HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year everyone!!!

All the best for 2011.

The wait

Finally, we were officially “on the list”. Our application stated that we wanted a coloured, newborn girl and did not mind either open or closed adoption. We were told that we would probably wait anywhere between 3 and 9 months. We started telling our friends and family that we were “expecting” a baby. It suddenly felt like it was just around the corner. We were really, really excited. My sister arrived from England a few days later to get married in South Africa. We spent 2 weeks completely consumed by wedding fever and managed to push the imminent arrival of our baby into the back of our minds. 

Once the wedding in Cape Town was over, we all flew to my new brother-in-law’s house in Scotland for a second wedding reception. I called our social worker just before we left to let her know that we would be away for 10 days. She sounded a little concerned and asked me a few times for my exact date of return. She also queried the request for a coloured girl and asked me if we would be ok with a boy or a white baby. I said that of course we would be happy. We really didn’t mind by now – we just wanted a healthy baby SOON! Off we flew to Scotland!

Meeting the panel of social workers and having a home visit

We made our second appointment with the adoption agency and we handed in all the forms and our portfolio.  We met the other social workers who deal with the biological moms.  They looked over our info and asked us a few questions.  This group of social workers look after all the pregnant ladies that come in and want to give up their babies. They build a relationship with these ladies and counsel them throughout their pregnancy. They often end up being in the delivery room too and acting as birthing partners. They really get to know these moms and what they are about and what their expectations are for their unborn children. On the other side, our social worker was getting to know us and what our hopes, dreams and expectations were. The 2 teams meet regularly to chat and swap information and this is how matches are made. They meet each others clients too so that they can get a really good idea of all the adoptive and biological parents on their books. 

 

We made a date for our home visit and left.  It felt so good.  It felt so close.  It felt so scary.  A few days later, our social worker came to our house. She had a cup of tea and a look around and we chatted about bits and pieces. It was very informal and relaxed and I did not feel judged at all.

 

Completing the forms and making a portfolio

 

The forms that we took home were very comprehensive.  There were many different sections and all aspects of our lives were covered.  Medical, financial, emotional, sexual, family, education, religion and more.  There are no right or wrong answers and the agency was not looking to judge us.  They just wanted to be sure that they understood us and that they matched us up with the correct baby.  In fact the section of the form dealing with the child that we wanted was really comprehensive.  Down to our preference of hair colour, eye colour, family medical history etc.  The forms asked us whether we would be prepared to accept a baby with an illness (and it listed pages of illnesses), a baby from an addict mother, a baby as a result of rape, a baby as a result of incest, an HIV positive baby etc. 

Again, none of these questions were aimed at making judgments, only at making a correct match.  On the other side, when biological mums arrive to discuss giving up their babies for adoption, they are asked what type of family they envisage raising their child.  For some of these women, the most important thing is that the child is raised in a religious family, a sporty family, a very close family, a rich family etc.  They each have their own idea of what they want and the social workers attempt to fulfill this wish.

Once all the application forms were completed and we’d had copies of our ID books done, it was time to start on the portfolio.  This is a book about us.  We bought a scrapbook and we each wrote a letter to a biological mom.  We pasted in photos of ourselves, our pets, our families, our friends and our home.  We wrote little pieces about ourselves, our lives, our likes, our interests etc.  We enclosed some letters from friends wishing us well and telling what great parents we would be.

Our portfolio was beautiful.  It was therapeutic too.  I recommend that all families do a portfolio at some time in their lives - even if they are not planning to adopt.  We had such fun reflecting on ourselves and our lives and the end result is a lovely book about us that I still look back on today and add to so that my son can have it one day.

The first meeting at the adoption agency

Let me go though each phase that we went through in more detail.

The initial meeting between us and the adoption agency.

