our room faces east, and we get a lot of morning sun.

The major draw back is that I injured my back with the sander, and it has bugged me off and on since then. Not fun.

2010-08-03T20:09:00.000-07:00

I've deliberately resisted posting anything for the past few months because I knew it would be mostly full of complaining. After the high of completing our homestudy came the joy of completing paperwork. Now, don't get me wrong, I like doing paperwork - when I'm in control. But a lot of what we needed to do involved sending a document into one government agency, and getting it back from another. The worst was the FBI - they required 13 weeks to complete our fingerprinting. From what I understand, the FBI is pretty busy - I know from watching the crime drama, Bones - but still. One quarter of the year? To find out we're squeeky clean? It was really maddening to wait.

The good news is, as of Friday the 30th of July, our Dossier was on it's way to Colombia. Good luck, little paperwork. Now we wait for a child to be identified. Timeline - 3 to 24 months.

Fly-by-night Weekend!

2010-03-01T20:43:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting ever-so-not-patiently for the next step in the process to begin. Ever since we got the call from our primary social worker that the game was about to change, I feel like I've been at the starting blocks, waiting to take off racing, but no one can seem to find ammunition for the starting pistol.

Notice that I said 'primary social worker.' I got a call from another nice lady at Children's who is also our social worker. From what I gather, she oversees yet another social worker who will help us prepare our dossier for Colombia. So much for corporate structure! Or, we have confounded Children's so much that they require three social workers to keep up with us.

I have no idea who's who at this point. Just give us a map, folks, and we'll get at it.

She did give a bit of hope about the various processes - social worker #2, that is. We will be handed our child almost immediately when we get to Bogota. Then, 1 week later, we will meet with a social worker from the orphanage who will evaluate the bonding process. She said it generally takes the courts a week to review our file and confirm we are okay to adopt. However, she confirmed we will be there for 6 weeks, so I don't have my mind completely wrapped around the process.

So, we busy ourselves. This weekend was no exception. Friday started out with a dinner party with some very good friends. Sarah, the best man at my wedding, had suggested a good way to force ourselves to all get together would be to do some common good. We have formed a group under the organization Kiva, which provides small business loans in poor and underdeveloped nations. We will all pitch in a few bucks so that a baker in Afghanistan or a tailor in Uganda can start their business. They will pay back their loan, and we will reinvest in another person's business. I have heard the idea before, but kudos go out to Sarah for getting us to action.

So, there was good works, but there was also food, wine and beer: The breakfast of Chumpions. A fun time was had by all. The only problem - Joe ate all my tapioca! Kidding. I'm glad the dessert I brought was well received!

Saturday started out a bit more laid-back. I caught up on some laundry. Angie did some cleaning around the house. Our front windows tend to take a beating, because our beautiful cattle-dog tends to snarf on them as he stares longingly outside, looking to run free.

I had a piece up at the mosaic shop that I was looking to finish. I popped up there around 2pm, and made the rounds to look at other peoples work. It's part of the unwritten code of the studio that you must compliment everyone before you start working - plus, it's a good way to get a few ideas for new projects.

My project was another colored-glass type piece. My only disappointment with my last piece is that it looks a little dark. I wanted the next piece to be back-lit. My idea was to put the piece on a shadow box and wire a light behind it. So, I grouted the piece at the studio, and brought it back to my garage workshop. I had an old table leaf that I had saved from the scrap-heap that I chopped up to make the box. The light wired in easily - I had picked up a 'Make your own lamp' kit from Menards. A couple of screws one quick Snap, and it was all together. Check out the finished product below:

The photo doesn't really do it justice - thank you, cell phone camera. But I am really happy with how it turned out. I think I will try to do another soon.

Sunday was a day that I was first worried about, but it turned out very well. We've never had a real dinner party over at our house - so I got a bit nervous. But I've always wanted to show off a few dishes I had up my sleeves, so I warmed up to the idea. I whipped out a basil-marinara sauce I'd played around with over the summer, and let it simmer for a few hours. I had been experimenting with a stuffing for chicken - onions and celery, with apple for a bit of sweetness, and cranberries for a bit of tartness, with some sage thrown in for good measure. A LOT of sage. At the last minute, I decided the only thing it was lacking was walnuts.

The last dish is the eye-popper - celery-root casserole. What is celery root? This:

Ugly. And tasty, when shredded and boiled in whipping cream, and baked with lots 'o parmesian cheese!

Suprisingly, all the dishes were finished at the same time, a few minutes after everyone arrived. My favorite comment was from my father-in-law: 'That was some stuffing. Really nouveau."

Worn out!

2010-02-22T20:22:00.000-08:00

Wow, with all the blogging we're doing lately, I'm getting worn out! Heh!

meh.

I really am going to try to do this more, if anything, just to keep a good record on where we've been and where we are going.

Recap: In the beginning of January, we were confident we were headed to Ethiopia to round up our future kiddo. It seemed like a go. We bunkered down expecting a 2 year wait, which would give us some time to wrap up some last-minute projects. Wow, that seems like a lifetime ago now.

