Watch our segment on Rochester’s morning new.
Parenthood for Me on 13WHAM CW.
Scroll down and look for PFM on left side.
Gala April 2.
Thanks, Jennifer!
Possible Mandated IF Coverage in Maine
Representative Gary Knight has sponsored a bill that seeks to mandate insurance coverage for infertility patients in the state of Maine.
The Maine legislature has put LD 720 on the hearing docket a week from today. The public hearing is Wednesday, March 23 at 1:00pm in room 220 at the Maine State House. Time will be allotted for brief, personal testimony. If this bill is going to get any kind of support from the rest of the Maine legislature, it is critical that at least 20-30 people show up to this public hearing.
Please visit Hannah Wept Sarah Laughed for more detailed information.
Click here for link to details about bill.
Parenthood for Me Annual Gala
The Second Annual Parenthood for Me Annual Gala is coming up April 2, 2011.
We are expecting a great turn out and have many people to thank
so far for their sponsorships and donations.
A full list will be available on our website- http://www.parenthoodforme.org/
Also find us on Facebook– Parenthood for Me.org
We are excited to meet our honorary guests, a 2010 grantee.
Dr. Muechler
We will also be awarding Dr. Eberhard Muechler, MD with the Commitment to Excellence.
Me and Vice President, Kevin Mulcahy
He is the pioneer of in vitro fertilization at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
He enjoyed a 43 year career assisting couples in their pursuit of parenthood.
Tickets are still available. To purchase email events@parenthoodforme.org
Here are some pictures from last year’s event.
AJ and I getting ready to leave.
The 2010 Board of Directors
Board member, Melissa Mulcahy and volunteers Megan and Dana.
Me and Vice President, Kevin Mulcahy
Chairman of the Board, Chuck Montante
Thanks to Heather Cicione Photography!
The Company in Misery
No one wants to go through tough times. Even all the b.s. about hindsight and growing from difficult situations doesn’t make painful experiences any less painful.
I believe whole heartedly the obstacles that are thrown in our way are what makes us who we are. Or rather, how we handle those obstacles is what shapes us. But sometimes wouldn’t it be nice to think of smooth sailing?
It would be at this point that the figure of optimism pops up on my left shoulder, not unlike the angel equivolant and says,” Every difficult thing in life can be turned into a positive. It’s all in how you look at things.”
In the next second the pessimistic downer frowns and proclaims, “No. This just sucks.”
Sometimes it simply takes too much energy to think positively when your spirit is crushed.
Hopefully the gift of time can allow perspective. It did for me, thankfully.
In the past week I have been reminded several times of how many wonderful people have come into my life since starting PFM. Infertility and all it entails has definitely been awful.
But my perspective has changed and I do not struggle so immensely to understand why “having” a family created such a devastatingly difficult experience.
I am still amazed at how sharing a similar struggle strikes an instant commonality. Misery doesn’t love company, but it sure as heck can make you feel better. Knowing you’re not alone in anything somehow takes the edge off. Perhaps it’s because you see that someone else who is struggling with the same predicament is still getting by.
They are still waking up in the morning, going to work, laughing, eating pizza rolls, folding laundry, and putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe being around someone who is struggling or has struggled from a similar situation is helpful because when you are down, their companionship through understanding can get you by. And, when you’re both hearing the voice of pessimism at least you don’t have to expend much energy explaining why things suck. It’s simply understood.
What I’m trying to say is that I am grateful for all of the people I have met. I hate that there are so many people struggling and feeling pain because having a baby or babies has posed such an unpredictably hard endeavor. But without infertility and motherhood through adoption I would be missing out on some really great friendships- relationships on all levels that have played such a poignant part in the re-shaping of my presupposed adult life.
Infertility changed my path. It does not define me, however it is hard for me to picture any life other than this one. The one where I get to fulfill my passion for writing ( I tried to get a book of poems published at age 8. Thanks Mrs. T!), develop the career that I love, see my baby grow every day, appreciate the little things in life, and understand that tough times are just one part of life.
Here’s the optimistic chant for you: things do work out. Some how, some way.
I’m still figuring it all out and I’d like to think that I will have the foresight to realize that if I’m still figuring it all out in my 80’s, then I’m still learning- about myself, others, and the wonderment of life.
Get To Know
Dawn Davenport
Dawn Davenport is a leading expert on adoption, infertility and orphan care and host of the top-rated radio show on adoption and infertility in the U.S.— Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption and Infertility.