We drove through to the adoption agency full of anticipation and tingles. We were met by a social worker who deals with adoptive parents. We sat down in a little lounge and the social worker told us all about the process & the costs.  It is worth noting that at that stage (2004), the cost of adoption through a private agency was around R 16 000 - the same price as one IVF treatment.  I believe that the cost of adopting through a government organisation like Child Welfare was around R 4000 at that time. These costs are mostly legal fees but in the case of a private agency, the biological mother gets a lot of personal attention. I’ll come back to that later.  The adoption agency that we went to is really divided into 2 departments; 1) the social workers for the biological family 2) the social workers for the adoptive family.  These 2 departments meet regularly to discuss their clients and try to make matches.  We were asked whether we wanted a closed or an open adoption.  We had no clue what either of these meant! Closed adoption is where there is no contact at all between the adoptive and biological families.  After the baby is born, it is taken to a Kangaroo mother and the adoptive parents collect the baby from her.  The Kangaroo mother is used partly as a go-between and partly as a time-user.  Sometimes, the social worker feels that the biological mom might change her mind after the baby is born.  If they do feel that this might be the case, the Kangaroo mother keeps the baby for as long as the biological mom is unsure.  Only when she has totally made up her mind, do the adoptive parents get the call to say they have a baby.  This is why quite often; babies are adopted at 2 or 3 weeks old or even 2 or 3 months old. 

An open adoption is where the two families meet at the "hand-over'.  There is an opportunity to meet & talk with each other so that there is some peace-of-mind for both parties.  It eliminates the element of "I wonder what they're like and I wonder what they look like" for both parties.

There are advantages to both and disadvantages to both.  We were told that nowadays, 75% of biological mothers ask for an open adoption and we would have a bigger choice of babies if we went this route. 

 

The initial meeting lasted around 2 hours and was really just for us to be informed on the policies, procedures and general information regarding adoption. The social worker asked us quite a few questions about our infertility, our relationship and the type of baby we saw ourselves raising. (Colour, sex, age, medical status etc)

She gave us an enormous stack of forms and advised us to go home, read through them and then decide if we wanted to go ahead. If we did, we would need to complete the forms and submit them together with certain letters and a portfolio.

A break from the story for a moment...

I want to go through each phase of the adoption process in more detail but I will do that next time. First I want to tell you all about the amazing weekend I had last weekend. I want to thank you for the support and feedback I am getting from this Blog. Last weekend, I had a stall at the Hout Bay Craft Market and again I was blown away by how many people out there are affected by adoption.  A lot of people feel alone when they are dealing with adversity – be it struggling to fall pregnant, agonizing over choices to adopt or to use a surrogate, becoming a first-time parent etc. None of you are alone. For every person that has phoned or emailed me with a story, another 3 or 4 have contacted me with exactly the same story! And that’s just in recent weeks!   I hope you don’t mind, but I would like to list some of the difficulties people are having so that the rest of you know that you’re not alone. Also, I thought that it might be nice to put some of you in touch with each other. If you are interested in connecting with someone in a similar situation, let me know.  My next group discussion session will be in Kenilworth on Sat 29 January 2011 at 09h30.  It will run for 3 hours, includes tea, coffee, muffins, guest speakers and a group of people who want to talk about adoption.   There are also all kinds of groups in many different areas. Perhaps those of you with support group details could email me again so I can put you onto the data base too? My email is terri@thegreatestgift.co.za

Here are some of the issues people I have met are dealing with:

·Fertility treatment – the expense, the emotional trauma, when to give up

·Other treatments like acupuncture, reflexology, meditation, diet etc…do they work?

·Wanting and coping with cross-cultural adoption

·Single parent adoption

·Gay adoption

·Wanting to adopt twins

·Support groups for adoptive parents

·Making the decision to stop fertility and go for adoption

·Want to adopt but not cross-culturally. Are there any white babies out there?

·International adoption (SA citizens living abroad who want to adopt black, SA babies)

·International adoption. (SA citizens living in SA wanting to adopt from Eastern Europe)

There are probably heaps more but that’s just the start. If you are in any of these categories and you would like to make contact with others, please send me your details and I’ll do what I can you put you all in touch with one-another. There are so many new and wonderful friends to be made and you never know…………..they might get you one step closer to a solution with their knowledge and experience!

Have a great day everyone. I look forward to hearing from you.

Our first appointment with the adoption agency

Back to my friend N.  I told her about our earlier adoption enquiries and she said something to me that changed everything.  She said "You need to choose:  A life without children or a life with children who are a different colour to you".  That's what is boiled down to.  N's son is a different colour to her and by now we knew them well and knew that in fact kids are just kids and they grow up in whichever culture you raise them.  They have no preconceived ideas as to where they should fit in.  My husband & I discussed it at length.  We had all the usual worries.  What will people say?  What will we tell our child about his or her culture, language, heritage etc?  We felt so unqualified to raise a person about whose heritage we knew very little.  We called some family members.  We got mixed reactions.  Mostly we got overwhelmingly supportive reactions.  We were really encouraged.  We were ready to do it.  A life without children was not an option.  We would cross the colour line.  N gave me the number of the adoption agency she had used and I phoned the next day.

