Our Act of Hope

Over the course of our EDA endeavors, I applied to quite a few grant programs. Each application included a personal statement, and while my statement varied from grant to grant, it always included some version of the following:

“Watching a child learn and grow is an amazing thing, and it is an experience Sami and I desperately long to have with kids of our own. In what can sometimes feel like very cynical times, loving a child and endeavoring to raise them into a good person seems like the ultimate act of hope. Our act of hope involves using donated embryos to conceive our child.”

From there, I would go on to describe the donation process, and the costs we hoped to offset with grant funding. But the phrase “act of hope” has stayed on my mind - especially lately. Things have only become more uncertain and frightening than they were when I wrote my first grant application. And yet, we still want to have kids. I want kids because I believe that the world can be better - both for our children, and through them. We are so excited for the things we will get to teach our children - and for the things they will teach us. Kids are wellsprings of energy (sometimes way, way too much energy), creativity, and joy. They see the world in new and fascinating and unpredictable ways, and I know that our little world will be even brighter with children in it. We are so looking forward to getting to know these new people - and only hope that we can meet them soon.

Becoming parents gives us a chance to define the family unit in a way that is completely different from what is “expected” or “typical.” We are already very invested in the concept of chosen family - the idea that a group of individuals can deliberately choose to play significant roles in each other's lives, regardless of biological or legal relationships. This is a common phrase in the Queer community, and while it often stems from rejection by our birth families, I like to think that Queerness frees us from the belief that family is limited to who you share your genes with. Sami and I are lucky that our chosen family includes the families we were born into, as well as the close relationships we have collected throughout our lives. We are doubly lucky that we can count our embryo donors as members of that chosen family. Our children will be born into a community that includes artists, lawyers, social workers, members of the ministry, and activists of every ilk - and that diversity and passion makes me optimistic about the people our children will grow into, as well as the world they will inherit.

That optimism is essential. Without it, this whole thing just becomes an agonizing, bitter slog, with no end in sight.Today (4/20) is the date that our transfer was initially scheduled to take place, and I'm surprised at how much the hurt over its cancellation has abated already. Last week, ASRM updated its treatment recommendations, and our clinic confirmed that new FET cycles would need to wait at least another month. The phone conversation was disappointing, but far from surprising - until I hung up and noticed that a new document had been uploaded to my patient portal. It was a treatment calendar, with a tentative transfer date in June. Just like that, I was given something I hadn’t felt at all in the past month: hope. There is something - not tangible, exactly, but real - something real to hope for again. Yes, the future is still less clear than I’d like, but we have something to hope for.

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Are you planning on becoming a parent soon? What gives you hope for parenthood in uncertain times?