As I've alluded to before, while we we're meeting with our social worker, she mentioned the possibility of Colombia for a quicker solution to adopt. She mentioned that the wait could be anywhere from 4 months to 24 months. So, it would either be quicker or just as long. Seemed like a good angle, and we asked her to pursue it for us. The only catch would be we would need to be open to African-Colombian children - which, seriously, why would we be against that? But, apparently people are. The other side catch is that we have started to form a group of friends who are pursuing Ethiopia. So, our support group of adoptive families has shrunk to null. C’est la vie. She shipped us via the internets a packet o’ paperwork and we started getting truckin’ on it.

This past Friday, I got a call at work from our social worker. She's really neat, and was full of energy for making a 'Let's change the game again!!' call right against the weekend. She had news that another orphanage in Colombia was begging Children’s for adoptive families, and she wondered if we would consider the option. The orphanage is known for placing younger children, so it is likely that we could get an infant quickly. The catches? It would cost about $2500 more. Seriously, after all we paid so far, not a big deal. We would also be guaranteed a six-week stay inside Colombia waiting for the adoption to be finalized. Which we expected anyway. Oh, and catch number 3? Stop all paperwork, ‘cause we’re sending you a different packet to start filling out.

So that’s where we’re at. I sent a confirmation email to our social worker, which she forwarded on as: "Meyerson/Peterson-Meyerson is a go for (insert orphanage name here)!"

In the mean time, we’ve started attending a monthly support group for families in the ‘waiting’ category. We felt like fish out of the water attending, because most people had their plans set, and we have had our plans put through the blender. One woman had just received notice that she was referred a child from Ethiopia – she had been waiting 44 months. Yikes. She was single, so it was likely that we wouldn’t have had to wait that long, but still. Another woman (again, single) was in the final stage of adopting from Kazakhstan. Stop thinking about Borat.

So in the mean time, we are starting to plan adventures to keep our minds off of the business. We have a vacation scheduled over Ang’s spring break to beautiful Bonaire, so we can get the last bit of scuba diving in before parenthood sets in.

And I went for my first Ice Fishing Tournament in what should be known as downtown Brainerd during winter: Gull Lake!

The fishing tournament is an annual event for my brother-in-law. He and a couple of buddies do it every year. He’d asked me to go last year, but some fertility junk came up and I couldn’t go… boy does that sentence look bad now that I’ve written it, but I think I’ll leave it as it is. I was lucky to not go last year, because downtown Brainerd had a high temperature of -35 degrees during the tournament.

I was happy to note that the temp was a balmy 25 degrees this year when we got rolling on tournament morning, but happiness melted during the day thanks to the addition of freezing rain that lasted for 3 hours, followed by the equally buzz-killing weather called ‘blinding sleet.’ The weather was not fun. At the beginning of the event, before the ‘soaking to the bone’ set in, I asked my compatriots if they would rather have -35 degrees, or freezing rain, to which they all shouted, ‘RAIN!’ I polled them again a few hours in to the event. The most memorable response was, “This. Is. Miserable.”

Truer words were never spoken.

I had received as a gift some pocket warmers that really helped keep my hands warm for a while. They stop functioning when they get filled with water. I know this, because they stopped working.

There was one fish caught in the 50 yards surrounding our fishing holes, and it was a half pound perch, caught by my brother-in-law. Good on him. The winner of the event was a man who nabbed a 6 and a quarter pound walleye. It was a beast!

The highlight of the event for me was tracking down the food booths. I knew I was in heaven when I found a little bit of ambrosia: cheese curds fried with slices of jalapenos. That warmed me up for about an hour.

The insult of the weather added to injury as we were leaving. They had bused us in from several points surrounding Gull Lake, and we were supposed to exit at the same place we entered. The problem being that everyone apparently chose to park at the same park ‘n ride we did, but the event organizers failed to recognize this population explosion. So, we sat in line trying to get off the ice for 2 hours, while other lines empty much more quickly. Oh, and for kicks, it started raining again. At some point as we reached the exit, they had fixed the problem and added a few more busses, but our moods had soured beyond repair. I don’t think the Brainerd International Fishing Tournament is in my future again.

Other than that, Angie got me interested in a bit of art she was doing - mosaic. We have a mosiac shop down the road from us. It's fun and easy to do, and a good release. If you are in the area of Snelling in Midway, check out 'Mosaic on a stick!" Here's my piece. I grouted the left side, so it looks a little different now.

24-Hour Rule

2010-01-20T13:07:00.000-08:00

I sat this morning listening to a podcast of a news report from Haiti and the aftermath of the earthquake. There were stories of sadness and survival, the wailing of family members as they mourn their loved ones, the pleading of others as they beg the buried to hold on. It was just too much. I broke down in tears of frustration, sadness and empathy. For a country that has so little, they been given so much sorrow. I gave money to UNICEF a few days ago, but it seems so little. The burden the Haitian people have will be difficult to recover from even with the generosity of magnanimous people throughout the world.

