Families

I'm taking a turn toward the serious for this one. I'm blogging about a rather sensitive issue, so as you comment, please keep that in mind.

Families come in all shapes and sizes. For many people, family is the greatest source of joy. When forming a family of one's own is difficult, it can be heartbreaking.

I've had a lifetime to consider this issue. Many of my cousins joined the family through adoption. One joined as an infant, but the rest of them joined as older children.

I have also done academic work on the subject of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). As an undergraduate, I wrote on the bioethical issues surrounding in-vitro fertilization. In law school, I have written on the legal issues surrounding gestational surrogacy.

Ever since I was a teenager, I've had a premonition that I would not give birth to my children. I saw people around me struggling to conceive, so at first, I assumed that I would fall prey to the ever-mounting infertility rates as well. As I reached my mid-twenties, I saw a new crop of friends marrying each year. I was always the bridesmaid, never the bride. So, I revised my original assumption. Perhaps there's nothing wrong with my uterus; I would just not marry in time to take advantage of my fertility.

I decided around the time that I was 25 that I was going to have children whether or not I have a husband. I decided that if I had no marriage prospects by the time I was 30, I would adopt a child from the foster care system and be the best mother ever. Now that 30 is just a short while away, I've revised that number to 35. My original plan was to be done with law school at 25, so parenting at 30 wouldn't be a problem. Life happened, and I won't finish law school until I'm 29. I decided that it would not be responsible to embark on single parenthood with six figures of student loan debt. Besides, I might still have a chance at marriage. People are marrying later these days, but I know once I become a parent, my chances to marry are greatly reduced.

When I was writing on IVF as an undergrad, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't per se unethical, but that with so many children needing homes, I would prefer to adopt if placed in that situation. When I started writing on gestational surrogacy, I had serious ethical concerns. Through the process of my research and writing, I resolved those concerns. Once again, I don't feel it's per se unethical, though there are certainly some unethical practices in some corners of the fertility industry.

All this is a lengthy way of getting back to my teenage premonition. It turns out that both of my interpretations may have been wrong. Over the summer, I was diagnosed with non-Addison's hypoadrenia. Right now, my hormones are completely out of whack. One area that's relevant to the discussion at hand is that I don't make enough progesterone. Basically, the upshot of that is that unless my progesterone level gets raised, I won't be able to sustain a pregnancy. I'll have no trouble getting pregnant if I try, but I won't be able to stay pregnant.

As a teenager, the thought of adopting sounded like a perfectly fine way of becoming a parent. Pregnancy sounded really scary, and I wasn't concerned with things like passing my genes on. Well, as I've gotten older and started to feel my own mortality a bit more, a part of me really wants to leave something of myself behind. I know I could love an adopted child just as much as a genetically related one, but I would feel a loss in not passing on my genes.

ART has advanced greatly since I started studying the subject ten years ago. Now it is possible to freeze eggs and fertilize them at a later time. I've decided that once I finish law school, I'm going to freeze my eggs. This will provide an insurance policy. That way, if I marry later in life, I'll still have some good eggs to use if my hormones fix themselves. The age of the uterus doesn't matter; it's the age of the eggs. So, if I want to, I can use my 29-year-old eggs to have kids when I'm 40. If my hormones don't work themselves out, I'll still have those eggs to either use with a surrogate or donate to an infertile couple. This way, I don't have to make any irreversible decisions now when I don't have all the facts.

I'm still considering adopting as well. I'm so grateful that I live in a time where there are so many options for family formation. Who knows, maybe I'll even meet my soulmate within the next year or so, get my progesterone where it needs to be, and have kids the old-fashioned way!

Some people say that using ART is "playing God" and something that mere mortals shouldn't engage in. I believe, however, that ART is a gift from God to assist His children in family formation. It's not the right path for everyone. I don't even know yet if it's the right path for me, but it is a blessing to some. There are people I know and love who wouldn't be here without it.