Creating a Family: Thoughts on Our Options and a Question

So I know that it's been baby central around RSBR lately...It will let up! But before it does, I wanted to post the post I promised I'd post (say that 10 times fast): our thoughts on our options.

First things first, the appointment Tuesday went well. Shockingly well actually. He made it sound like getting me (a 24 year old) preggers was a no brainer. He obviously said we have to first rule out any possibility of me having infertility issues, but he sounds like if there are no issues, we should have pretty good chances. This was music to my ears. I know there is still the chance that we do a few rounds and it doesn't work, but he seems to think if that's the case, then we need to reassess because there's something there we're missing.

I'm excited. I'm excited, and I'll tell you why. To me, the best of our options, the option that I like the most, is being able to conceive a child that is created from Ronnie's DNA and mine. I have spent many hours asking myself why this is; trying to pinpoint my reasoning behind this being my preferred option. And here's what I've concluded: There are two big reasons, but I'm not sure which is the main reason. The first reason is that I want to carry a child. While terrified by the what pregnancy can do to some people's bodies, minds, emotions, etc, I have always dreamed of being pregnant. Most people just played house with babies. I played house "pregnant", "delivered the baby", "brought it home from the hospital"...you get the point. The second reason is that part of me wants to look at my kid's face and see Ronnie. I don't know how to explain that better than that. And I know this one is flawed, as Ronnie keeps reminding me, even if it's biologically his, it very well may not look anything like him. But it's still part of my reasoning, so there you go. To me, this seems like the option you try first.

All that being said, there are a TON of other options. For us, the next options to look at are adoption, fostering to adopt and adopting embryos. Here's the dealio on these options: they're really good options that I am actually excited about. First, adoption and fostering to adopt. While I want to carry our child really badly, I think after holding my adopted/fostered baby in my arms, the pregnancy wouldn't matter, the genes wouldn't matter, nothing. You could hand me a child tomorrow and I would not love it any differently than a child I carried for 9 months with my genes in it. So while I really want to carry our child, if that's not in the cards for us, we'll regroup and look at adoption/fostering to adopt. Also, we have talked about fostering regardless of if IVF works or not. We would love nothing more than having a few biological kids, and then fostering and potentially adopting a few children (no, we we're not picturing a Cheaper By the Dozen or a 18 Kids and Counting deal). We have watched the foster care process with our cousins, and I have a really close family friend that has 3 biological kids and several adopted foster children. I would love that. As I said, you hand me a baby, and I will love it just as much as if I carried it nine months. What a cool way to give a child a home that maybe wouldn't have had one. So even if we do IVF and it works, fostering/fostering to adopt is still in the cards for us!

And onto the last option, adopting an embryo. To be honest with you, I've looked into this only slightly after following the Davenport's (awesome, awesome people) journey. It seems like a really good option that falls somewhere between adoption (in the traditional sense) and having biological children because you adopt an embryo, they implant it, you carry the baby, and vwalla. This is another option for us, but I need to dig into it a little deeper if IVF with our goods doesn't work.

So there you have it...my thoughts on our options. We will be moving forward with option number 1 (IVF) and try to roll with the punches. Here is my question for you: how would you like us to do this? Would you like the blow by blow? Postings each step of the way? Or would you like us to make it through the first round and post backwards how we got to the outcome we got to? We want to share the process, but in the way you all want to hear about it! So leave a comment and let us know!