Who are we? Really...
That's funny, we were a little bit resistant of revealing our background because you never know these days with the reaches of the internet and people with malicious intent.... but one reader contacted us regarding our adoption blog and wanted to help out. However, she made a valid point- she wanted us to reveal to our readers who were interested in helping out with our adoption journey. By getting to know and trust us, our readers would feel a personal attachment to us and more likely to contribute to our cause. And that's so true. We would want to know details if we were donating money, too! We completely understood where she was coming from. So.. time to open that door.
So- page one.. our birth day. Kidding :)
We both are deaf, which is the primary reason we want to adopt specifically deaf orphans. We thoroughly understand the needs of a deaf child (communication and education-wise) and feel that we would be the best fit for raising a deaf child(ren). Brian comes from a fourth generation deaf family (yes, his parents, sister, grandparents, & cousins, etc are deaf, too!) while Brooke comes from a hearing family as the only deaf member in the entire family tree. We both are teachers at a deaf school and work closely with deaf and hard of hearing children.. and completely love our jobs!
So why the adoption route? We aren't able to have our own children. We were kind of mentally prepared for this possibility because Brooke was having some kind of health complications from the very beginning. Hypothyriodism/hyperthyroidism runs in her family. She had hyperthyroidism in high school and it still hasn't returned to this day. So, that was ruled out for Brooke's inability to conceive. Brooke took some fertility medications: Clomid and Femara. Both didn't work and Brooke's body reacted negatively to the medicine. She experienced vertigo attacks and we just really believed that the medicine she was taking were triggering the attacks. Brooke also developed some painful cyst growths in her uterus area from Clomid (they burst at one point, yikes!).
We decided to see a fertility specialist in Austin and it was not a pleasant experience for either of us. And on top of that, it was an expensive procedure (no, the insurance doesn't cover a single penny). We tried two rounds of IUI (intrauterine insemination) only. Both attempts failed. We decided to add injectables (Gonal-F) and ovidrel (to force ovulation on time) for our third round of IUI. She produced many follicles during all three rounds. The result just was not in our favor. Of course, before doing the IUIs, Brooke took an HSG test to make sure her tubes were open and they were. Brooke ovulates on time and everything "seems" to be at their normal levels. The doctor called it a "mystery diagnosis" as there are some couples who aren't able to conceive with very little explanation. Everything else was ruled out except for one possibility: endometriosis. Our specialist stated that Brooke showed NO symptoms of having endometriosis such as painful periods, pain with bowel movements/urination, fatigue, bloating, etc. Nothing. That was why our fertility specialist was resistant for performing a laparoscopy. A laparoscopy is a surgery that uses a thin tube put through a cut (incision) in the belly to find any underlying issue such as cysts, adhesions, fibroids, and/or infections.
Brooke had an intuition that something was off and wanted to proceed with a laparoscopy to find out. This surgery was performed in February 2013 and the doctor actually found Stage II Endometriosis after all! There are four stages: Stage I & II are considered mild (which was why she didn't indicate any apparent signs). Stage III & IV are considered medically severe and significantly lowers the chances of conceiving.
After finding out that Brooke has endometrosis during the surgery, they had to ablate her endometriosis (they looked like tiny brown spots all over her ovaries and uterus). The surgery lasted only an hour. There are no absolute cures for endometriosis- a laparoscopy is considered the "band-aid" approach and gives us a window of up to six months before the possibility of it coming back. Overall, our doctor wasn't exactly.... let's say... compassionate? We just never felt a good relationship with him and it seemed like it was more our money he was after than a successful pregnancy. It definitely wasn't a positive experience for us. We decided to stop with the fertility treatments.
Fast-forward ten months later, Brooke is experiencing much more painful cramps and some kind of pain in her tailbone/sacrum area. She went to the doctor to get her tailbone x-rayed to rule out any possible fracture/broken bone. It came out negative. It turns out that endometriosis is strongly associated with pain in the lower abdomen area/back. Apparently, it returned. She will need to see her obgyn doctor to decide what's next. One possible solution would be a hysteretecomy. At this point, it's a wait-and-see approach..