The social worker immediately asked me whether I was prepared to adopt across the colour line.  I said yes and suddenly all the doors opened.  She made an appointment for us to see her within a few days.  I was really excited and really terrified.  It suddenly seemed possible, even probable that we would be parents.  We arrived at her office full of questions.  She put us at ease straight away and told us about the agency and how they work.  There were 5 phases to the process of being approved to get onto the adoption list.

1) The initial meeting with the social worker which is a very informal Q & A session.
2) Take home a very fat folder of forms and complete them in your own time.
3) Return that folder together with a portfolio to the adoption agency.
4) Meet with all the social workers so they know who you are.
5) Receive a home visit from a social worker.

After that, you go onto the waiting list and wait!  Seemed simple enough!!

Adoption? Nope probably not possible

Back to the IVF. It was horrid....and it didn't work.  I was really devastated this time.  All the money, all the pain, all the effort, all the expectations…..it all amounted to nothing.  I felt sick.  I got flu-like symptoms with high temperatures and aching joints.  Then I got worse and worse with terrible cramps.  Eventually I went back to the fertility specialist and he admitted me to hospital straight away.  My temperature was over 40 and my heart rate was sky-high.  He did a thorough examination and a whole lot of tests.  I spent 4 days in hospital being tested for various things.  It turned out to be a terrible case of gastro and not related to the IVF at all.  But I was exhausted and drained and could not face any more doctors, medicines or treatments.  I had also been on a very strict “fertility” diet for the last few months. The dietician had banned me from all meat, wheat, sugar, gluten, processed food and lots more. I was seeing an acupuncturist twice per week and a reflexologist once per week. My entire life was consumed with falling pregnant. I was spending a fortune in money and in emotional energy.

I started to tell a few people that we were battling to fall pregnant and that we'd had some treatments.  I was still not sharing all the details but I needed some sort of outlet so I chose the few people I knew who did not have perfect, new babies in their lives.  I told my mom and my friend A, who has a much older son.

By this time, I had made a new friend.  My new friend, N had an adopted son.  I told her about my difficulties.  She brought up the topic of adoption. 

My husband & I had actually discussed adoption a year or so earlier and when we looked into it, briefly, we were disappointed.  There seemed to be very little information available on the internet about adoption in South Africa.  There was lots of information about international adoptions.  We were a bit naive and assumed that adopting within our own race was firstly possible and secondly, the obvious choice to make.  We were turned away at every enquiry.  We were told that in South Africa, there are no white babies available for adoption.  Some agencies told us that there was a 10 year waiting list while others told us that their waiting list was so long that they were not accepting any more applications.  We gave up and continued with fertility treatments. 

Barely holding it together now

Another 4 AI treatments followed after this….all unsuccessful. The doctor suggested that we move on to IVF. This is a MUCH more expensive treatment and a MUCH more intensive treatment. The dosage of medication and the frequency of injections increase enormously. In addition to this, you have to take time off work to go into hospital and have the eggs extracted when they are ready. The eggs and the sperm then meet in the lab where humans help them to do their job! Once fertilization has taken place, the strongest ones are put back in and another long wait begins. We had 5 good eggs and decided to put 2 back in and freeze the other 3 for later. I am going to digress here and say that by this stage, we had spent so much money, so much energy, so much emotional stress on falling pregnant that we were both ready to scream. For some strange reason, we still hadn’t told anyone what we were dealing with. My sister-in-law asked me later on why we chose to keep it all so secret and I really didn’t know the answer. I think maybe we were scared of all the questions, worried about adding more pressure with people calling to see how each treatment had gone and whether we had received good news yet. Probably the main reason was that we were barely holding it together and if anyone close to us had offered any sympathy at all, we would have crumbled. You know how it is when you are feeling sad and someone hugs you? That’s it! All composure goes out the window and you are reduced to a sniveling wreck. We thought handling it alone would be best. It was probably the wrong decision as I now realize that everyone would have done their best to help us out. The problem is that sometimes help comes in the form of unwanted advice from well-meaning people and when you are full of hormone drugs, you don’t have the ability to process correctly! You want to bite people’s heads off and run screaming into the distance. On the other hand, keeping it secret was really tough on us. 

