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January 4, 2006
New Years Resolution: Become a Dad
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Introducing Peanut, our (currently) gender-neutral child-to-be, coming to a delivery room near you on the Fourth of July, 2006. |
Getting to this point hasn't been easy; Susanne had to go through two rounds of endometriosis surgery over the last two years. And in the end, we needed a bit of a kickstart from science, using in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to get to this point. The IVF procedure allowed us to avoid the pitfalls caused by endometriosis; even with two surgeries, there's no way to ever "cure" it per se. The PGD, in my mind at least, was even more important. PGD is basically genetic testing for newly formed embryoes, making it possible to detect whether or not an embryo contains an ill-fated chromosomal flaw that would lead to a miscarriage. Since Susanne had experienced previous miscarriages, PGD was in many ways our last hope; from the good news we've received with each ultrasound and blood test, it seems it was well worth it.
Needless to say, I'm absolutely thrilled about pending fatherhood, and very thankful that everything is going as planned. Not only did I want to share this good news with the world, I felt it was important to talk about the context of Susanne's pregnancy. It's all too common for people to not want to talk about miscarriages or infertility, even though millions of couples have gone through the same hell we've experienced for much of the last three years. It shouldn't be a taboo. I wish I'd been more open to talk about it earlier. Thankfully, my offline and online friends have been tremendously supportive, particularly those on Omidyar.net - they helped us realize we're not alone in the world.
The IVF experience has also made me very, very thankful that we've spent the last two years living in Boston, as Massachusetts is one of the few states that requires insurance companies to cover fertility procedures like IVF. If we'd been living almost anywhere else, we would have wiped out much of our savings paying for multiple IVF procedures, making it impossible for us to explore other options like adoption. I'm grateful that state legislators in Massachusetts were thoughtful enough to make IVF a reality for couples who can't afford to spend $15,000 per attempt. More states should recognize the plight of the millions of couples struggling with infertility and subfertility - they shouldn't have to face bankrupcy just to start a family.
Anyway, enough politics. Time to buy some baby clothes.... -andy
ps - in case you're wondering if it's a boy or a girl, don't ask. We haven't decided if we're going to find out, even though we've got a pretty good guess. For now, we're just calling it the gender-neutral nickname "Peanut," based on the first ultrasound pictures....
Posted by acarvin at January 4, 2006 3:23 PM
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