She is the Executive Director of Creating a Family, a nonprofit providing education for adoption and infertility. Creating a Family has won awards for excellence from both the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption. The radio show won the International Infertility in the Media award in 2010.
Davenport is the author of, The Complete Book of International Adoption and has published in national and regional publications, including Conceive Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, and USA Today. She is interviewed frequently on radio and TV. Her research has been featured on CBS News 60 Minutes and People Magazine. Ms. Davenport has served as a background consultant to CBS News 60 Minutes and ABC News Primetime Live.
Q: How did Creating a Family begin? And when?
A: The radio show, Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption and Infertility, started in Oct. 2007 and the website Oct. 2006.
Q: Are there many people who work for Creating A Family?
A: We try to run a lean ship to make the best use of our resources. We have 4 people who work in varying capacities—most part time and one person completely volunteers his time because he believes in our mission.
Q: How do you receive your information and resources for radio shows, etc.?
A: We are never at a loss for show ideas. If I’m curious about something, I figure others are as well. More and more of our show ideas are coming from our audience.
Q: What is the biggest challenge of running a nonprofit?
A: Money. I’m sorry to say this, but it’s true. As much as I’d love to run Creating a Family just on our passion to help, it does take money. The biggest challenge is finding this money.
Q: What are your goals for CAF?
A: Our goals are to continue to reach others who are considering adoption, or have already adopted, or are in the midst of infertility. Our mission is education and support. The more people we reach with our radio show, videos, or website resources, the better our mission is being accomplished. We try to be the one place where people can get unbiased accurate information on the different ways to create a family.
Q: What is your favorite part about running CAF?
A: I love doing the radio show. I am a curious person and getting to ask questions to the biggest experts in any field is like eating an ice cream sundae for me each and every week. I also really love talking with people individually during a consultation. Education can be on the macro level, such as our radio shows and videos, or on the micro level, such as a one on one consultation. I enjoy both forms of education immensely.
Q: Do you have a particular memory of when you remember the mission being fulfilled? A: Many people have been very kind to send email or letters thanking us for what we do. I am touched deeply every time I receive one. We include some of these on the right hand side of the Radio Page and Consulting page.
Q: Have you seen an understanding of adoption and infertility grow in our society?
A: I do think we are getting our core messages out on both adoption and infertility. Families formed through adoption and adopted people still face prejudice and ignorance, but the more we educate, the less they face. The infertile also face such ignorance and lack of understanding, but again, at least they have a community of support at Creating a Family so they do not have to face it alone.
Please visit the Creating A Family website for further information and radio show topics and times.
Grant Cycle 2011
Parenthood for Me is now accepting grant applications for the 2011 grant cycle.
We ask that you please read the FAQ page before requesting an application.
Click here to read specifics about each type of grant.
Deadline is May 1, 2011.
*Please note that you cannot apply for both a medical grant and an adoption grant from Parenthood for Me in the same grant cycle.
————————————————————
PFM is thrilled that so many people across the country are aware of our mission.
We look forward to awarding more grants in July of this year.
Please keep in mind that without the help of donations we cannot continue to offer grants to prospective parents. Any donation, no matter how small makes a difference.
Click here to reach our donation page.
You can help in other ways as well.
We will assist you in holding a fundraiser in your community.
If you have someone in mind who may be interested in a Partnership Package (sponsorship opportunity) with Parenthood for Me, please email us- info@parenthoodforme.org
We are a 501 c(3) tax exempt charity.
Donations are tax deductible.
“What a difference it makes to come home to a child.”
-Margaret Fuller
Revisiting Old News
Last week as I drove to work it hit me like a punch to the gut- I can’t have a baby. I will never get pregnant. I will never create a child with my husband. I will never know what that is like.
How after six years of dealing with why this does my brain continually seem to blank out? How does this already-known fact pop into my head as if for the first time? Why do I have to keep reliving this very painful news over and over and over again?
Infertility for most people leaves an open wound because one is constantly having to revisit their pain. My husband and I have never been told that we cannot conceive. I have not lost my tubes, he has viable sperm- the bottom line is that it could happen. It’s just that the odds are stacked heavily against us. We are not able to move on mentally and emotionally because the possibility is still there, even if it is small.
Because of our age we are surrounded by people who are having children. Even though my own grief has subsided substantially since becoming a mother, I still have extremely difficult moments. Every time I hear of a pregnancy my insides ache. My heart hurts. It may only last a few moments, but the pain always comes.
