Also, as an adopted child myself, it REAAAAAALLLY chaps my ass when people say "just adopt" or whatever, like I'm a fucking booby prize or like their last resort. Nope.
"This prick is asking for someone here to bring him to task Somebody give me some dirt on this vacuous mass so we can at last unmask him I'll pull the trigger on it, someone load the gun and cock it While we were all watching, he got Washington in his pocket."
After reading this article and all the responses, I have a mixture of emotions that I hope make sense.
For our IVF cycle, it costs us about $15K. We live in a HCOL (San Jose, CA) and are 100% OOP. When we did our IUIs, they were covered at 50%.
Yes, it is not 100% guaranteed and yes we have nothing to show for it. We took a chance and we failed.
DH and I are not on the same page in regards adoption. That is a whole another roller coaster of emotions and it is much more money. I understand there are many successful adoptions but that also goes along with many unsuccessful adoptions.
We make decent money and we do budget. Even at that, it would take us about 6 mos to save up for one IVF cycle. DH works on commission so if he has a good month, he will put in a little more towards our IVF cycle.
We have put our life on hold for too long when dealing with IF (just past the five year mark). After taking a 6 month break from our failed IVF, we plan to save up for another IVF but we also plan to get a second opinion.
To me, this article does nothing for the IF community. Nothing at all. I get a sense of entitlement from this couple, as if they feel "owed". I don't feel owed but I should feel respected. More people need know that infertility is a disease.
I agree that babyproofing your home now-girlfriend is BSC.
If I were dealing with IF, adoption would scare the piss out of me. Personally, I would feel even more demoralized at the idea of having to prove I was worthy of having my own child simply because my plumbing or his plumbing which ever the case may be didn't work properly. And then I would be on pins and needles fearing that one day I'd find my lawyer was shady, something wasn't done right, or that I'd somehow contributed to coercing some poor girl into giving up her baby or helped some chick maneuver a baby from a man who really wanted it. And that's once you get past the various amount of delays, false hopes, and various starts and stops that come with the entire process.
Personally, I'd rather take my chances on paying out the scratch that I had to eat ramen noodles to scrounge up and maybe not get a baby and bye bye all that money.
That's personally. Those are all of my issues and all of my preferences and all of my outlooks. That doesn't take into consideration how my husband, an adopted child himself feels about the situation.
And for all of those reasons and more, the only time I have ever had an opinion on whether one should adopt or do IF treatments is when you get the person who says all plaintively, but I want a baby of our owwwwwwwwwwwn as if a child who isn't born of your body cannot be yours. As a stepchild and the mother of children who are someone's stepchildren, that thought process chaps my ass. But I also know that generally speaking, that's not the intent of those words.
So yes, IF sucks big donkey dick and I feel sympathy for anyone who faces it. Obviously less sympathy for some all things depending lol. But I think that it's one of those situations where you truly cannot know what it will do to you until you face it, just like all manner of unexpected stressers that completely alter your life.
After reading this article and all the responses, I have a mixture of emotions that I hope make sense.
For our IVF cycle, it costs us about $15K. We live in a HCOL (San Jose, CA) and are 100% OOP. When we did our IUIs, they were covered at 50%.
Yes, it is not 100% guaranteed and yes we have nothing to show for it. We took a chance and we failed.
DH and I are not on the same page in regards adoption. That is a whole another roller coaster of emotions and it is much more money. I understand there are many successful adoptions but that also goes along with many unsuccessful adoptions.
We make decent money and we do budget. Even at that, it would take us about 6 mos to save up for one IVF cycle. DH works on commission so if he has a good month, he will put in a little more towards our IVF cycle.
We have put our life on hold for too long when dealing with IF (just past the five year mark). After taking a 6 month break from our failed IVF, we plan to save up for another IVF but we also plan to get a second opinion.
To me, this article does nothing for the IF community. Nothing at all. I get a sense of entitlement from this couple, as if they feel "owed". I don't feel owed but I should feel respected. More people need know that infertility is a disease.
I agree that babyproofing your home now-girlfriend is BSC.
Yea, we know. Both our fathers have blue eyes. My mom has green. All my sibs have blue or green eyes, all their kids have blue or green eyes. So there's no brown eye gene on my end. But H's mom and sister both have brown eyes. So I figured, odds being what they are, they would have been brown, or maybe green.