It sickens me that there are people in this world using this tragedy to score political points against the President of the United States while Haitians are desperately struggling to unearth their loved ones. Glenn Beck stated that he believed the President was moving too quickly to give aid in comparison to how slow Beck perceived the President had moved on an Afghanistan War strategy. Rush Limbaugh mused that the only reason the President was providing aid was to gain favor with African Americans. He even discouraged listeners from giving money to efforts to help the Haitians because, he said, we give enough through tax dollars already.

These people are sociopaths. There were people struggling to survive, praying for a fast death and there were bodies yet to be exhumed from their tragic graves, and Beck and Limbaugh disgustingly accused the President of political posturing and mismanaging priorities. They should be ashamed of themselves, but as they have no hearts, they are not capable of such emotions.

Pray for the people of Haiti. Pray for the children who are waiting to be adopted. Pray for the families of the dead and dying. Pray for relief from the suffering.

And for God's sake, pray for Limbaugh and Beck to shut the hell up.

Changing our minds again?

2010-01-16T05:35:00.000-08:00

My letter to our social worker - when she brought up idea of adopting from Colombia - and I have to decide in less than a month - since I am 39 next month...

(XXXXX) -

Thanks for coming to see us and being our partner in this adoption process.

I want to let you know we have this message and I was talking with Charlie last night.

We both have had some "grieving" about now changing our plan from Ethiopia as we have been so excited about adopting from there... me grabbing onto any magazine - a Smithsonian magazine article of late that related a journalist's experience of culture in Ethiopia- and I felt like I was there. And- I know that Charlie has been the one excited about Ethiopia from the very beginning. So it is a bit tougher decision for him.

Of course the idea that jumped into my mind was that we could still go to Ethiopia - for our second adoption and how happy I was that our wait time could possibly be less. I was also excited that I would be able to "brush up" on my Spanish- speaking and be able to communicate verbally much more effectively with our first child since my Spanish would more likely be better than my beginning Amharic.

We still have a couple of more discussions to have and I have to check out the reality with my principal as our school didn't make academic yearly progress the third year in a row- and I love my new school and don't want to change/make a new job change again when I feel that this environment is one that fits so well. We are doing a restructuring rather than moving teachers to different schools. With the restructuring, teachers must sign a contract that says they agree to work with the new plan for the school and do whatever professional developments that come up with the new plan - We are scheduled for ten days professional development this summer, but there has been no schedule posted - we don't know if it is happening for 10 days in a row or if they are scattered through the summer.

So this is the new news.

I've done part of the professional development already - as most of our restructuring plan has to do with becoming interdisciplinary teams schoolwide and I joined the one interdisciplinary team that the school had already established - so it may be that some of my prof. development from last summer could count for this.

Now that we are a "waiting family" :) I feel like I can share this with my principal and we can come up with a plan- I think he will understand and figure out a way that I can complete prof. development on a flexible time scale.

I will have that conversation with him this coming week and then talk again with Charlie and we'll have an answer for you soon.

Thank you again for thinking about us and how we would best become a happy adoptive family.

Angie (XXXXX)

Dreams Change

2010-01-14T19:19:00.001-08:00

This probably won't be the same as the first thing I was typing as it ended up lost before it was saved - darn computer!!!!... but I think the emotions that I had at that moment are still real enough for me to try and rewrite this one. Lesson I keep forgetting: Type in Microsoft word and save save save...then copy and paste!!!

"We are a family in waiting. I can't..." was the only thing saved. Let me try starting with this again ;p

We are a family in waiting! I can't believe the feeling of relief or how stressed I had been until I promptly fell asleep on the couch, taking a solid nap from 7 pm to 9 pm that evening after the last home study meeting with our social worker.

The reality is a bit like the reality of my engagement was after receiving the ring from Charlie. I feel surreal as if I'm walking on another planet, taking in the sight of grass that is the color of bright red or deep purple and tree trunks are green and the leaves a sienna brown!

The things that seemed so inaccessible to me: true love and children of my/our own have now become reality.

When it was apparent we were suffering infertility, I decided I wanted to adopt right away - I had always wanted to adopt- not that I wasn't suffering or grieving the loss of being able to produce a child physically - that was huge. But having a child, I could see at the beginning of our infertility experience, was the point ... and not only the point, but the key to our fulfillment as a family. So I was ready to jump on a plane for eight weeks in Colombia. New in our marriage, Charlie wasn't ready for that. And with a partner, you become a unit - decision maker - conscientious of the needs and evolution of the significant other.

That and a doctor telling you that your ovaries (at that point) were not completely consumed by the endometriosis and you still had a chance.

As a young person in my twenties, conscious of health news, always proclaimed that if I ever had issues having a child, I would NEVER do fertility drugs. So here I was... confronted and feeling the time ticking ever since I turned 29...

I remember the moment. I was at St. Joan of Arc Church and the father in front of me was a ferris wheel, arcing his daughter into the air. And still at the top of the ferris wheel, I looked into her face - she smiling back at me--- and, flashback... boy, I mean girl, she looked like me when I was a child. I saw my baby picture and tears suddenly flooded my eyes ...and knew that I wanted to be a mother.

