New blogspot... Intro into the life of The Hulls

This is my (our, really) first attempt at being a "true" blogger, so you will have to pardon my clumsiness with writing my thoughts. Tonight I participated in an on the phone seminar (which was pretty cool actually) and learned some new information about "third party options". Therefore the following...

Jeri & I have been married for almost 6 months and we are already in the planning phase of becoming parents. This due to the fact that I have Mosaic Turner's Syndrome (and trisomyX, but I won't get into that yet). Mosaic Turner's Syndrome causes 2 major things to happen in almost all cases: 1) short stature (I'm actually quite tall at 5'0" for a woman with Turner's) and 2) infertility. Naturally when I found this out (it all started a year ago; more on that later) and realized that I will never be able to have children who are genetically my own... well, I was heartbroken. Unless you have gone through this yourself - first finding out something is wrong with YOU - then that you cannot have children naturally... it's an emotional killer. One that, in my case, can only be overcome by two options: 1) adoption and 2) egg donor (or the dreaded third option - not being parents). My husband and I decided together that we are going to go the route of researching both. We have decided this is the best option for us because of the risk factors associated with both methods of achieving parenthood.

The first option (adoption) is less riskier medically for myself. Having Mosaic Turner's Syndrome I am highly likely to develop heart conditions which could develop simply by being pregnant. I'll have not one doctor (my ob/gyn), not two doctors (our reproductive endrocrinologist), not three doctors (my geneticist), but four doctors (my cardiologist) on our "pregnancy team". Lucky us. Hopefully with all of these specialists we'll be able to have a baby on the first try and it will be "easy". Adoption also allows us to explain "where you came from" as our child grows older.

Naturally we want the best for any child we have which leads to choice 2 (egg donor). This would allow us to pick the "best egg" out of the dozen (haha). We would have such options as intelligence, looks, personality, athleticism, etc. It's a heady thought that Jeri & I would get to choose some of the possible traits that our child would have, rather than chance taking the reins with the ones I was given genetically (our potential egg donor baby would still get Jeri's genetics)! We also will be able to control the gestational environment (ie. my womb) with prenatal vitamins, health eating & exercising habits, etc. Unfortunately this is not often the case with adoption.

More on this topic soon!