I realize that until my peer group is out of child-bearing years and onto raising adolescents and teen-agers I will have to continually fight my own grief. I feel separated from my peer group because I cannot have a family in the traditional way. I cannot relate to sonograms, finding out the sex of the baby, seeing the baby grow, birth stories, and holding your newborn baby. These conversations elude me, and I will never be able to fully particpate nor understand what all those things feel like.
It hurts.
“Having” children or reproducing is such a primal thing. It’s in our flesh and bones. Carrying on our genes, creating children with a spouse is part of human existence. When you cannot fulfill that very expected and natural desire, there is a huge sense of loss. It is a loss that has taken a piece of me with it. It is a loss that has impacted my entire life- some ways are good and some are very challenging.
When that feeling of complete and utter solace and heartache comes over me, I focus on what I do have. Being a mother to Min is such an amazing experience. And those who are not adoptive parents could never understand what life is like for my husband and I. We love and adore him like any parent loves their child, but the way we became a family is different and unique.
And no matter how much my heart hurts over never experiencing pregnancy, I will never have regret because this difficult path has led me to a motherhood I never would have imagined.
But grief and loss are a part of life. Each day is a challenge for many different reasons. We all have difficult things to deal with in our lives. Focusing on the beautiful moments, the precious time with my growing boy, and appreciating that although life is hard, it is a gift help me to get by.
Infertility is one part of my life. It has closed some doors for me but created an infinite number of rare and wonderful opportunities. Knowing this does help me get through the difficult days. Although I feel sad at times, I am full of great joy because I have the opportunity to be the mother to my son.
Factor In
Infertility is a couples’ condition, and can be attributed to either partner. Once considered purely a “female problem,” infertility science has historically placed little emphasis on the role of the male. Approximately 1/3 of infertile couples have a purely male-factor cause, 1/3 are related to the female, and another third are infertile due to combined male and female factors.
Here is a look at the experience of infertility from a male’s perspective.
Thank you to *Sam and his wife for sharing their story.
Thank you to *Sam and his wife for sharing their story.
———————————————————————————-
Infertility is one of the most difficult obstacles I have ever had to face. It afflicts so many, but yet it seems like so few because it is terribly isolating and painful to experience first hand. I’m writing this with hope that someone will be able to identify with my experience and find the strength to tackle infertility head on and know that there can be a light at the end of the tunnel. My wife and I struggled with infertility for years, and I am happy to say that we have a positive outcome; we are now proud parents of a little boy from South Korea. Plus, we have been matched with another little boy that we expect to come home early next summer! To say that adoption has changed our lives for the better would be a profound understatement.
Infertility is one of the most difficult obstacles I have ever had to face. It afflicts so many, but yet it seems like so few because it is terribly isolating and painful to experience first hand. I’m writing this with hope that someone will be able to identify with my experience and find the strength to tackle infertility head on and know that there can be a light at the end of the tunnel. My wife and I struggled with infertility for years, and I am happy to say that we have a positive outcome; we are now proud parents of a little boy from South Korea. Plus, we have been matched with another little boy that we expect to come home early next summer! To say that adoption has changed our lives for the better would be a profound understatement.
I’m getting ahead of myself a bit; I’ll start at the beginning. My wife and I went through several rounds of fertility treatments, which is to say that we have been poked and prodded to the point where we felt like cattle being hustled through the system. I’ll never forget my first trip to the andrology lab for a “male work-up.” That makes it sound much more glamorous than it actually is. You sit in a cold, clinical waiting room where you feel everyone’s eyes burning holes in you while you wonder if they know what you are about to do back there. Fortunately, after the first time it gets much easier. After a couple of cycles, you end up walking in there like you own the joint.
“Hey Linda, good to see you again, but hopefully this is the last time.”
We started with intrauterine insemination’s (IUI) complemented with clomid and ovidrel. This process is like an arms race with infertility, gradually escalating until one of you blinks. For us this first step is where things started getting complicated. It started with a cyst on my wife’s ovary (not uncommon with clomid). She was in extreme pain both physically and emotionally and we waited for it to resolve itself. When we started back up, we tried a natural IUI (no drugs), and got pregnant! Unfortunately, we miscarried after just six days.
Unbeknownst to us, my wife had a silent case of raging endometriosis that came roaring to life with the introduction of clomid. Very quickly our focus shifted from growing our family to bringing my wife back to health. This was awful. Infertility is a strain on your relationship as it is; you really have to be a team and rely on one another for support. The emotional roller coaster of hope and despair can be debilitating. When my wife started showing severe symptoms of endometriosis, it was almost too much. First it was infertility, then the miscarriage, now this. We had a lot of guilt, mostly because we didn’t listen to out gut instincts. We jumped right to the drugs. It is so easy to get caught up in the statistics and how adding this or doing that can increase your chances. Needless to say, it was a very trying time for us.
