Why China? (I'm #27)

On Feb 24th 2006 I posted my answer to this question. To me it is simple. Destiny lead us to China because that's where our daughter is. But some people want to know the whole story. Specifically, all the people linked at the bottom of this post. I got the invite from Karen and I am #27 in this series. My husband does not usually approve of me posting our life story on my blog. He will not like this being on here so read it while you can. but I figure this is one exception. So here goes my long story...

We got married in 1999. My desire to be a mom was in full force at that time, but my husband's was not. So I patiently waited for the right time for him, trying to hint along the way! I don't think we actually sat down and had a conversation about it at a later date but somewhere around late 2002 I quit taking the pill. We waited and waited...I talked with my OBGYN and he said be patient sometimes it takes a while. .. so I waited some more. After about 11 months I told my doctor that I was sick of waiting (little did I know how much longer I would be waiting). I started taking my basal temps to plan for ovulation timing on my own. My doctor's solution was to do a procedure where they take out a chunk of your uterine lining (my mind is drawing a blank right now so I can't remember the name of it) to see how much lining I was producing. To me that just didn't sound like a very good first step!!! He hadn't even requested the very simple and non-intrusive test for Brian for God sakes! I didn't really like that doctor anyway, so I switched to another one. I went in for a consultation with her and she immediately referred me to a fertility specialist. (BTW - she had just adopted twin boys from Guatemala as a single mom!). So we went to the fertility specialist in October 2004 after months of basal temps and ovulation timing on my own. I had a HSG done to see if my tubes were clear. They were. We started with ovulation timing, mid-cycle scans, basal temp monitoring and Clomid in November of that year. Nothing. Nothing. I took my freaking temp every morning for over a year!!!!!! Ugh.

Then in January 2005 I found out I was pregnant! We were so excited. In February (president's day to be exact) I had major cramping and called my OBGYN to see what to do. The nurse told me that it was probably not related to my pregnancy and I should call my regular doctor. I wanted to make sure so I called my fertility doctor. He told me to go to the ER right away, he was actually the OBGYN on duty for the ER so that was good. When I got there I had to wait for about 3 hours in the ER in severe pain while they kept checking my vitals, taking blood, etc. I still don't know what I was waiting on.... When the doctor got there they did an ultrasound. I was 6-1/2 weeks along and he could not find a sac. My blood tests came back and he told me that my levels were not where they should be for how far along I was in my pregnancy. they kept me over night for observation. Took some more blood. I still did not know I was having a miscarriage, but that's what it was. The next day the doctor came and told me that is what happened. He said I had a tubal pregnancy which is why they could not find the sac in the uterus (and explained the severe pain I was having). They gave me two shots to end the pregnancy so it would not harm my body by growing further in my tube. This was the saddest day of my life. All I could do was cry. My husband drove me home and I cried the whole way. I was stil in such pain and the pain continued for about 4 days while the miscarriage took its course. I was emotionally drained.

After you receive these shots they don't let you try again for a month so we had to wait to begin trying to get pregnant again. We tried a few more months with nothing. I did a HSG to see if my tubes were clear and the test showed they were. At this point I had been taking my basal temp every morning for over a year and a half! Do you know how annoying that is??? And I had been on prenatal vitamins that long too along with eating healthy and not drinking alcohol...just in case I got pregnant. (like I was pregnant for a year and a half! Annoying!) So we moved on to injections. We did one month of these with no luck and my doctor decided to do a laparoscopy in October 2005. All this time with no luck and a miscarriage had really drained me emotionally. All my friends were getting pregnant and it was killing me inside. I remember that October helping my mom do a buffet during the craft festival at their hotel and I saw a white lady bring in a black infant that she had just adopted. I was really drawn to this lady and her beautiful baby. It seemed everywhere I looked I saw articles, books, tv news about adoption. The laparoscopy revealed that I had tubal disease. Ugh. What a blow emotionally. I spent all that time and gained all that weight from fertility drugs to find this out??? All that time I lost....

My options were to 1) adopt or 2) have my tubes removed and have IVF. he only gave us a 25% chance of conceiving a child with IVF. My thoughts were... I am 30 years old. I am not taking out my tubes when I am 30! I am not going to pay $10,000 to have my tubes removed - my insurance consideres that a surgery for fertility so doesn't pay for it.... and then $10,000 for IVF for only a 25% chance of having a child at the end! So adoption seemed like the only option.

I called a coworker who had adopted from China recently and asked her about China, her agency, etc. She was so excited about China and her beautiful daughter. I knew when she brought her home that I was really drawn to her story. So I contacted the social worker she used to start our homestudy.

After our second meeting with the social worker, she called and said she had a little 18month old boy and wanted to know if we were interested. Of course we said yes! He went to a foster family for a few days until we could get all our paperwork in order. We visited him in the foster home and fell in love with him immediately. She rushed our final 2 visits for our homestudy and quickly typed up the report within a few days. We took custody of him and were very happy. In Missouri a judge has to rule on the parents revocation of rights. And this had not happened as of yet. (We weren't totally aware of the disadvantage of this yet). The mother, in the mean time, was requesting money for a lot of outrageous things that we did not agree to pay for. I guess that made her mad because after having him for almost a week, she changed her mind and we had to give him back. *sigh* I was totally devastated. Emotional wreck.

But in my quest to become a mother....back to China! We decided that domestic adoption was way to risky and that we didn't want to run our emotions through the wringer. China's program was stable, secure, and reliable. We needed that. At the time, China's wait was only 6-8 months. Ha. That would have been nice!!!! I feel like somehow this little boy came into our life for a reason. I have heard of people whose homestudy took months to finish. and ours only took a few weeks. We are truly blessed for that. We were DTC Jan 31 2006 and LID 2/27/06.

For some reason, destiny brought us to China. I truly feel that our daughter is in China. That we were meant to have a little Chinese princess in our home. So for her, we wait. and wait... and wait! Who knew in 2002 how long the wait would be??? I have friends who are pregnant with their 3rd child while I am still waiting for my first. It is extremely difficult and my emotions are raw every day. I cry for no reason, I yell for no reason. I rarely smile for no reason unless I am dreaming of Mia in my arms. So if you catch me in a bad mood, crying, or down in the dumps, now you know why. It is because for years I have been yearning for a child to fill our home with laughter and love... and still here I sit with empty arms and an empty heart. Some day my princess will come. Until then . . .we wait.

The progression of this post: So it's come down to this> Omega Mom>Letters from the Zoo> The Singing Bird>Elsie Elsewhere>Chicago Mama>Sopapilla>Are we There yet? >Hope Springs>Jiaozi>Figlet>Bionic Valentine>Hao Bao Bao>Mortimers Mom>Jazzie & Tahlia>Ruby In her Own Time> hey ho, hey ho>Love Made Real>The Moon is Always Female>Buttercup>Waiting for Sprout>Somewhere in China...> TBG Happenings >Our Unforgottten Daughter >Awaiting Ava >Waiting on Emma > Journey to Mia Lin > Journey for Jensen

I'm sending this to Valeri (#28) who is waiting for Jensen