When B was younger he was white blonde too. People'd look at him and my dark haired, dark eyed husband and my dark hair and green eyes and ask some tentative questions like "so.... were either of you blonde as babies?"
One day I would try to get the nerve to say, "no, but I think the delivery man did." People are nosey.
IVF would have cost us $15K upfront. There is a $1K a year fee for storing eggs and it would have been $5K for attempts thereafter, provided there were good eggs. If more eggs need to be retrieved then that's another $15K.
After H and I had met with the doctor to discuss our options, we had to think about how many times do we give this a shot, before we give up? Do we stop trying after $50K? 100K? How much do we sink into this when there's no guarantee?
We were in a position that if we needed to do IVF we could afford it, since our insurance did not cover it, but so many people can't and my heart truly goes out to those people.
Fortunately for us, we didn't have to go through IVF, but let me tell you struggling to get pregnant screws with your mind and our struggle wasn't even nearly as long as some people.
I just can't judge this couple (ok the baby proofing was kind of strange, I'll admit). They had good paying jobs, were getting their lives together and just when they were ready for kids they lose their jobs and/or hours cut and on top of that they are struggling with IF.
And, yes, lots of people have struggles and/or do everything right and then shit really hits the fan, and life just doesn't go as expected. But why aren't they deserving of sympathy?
Being unemployed/underemployed sucks. Going through IF sucks.
And yeah the economy does play a role here. If they were still working, they'd still be IF, but they could most likely more easily afford IF, which as someone mentioned is really just a 50/50 chance at getting pregnant.
On a more lighthearted note, and at risk of annoying some people here...what does it mean when one parent has amber eyes? How are those classified??? Brown?
I am so pissed that I spent the day arguing about Gaza when I could have been rolling with laughter in this thread, which, incidentally, needs more gifs.
..and I only clicked on the last page to see if I could glean what made this thread 7 pages. Guess I've got some reading to do.
"Not gonna lie; I kind of keep expecting you to post one day that you threw down on someone who clearly had no idea that today was NOT THEIR DAY." ~dontcallmeshirley
It's the only part of this I want to even get close to touching with a ten foot pole
The whole thing is hurting me. Is the word allele in this thread anywhere. If you have blue eyes, you have two blue (recessive) alleles. If you have brown eyes, you may have two brown alleles, one brown one green, or one brown and one blue and that's why two brown eyed parents can have a blue eyed baby but two blue eyed parents cannot have a brown eyed baby.
I am so pissed that I spent the day arguing about Gaza when I could have been rolling with laughter in this thread, which, incidentally, needs more gifs.
You know, I love gifs. They are my friend but then I was starting to think I was overusing them so I dialed back and save them for the mockery threads.
I just found this chart that says all our kids are destined to have hazel eyes.
The blue-eyed parent can only give bm to his children and the hazel-eyed parent can only give GM. So, all of their children will be GbMm or hazel-eyed carriers for green and blue eyes.
On a more lighthearted note, and at risk of annoying some people here...what does it mean when one parent has amber eyes? How are those classified??? Brown?
I think they're classified as hazel. I have one aunt who has amber eyes, and sometimes they look greenish hazel. One of my mom's sisters. In her immediate family of 10 people, they had every shade of eye color (except brown). Blue, hazel, green, amber, gray, etc.
I would like to add that my dark brown haired XH and golden-brown haired me gave birth to this hair:
Now, he doesn't recall his birth dad so maybe there was a redhead there somewhere. In all the brown/lt. blue and brown/hazel had: Redhead with medium blue eyes Golden brunette with lt. green eyes White blonde (now brunette) with blue turned hazel eyes Dark brunette (now medium) with medium blue eyes
My mom's first comment was along the lines of "How unfair! I have to use Clairol to get that!"
teflepi - you will be pleased not note that I *DID* respond to various inquiries about my XH's hair color (he was in the Navy so neighbors of my parents had not seen him) that "The mailman is a redhead. We've known each other for years."
It's the only part of this I want to even get close to touching with a ten foot pole
The whole thing is hurting me. Is the word allele in this thread anywhere. If you have blue eyes, you have two blue (recessive) alleles. If you have brown eyes, you may have two brown alleles, one brown one green, or one brown and one blue and that's why two brown eyed parents can have a blue eyed baby but two blue eyed parents cannot have a brown eyed baby.