I did the fertility drugs. And over and over - we tried for nearly a year.

The endometriosis got worse and worse (especially from the estrogenic drugs!!!) and we failed time and time again to have a physical pregnancy. Now on the mend from the issues I put my body through, I know through this experience, that this infertility goddess, has learned now to always take care of herself, give her body what it needs - good nutrition, rest, less refined sugar, and art time/walking and activities amongst the busy times of work and play.

I come first...

Without me, there will be noone to care for my Charlie, Cassie and Foster...there will be no Ang to care for a new son/daughter who will be the best blessing to both of us....

So here I am.

So here we are. Together, and one. After even this experience - more ready to be parents than ever before. Perhaps, all parents should have to go through a bout of infertility. However, I would wish it on no...not anyone. Not even someone I despise.

The biological dream has died for me. I think in this last December, I have been happier than ever for the short days. Slowly, the wisps of the old dream crept away, evaporating like water to the clouds or the sun's rays on Solstice day. Away and into another time continuum. It is no longer present here on this earth.

The term coming from our social worker's mouth " You are a waiting family". I felt a beginning of a new dream - sun rays coming down, bringing a new possibility and a wondering so strong as to what our new child will look like. Whomever she or he is, you are going to be a blessing to us.

The social worker mentioned Colombia as a possibility. Charlie and I had started to have our hearts set on Ethiopia and yet, the wait time for an infant had become two years with that program recently.

Since we are open to a child of African descent we could possibly have a wait time anywhere from four months to two years in a Colombian adoption, but more likely on the short end because of all the Afro-Colombian kids/infants waiting for a home.

We grieve another time - we had started to dream of Ethiopia.

Again, though, the rays started to shine earlier for me than Charlie - ah, four months? A possibility of having the possibility to build our family in 4 months rather than 2 years??

Wow. Wow, I whisper reverently.

and I hope.

Waiting

2010-01-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

We are officially waiting parents, and not just waiting to be parents. The home visit is finished!

Well, that was easy. As often is the case when you worry about something, it doesn't end up being as bad as your imagination. Our social worker came by our house a little bit early - just as we were picking up the remaining doggie waste from the front yard. Nice to see you, want to shake hands?

She took the grand tour of Chateau Lafond. It was quick and painless. No white-glove-dust-check.

The memorable part for me will always be a short conversation we had on the way downstairs. I was mentioning something about the house having a few things I wanted to fix up before the child arrived, to which she asked if the house had any weapons.

The house does have a set of katana blades, but it promises to sell them before we get a referral.

We sat and chatted for an hour. She would ask us a question and we would respond, and then she'd ask if we would like to add to our response. Apparently there was a word-count that we didn't reach for our essay. We eventually stumbled through it.

We asked if there was anything in our house she suggested we take care of right away, and she politely and diplomatically said we should continue to allow our ideas for remodeling to take shape. In other words, get to painting!

Phew. That part is over - now to the unbearable lightness of being patient!

P.S. We've (or I've) decided to refer to our child as 'Guido' for now. Just so we don't have to refer to it as 'it.'

P.P.S. Angie's lukewarm on the idea.

Countdown

2010-01-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

Big day tomorrow. Our evening was spent putting the final touches on what we will show our social worker. It's not perfect by any means. But it'll do. We took it easy, had some pizza from our neighborhood pizza shop, vacuumed, scrubbed some floors, put away the laundry, etc, etc. I think Ang and I both wanted to keep it as low key as possible.

Have I introduced my family? Angie you know. Our dogs are Cassie the English Setter (above left) and Foster the Australian Cattledog (above right.) We have three cats: Simon, our gregarious champion - he battles the dogs daily; Booda, the crotchety Yoda-esque cat who 'meeps' at us; and Ellie, the sweet little girl who likes to nibble on Q-tips. He have a lot of animals, and a lot of hair. Our hairballs have hairballs. We also have a corydora catfish and a hissing cockroach - both of which are unnamed.

That's the fam. We're an odd bunch. Can't wait to add to it.

Scrub-fest 2010

2010-01-11T08:06:00.000-08:00

Our social worker is coming to our home on Wednesday the 13th. I am slightly nervous that it had to be the 13th - not that I'm superstitious or anything.

So, this weekend was spent doing some much needed organization. I was in the 'let's shove everything in the basement and clean what we can' camp, while Angie had a better vision for where she wanted things to go. We got a few rooms straightened out, and we got Angie's art supplies laid out in our basement. Kudos goes out to Angie's sister, who spent a few hours cleaning our kitchen.

I was happy to spend Saturday inside, but had some serious cabin fever on Sunday when the mercury hit 20 degrees. I love Minnesota in the winter, but not so much when it's below zero. I can even handle the bitter cold temps every once in a while, but not for as long-term as we've had them, and not with the added sucky-ness of the wind. Hopefully, we'll have a nice spell of 20-30 degrees for a week or so.

