Remission, Remarriage and Trying to Adopt!
- Thread starter Titi
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Following!
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I bet that is exciting, getting the ball rolling!
Titi
Stepmom/Trying to Adopt
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Okay-award for most boring journal! LOL. I have my old ttc journal that I want to link up with this one, and I want to update my journey, and just haven't found time. Also, spoke with the adoption agency and they are basically on hiatus until the New Year! But I promise to post more soon!
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Following, good luck hun 
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Look forward to your posts!
Titi
Stepmom/Trying to Adopt
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Okay, finally finding some time to put my story down.
Next week I will be 42 years old. I have been trying to be a mother for so long! (see https://babyandbump.momtastic.com/ltttc-journals/364368-titis-ltttc-1-journal-578.html)
I met my ex husband in my 20's and we dated for 8 whole years before getting married and settled and trying to start our family at 32. I thought we'd fall pregnant the first or second time even though they said it could take longer at an "older" age. After it didn't happen for some time, 6-12 months, I don't remember, I started with Clomid. When that didn't help, we moved onto IUIS. When that didn't work, we moved onto IVF. I'd had an HSG and an exploratory laparascopy and they never found anything wrong with me. Ex-DH had :sperm: analysis done and although the results weren't steller, it shouldn't prevent us from pregnancy. We stopped at the first IVF, we'd spent all our savings. We tried about five years in all. We decided to stop actively trying and look into adoption. Maybe we'd end up accidentally getting pregnant while growing our family another way.
In 2012 my dh was arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior. He was caught touching himself in a mall parking lot. It was the heartbreaking shock of my lifetime! Nobody could have ever guessed there was a side of him like that! In addition to my heartache, shock and embarrassment, it was an immediate blacklist item for pursing adoption. He not only ruined our marriage in that instant, he ruined our last shot at parenting. I'd like to say I left him right then, but it took me some time to work through that sort of situation and I even tried therapy and a shot at making the marriage work. I think I was just to heartbroken and lost and weak at that time after the pain of years of infertility to think straight.
As if the infertility and wacko husband weren't enough, I found a lump in my breast at 38 years old in January of 2014. Just as I was trying to start another new hopeful year, I was diagnosed with aggressive, invasive breast cancer. At least it gave me the strength oddly enough to leave my husband! He'd made everything about him even to this point, and I couldn't bare the battle of my life with him at my side-doing nothing but trying to take all the credit, or at least the attention. He moved out of the house 10 days before I had a double mastectomy. My breast surgery was followed up with 3 months of chemotherapy and then 40 rounds of radiation, just to treat the primary cancer.
I need to note here that my cancer was ESTROGEN AND PROGESTERONE receptive. Which means it was formed by and fed on estrogen and progesterone. I had no family history, was very young, and in excellent health. I am absolutely positive that my fertility treatments either caused or sped up this cancer! My estrogen and progesterone were raised through the roof for years.
Because of the hormone receptive quality of the cancer, it was explained that I could not only never safely have children (a pregnancy would raise my estrogen high enough to risk recurrence). But that my safest bet altogether was to have a hysterectomy and shut down as much hormones as possible. Even a hysterectomy wasn't enough and I would have to take drugs for a minimum of ten years to block estrogen. If I didn't have the surgery, I could still take postmenopausal estrogen blocking drugs, but they were more dangerous on the heart, did not work as well, and were known to cause gynecological cancers!! After five months of deliberating and second opinions, I opted for the method that would be the best option for my survival-a total hysterectomy. I know of several people that do an egg freezing session either before chemo (which can, in itself render you infertile), or a hysterectomy, but again, with my aggressive cancer cells, and the estrogen problem-I couldn't take anything that would raise my levels at all, let alone high enough to make a ton of eggs! In March of 2015- I said goodbye to all my babymaking organs forever.
During this time I had met a new man who, for reasons I still can't believe, fell in love with me and chose to partake in the chemo (bald dating anyone???), radiation, and hysterectomy journey with me by my side! Two months after my surgery, he proposed and we were to be married that fall.
In another cruel twist of fate, within weeks of announcing my wedding date, my father was diagnosed with stage 3 (which would later become stage 4) colon cancer. We postponed the wedding and during a short lived remission for him in the summer of 2016 (and about 1.5 years remission for me, we had our wedding.
