Our 6th Anniversary is tomorrow, and I asked the daughter of close friends of ours to draw our portrait anime style. This is what she came up with–it’s absolutely awesome!
No, I haven’t gotten rid of my blog. At least not voluntarily! My husband renewed our domains weeks before they expired, only the domain registration site (registerfly if you want to complain, although they’re closing on the 31st. Hmm…wonder why???) kept messing up. So my hubby has been working hard to get them transferred and back up and here I am!!! Yay! Now I can post those posts I’ve blogged while all this was going on. If you want details on what happened, talk to him. I just know the frustration part, not all the intricate internet details.
Studying the commandments in Catechism class I never really thought much about the tenth commandment. I was what is now classified as a “preteenâ€? and didn’t think much about my neighbors wife or cattle or anything else belonging to my neighbor. I’ve been thinking of it recently as I find myself coveting not spouse or cattle, but children. I know God’s timing is perfect, but my clock is ticking. I’m 32, have 13 nieces and nephews and one on the way, and sometimes I really wish my siblings would share one with me! We’ve got a plan to hopefully adopt in 2-3 years when we have money to save that isn’t spent paying bills to debtors, but there are days—more often than I’d care to admit—that I wish it could happen sooner. So if you have an extra $10,000 lying around you don’t know what to do with…
Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! Actually, I’m not Irish at all. In fact, the only connection I had to Ireland is the fact that my birthday is on St. Patrick’s Day which has been great fun all my life. But since marrying an Irishman (Irish and German, but still Irish!) it has become even more fun. Last year we decided to have Irish Corned Beef Brisket made like they did in the old country. We didn’t think it could get any better. Well, this year my Irishman decided he wanted cooked cabbage as well, and it was wonderful! He cut the cabbage into 8 wedges and sauted it in butter with onions and peppers, 10 min. on each side. It was so good I could almost taste the rainbow. Which reminds me, the other Birthday/St. Patty’s tradition we have is that once a year on my birthday I get me favorite cereal, Lucky Charms. I buy the biggest box and still have some left. Yay for my birthday!
It’s amazing the responses you get when you answer someone’s “How many children do you have?” with “I am not physically able to have children right now.” Most of the time I am then asked, “What about invitro?” It’s interesting how society today pushes IVF, yet not surprising. Many insurance companies, including ours, will pay for fertility treatments including IVF. Yet upon further research I’ve discovered that with my Christian faith and values there is absolutely no way I could ever consider it, even if it’s covered by insurance. Here are some scary truths about IVF.
1. The cost of one treatment of IVF is between $10,000-$20,000 with about a 15% success rate each time. Some centers claim a 45% success rate, but that’s after repeated attempts. The average cost of adopting an orphan from another country? $10,000-$30,000 at about a 90% success rate. That’s pretty much a no brainer for me. Insurance won’t cover adoption, but there is a $10,000 tax credit which to me when you figure in all the fertility meds and copays comes out to about the same.
2. The lab fertilizes eggs with multiple sperm (conception in a petri dish as my hubby calls it), than incubate them for 3-5 days. They will classify those embryos (read babies) from the lowest chance of pregnancy (1) to the highest chance of pregnancy (4). They implant only the #4 babies. The rest, already 3-5 days old, are destroyed. In all my research, I haven’t found a lab that will implant all of the babies because there is a high risk of multiple births. There is absolutely no way I could allow 3-5 day old babies to be murdered. Another no brainer.
3. Even if I could ethically do the IVF, the embryos (again, read babies) must be implanted when the woman is ovulating in order for them to “take.” Since at the present moment I’m stuck in the post-ovulation part of the cycle, it wouldn’t work anyway.
The sad thing about it is that most people don’t consider the 3-5 day embryos to be babies, just cells that happen to be growing and splitting. Yet to me there is no difference between that and a baby who was born 3-5 days ago. I got to hold my newborn nephew when he was only 4 days old. I could no more consider killing those 3-5 day old embryo babies than killing a newborn 3-5 day old baby. This is how our society rationalizes IVF being a positive option when really it isn’t all that different to me from abortion.
You know how when you’re really sensitive about something you are affected by it wherever you are? That’s how I’ve been the past couple weeks. I thought I was okay with the whole not having children right now thing until I was down south. Suddenly not only was I surrounded by babies, but found out two friends of mine were pregnant, one hadn’t even been trying very long. It was one of those “I’m happy for you, but sad for me” kind of responses. Then last night a member of our congregation reported that her daughter was pregnant and was embarrassed by it–she didn’t want another baby and was on birth control to prevent it. Not only that, she only has one fallopian tube and was told her chances of conceiving were decreased 60% by that alone. After church I went to JoAnn’s where I overheard a woman saying she was pregnant but just not ready for it. Why are people who don’t want children blessed with them when my husband and I being married nearly 6 years have no possibility of that right now?
We met with our Pastor today and I was relieved to hear that these feelings are good if I want to be a mom someday. In fact, he said that if I wasn’t sensitive to these types of conversations and could just shrug off the fact we don’t have kids yet he’d be worried about what kind of mother I would be. So we cried and prayed and we’ll keep crying and praying and maybe someday I’ll have a much happier post on my blog.
I had such a great time in Montana, although at times very emotional which I intend to blog about later. But right now I just wanna show off my new nephew!