There's still a little bit to do before Wednesday, but a great big chunk was completed over the weekend and I'm feeling quite a bit more positive than I was last week.

On a lighter note

2010-01-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

My company is really good at rewarding milestones: Anniversaries, Birthdays, and the End of the Year. We get giftcard bonuses everytime a big event rolls around. I'm lucky enough that all three of these events happen around the same time of the year.

So, with the bonuses and some money I had saved up, I bought the wife and I a Wii Fit, and a few extra games. I have been letting fitness slide a bit for, oh, about 2 years. I am a regular at our YMCA, but it hasn't been enough to make up for the caloric intake as of late. I blame the Blue Door Pub in St. Paul.

Okay, how can I blame such a fine establishment? Only have myself to blame on this one.

Anyways, I'm getting use to the system. It's great to have an option for workout, without leaving the house on a frigid January evening in Minnesota.

A new year in Ethiopia

2010-01-03T13:14:00.000-08:00

I woke up on New Year's Day incredibly stuffed. One must hit the rewind button to figure out why.

Angie and I visited her Dad and Step-mom at a great little sports bar in Maple Grove called 'The Lookout.' It's everything you'd expect from a once-small-town-to-now-thriving-suburb sports bar. The Lookout is named such, because it sits on a hill. Creativity at its best. It also used to sit in a swamp, but the swamp has been recently filled with McMansions, so it has that going for it. It apparently has a great view of Minneapolis from it's perch, but it was frigid outside, and I've seen Minneapolis before.

Being a sports bar, the Lookout served a very brown meal. I choose the Broasted Chicken and Ribs option, with a side of mashed potatoes. There was a small salad bar, and they had a wonderful selection of iceberg lettuce and toppings (bacon bits, eggs, french dressing, etc.) Later on in the evening, they had a free snack bar, to get people through to New Year's. The bar included swedish meatballs, hotdogs, fried chicken, etc.

Please notice the lack of ruffage in this meal.

So I woke up full, and the first thing I thought of was Ethiopia.

Since our decision was made to focus primarily on Ethiopia for our path to parenthood, I have kept an eye on whatever news briefs I can on our future child's country. Of concern was a report that Ethiopia will most likely experience a major famine starting this year, as they have been in the midst of a terrible drought. As is the case, the Minister of Truth in Ethiopia, or the Disaster Prevention Minister (what he is normally titled), came out and issued a statement that everything is fine, move along. Sure people are hungry, but not THAT hungry.

So, I said a prayer for Ethiopia and it's people. I have no idea how this famine will affect our chances of adopting, or the war that is constantly bubbling up with Eritrea, but I said a prayer for the people of Ethiopia.

2 down, one to go.

2009-12-29T10:13:00.000-08:00

We have now met with our wonderful social worker from Children's Home Society for the second time last night. After our first meeting, I really thought she was going to stamp our file with a big red 'X' and the word 'CRAZY!' written under it. She was very clinical with us in the first meeting, going through a questionaire we had filled out. Both meetings lasted a little over 2 hours.

If you couldn't tell, I was nervous going into our sessions with our social worker. First of all, it's a social worker. Social workers get involved with families generally when there is a problem with the family dynamic. At least, that's the stigma. In reality, social workers help families get back on course, and are not the enemy. Still, admitting that you need professional help is difficult. Lord knows, I've probably needed professional help for years.

Secondly, it's hard to be questioned about your life, your choices, your decisions. The 'kid in me' screams about how unfair it is that we get grilled about our life, while other families, even other infertile couples, get to have families without the Spanish Inquisition. The adult in me realizes, that it really isn't the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, our social worker's primary weapon is the comfy cushion. She just wants to make sure we aren't worthy of the CRAZY! stamp. She was really sweet in walking us through our background, offering her own experience in adoption to help us make difficult decisons about what child we want.

Yeah, it's kind of like, 'Build-a-Bear'. We went through a list of diseases we were willing to accept, what level of disability, or 'abnormality' was okay. What gender. How old. Things like that. She was sweet, as I mentioned. But firm. Realistic. Ugh. The optimist in me says I can handle anything, overcome any obstacle. The practical side of me was glad for her making us think about where the rubber hits the road.

The easiest example is our thought about the age of a child. We told her we would be open to any age group of children under 24 months. We just wanted to make sure we weren't so choosey that it would take five years for the proper child to be found. She suggested we should do some research on toddler adoption before we commit to an older child.

Turns out, it's pretty hard to adopt a toddler. Life has pretty much taught them you can't trust anyone, that every caregiver will leave you sooner or later. You take control by trying to shop for your own new mommy, even though there maybe someone trying to be your actual mommy. Mommy's come an go, so treat them how you want.

