Hold ups, losing weight and freedom!

It's been a long weekend in the Dunstan household. I've been getting a mix of migraines and headaches since Friday morning, and to top it off, I have also pulled a muscle in my neck which is agonising! I'm sure it will calm down soon, but right now painkillers are my best friend. I haven't gone to work on Friday or today, which isn't great, but fingers crossed I'll wake up tomorrow without pain and can get back to it.

While I've had the day off today, I rang my GP to follow up on a few things. Firstly I was copied in on a letter from the public IVF clinic to my GP, wanting to confirm in writing that my BMI is below 35. I spoke to the receptionist and she confirmed that a letter had been sent back to them with that information. Winning!Then I rang the adoption agency to follow up when I would hear back about my medical report and get medical clearance. They usually do a medical panel once a month and I had hoped mine would be back by now. Unfortunately they had not received anything from my GP! So back to calling the medical centre again.

It turns out they sent my medical report to the public IVF clinic instead of the adoption agency! I have no idea how they could have mixed that up considering it has ADOPTION MEDICAL REPORT written in giant letters across the top of the report! They were very apologetic when I alerted them to their error and are faxing it through to the agency now. Admittedly I'm probably one of their most difficult patients, what with general GP stuff, bariatric surgery, IVF, adoption applications and anything else that comes up. I can understand the confusion. I'm just very grateful that it was picked up now, and that it wont hold things up too much. Murray has his doctors appointment this afternoon to finalise his adoption medical report, so I will make sure that his gets faxed through straight away to the correct place!

If you've been over to Lose and Hope lately, you'll also know that I reached a milestone this week - 40kg lost! I'm thrilled to bits and feel happier and healthier than I ever have before. I really hope this is the start of something great for us, whether it's through IVF, adoption, or living childfree for a longer period of time. We are pretty darn lucky to live where we do, to have our family, friends, Charlie and Daisy, good jobs earning good money, and being free. Free to walk the streets, practice our religion, speak our minds, and love each other. That kind of freedom should never be taken for granted, and I'm trying my best to celebrate that.

Uni Achievement - with photos!

As you know, I have been studying at uni for the last few years, working towards my degree in Business. I'm still six units away from graduating (well five actually after my summer school exam this morning), but I had a very exciting moment last week, when I was awarded a prize! I won the Accenture award for the best student in Systems Analysis & Design 251, a unit that I completed last year. I was thrilled to bits, and the ceremony was fabulous. Unfortunately Murray couldn't take time off work to attend, but my Mum came along which was lovely.

I was awarded a trophy, certificate and a cheque for $250 which is going straight towards some new work clothes! I've popped some photos in below, I especially love the photo of my Mum and I!

Receiving my award

Discussing graduate programs with pwc

My Mum and I - how gorgeous is my Mumma!

Holiday Plans

We recently came into a small sum of money as part of a settlement with Murray's previous employer. This money, along with Murray's first paycheck at his new school, has meant we have paid back nearly all of our borrowed money from the last few months while we were on one income, and it will also pay for our ceiling to be re-hung, painted, and a new light fitting put in our kitchen - hurrah!

In addition, we have booked a holiday for ourselves for the July school holidays! We are going to Melbourne first for six nights, and then flying up to Sydney for a further six nights! The main reason for going is that Murray would love to go to a State of Origin (Rugby League) game, and game three of the series happens to be on then. We have managed to get tickets for the game, so he is a happy chappy right now!

Also my brother moved to Sydney in January, so I really would love to catch up with him and see where he is living etc. Melbourne was thrown is as a compromise as I love the city and lifestyle there, and I've never been to the MCG so we are hoping to go to a Friday night game while we are there.

On top of all of that, it is Murray's birthday while we are over there, and it will be my birthday the day after we get back, so it will be nice for us to have a 'celebratory birthday week' for the two of us. We won't be in hotels the whole time.

We have booked three nights in hotels in each city, with the other three nights staying at my brothers place in Sydney (Near the Holsworthy Barracks), and spending three nights in St Kilda at one of Murray's friends houses, so they can work on some songwriting together - one of his favourite past times!

