In the beginning

Jerry and I are adopting children. Well, trying to anyway. We've finally submitted our application to Catholic Charities, and now we must wait. Skipper is very excited to be a big brother (ok, he is excited to have more people to pet him anyway). I wanted to write this blog to keep everyone up to date - and hopefully inspire others.

It was not how we thought it would happen, but something out there wanted it this way. What are the odds of us ending up together with my lack of uterus and his lack of sperm. When you meet someone online, there is no box to check for reproductive ability (although some of those ads make you wonder). I knew about my condition from a young age - and it even has a fancy name: Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome, MRKH for short. How could a name for the absence of something be so long??

I'm not sure that is what they called it 16 years ago when I was 14, but since then doctors have confirmed for me that I do get to claim that sexy title. I'll never forget the day I got the diagnosis - the doctor came in my room, announced to me that I had no uterus, I would never have children, but adoption is an option. My mother wasn't even in the room with me. What kind of doctor would do that? Especially after undergoing so many tests - including chromosome. How painfully awkward are you at 14 and they tell you they have to make sure you are really a girl! Fear not, I passed (though my siblings may sometimes wonder). My mom says I didnt really process it, I was more worried about the impending rain storm and the fact I wouldn't get to pitch at the softball game. It was a hard thing to accept, and it took me many years, but I found out so early. To me it seemed lucky - some women think their whole lives all is well and don't know about their own fertility issues until its too late.

But poor Jerry - he didn't know until we went to the clinic. They told me the good news that I had two healthy ovaries and the likelihood of eggs was excellent. We were very happy with this news - I had been told time and time again that I only had one (but I guess when you pay what we were paying, they find the other one!). Jerry had to be, well, analyzed but we just thought it routine and began looking into surrogates. It was not routine. He had many tests as well, including the chromosome test that was so humiliating for me at 14 (he passed too). But every thing came out normal. Non-specific blockage. Poor guy, he doesn't even get a cool name. Just something to do with blanks.

It's not impossible for us to have a biological child. For about $50-60k Jerry could have a biopsy, they could remove the sperm, test & store it, 'mature' it if its not already, remove my egg, store it, mix it and then implant it in to a surrogate who would charge us $30 - 40k. If we were loaded, it might be possible. But we aren't and it begs the question: why? Why go through all of that just to have a child that is genetically related to you? Any baby mama can tell you that DNA a parent does not make.

Therefore, we are left only to believe that we were brought together because there are children that need us. Not just a home but ours in particular. They need to pet Skipper and play playdoh pisketti with Robbie and have Babcia and Honey love them to death. They'll get the greatest biggest craziest family that will love them like the Schroeder-Mouritsen-Zmuda's they really will be.

And so we Googled - I mean, its 2009 - how else were we to find out how to do it? We had looked into adopting here and in Poland and hadn't really made up our minds. My reading and searching led me to a bulletin board where a man named Michael was talking about adopting his son from Poland. He was 10, one year younger than Jerry when he came here. He left his email address and although the post was a year old, I emailed him anyway. Michael emailed and then called me and was really open about his experience - and even more so he was very encouraging. (And of course we are Facebook friends now) He had adopted his son through Catholic Charities. We contacted them, went to an orientation and just knew. We submitted the application package two weeks ago.

Now we wait. But its weird - I look at the basement now and think, there could be two kids sleeping there this time next year. At least we got a bigger boat for them...