It's called attachment and bonding disorder, and it's common amongst all kids who have had multiple caregivers. Most children can get over it, if they are given the proper support and care by their adoptive parents. Kids under one years old tend to be a bit more resilient, and have probably lost fewer caregivers, so the process for helping these kiddos, while difficult and intense, is possible. Older children, who have the capacity to deal with their disorder through language can also work through the grief caused by attachment and bonding disorder. Toddlers are in a unique stage that makes it more difficult. Optimistically, a toddler will work through the disorder with the help of their adoptive parents in a matter of 1-3 years. Most people who choose to adopt toddlers know exactly what they are getting into, and understand the work required to adopt toddler. According to one study we read, Parents who specifically choose to adopt toddlers will feel the happiest about the outcomes of their adoption process. Parents who choose toddler adoption as a second or third choose, do not.

Since we fall into the second category, we decided an infant is more up the alley. There was a fleeting sense of sadness when we came to this conclusion, but logically, it wouldn't be right for the child. They deserve better.

Our second meeting with our social worker was fun. We laughed. We talked more about our backgrounds, our families, our losses, and times we felt like the minority. We nailed down that adopting from Ethiopia was a good choice, BUT there was an inkling that adopting from Colombia may be an option for us, too. It may take a little extra work so that we can get the paperwork done before Angie turns 39, but still possible. And it will probably take less time to wait for a child than with Ethiopia.

Choices, choices, so many choices....

Tune in next time when she actually visits our home!

2009-11-05T12:08:00.000-08:00

Dear God,

If you would be nice enough to allow us to have a child, we promise not to stuff them in a crate under our bed, or put them in a balloon shaped like a Jiffy-Pop popper.

Thanks,

Charlie and Angie

Tip #1 for interacting with infertile couples

2009-10-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

At a recent meeting, one of my supervisors got up in front of a group of our supervisors and nurses, and asked that anyone who was currently pregnant, or had given birth within the last 6 months to stand. About 75% of the room stood up. We really are having quite the baby-boom in our company.

I can't imagine how hard that was for the infertile supervisors in the room to see the multitude of people standing up. This is why it is hard for infertile - these situations make it seem like the world is made for fertile people only.

And so it goes.

2009-10-21T08:16:00.000-07:00

We finally got our packet of our paperwork in to Children's Family Home Society - the group that will help us with our adoption choices. Right now, we are leaning towards adopting from Ethiopia first, and doing an embryo adoption down the road. It's exciting and nerve racking at the same time. It's really hard to be patient for the next step, but impatience has been the mood for 3 years; I don't know why it should be any different now.

Confession time: It's been very hard for Angie and me to go to church during this trial. I mentioned in another post that my brother died 6 years ago. During my grief of losing him, it was very easy to slip into the thought pattern of 'Why would a loving God do this? Can God really exist?' Coming through that process strengthened my own faith, as I felt healed by His love through others - family, friends, co-workers, strangers, etc.

But now we're back to square one. Again, why would a loving God do this?

I know enough now that there is a randomness to life that God doesn't control.

*1 Kings 19:11-12 "And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake: but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice."

To me, this says there are things that God doesn't control. Even the most ardent believer in the dominion of God will state that humans have our own freewill. But this passage has always spoken further to me that random geological and meteorological events are outside of God's doing. Perhaps biological events fit inside this verse as well.

But, and there is always a but, there are people who have prayed and prayed, and have had their prayers of biological parenthood answered. Why not us?

I came to the conclusion that I don't believe that God doesn't exist. Rather, I am very angry at God.

Seems kind of insolent, doesn't it? I first heard the phrase, 'I am angry at God' from my pastor as he gave a eulogy at my brother's funeral. It shocked me when I heard it, but I ended up finding solace in the statement during the healing process of my brother's death. We don't waste time being angry at things that don't exist. That wasn't all that was said in the eulogy. There was a lot about finding comfort in each other, and that we would find healing in God's arms when we are ready to accept it.

So, I'm about ready to accept it. We attended a service at our church a few weeks ago. The main catalyst for us attending was that the Episcopal Church is starting to focus on ministry for people who are experiencing the loss of miscarriage or infertility. Right up our alley.

I was surprised when we went to see familiar faces at the group. One person I knew by acquaintance had just been given a diagnosis by her doctor that she wouldn't be able to have children. Another friend who I've known for 15 years+ shared that she had had a miscarriage. I was blown away by both. It's surprising how wrapped up we've been in our own infertility that we've missed the pain of friends around us.

It seems like possibility has been sneaking up on us. The possibility of helping others through their journey as we go through ours. Without a doubt, I'm sure they can help us too.

2009-10-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

No,
Actually, the doctors would cut me off as soon as I said "heavy periods" and made me feel like a hypochondriac. They cut me off and didn't even listen to the litany of other symptoms, including extreme pain and migraines, etc
Angie
p.s. The following tells me I'm not a hypochondriac and deserved to be diagnosed on time, not after 25/26 years of having the disease!

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07312009/watch.html

Embryo Adoption

2009-09-17T18:25:00.000-07:00

I heard about the idea of Embryo Adoption as a potential path to pregnancy the same day I heard that embryo storage was akin to abortion. I was listening to a speech by Dr. John Kilner, a noted bio-ethicist from Trinity International University. I was lucky enough to spend some time with Dr. Kilner while he was in town giving the keynote speech for a conference my company was putting on. Dr. Kilner made it abundantly clear that IVF was not unethical; it is simply a way to connect an egg and a sperm. To him, infertility is just a disability that medical technology could cure. Dr. Kilner's problem with IVF was that some clinics, in an attempt to raise their success rates, would attempt to create a surplus of embryos (I'm looking at you Nadya Suleman's doctor!), and dispose of or store any extra. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that destroying an embryo at any stage is a problem to many Americans; it is, for some, the same thing as an abortion of a viable embryo.

