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The moment seemed to last forever. There was a tremendous pain that filled my heart with indications it may never leave. Standing across the desk from my precious wife as tears welled up in her eyes I read the paper she had just given me. On it she wrote “I am sorry I am not pregnant 
” The grief overwhelmed her to the point that she was now sobbing as I came around her desk to hold her. 5 years of trying to start a family was difficult but this day was a little harder.
In early April of 2003 we tried a medical procedure called IUI that increased the chances of pregnancy. It was recommended that you could try this procedure up to six times. This was our first. The weeks of waiting following the procedure brought cautious talk of what it would be like to share the news with family, how it would feel to hold our baby, etc. Although we tried hard to not get excited, it seemed sure that this process would work. However, on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 we learned that this process had not worked and that we actually were much more excited about it than we thought. The news was devastating to Kristina who each month prayed that she could become a mother. After many complications following an appendectomy, she finally lost an ovary and fallopian tube because of scar tissue. The doctors encouraged her that it still was possible to get pregnant but on this day she had given up hope.
After hours of tears and sitting at home quietly under her blanket, she looked at me and simply said “I can’t do this again.” The emotional strain had definitely taken its toll on my wife today but her sentiments were echoed by my own.
“Let’s look into adoption” I told her as the conversation began to feel as if there still was a future. For years we had discussed adopting but as a young couple we were told to wait until later in our 20’s. Now here we were at 26 and 27 years old and we knew that it was time to pursue adoption. Details we were not sure of yet. What we did know is that the money we would spend on these medical procedures could be spent on an adoption.
And so the journey began…
The Mummau Series
1. Choosing To Adopt
2. Why International? Why Guatemala?
3. The Call From Guatemala
4. The Process Begins
5. A Prelude To Mia
6. How Can You “Choose” A Child – Leaving Others Behind?
7. Peer Into The Heart – Journal Entries
8. Meeting Maria – Finding Mia
9. Leaving Our Daughter…is that…no way!
10. Rivers of Waiting
11. Mistakes, Intentions, and Naivety – How Hope Began To Die
12. Alone in Guatemala and Waiting
13. Time Marches On – Goodbye Mia for Now
14. Joyful Gringos in Quetzaltenango
15. Mia Mia
16. Abuela Comes To The Rescue
17. Doctors, Couriers, and Delays
18. Even So, You Won’t Believe This
19. The Summer of Frustration Ends
20. Fall Approaches with Broken Hearts…Teeth
21. 1600 Miles from Tecpan (pt.1)
22. 1600 Miles from Tecpan (pt.2)
23. Kristina Comes Home
24. Mia’s First Steps
25. December’s Momentum
26. An Angel In The Embassy? I
27. An Angel in the Embassy? II
28. A Christmas to Remember…and Forget
29. Daddy’s 2nd Visit
30. Clash at The Embassy
31. We’re In The PGN! OK Let Us Out!
32. Accomodations
33. The Pencil – Never Give Up
34. Exiting the PGN…sort of
35. Exiting the PGN…yet again
36. Daddy Has Enough
37. The Countdown Begins
38. Easter Brings Hope
39. Sit With Me in San Cristobal
40. T-Minus a few things and counting
41. My New Favorite Color
42. Hope Becomes Reality-The Embassy Interview
43. Mia Mummau Goes Home
More blogs about Guatemala Adoption.
On it she wrote “I am sorry I am not pregnant
”
This part made me cry. It made infertility real to me in a way that no amount of reading about it has ever done.
I agree. This was a very moving post.
I appreciate your comments. One thing I wish I would have added is how the guilt weighed down Kristina for so long as though it was her fault that she could not have children. No words I could say made her feel any less responsible. This was not a problem that as a husband I could “fix” as we so often like to do. Instead, we walked through it together and that partnership prepared us for what was to come.