F E AT U R E
A mother in adoption and childbirth BY DIANELLE MEIS AMIN, CALIFORNIA LAMBDA
Today, I'm the mother of two incredible teenagers. Now that I’m on the other side of my infertility journey, I’m able to look back on my experience differently. But the emotional weight and isolation of the experience still hold true. After a year of trying to conceive, my husband and I started seeing an infertility specialist. I went through five rounds of IUI followed by IVF every six months as we could afford it and as my body allowed. Throughout my journey, I had the support of close friends and family, but even when you have support, experiencing infertility can still feel isolating. Some of the people who understood it most were those going through it—like New Mexico Beta LISA REDE ROMAN and others I met in my infertility support group. It was especially difficult to watch my friends start their families. I quit several activities because it was too hard to see everyone around me getting pregnant. Even more so, I had to experience those tough emotions at work. Sometimes I was able to share the clinical side of procedures with those who asked, but the emotional side was much more difficult to bear. In all, I did four egg retrievals and two frozen cycles of IVF with a variety of doctors. I pursued Western medicine alongside Eastern medicine—practicing acupuncture, using herbs and researching diet and exercise. The treatment
Dianelle and her family today.
protocols and procedures were not always easy, but I always had hope that each one would be different. My husband and I both knew we had a lot of love to give and felt it was more important for us to be parents than to give birth. While continuing my IVF procedures, my husband and I began researching adoption. We decided to pursue an international adoption from India. My husband’s parents, who were born in India, provided support and understanding as we determined specific areas of the country to focus our efforts and looked for a U.S. adoption agency to partner with an agency abroad. Eight months after submitting our dossier, we received a call about a 13-month-old ready for adoption in India. We first learned about our daughter while visiting my husband’s family at the Taj Mahal. With much of the country shut down for the Diwali holiday, we couldn’t travel to her orphanage before our trip home, but six months later—after coordinating travel, visas and passports—I finally met my daughter. Once we brought her home, I spent so much time getting to know and understand her. I learned what she liked, what scared her, what she ate and so much more. There were tears of happiness, tears of sadness and nights when I wondered, “Will this child ever sleep?” After spending the last year in India, she was scared to be someplace new with people she didn’t know. My husband and I read all we could on bonding and attachment; we did everything possible to make her feel safe, comfortable and loved. Two months after I brought her home, I was surprised to learn I was pregnant with my son. Within ten months, I had two children under the age of three—a toddler whom I still didn’t fully know and a newborn who wouldn’t sleep or eat. Like other first-time parents, I hadn’t been through it before, so I didn’t know what to do. I spent those early years feeling overwhelmed, but I experienced support from my Pi Phi sisters. South Dakota Alpha RENEE RICHARDSON BENNETT, New Mexico Beta HEATHER WILSON MILLER and Lisa Roman started a group called Wiggles and Giggles where we celebrated our kids’ birthday parties and went on trips to parks, playgrounds and the zoo. Over the years, along with Pennsylvania Eta KATHRYN TAYLOR and Indiana Gamma PAMELA NAYLON SCANDRETT, we experienced celebrations and learned from one another.
SUMMER 2022
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