You can't do a regular punnett square for eye color. Eye color is confusing as shit (and I think still not 100% understood from a genetic sequence, but maybe that's changed since I was in college and looked in to it deeply), hence all the misinformation and confusion in this long ass thread lol.
The whole thing is hurting me. Is the word allele in this thread anywhere. If you have blue eyes, you have two blue (recessive) alleles. If you have brown eyes, you may have two brown alleles, one brown one green, or one brown and one blue and that's why two brown eyed parents can have a blue eyed baby but two blue eyed parents cannot have a brown eyed baby.
You can't do a regular punnett square for eye color. Eye color is confusing as shit (and I think still not 100% understood from a genetic sequence, but maybe that's changed since I was in college and looked in to it deeply), hence all the misinformation and confusion in this long ass thread lol.
Okay good because I was sure I'd heard that we actually do not know enough about how eye color is determined to predict shit but I wasn't sure if that was legit or stemming from my surprise that my child has blue eyes.
I really shouldn't be though. My father has blue eyes. Her father has blue eyes. I'm actually pretty sure that the only people in this child's family tree who don't have blue eyes are me, my mother and my mother's parents. Everyone else is blue eyed. And yet there I was, surprised.
You know, I love gifs. They are my friend but then I was starting to think I was overusing them so I dialed back and save them for the mockery threads.
Now I'm rethinking my strategy lol.
I guess ML makes fun of us for all our gif usage. I just want someone to do the Israel Palestine conflict all in gifs.
If I weren't on my ipad right now....
I did find a glitter gif that says "Palestine" in Arabic though.
On a more lighthearted note, and at risk of annoying some people here...what does it mean when one parent has amber eyes? How are those classified??? Brown?
My mom had yellow eyes, which I recently researched and found out they are called amber and count as brown.
I really want to know what DDs will end up as…this is our 'tree'
MMGGM MMGGF MFGGM MFGGF PMGGM PMGGF PFGGM PFGGF Blue Brown Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue
MGM MGF PGM MGF Brown (Amber) Blue Blue Blue
Mother (Me!) Father (DH) Brown (light) Blue
DD currently blue? hazel? grey?
She is still so young though, it will be interesting to see…I just feel like there is a lot of blue in that tree.
If I were dealing with IF, adoption would scare the piss out of me. Personally, I would feel even more demoralized at the idea of having to prove I was worthy of having my own child simply because my plumbing or his plumbing which ever the case may be didn't work properly. And then I would be on pins and needles fearing that one day I'd find my lawyer was shady, something wasn't done right, or that I'd somehow contributed to coercing some poor girl into giving up her baby or helped some chick maneuver a baby from a man who really wanted it. And that's once you get past the various amount of delays, false hopes, and various starts and stops that come with the entire process.
Personally, I'd rather take my chances on paying out the scratch that I had to eat ramen noodles to scrounge up and maybe not get a baby and bye bye all that money.
That's personally. Those are all of my issues and all of my preferences and all of my outlooks. That doesn't take into consideration how my husband, an adopted child himself feels about the situation.
And for all of those reasons and more, the only time I have ever had an opinion on whether one should adopt or do IF treatments is when you get the person who says all plaintively, but I want a baby of our owwwwwwwwwwwn as if a child who isn't born of your body cannot be yours. As a stepchild and the mother of children who are someone's stepchildren, that thought process chaps my ass. But I also know that generally speaking, that's not the intent of those words.
So yes, IF sucks big donkey dick and I feel sympathy for anyone who faces it. Obviously less sympathy for some all things depending lol. But I think that it's one of those situations where you truly cannot know what it will do to you until you face it, just like all manner of unexpected stressers that completely alter your life.
When we were struggling to get pregnant I was so scared of adoption because I was convinced that DH and I were just too boring for any scared teenager to see and think "These are the people I want to raise this baby". DH was not ok with adoption at all and was not all that enthusiastic about the prospect of IVF so I am extremely lucky that out first IUI cycle was a success and I have my DS.
Genetics are flat out strange when it comes to eye color. My eyes are green and DH's are hazelish but DS still has the dark blue eyes he was born even though they're finally starting to green up a little bit. I also get asked all the time about his nearly white blonde hair and I explain that my husband and I were both blonde children and darkened up as adults. A few years ago at my church mothers' group I remember someone commenting on the fact that every baby in the nursery was light blonde but every mother in room had dark hair.