My new husband was married for 26 years before me (!) and had a 17 year daughter living with him full time when we met. She is now 21 and in her second year at community college here and still with us. We are close like friends but due to her age when I came into the picture, she doesn't see me as a "mom" or even a "stepmom". I had a hard time balancing this in the beginning as I really wanted to make her into my child! Now both dh and I struggle with the new role of an adult child in the home transitioning to wanting to be on her own, but financially being "stuck with" us.
When I was having a very hard time coping with my hysterectomy, dh had assured me that adoption could be an option for us. It was a huge gift from him, as he is nearing retirement and his child being on her own! Adoption is hard enough to ponder on it's own, but faced with your health and mortality, even more difficult. I was and still am terrified its a choice that could have my husband working forever instead as a widower trying to raise a child/children by himself in his late 50's or 60's and/or what that could do to a child who has already been through so much! I was not ready during that time-we had so much going on with my own health, my father, and my stepdaughter. We sort of just decided we'd take it easier when he retired and travel or whatnot.
My husband and I do not have the means to explore private adoption at this point in our lives. I lost everything I had financially due to the high cost of treatments and underinsurance. My husband is a deputy putting one child through school. Also-at our ages, more specifically his (54), a baby, as much as I'd always love to have one, isn't really the best first choice. Also, my husband's best friend's family ended up taking him in at age 13 and have been a "foster" family to him to this day. We decided if we'd ever do anything, it would be to help "foster" or to adopt an older child in need of a forever family.
At the end of last month, I was getting ready one weekend morning and my husband came running into the bedroom with his laptop open. He played a video for me of a "D", a child in foster care in another state looking for a forever home. He said he was watching the news when a segment on "forever families" came on and it made him investigate the website they promoted. On this website, he looked at the available kids and "D" touched his heart. "D" made a big impact on me too. I was crying by the end of the video. "Let's do this!" hubs said. We didn't even need to do much talking. He wrote down the number to call for more information, and we called it but got the wknd answering machine and left a message.
This is how our journey to "Trying To Adopt" has begun.
Next week I will be 42 years old. I have been trying to be a mother for so long! (see https://babyandbump.momtastic.com/ltttc-journals/364368-titis-ltttc-1-journal-578.html)
I met my ex husband in my 20's and we dated for 8 whole years before getting married and settled and trying to start our family at 32. I thought we'd fall pregnant the first or second time even though they said it could take longer at an "older" age. After it didn't happen for some time, 6-12 months, I don't remember, I started with Clomid. When that didn't help, we moved onto IUIS. When that didn't work, we moved onto IVF. I'd had an HSG and an exploratory laparascopy and they never found anything wrong with me. Ex-DH had :sperm: analysis done and although the results weren't steller, it shouldn't prevent us from pregnancy. We stopped at the first IVF, we'd spent all our savings. We tried about five years in all. We decided to stop actively trying and look into adoption. Maybe we'd end up accidentally getting pregnant while growing our family another way.
In 2012 my dh was arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior. He was caught touching himself in a mall parking lot. It was the heartbreaking shock of my lifetime! Nobody could have ever guessed there was a side of him like that! In addition to my heartache, shock and embarrassment, it was an immediate blacklist item for pursing adoption. He not only ruined our marriage in that instant, he ruined our last shot at parenting. I'd like to say I left him right then, but it took me some time to work through that sort of situation and I even tried therapy and a shot at making the marriage work. I think I was just to heartbroken and lost and weak at that time after the pain of years of infertility to think straight.
As if the infertility and wacko husband weren't enough, I found a lump in my breast at 38 years old in January of 2014. Just as I was trying to start another new hopeful year, I was diagnosed with aggressive, invasive breast cancer. At least it gave me the strength oddly enough to leave my husband! He'd made everything about him even to this point, and I couldn't bare the battle of my life with him at my side-doing nothing but trying to take all the credit, or at least the attention. He moved out of the house 10 days before I had a double mastectomy. My breast surgery was followed up with 3 months of chemotherapy and then 40 rounds of radiation, just to treat the primary cancer.
I need to note here that my cancer was ESTROGEN AND PROGESTERONE receptive. Which means it was formed by and fed on estrogen and progesterone. I had no family history, was very young, and in excellent health. I am absolutely positive that my fertility treatments either caused or sped up this cancer! My estrogen and progesterone were raised through the roof for years.
