A couple months ago, Brae's birthmom informed us that her daughter, Brae's biological half sister, was recently diagnosed with a medical condition. In the interest and respect for their privacy, I won't name the condition or discuss details. I will say, however, that this is a commonly diagnosed medical condition, but one that will nonetheless change her life. My heart goes out to Brae's birthmom as she is dealing with the imports of this diagnosis.
Hearing of the diagnosis spawned a host of concerns for Brae. Could he also have it? If so, what will that mean for his life?
One should never do medical research on the internet. I'm just sayin'.
After dousing myself in armchair diagnostics, I marched to the doctor's office.
I told the doctor about Brae's biological half-sister's diagnosis, and listed a litany of possible reasons why Brae may also have the condition.
The doctor laughed in my face. But, to amuse me I suppose, he examined Brae and poked and prodded.
"No," he said. "Brae does not have it."
I left the doctor's office feeling relieved. But not so much that Brae didn't have the condition (for which I am thankful), but relief that I have the kind of open adoption where Brae's birthmom not only has the courage and willingness to share this information with me, but she actually has the access to me to do so.
And that kind of access to key pieces of information, like medical information that has already come in handy on more than one occasion, is just one of the many reasons why we chose open adoption.
And it goes farther than just Brae. We also have an open adoption with Sienna's genetic family. I'm grateful for the access we have to not only medical history on a piece of paper, but medical information from the mouthpiece of the people who lived through it, and are still. Medical information that is current and up to date. Our donor's daughter, 10 years older than Sienna, has lived through 10+ years of life, of which I get the benefit. She and Sienna have already shared several medical similarities for which I am so grateful that I can discuss with our donors. Everything ranging from "Soooo, how did you get your daughter to stop gagging on her food?" to "Whoa, Sienna has torticollis. Your daughter did, too. How did you get through it?"
I also so appreciate, that with Brae and Sienna, having an open adoption gives me a crystal ball, of sorts, into their future. Brae's biological half-sister is a few years older than he is; Sienna's genetic siblings are 10+ years older. In both cases, I already see a ton of similarities. I also see a ton of differences. But it is really neat to get a glimpse into what your child may look like and be like when they get older.
I recently heard of a medical study that determined that who we are is 99% a product of our environment. Brae and Sienna are products of me and Tygh. However, that 1% genetic blueprint variable is an unknown. I am grateful that, with open adoption (for us), the unknown is a little more knowable.
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I can relate to this post...but from the other side. We had an anonymous embryo donation. It came with the standard medical background...but that is all. Our perfect and lovely daughter has suffered from a lot of ailments in her short 20 months.... chronic ear infections (tubes at 7 months old) and then mild seizures from 6 months old. She just got diagnosed with epilepsy this past month (luckily...it is mild and we feel she will live a totally normal life)....but until now....I really thought I loved this whole anonymous donation because it made things easier for us in that we didn't have other people involved in the process. But I totally see your reasons here and so wish I could pick up the phone and talk to the donors to hear if any of this has been in their families in the past and what the outcomes were. It would just help me a little bit with the "what ifs"....
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad Brae is fine....but I do understand how scary that could have been. The minute G started having seizures I pretty much stepped away from the computer until after we saw the pediatric neuorlogist and he gave me some boundaries on what this could possibly be...and thank goodness...because had I gone before....I would have probably scared myself to death.
On the same note...it was because of knowing my own family history that we were able to get a very early diagnosis of Celiac disease for our biological son. Had we not had that info....he could have gone on and probably suffered some permanent damage before we caught it. So I am all with you on this philosophy.
I will say a prayer for Brae's half sister that she is able to live with her condition without too much intervention or suffereing.
Kd
That's neat that you have that kind of relationship with both of their biological parents. I guess for us it'll be kind of the opposite since Kaylee's birthmom probably won't have children for several years.
ReplyDeletePraying the tubes go in smoothly!
incredible, absolutely amazing. great post friend.
ReplyDelete