It was becoming increasingly difficult to spend time with my closest friends.  They had all started to have babies and I seemed to be surrounded by glowing mums and dads who wanted to tell me every detail about their precious bundle.  Book club was the worst!  It seemed like each month there was yet another announcement of a pregnancy.  By the time most of the members had had one baby, the first lady was on her 2nd pregnancy and the cycle started all over again!  I thought I would scream.  The conversation turned less and less to books and more and more to baby or pregnancy-related things.  Sometimes I smiled and nodded and could pretend I was having a good time.  Sometimes I went to the bathroom and cried or screamed into the soft, fluffy towels.  Numerous times, I went home in tears and told my husband that I was going to resign from book club.  Why didn't I?  Each month I thought it would get better.  I couldn't think of a good enough reason to resign without telling the truth.  I needed to keep up my social life because if I stopped book club, next would be supper club, dinner parties and then braais at friends’ houses.  I had already made excuses for 3 or 4 baby showers and kids’ birthday parties and I started to imagine myself as a total recluse with no friends at all.  Sometimes that idea sounded so tempting but on some level I knew that it would not be good and it certainly wouldn't get me a baby.

Just getting sidetracked.......

My lovely webdesigner is going to redesign my site in the new year.  I invite you to send me a link to your website if you would like exposure on my site.  I have a links page and I will gladly add you to that links page.  I am looking for anyone related to adoption, infertility, babies, children, fostering, social workers etc...If you think your site will interest people on my site, just send me your info and I'll create a link for you. terri@thegreatestgift.co.za

The first of many disappointments

At the next appointment with the fertility specialist, we were given all the options. It was really quite daunting as we had absolutely no idea what to do. The doctor recommended starting with Artificial Insemination (AI). This is the lease invasive, least expensive treatment and they do get reasonable results with people like us who don’t appear to have any problems. It involves taking a course of injections to help stimulate egg growth. The injections are full of hormones and really made me feel very emotional and at times quite odd. Once the eggs are big and fat and look ready to be babies, they do the procedure. There is always a chance of multiple pregnancy with fertility treatment. The prospect of twins didn’t worry us too much but the idea of triplets boggled our heads – and not in a good way!! My husband had to deliver his sperm to the reception early in the morning. I then arrived at the clinic a little later. With a very long, thin needle, they inject the sperm straight onto the eggs. This way it doesn’t have to make the effort to swim all the way there. Also because I had been on the injections, my eggs were in perfect condition to be fertilized. After this rather painful procedure, I had to lie still for 20 mins. It’s quite odd what goes through your mind during those 20 mins. Of course, I immediately felt pregnant. I visualized all this beautiful connecting going on inside me. When it was time to leave, I got up slowly and trod carefully because I didn’t want to disturb my brand new children.

At this stage, we hadn’t told anyone about our difficulties to fall pregnant. All our friends and family assumed we were not interested in kids just yet. I walked around for the next 14 days feeling on top of the world. I felt pregnant and it was my little secret. No-one else knew that I was carrying precious cargo. After 14 days, I had to have a BHCG (Qualitative) blood test. This is an extremely accurate pregnancy test. The result came back good. I can’t remember all the numbers now but there was a chance I could be pregnant. I had to wait 3 days to have another test. If the next test had high numbers, I was preggy, if not…………..

The longest 3 days of my life followed. I counted down every minute. Finally I went for the test and waited, and waited………..the count was down. I sobbed for 3 hours. By the time my husband came home from work, he found me crumpled up on the bed and totally exhausted. I spent the whole weekend crying and wishing time away so I could start the next cycle of treatment!.

Procedures and invasions

I made an appointment to see the fertility specialist and we arrived feeling quite apprehensive. This was not a place we had ever thought we might end up and we really did not know what to expect. The specialist was wonderful. He had a gentle way of explaining all the different options – and there are many, and he seemed genuinely interested and concerned. I think we both felt quite dumb though at how little we knew about biology! There are so many things that have to happen for conception to take place. I remember that after he had finished explaining all of it to us, I wondered how it was possible that anyone ever has a baby! It is a huge biological process with so many aspects that can go wrong! The specialist decided that a laproscope was in order to get more of an idea what was going on in the factory! I went into the hospital terrified at the prospect of surgery (although a laproscope is a tiny and very standard procedure). When I came round, I was THIRSTY!! So thirsty. I had no pain. I had no interest in what the doc had found. I needed apple juice. Then I needed more apple juice. Eventually I sent my husband to the shop to buy me 2 litres of apple juice as the hospital kept bringing me silly small cups. After my thirst finally subsided, the doctor told me that he had found and removed 2 fibroid cysts and some endometriosis. I was now in perfect condition and would probably be pregnant within weeks. I went home feeling quite positive and with very sore shoulders!! (A side-effect of the surgery)

