Raising a Child! Eeeep!

Hello!

First, responses to comments! I'm too lazy to actually respond in the comments, so I think my thing is officially just writing the response in my next blog post. Since I only have 1-2 regular readers, I think this works, hah.

I did feel like the medical staff were unnecessarily harsh with my chances of losing the pregnancy. I didn't want false hope, of course, but in the case of the nurse, I felt she was far too unwilling to accept that she might have just made a measurement error. And with the doctor, I think he could have phrased things better. Honestly though, the people I most hated dealing with at that time were the rest of the staff who acted like there had been a death before I'd even lost the pregnancy! I just felt like their attitude was a little...inappropriate? I'd always been pretty cheerful and friendly with the staff at the fertility clinic, so it just felt weird to interact with them so solemnly. I would have preferred for them to act more normal.

I find it interesting that in reproductive justice, the term spontaneous abortion is preferred. Among my friends in the infertility community who have suffered pregnancy losses, they actually hate the term spontaneous abortion, by and large. Most of them find it too clinical sounding for something that's a deeply upsetting experience for them. I've never heard anyone express that they felt the term "miscarriage" implied that they were carrying the baby wrong, though now that I break down the word, I can see how some might feel this way. I think chemical pregnancies and miscarriages are really difficult to handle when it comes to how we talk about them. Many people I know who have had them truly feel like they have lost babies, and they mourn for those babies. However, first trimester losses technically come before when most people would call them babies and it's further complicated by abortion debates, etc. I usually just try to adopt whatever language the person I'm talking to seems to prefer. To me, they're the one who is working through grief, so they get to decide how they would like to term things.

As far as support during infertility...it was kind of mixed. I lost a few real life friendships at the start of it. The friendships were probably coming to a close anyway, but they stopped talking to me shortly after I told them that we'd be seeking treatment and it was just very bad timing. But my family has been really supportive, even when they don't fully understand exactly what I'm going through. The online group I'm a part of was really key for me though. It was nice to have a group where people felt really similarly about things, and I liked offering support to them, too. Plus, it's very nice to be able to share our insight about the diagnosis and treatment of infertility issues. I think I tended not to fully trust my infertility doctors, largely because it can sometimes all feel like a cash grab, so on a practical level, it was nice to have people to compare notes with. Plus, we're able to provide emotional support on subjects that people without infertility might not understand as fully without explanation. Even now that I'm pregnant, I've moved onto online groups for mutual support for going through pregnancy after infertility. Us infertiles tend to be a bit more anxious about our pregnancies than the general population. Plus, there are certain issues that are more common in IVF pregnancies, like SCHs, for example. Even my baby's heart problem could be because of IVF (some studies have indicated that heart issues are more prevalent among IVF pregnancies). Then there are also still issues with medical care, in some cases. There's this whole idea of "too precious to lose." Basically, it's the idea that because IVF parents tend to have spent a lot to get pregnant (time, emotions, but especially money), they're likely to sue the pants off of their doctors if something happens and they lose the pregnancy. Because of that, certain people believe that doctors sometimes treat IVF pregnancies differently (more likely to suggest interventions, etc).

And finally...how will we raise our daughter? MAN. That's a tough one. For a long time, we tried not to think too hard about it because it seemed so far off. Now, we've got less time. We try not to get too ahead of ourselves since she'll still be a baby for a while, so it's not like we'll be teaching her life lessons for a bit. At first, we'll just be meeting basic needs. Then we'll be trying to teach her how to function as a human, physically speaking. But we've still had a few conversations about what to do once she's beyond that.

First, we plan on raising her really close to our families. We moved closer to them a little bit before I got pregnant, and she'll have a lot of cousins around (already 3 on my side with a 4th on the way and one on my husband's side). We're hoping she and her cousins will get along well. I was close to my extended family growing up, and it was always a lot of fun to get together with cousins. Being close with my grandparents and aunts/uncles also provided extra security for my life. I had adults other than my parents to talk to and to support me. I'd like the same thing for my daughter.

I plan to be a stay at home parent at least until she goes to school, and my husband works from home. We've talked about taking steps to insure we don't stifle her independence as she gets older by just being around all the time. We want her to learn to function on her own and to feel confident in her own abilities. We want to praise and correct her, of course, but we don't want her to constantly need feedback either, once she gets to an age that's appropriate for doing more on her own.

We plan to raise her "culturally Christian." Basically, we go to church, and we do plan to bring her with us. However, we want to be very open to questions. I was encouraged to ask questions growing up, but my husband really wasn't. If he questioned too much, then he got into trouble. We want her to feel free to ask questions and to explore other belief systems without being afraid that we'll punish her for it. We'll also be open with our own criticisms of the church, so that hopefully she'll learn from our example that it's okay to think critically about your belief system.

I think the most important thing to myself and my husband is that we're doing our best to raise a kind, compassionate, and confident person. I think one of my biggest challenges will be trying not to pass my anxieties onto her. I'm nervous of so many things, but I don't want to impose those worries onto her. I don't want to hover over her and fix everything for her, but I do want her to feel secure. I think striking that balance will be really challenging as she grows up. Luckily, my husband is a very good partner for me. He's a good balance to me, so I think we'll be a good parenting team. He has his own fears about possible shortcomings with his parenting, and hopefully I'll be able to help balance him out in those areas, too.

-Leah