The pain got so bad that two or three days a month my wife would be in bed in unbelievable agony. That was torture for both of us- obviously physically for her, but it was incredibly difficult for me to stand there helpless watching the love of my life writhe in agony. This went on for several months before my wife finally had laparoscopic surgery to clean out the disease. Her doctor said it was one of the worst cases of endometriosis that he had ever seen. This was when we started considering what we were willing to risk to have a baby, and when we started to realize what we really wanted was to be parents.
Our doctor said that our only meaningful chance of conceiving a biological child was to pursue in vitro fertilization. Unlike so many, the money wasn’t a problem for us because my wife’s insurance would cover three rounds of IVF. But the more we researched the procedure and the powerful drugs it entailed, the more we realized that it just wasn’t worth the risk to my wife’s health. I just couldn’t stand to see her struggle with the bouts of pain from that god-awful disease again. No, it wasn’t worth it to me to face that again.
The decision to adopt was hard for me initially. I had virtually no exposure to adoption so it was difficult for me to wrap my brain around at first. My moment of clarity came one night after work when my wife and I attended an information session hosted by a local non-profit on international adoption. I still remember the couple that spoke- the father was rugged and sported long hair and tattoos, and the mom was pleasant and petite- an ordinary family that you could find in just about any town across the country. I remember how he described their struggle with infertility, how they made the decision to adopt, and then finally about when their son came home. He got choked up, and I could just feel the love in his voice as he continued on about how happy they were to be a family. I still get emotional thinking back to that night and their story. I read all the books, articles, webpages, etc. relating to infertility and adoption, but this guy was what finally broke through to me. To me all of the information out there seems to be focused on the female experience. I guess as men, we’re supposed to be rocks and just suck it up. I think what makes infertility such a painful struggle is that the ability to reproduce is one of the most basic elements of life. When it doesn’t work, it really shakes you to the core.
When we finally made the decision to adopt, we didn’t do it begrudgingly, or thought of it as a back-up plan. It actually was a relief. We felt a tremendous weight lift off our shoulders because we now had a plan and could focus on building our family and not risk my wife’s health in a desperate struggle with an uncertain outcome.
We found a great agency that works exclusively with South Korea. The information gathering process for the application was daunting, but we had a renewed sense of resolve. We were matched to a little boy a couple of weeks after we completed our home study, and our son came home just 6 months after that on Christmas Eve! Our wait was exceptionally difficult because it turned out to be twice as long as we had initially expected. The wait is tough. You can only rearrange the nursery, and double-check your inventory of onsies so many times. But when that travel call finally comes, it sets in- your child is coming home! All of our impatience and pain transformed instantly to excitement and joy. Looking back, I can now unequivocally say that infertility has had a positive impact on my life, and I bet my wife would say the same thing too.
I often think back to that night of the information session and wonder if that guy has any idea just how profound the impact of his story has been in my life. I understand now how happy they were and how blessed we are to have our son in our lives. I tend to be an optimist in life, and believe that struggle and pain help us appreciate all of our blessings. I thank God for infertility because without it I wouldn’t have my son, nor would I have the same perspective on life and just how sweet the words “love you dada” sound.
Along our journey, when we encountered particularly disappointing news, we found strength from others who had been through this and come out the other side. Their experiences and outcomes provided us with the hope and strength we needed to continue forward. I know how hard this, but keep the faith; it really is worth every single tear that falls along the way.
I would like to give a big thank you to Erica for her hard work and vision, without which Parenthood For Me would not exist. It truly is an amazing organization. Thank you too for allowing me to share my story.
*name changed for privacy
Misunderstanding Miscarriage
Awhile back I wrote a post called Misunderstanding Miscarriage.
I am attempting to write another post on the subject and would love your input.
Often times miscarriage is dismissed and not recognized as a significant loss. Did you experience this? Or did you feel support from those in your life?
Many times people to know what to say to a couple who has experienced miscarriage. They either say nothing at all or something that seems insensitive.
What is helpful to those experiencing loss from miscarriage?
I would love to hear from you.
Email me: info (at) parenthoodforme (dot) org
Human Kindness
In the spirit of the holiday season
please take a minute to read this very touching article.
It is an affirmation that love, kindness, and tolerance do change our lives.
I could not get through it without crying.
Click here for article.