After a few months, nothing had happened so I went back to the doc to have the fallopian tubes checked. This is a very strange procedure where they pour purple dye into the tubes and watch on an x-ray machine that it runs all the way through the tubes. The doctor and the radiographer were full of jokes and although slightly painful, the procedure was quick and proved that my tubes were not blocked. In some strange way, I remember feeling disappointed. I thought if they could just find something wrong with me, they could at least look at curing it. But according to all the medical people, I was in perfect shape and should have been falling pregnant with ease. It was time to get out the drugs and play hard ball with my body!!

Time for tears and silly mood swings

So...back to those nasty pills called Clomid ......The hormone boost into my body made me crazy.   I suffered terribly from hot flushes and had lots of sudden, tearful outbursts. One night, when I was driving home from work, I missed the off ramp to my house and I had to take the next one. It is only 2km further and really no hassle at all but by the time I got home, I was sobbing. Another time, our dog, Guinness, was lying on the couch with me when my husband came into the lounge. Guinness got up and moved to lie with my husband and I cried because the dog loved him more that it loved me! Luckily, Steve was not one to get easily flustered so he took all of this craziness in his stride. I was advised not to take Clomid for more than 6 months before returning to the doctor and so when that amount of time had passed, I went back to the doc. By now I was beginning to feel a little panicked and a little worried that things might not be all smooth in the future. The doc suggested a sperm test for Steve and finally I felt a bit of relief. The spotlight would be off me and on him just for a while.

He made an appointment with the lab and off he went. When he arrived, there was a hot, young, blonde student who greeted him at reception. (Perfect!!) She gave him a specimen jar and a Garden and Home magazine and sent him down the passage!!! Amazingly, he managed to do the deed and bring back a specimen! Not his favourite memory!!

The results arrived quickly. He had sperm with average mobility. Not really what a man wants to hear. I think that secretly they all want a result that says their sperm can do 400m of butterfly in 20 seconds followed swiftly by an Olympic-style medley! Anyway, after consulting the doctor, he said that “average” is quite good these days and basically means that there are no problems in that department. The doctor then announced that as I had no obvious problems and Steve had no obvious problems, there was no reason why we should not be pregnant. We are what he assured us is very commonly known as “non-specific infertile”. He wrote a referral letter to a fertility specialist and sent us on our way. 

More about all that next time………………….

How it all happened....

It's really something that never occurs to the average girl or woman.  We are so certain that one day we will grow up and have babies (those of us that want them).  It's nature and it's a calling.  I remember as a little girl saying things like "when I am big, I am going to have 2 children".  And later when I was a teenager, I would say things like "when I become a parent, I will never be strict like my parents are".  Then as a young lady in my twenties, "I will only have chilren after I turn 30."   Note the common thread.....When I.....Not if I have children.  We all assume and we never consider the thought that it will not be possible.  So like everyone else, after a few years of marriage, my hubby and I decided it was time to expand the family.  I went off the pill and we got down to practising!  We were pretty chilled and there was no rush so for the first 6 months, we paid little attention to the fact that my period arrived each month (albeit anywhere between 17 and 46 days!!)  After about 8 months, I happened to be at the gynae for an annual check up and I mentioned that I had been off the pill for some months but had not fallen pregnant.  He did not seem too concerned and put me onto a pill that makes you ovulate properly (just in case).  He said I would almost certainly be pregnant within 4 to 6 months.  

The pills were quite hectic though.  I had hot flushes and became quite emotional...and extremely forgetful.  Oh the joy of trying to fall pregnant!!  More on this tomorrow. 

First Day of Blogging!!

Hello to all of you out there!  My new friend Stuart was mortified that I am not blogging (as he thinks I have a lot to say!) so he insited I just sign up and get going.

Why?  You may well ask....I have a passion...a deep, burning passion. One that consumes me.  I need to share it with everyone!   ADOPTION!!  There are so many infertile couples out there struggling with fertility treatments and there are so many beautiful babies waiting for loving homes.  My passion is to encourage people to adopt a child.  I did and it has been the most rewarding and increadible journey!