We've already discussed about adopting because the idea of putting Brooke's body through all of those hormones and various procedures has become mentally/emotionally-draining and quite ridiculous when there are children who are already born and in need of homes. We want to be parents. We want to raise children. An adoption is a guarantee. We love the idea of changing the orphan's world by providing love and home. The idea of adoption really sparks our excitement and seemingly to be a much more positive experience for us to embrace. Like we already mentioned, we have fostered 30+ dogs for Austin Pets Alive and there's just something about opening our home to a being that does warm our souls. So, we turned to the idea of what we had understood with our three awesome dogs -- adopting!
We are simply meant to be with another child out there. Two little boys, hopefully! :)
Time to think of possible names!
So why the adoption route? We aren't able to have our own children. We were kind of mentally prepared for this possibility because Brooke was having some kind of health complications from the very beginning. Hypothyriodism/hyperthyroidism runs in her family. She had hyperthyroidism in high school and it still hasn't returned to this day. So, that was ruled out for Brooke's inability to conceive. Brooke took some fertility medications: Clomid and Femara. Both didn't work and Brooke's body reacted negatively to the medicine. She experienced vertigo attacks and we just really believed that the medicine she was taking were triggering the attacks. Brooke also developed some painful cyst growths in her uterus area from Clomid (they burst at one point, yikes!).
We decided to see a fertility specialist in Austin and it was not a pleasant experience for either of us. And on top of that, it was an expensive procedure (no, the insurance doesn't cover a single penny). We tried two rounds of IUI (intrauterine insemination) only. Both attempts failed. We decided to add injectables (Gonal-F) and ovidrel (to force ovulation on time) for our third round of IUI. She produced many follicles during all three rounds. The result just was not in our favor. Of course, before doing the IUIs, Brooke took an HSG test to make sure her tubes were open and they were. Brooke ovulates on time and everything "seems" to be at their normal levels. The doctor called it a "mystery diagnosis" as there are some couples who aren't able to conceive with very little explanation. Everything else was ruled out except for one possibility: endometriosis. Our specialist stated that Brooke showed NO symptoms of having endometriosis such as painful periods, pain with bowel movements/urination, fatigue, bloating, etc. Nothing. That was why our fertility specialist was resistant for performing a laparoscopy. A laparoscopy is a surgery that uses a thin tube put through a cut (incision) in the belly to find any underlying issue such as cysts, adhesions, fibroids, and/or infections.
Brooke had an intuition that something was off and wanted to proceed with a laparoscopy to find out. This surgery was performed in February 2013 and the doctor actually found Stage II Endometriosis after all! There are four stages: Stage I & II are considered mild (which was why she didn't indicate any apparent signs). Stage III & IV are considered medically severe and significantly lowers the chances of conceiving.
After finding out that Brooke has endometrosis during the surgery, they had to ablate her endometriosis (they looked like tiny brown spots all over her ovaries and uterus). The surgery lasted only an hour. There are no absolute cures for endometriosis- a laparoscopy is considered the "band-aid" approach and gives us a window of up to six months before the possibility of it coming back. Overall, our doctor wasn't exactly.... let's say... compassionate? We just never felt a good relationship with him and it seemed like it was more our money he was after than a successful pregnancy. It definitely wasn't a positive experience for us. We decided to stop with the fertility treatments.
Fast-forward ten months later, Brooke is experiencing much more painful cramps and some kind of pain in her tailbone/sacrum area. She went to the doctor to get her tailbone x-rayed to rule out any possible fracture/broken bone. It came out negative. It turns out that endometriosis is strongly associated with pain in the lower abdomen area/back. Apparently, it returned. She will need to see her obgyn doctor to decide what's next. One possible solution would be a hysteretecomy. At this point, it's a wait-and-see approach..
We've already discussed about adopting because the idea of putting Brooke's body through all of those hormones and various procedures has become mentally/emotionally-draining and quite ridiculous when there are children who are already born and in need of homes. We want to be parents. We want to raise children. An adoption is a guarantee. We love the idea of changing the orphan's world by providing love and home. The idea of adoption really sparks our excitement and seemingly to be a much more positive experience for us to embrace. Like we already mentioned, we have fostered 30+ dogs for Austin Pets Alive and there's just something about opening our home to a being that does warm our souls. So, we turned to the idea of what we had understood with our three awesome dogs -- adopting!
We are simply meant to be with another child out there. Two little boys, hopefully! :)
Time to think of possible names!
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