However thanks to that, I will probably have a couple of days to entertain myself in Melbourne - definitely thinking shopping! Any of my Melbournian or Sydney-sider friends that would like to catch up, please drop me a line!

It's so nice to have a holiday to look forward to! Only 4.5 months to go, not that I'm counting of course!

Makeover time

Today was a makeover day for me! I've blogged over at my other site, so pop over and take a look at the new me!

The makeover!

Adoption statistics for Western Australia 2011/12

When I discuss adoption in the real world, people are always asking me questions. Quite often people tell me that I will have a 'baby in no time'! If only it were that easy. A few years back I put some stats up from AIHW with how many children were adopted in Australia. I've just been reading through the latest annual report for the agency that manages adoption in Western Australia and thought I'd update people on the latest statistics.

In the 12 months July 2011-June 2012, there were 26 adoptions finalised. Sounds like a lot right? Well 18 of those adoptions were 'known' adoptions, basically where a step-parent adopts a child or the adoption of an adult. So that leaves 8 adoptions that were 'unknown'. Five of those were intercountry adoptions. Only three were local adoptions in WA, and only 55 local adoptions were finalised across Australia. The year before, it was 4 local adoptions; in 09/10 there were 12, and 08/09 there was 7. The numbers are up and down, but even over the last couple of years, the numbers have dropped.

Some other facts:

•  36% of the local adoptions were of infants aged under 12 months
• The median age of the birth mothers of children who were the subject of a finalised local
  adoption in 2011–12 was 22, with ages ranging from 15 to 43.
• Almost all (95%) local adoptions finalised in 2011–12 could be considered ‘open’—that is, all parties were happy to allow a degree of contact or information exchange to occur between families

The odds aren't in our favour, I know that. But you have to have something to hold on to, something to hope for. You never know what's around the corner.


References:
Adoptions Australia 2011-12
DCP Annual Report 2011-12

Our first dance

At our wedding, our first dance song was a really special moment. We had a friend teach us a few moves and we practiced a basic waltz with a few twists and twirls to jazz things up. Even now when we go to other weddings, or are at other functions, this dance has become our go-to dance. Each time we do it, Murray asks me if I remember dancing at our wedding. It's one of my favourite memories.

We danced to a song by Tamia and Eric Benet called Spend my life with you. I didn't want something that I had heard anyone else use, and while it apparently is quite popular in the US, none of our friends had heard it before our wedding.

The lyrics go like this:

I never knew such a day could come  
And I never knew such a love could be inside of one 
I never knew what my life was for  
But now that you're here I know for sure
 
I never knew till I looked in your eyes 
I was incomplete till the day you walked into my life 
And I never knew that my heart could feel so precious and pure  
One love so real
 
Can I just see you every morning when I open my eyes?  
Can I just feel your heart beating beside me every night?  
Can we just feel this way together till the end of all time? 
Can I just spend my life with you?
 
Now baby the days and the weeks and the years will roll by  
But nothing will change the love inside of you and I 
And baby I'll never find any words that could explain  
Just how much my heart, my life, my soul you've changed
 
Can you run to these open arms when no one else understands?  
Can we tell God and the whole world, I'm your woman, you're my man? 
Can't you just feel how much I love you with one touch of my hand?  
Can I just spend my life with you?
 
No touch has ever felt so wonderful (You are incredible) 
And a deeper love I've never known (I'll never let you go)
I swear this love is true (Now and forever to you)  
Only for you (To you)
 
Can I just see you every morning when I open my eyes? 
Can I just feel your heart beating beside me every night?  
Can we just feel this way together till the end of all time?  
Can I just spend my life with you?
 
Can you run to these open arms when no one else understands? 
Can we tell God and the whole world, you're my woman And you're my man? 
Can't you just feel how much I love you with one touch of my hand?  
Can I just spend my life with you, can I just spend my life with you?
 
Can I just spend my life with you?  
Can I just see you every morning when I open my eyes?

The words are so beautiful, and mean just as much now as they did the day we married. I feel proud to call myself Murray's wife, and to tell people that he is my husband. 

