Noah and I are getting ready to launch an Indiegogo crowd funding campaign (mark the date, March 1st, because we will need your help in spreading the word!) for our documentary about infertility, our journey to parenthood, and alternative family building. As we've been preparing to go live with the campaign, we've been talking a lot about what alternative family building really means.
Noah and I had to seek an alternative way to make a baby, because a glass of wine and a wild night (or even a mediocre night) wasn't going to cut it for us. Years of confusion followed a diagnosis of diminished ovarian reserve and we documented all of it and interviewed others who also had to use modern technologies or other people's body parts to create a family. None of us who have to go down this route do so happily. We do so because we have to. Noah and I didn't wake up one morning and decide to pursue embryo donation, we went through a step by step decline into complete despair before we found a resolution to our infertility crisis and climbed our way out of a pit.
I looked up the word "alternative" and found a definition of "available as another possibility." And I liked that. We live in a time where there are other possibilities-- medically speaking. Emotionally speaking that's a different ride for people. In 2012, when Noah and I first started IVF, I don't know that embryo donation would have been a possibility for us. We were too scared, too attached to our genetics, too weirded out by all of it, too heartbroken to allow our hearts to be open to a baby not genetically connected to us. The possibility and science of it existed, but not in our world yet. Much of the process of alternative family building is knowing what alternatives feel ok for each individual.
And really, that's been our journey to parenthood. A process of learning to compromise, to be present, to look at the possibilities and be flexible with making a choice out of a handful of choices we may never have fathomed or wanted. To understand what science has to offer and get comfortable with the alternatives. To sit with the reality of our situation-- emotionally, physically and financially, and decide what is most important.
These are decisions and choices that the majority of people don't have to make. But a lot of people do. 7.3 million people in America and millions more around the world. Five million babies have been born with the help of assisted reproductive technologies as of 2012. That's a lot of people seeking an alternative to a glass of wine and a wild (or mediocre ;)) night.
Some day soon, a lot of these alternatives won't seem or be perceived as so far off. But in order for that to be so, we have to keep the conversation going and normalize that millions of people have to seek treatments and third part help in order to have the most basic, and in my opinion, most important human necessity-- love and family (I guess food and water is up there but you know what I'm saying).
Noah and I and, in about a month (hopefully), Momo will be a normal family created in an alternative way. Though I don't know how much we will think about or focus on that piece. We will be a family created by love, determination, support from others, and a few drops of complete miracle. In some ways, it makes me feel proud-- prouder than if Noah and I did just get lucky one night.
Everyone out there in this struggle should feel proud. However you are looking at your alternatives-- from single motherhood to IVF to third party assistance to living child-free-- you should feel proud of your journey and your process.
Please check out the film website and subscribe if you want updates. Follow us on twitter @onemoreshotdoc. Like us on Facebook.
And on March 1st tell your family, tell your friends, and hopefully through the month of March we can reach our Indiegogo fundraising goal so we can create this feature length film.
Thanks JCS! And goof for you for signing up with Resolve to Advocate. We need that. I know a handful of others who have don't advocacy day in Sacramento and they say it's a great experience and meet a lot of great people.
Posted by: Don't Count Your Eggs | February 26, 2015 at 08:29 AM
The trailer looks amazing! I will be supporting this film for sure. Thank you Maya for all you've done and continue to do for people living and struggling with infertility. Just so you know, I have signed up with Resolve and will be advocating for mandated IVF coverage in DC!
Posted by: JCS | February 26, 2015 at 06:01 AM
Hi Natalie. Welcome! Sounds like you've been through a lot and writing about it could be really therapeutic. Noah and I interviewed a woman who at 47-- I think she was 47, had a baby girl through egg and sperm donation! She was amazing and her story is really empowering for anyone who wants to pursue single motherhood at a later age. Noah and I will do our best to post a video clip of her soon! Good luck to you!
Posted by: Don't Count Your Eggs | February 24, 2015 at 10:22 PM
Maya, I just found your blog, because, my therapist suggested that maybe I should write about my journey. So....I started looking around for other people who wrote about their journey. I just sort of binge read much of your blog. Thank you for sharing. It felt so good to read so many of my feelings and knowing others share them. I knew that, but it still felt good. and it felt sad, there are tears, and lots of feelings that are still raw and painfully exposed. daily. my raw, exposed, self. I think I will write about it. I don't know if I will start a blog, or just a journal for now. My story is complicated as is every person who is on If island. I like that thought. Other people out there on their own islands. I am 44 and single. I was married, divorced, and always thought that I would meet someone and then it would work out. It didn't. At 42, I decided to go it alone. Turns out, I had fibroids, inside my uterus. Lots of them! 4 surgeries and 6 failed IUIs with donor sperm later....I am 44, about to be 45. But, a miracle happened and I found an embryo donor. My sonohistogram showed a perfect little triangle uterus that is fibroid free! Tomorrow, there is another appointment, another sheet of paper to put in my giant, 4 inch file at the RE office. I think it is the last step before implantation. I hope! All the contracts have been signed, etc. I'm feeling that excited, hopeful....terror. I don't think I can bear one more setback or appointment. But, like you, I've learned that I am patient, and strong and resilient, so I'm allowing myself a little wine tonight, and maybe a coffee in the morning as a treat. You have for sure inspired me. I'm not a writer, but maybe I have something to offer other single, older women who know they are destined to be moms somehow. Thank you.
Posted by: Natalie | February 24, 2015 at 07:53 PM