Dr. Kilner said that the use for surplus embryos would be for a future implantation. You can put them in frozen storage, he said, but at a cost. 1/3 of embryos do not survive cold storage. Imagine you have three children, and you hand them off to a babysitter. When you come home only two of the children had survived. Needless to say, you wouldn't use that babysitter again.

Is freezing an embryo the same thing as an abortion? It's not for me to say. What I can say is that this is a difficult thing for infertile couples to hear. Not only do you have to worry about the cost of funding IVFs as well as the stress inherent in the process, but now, if you have extra embryos, someone can call you a baby-killer if you don't use them all. This is quite the dilemma for someone who has already experienced the tragedy of infertility.

As I drove Dr. Kilner to the airport, I told him about my wife's and my journey through infertility. After hearing a bit about our story, he suggested that embryo adoption would be a less expensive and 'easier' path to pregnancy. It would be an adoption, but wouldn't require travel, and my wife would be able to experience pregnancy. There was the ethical side to him too: We would be saving embryos that had been put in cold storage by other couples. Embryos would not be destroyed nor used for research.

So now I'm in an ethical dilemma: Cold storage=bad, but using embryos from cold storage=good? It's a double standard that could be self-defeating. If you keep everyone from using cold storage, then there would be no embryos for people to adopt who desperately need to get pregnant.

The change that occurs in a endometriosis patient is miraculous. Women can receive a new lease on life. She can get a few years endo-free. I don't want to envision a McEmbryo world, and there should be some sanctity involved with embryos. But it seems to me that mothers should be able to help other potential mothers if they want.

When I checked with the best embryo adoption center, they said we needed to be married 3 years in order to adopt. At that time, we hadn't been married 2. We are getting close to our third anniversary, and it is starting to look like one of the best options.

Health care stinks.

2009-09-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

While I can be political amongst my friends, I try not to do so on the internets. I have my personal views on a lot of issues, but they require process to explain and some nuance. American politics are not fond of nuance. So I'll skip them over. If you are ever interested in having a beer with me, I'll go into detail of where I think our two main parties fail. I'm wrong most of the time, and know it, so I look forward to hearing your views as well, provided they aren't screechy. My main rule of thumb is you will not find salvation in your political party, so don't even try.

But since this blog is about our experiences with infertility, it's difficult to not talk about the problems we've had with our insurance coverage. It's easy to throw out a phrase like 'Death Panel', but when you've actually waited for your insurance company to decide if they will pay for something, you get the notion that all may not be right with our insurance system.

I'd like to talk about one personal experience with our health care system. My brother was diagnosed with cancer 7 years ago in October, and he died the following February. He was a seminary student, about halfway through with his studies. He went through a large surgery to remove a good portion of his cancer, had a lengthy hospital stay, followed by several rounds of expensive chemotherapy. When it was determined that the cancer would ultimately take his life, he was given wonderful hospice care and was able to die under his terms.

He actually passed away a half an hour after I arrived at my parents house on his final day on Earth. I am humbled.

I mention this story for several reasons. One, he was severely underinsured. Many young folk think they can swing staying healthy and skip insurance payments. If you're in school, you can't afford insurance, and you're 30 years old, it seems like a great idea until something catastrophic happens.

My brother racked up $200-300,000 dollars in medical debt during the four months he spent fighting his disease. What young person could payback that much money? He wouldn't have been able to. He died, and none of his bill was paid back to the hospital. The hospital makes up that payment by charging extra to people who can pay, or who have insurance that will pay. The next time you get treatment at a hospital, and are charged in exorbitant amount for a cheap-o medication, know that you are paying for someone else's treatment.

If my brother had survived, he would have been bankrupt. He would end up like many in our country: one catastrophic illness, and kiss-your-American-dream-goodbye. The hospital still wouldn't have received the entire payment, and you would still be paying out the nose for aspirin. Moral of the story - you get sick; you never make it out of debt. And everyone in America pays your debt through higher hospital bills.

In my job, if a system is causing everyone to fail, you realize that the problem isn't all the people who can't handle the system, it's that the system is broken, and you fix the system. Right now, in America, if you or a loved one gets terribly sick, you will go bankrupt. There is no way to survive a catastrophic illness without becoming a debtor for the rest of your life. The health care system is and has been broken for quite some time, and needs to be fixed.

Angie can talk at length about how she knew something was wrong with her, and her doctors couldn't figure out that she had endometriosis. If she had been given the diagnosis sooner, she could have gotten it removed, and remediated and given therapy sooner. She could have chosen her own path to fertility. This is obviously not health insurance problem, but a lousy doctor problem, but if we did have a system of best practices, she may have gotten the information she needed sooner.