I guess I'm thinking about all of this because Valentine's Day is upon us again. Yes it's not a real holiday, and it's overly commercialised, but I'm more than happy to take it as another day that I can proudly declare my love for my husband, both to him, and the world at large. After nine years together, it honestly doesn't get much better than this.

Adoption progress

I finished up my adoption medical report today at my GP's, and come Monday morning, it will be all sent of to the department! Once more thing to tick off our list! There was a concern over the ketone levels in my urine sample, but that is to be expected with my weight loss and the bariatric surgery. My cholesterol is back to normal levels, and I have dropped even more weight since my initial medical report, so my BMI is down to around 31/32. Cholesterol and weight were the things the medical panel were concerned with the last time round, so I'm hoping that this time I might get through unscathed!

Murray has been working really hard this past month to eat healthy and try and control his cholesterol through diet. In the process he has also lost 5kg which is a great result! We are going to wait another week or two and then send him off for his cholesterol check, and hopefully that shows an improvement, and we can finalise his medical report as well.

While we were at our GP's today, the doctor also did up Murray's referral to the IVF clinic, so as of Monday, both of us will have our referrals in place, and the countdown to the 'within 6 month' timeframe begins. 

All systems are go! We are slowly but steadily making progress on our house. Last year storms wiped out part of our side fence and left holes in our patio roof, and the year before our ceiling started to collapse and ever since is being held up with tek-screws. Well all that changes in 2013 - our patio roof has been replaced, my cars windscreen was replaced due to chemical damage, and in early March, our kitchen will have it's ceiling repaired, along with a new light fitting and getting painted!

Although it has been extremely difficult with Murray not working, we have made it through the other end and all the better for it. We are now a lot more careful with our money, and also know that we can cope if we ever drop down to one income if we need to. We owe Murray's parents a chunk of money which they lent us to tide us over, but that will all be repayed with our first pay check this month, Murray now has a spectacular job at a new school that he loves to death, and everything has turned out for the best.

I haven't posted too much about my weight loss on this side, but if anyone is interested, head over to Lose and Hope to check out my latest progress. So far I am down 35kg+ and am feeling great!

Ministerial response

I received a call back from the Minister for Health's office this afternoon about our situation with the public IVF clinic. The clinic repeated their claim that they sent a letter to my doctor, which I wasn't impressed with. However the ministers office have arranged it so that, both Murray and I need to get new referrals from our GP, but rather than going to the back of the waiting list, we will be guaranteed to be seen within the next six months! We need to ensure that we reference the ministers office and this arrangement on the referral, but this is great news!

So by July, we will be on the fertility treatment bandwagon again. To be honest we have tried nearly all the options available to us. We have done ovarian drilling, IVM, IVF, Donor IVF, Donor IUI, FET, Donor FET, the works. The only thing we haven't really tried is PGD which is prohibitively expensive and I'm doubtful is covered at the public clinic. Admittedly I am in much better health now than I was during many of these attempts which is encouraging.

We are unsure what we will do in terms of the donor situation. We still have our known donor friend who I'm sure would be happy to assist us, but I believe all of the samples have been used so we would need new samples, more waiting periods, and it all starts getting too much again. We may go back to the donor sperm we planned to use initially from the sperm bank at our fertility clinic, but who knows if that is still available. I'm also open to doing more donor embryo transfers if they become available, however considering we have the option of doing full IVF again, I feel the need to give that a try.

I would also like the clinic to do a full rundown on Murray's sperm before we go down the donor path again. I know the odds are against us, but things may have changed since the last SCSA test, and perhaps his motility and DNA fragmentation issues have improved. I can't help but think that the only time we have been properly pregnant, not chemical pregnancies, but really pregnant, it used his sperm. We've had 2 Donor IUI's and 2 donor embryo transfers, none of which worked (0/4=0%) compared to 1/6 = 17% with Murray's sample. I don't know. I know we likely still need donor, but if the tests are at our disposal, I'd really like to check it first anyway.

So good news all round right now. Trying not to get too used to it, you never know when the next bomb will drop. But so far the adoption and IVF processes are on track. We've just got to keep plodding on.