Because of the hormone receptive quality of the cancer, it was explained that I could not only never safely have children (a pregnancy would raise my estrogen high enough to risk recurrence). But that my safest bet altogether was to have a hysterectomy and shut down as much hormones as possible. Even a hysterectomy wasn't enough and I would have to take drugs for a minimum of ten years to block estrogen. If I didn't have the surgery, I could still take postmenopausal estrogen blocking drugs, but they were more dangerous on the heart, did not work as well, and were known to cause gynecological cancers!! After five months of deliberating and second opinions, I opted for the method that would be the best option for my survival-a total hysterectomy. I know of several people that do an egg freezing session either before chemo (which can, in itself render you infertile), or a hysterectomy, but again, with my aggressive cancer cells, and the estrogen problem-I couldn't take anything that would raise my levels at all, let alone high enough to make a ton of eggs! In March of 2015- I said goodbye to all my babymaking organs forever.
During this time I had met a new man who, for reasons I still can't believe, fell in love with me and chose to partake in the chemo (bald dating anyone???), radiation, and hysterectomy journey with me by my side! Two months after my surgery, he proposed and we were to be married that fall.
In another cruel twist of fate, within weeks of announcing my wedding date, my father was diagnosed with stage 3 (which would later become stage 4) colon cancer. We postponed the wedding and during a short lived remission for him in the summer of 2016 (and about 1.5 years remission for me, we had our wedding.
My new husband was married for 26 years before me (!) and had a 17 year daughter living with him full time when we met. She is now 21 and in her second year at community college here and still with us. We are close like friends but due to her age when I came into the picture, she doesn't see me as a "mom" or even a "stepmom". I had a hard time balancing this in the beginning as I really wanted to make her into my child! Now both dh and I struggle with the new role of an adult child in the home transitioning to wanting to be on her own, but financially being "stuck with" us.
When I was having a very hard time coping with my hysterectomy, dh had assured me that adoption could be an option for us. It was a huge gift from him, as he is nearing retirement and his child being on her own! Adoption is hard enough to ponder on it's own, but faced with your health and mortality, even more difficult. I was and still am terrified its a choice that could have my husband working forever instead as a widower trying to raise a child/children by himself in his late 50's or 60's and/or what that could do to a child who has already been through so much! I was not ready during that time-we had so much going on with my own health, my father, and my stepdaughter. We sort of just decided we'd take it easier when he retired and travel or whatnot.
My husband and I do not have the means to explore private adoption at this point in our lives. I lost everything I had financially due to the high cost of treatments and underinsurance. My husband is a deputy putting one child through school. Also-at our ages, more specifically his (54), a baby, as much as I'd always love to have one, isn't really the best first choice. Also, my husband's best friend's family ended up taking him in at age 13 and have been a "foster" family to him to this day. We decided if we'd ever do anything, it would be to help "foster" or to adopt an older child in need of a forever family.
At the end of last month, I was getting ready one weekend morning and my husband came running into the bedroom with his laptop open. He played a video for me of a "D", a child in foster care in another state looking for a forever home. He said he was watching the news when a segment on "forever families" came on and it made him investigate the website they promoted. On this website, he looked at the available kids and "D" touched his heart. "D" made a big impact on me too. I was crying by the end of the video. "Let's do this!" hubs said. We didn't even need to do much talking. He wrote down the number to call for more information, and we called it but got the wknd answering machine and left a message.
This is how our journey to "Trying To Adopt" has begun.
Titi
Stepmom/Trying to Adopt
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Oh, I should note, for Facebook friends, that we are keeping this between us for now! We have only told my parents. Of course we don't know that we will be approved, with my health, and all those issues, for one, and we also need to wait til the time is right to talk this over with his daughter as well!
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Wow! You seem like a very strong woman. Sorry you had cancer but glad it gave you the strength to leave your husband and that gave you the chance to go on to meet you now husband(every cloud has a silver lining).
Titi
Stepmom/Trying to Adopt
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You've been through so much! You're such a fighter 
Titi
Stepmom/Trying to Adopt
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Thank you!!! You as well!!! It's not the best journey so hopefully the destination is well worth it!!!!!!! : )
Titi
Stepmom/Trying to Adopt
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hugs:
Following, if I can. Your story is so powerful... Just goes to show life happens so quickly, and yet it's just beginning a new chapter with this new step. 
I hope things can move quickly and you can make contact with D's case worker.
I hope things can move quickly and you can make contact with D's case worker. 