As I've mentioned in passing before, the best therapy for endo is pregnancy. An endo patient's body figures out what's up, and can give her anywhere from 5 years to indefinite balance of estrogen. Getting an endo patient pregnant is the hard part. It's difficult to say what the actual problem will be, since each patient is different, but it can affect quality of the eggs, the shape of the ovaries, it can create blockages of the fallopian tubes, and it can prevent embryo implantation. How can you solve all of these problems? IVF! Yes, evil IVF, which most insurances won't cover, which can cost $30,000 per cycle, and oh, yes, you might need to go through a few cycles before you get it right. I'll talk about our experiences in IVF another time.

It's considered evil by some for a few reasons. Some say it's playing God. It's actually only helping the process along by uniting a sperm and an egg, so I don't have time for people who use this argument. The other argument that is used is that it creates extra embryos which are frozen and stored. Since there is some risk to freezing embryos, this is considered on par to abortion.

Look, I can't solve your fears on this one, but speaking for an infertile couple, you need a back up plan. If you can create extra embryos, you can use them down the road for another try, or another child, or you can choose to put them up for adoption. Seriously. I'll talk about embryo adoption more another time.

Anyway, the point is, none of the costs of IVF, from treatment to the medications, are covered by my wife's insurer. Nor are they covered by many insurers. I don't expect to get it all covered, but since the very same drugs are covered in smaller doses if a person decides to pursue an artificial insemination, why can't part of it be covered? And since this pregnancy through IVF would also be a therapy for her endo, why not cover it if it could remediate my wife's disease for up to five years (or potentially longer)?

So, now what happens to my wife? She can't get therapy through her insurance, and she can't get different insurance since she has a 'pre-existing condition' - what options do we have? THIS.IS.THE.INSURANCE.COMPANY.COMING.BETWEEN.YOU.AND. YOUR.DOCTOR. You can't blame a government bureaucrat for this one.

I won't go into the idiocy of the surgery I had last summer, that my insurance did pay for, but there was no rationale for why it was done, and while it did improve things, they actually didn't need to be improved. I guess I did go into it, but I'll try to talk about it more another time.

Post #2 - 6 months later

2009-09-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

Well, 6 months have brought many changes to our thoughts about our process to become parents. We got the news around the time of my last post that we would not be able to have biological children. I won't lie, it was hard to hear, but part of me knew that was going to be the answer after not being able to conceive for so long. While being very sad, I think it was the kick in the pants to start down another road.

As kicks in the pants go, it didn't take long to get another hiccup. My wife had been diagnosed with 4th stage endometriosis last summer. We had played around the endo for a long time, hoping Angie could conceive to 'reset' her system. This seems to be the proscribed method - if you can't conceive because you have Endo, you need to try to conceive. Huh? The cure actually is the impossibility. After going through the heartbreak (not strong enough of a word) of two failed IVFs, Angie heard of Dr. Charles Haislett. Dr. Haislett specialty was excising endo, and he recommended we get it done right away.

The surgery was set for 1 month following our pre-adoption classes at Children's Family Home Society. The way the doc had described it was that it would be a quick surgery, and she would go home that day. Both of us had had outpatient surgeries last summer to clear up infertility issues- Angie was supposed to be 'lasered' (one way of removing endo) and I had a varicocelectomy. Look it up. Obviously, none of this worked at the time.

The big day arrived - late April. Angie got sent to pre-op, and I was allowed to follow in about a half an hour later. As we sat and joked, the doctor finally arrived. He was hurried, because the anesthetist was late. He mentioned as we talked that Angie would be staying for three, maybe four days. Huh? Hadn't planned on that. It ended up that she needed it. She still has the 6 inch scar along her mid-section. Ouch. Sitting up was very hard for her for about a month after the surgery.

In the end, the doc removed almost all of the endo in Angie. To get it all, he would have most likely needed to remove her womb. He did take one ovary and fallopian tube, and about 30% of the other ovary. The hope is, that someday, with treatment, she still could conceive. The short-term solution is to get her pregnant through a donated embryo, which should 'reset' her system. For now, she is one hormone suppressants.

All of this put a damper on adoption for a few months as we reconnected and vacationed over the summer. We're getting into high gear again, getting paperwork ready for our homestudy. Fun. Lots of intrusive questions that biological parents don't have to answer about childhood, and how you were raised, and stressful situations you've gone through. The unexamined life is not worth living? Socrates was a jerk.

First. Post.

2009-03-24T04:46:00.000-07:00

I'm not completely sure of the catharsis of writing a blog, but I hope that someday my wife and I can look back at our time spent in our journey through infertility. Here's the recap: we got married in 10/06. We started trying to have children a few months later. We have had several IUI's, a couple of surgeries, and 2 cancelled IVF cycles. We have started the process to adopt, but we are very early on. Currently, the best option for adoption looks to be Ethiopia, but there are a few other ideas we are checking out. It has been a difficult way to start our marriage, but I suppose nothing is ever easy.