Security checks submitted

We have completed two out of our three adoption tasks in this past week. Firstly we needed to provide a traffic infringement check from the police showing our driving record for the past five years. I have a clean sheet (yay!) while Murray had a couple of minor speeding fines from speed cameras (less than 9 km each time). I can't see either of those being an issue.

Today we went past our local DCP office and had all of our identification certified and our security check request witnessed. Basically it's like getting a police clearance, but it goes into much greater detail. They were both submitted this afternoon, so hopefully they should come back to the Adoption office in the next month or so.

The last thing on our to-do list is to complete our medical reports. Murray and I have both been in for our initial appointments and I am just waiting for my blood test results for my cholesterol. Murray's cholesterol has come back in the borderline high category (5.7, 5.2 apparently is normal). Considering our history with medical reports causing us to be rejected in the past, the doctor has recommended that he go away for 6 weeks and try his best to eat very healthy and stay away from animal fats, to try and reduce the levels. Then he will repeat the blood test again to hopefully get a better result. I get my results back on Saturday, and have had high cholesterol in the past as well, so I'm thinking that I will need to do the same thing too. In saying that, I had my cholesterol tested in November as part of a free check up at work, and it had dropped from being in the 6+ range to 5.7, so we shall see what I end up with!

Once the medical reports are submitted, we just need to wait for an assessor (social worker) to be assigned to us to start the interview process!

Opening our hearts

Finding out that we had been taken off of the public IVF waiting list squashed the life out of me last week. I barely got through each day at work, and each night I felt hopeless. More than a few tears were shed in the shower and in the dark of night.

The saying goes that as one door closes, a window opens. Well we had to find that window, that ray of hope that would keep us going. So after much prayer and talking, we have decided to reapply for local adoption.

It's a big step for us. The last time we went down this path, we were messed around so much - medical reports that weren't sent through to the panel, a rogue doctor who wouldn't recommend Murray as a suitable parent, and then the kicker - my weight being over their BMI limit, which ultimately caused the panel to reject our application before we even had our final assessment.

This time I think we are in a different place. While we will still likely pursue fertility treatments in the future, my experiences with my nieces and nephews leave me with no doubt that I could parent a child that was not born from me. We are also in a break from treatment, whereas before we were still doing IVF throughout the process. And of course the ultimate factor, my weight loss has enabled us to become eligible again, with my BMI currently around 32 and dropping every day.

So what does this mean for us? I spoke to DCP who look after adoptions in WA, and as we have already attending all of the workshops and training, we do not have to repeat that, and they also have our references on file so it looks like we wont have to repeat those either. We went to our GP yesterday to start the medical report process again, and now just need some blood tests to finish that off. Also we need to get a special police clearance which the department do, which goes over and above a normal police clearance. And finally a traffic infringement check from the police to make sure we aren't serially drink-drivers or speed or anything else naughty like that! We both got our traffic infringement checks done today so that is one thing to tick off the list!

We are sending through all of our documentation as we go along so that things can be done in the quickest way possible. I want to be alerted at the earliest possible opportunity for any issues that may crop up. I'm so used to disaster in everything we do, that I'd rather just know about it straight away, than get my hopes up about everything running smoothly, if that makes sense.

Once all of those documents have been submitted, the medical reports will go to an Adoption Medical Panel for review and they make the decision as to whether we are 'fit to adopt' from a physical point of view. The next panel meets in mid-February so hopefully by the end of February we will have a decision. After that decision, we will be assigned an assessor and begin a minimum of 6 interviews in our house to go over everything - how we were brought up, our family tree, how we intend on parenting, if our house is up to scratch etc. I'm not thinking too far ahead to this just yet - I just want to focus on what we are doing right now.

So yes. Certainly a change of pace for us, but we really feel God's hand in this. I read a bible verse which I hadn't come across before, and I felt like a promise that I couldn't ignore.

He gives the childless woman a family, making her a happy mother. Praise the LORD! - Psalms 113:9

I don't care how our child comes into our lives. I just know that they will come, one day.



PS - I spoke to a health liaison officer in Dr Kim Hames (WA Deputy Premier/Minister for Health) office today about the situation with the IVF waiting list. They are going to contact the hospital and try and get us reinstated. I don't know if it will happen, but I am glad to at least have someone fighting for us. Regardless of whether we get reinstated or not, we are very happy to be back on the adoption track.

The clinics response

I'm utterly miserable today. I got a call this morning from the public IVF clinic who told me that the reason my referral was cancelled was that at the time of the referral my BMI was 40. Apparently their rules dictate that just to get ON the waiting list, you need to have a BMI of less than 35. So you can't be on the waiting list and lose weight so that you meet the weight limit while you wait the 18 month or so until your first appointment. No, you have to meet an arbitrary weight limit before you get even close to a first doctor's appointment.

 

I asked how they advised people of this, and supposedly the referring GP would have received a letter back with that information – which of course we have never received or been told about by our doctor. I have booked an appointment for tomorrow morning to see my GP. The clinic said that the only way we could be reinstated on the waiting list (and reinstated to our second referral date of July 2012- thank goodness my fertility doctor insisted on writing a second referral), is if my GP writes a letter to say that I met the BMI limit at that point, because they never re-checked my weight on receiving the second referral (they just assumed I would still be over – great work guys). The problem of course, for those who have followed my weight loss journey, is that I was still over the 35 BMI then. So in essence, my doctor will have to lie if I am to have any chance of being reinstated to the list, regardless of the fact that I am now well under the BMI limit.

 

I can't see why they have this policy in place. I am supportive of a policy that says we will not pursue fertility treatment if the patient is over a BMI of 35 – the literature says that success rates decline after this point. Even though I have struggled with my weight, I really do understand this, especially in a public health context where we are not paying for the service. But to force people to lose the weight, which is often a long drawn out difficult process, before you can even get onto a waiting list which could take two years, well I just don't get that. After all, you could have a BMI of 35 at the time of the waiting list, and in the time between put weight on, but who would ever know? I could have lied and said I was under the BMI when they asked at the time, after all they didn't weigh me, it was just a phone conversation from the booking coordinator.

 

I am so angry and upset and flabbergasted. That the policy is in place, that we were not told at the time, that we had to find out after being so excited that this would be the year we could start trying again. I'm sitting at work trying to hold back the tears. I have worked so hard and made a really difficult decision to have surgery to help me lose this weight, the primary reason being that it would help us have a baby. Yet none of that matters right now, because of stupid rules that don't benefit anyone. 

Waiting list disaster

We've been looking after two of my little nieces for the last week and a half which has been a blast. Charlotte is 4 and Lilly is 3, and they are just so precious.

Blowing bubbles was a great time-wasting activity

The girls enjoying Murray's Dads bird aviary

They went to stay at their Grandma's from today, which is good for them as they will be with their other brother and sister, but still quite sad for us to see them go. Spending ten days with two princesses is definitely a learning curve - toilet training, making dinners that the girls like, bedtime routines, doing their hair dozens of times a day (they loved me playing with their hair so they kept pulling out to make me keep going!). Overall it was a very rewarding experience.

Between having the girls here and one of my best friends falling pregnant recently, we have started thinking about fertility treatment again, and so today I called the department of health to follow up on where we were on the waiting list for the public IVF clinic. After going through four different people, I managed to speak to the person who looks after the referrals and appointments. My referral was placed on 11th October 2011. Except that when she looked up the referral it says 'Final-Complete'. I asked her what that meant and she said that our referral was finished, it had been marked complete which meant we were no longer on the waiting list!!!!

I was in complete shock and just started quietly crying. The woman on the phone was the 'patient flow coordinator', and she basically said that someone must have marked it complete for some reason, but she doesn't know why, and she would have to get someone to look at my file but she couldn't do it today because she was busy. I hung up and went straight into the ladies bathrooms and cried.

I can't even process that we may be going to the back of the queue because of this. I just can't. It would be like admitting defeat for me. I am going to call the clinic back tomorrow afternoon to see if they have looked at my file. It's unbearable knowing that this mistake could cost us another 18 months. Fingers crossed that tomorrow we get some good news.