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BY GORDON Q. GUILLERGAN
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Friday January 13, 2017
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“Happiness is not something you question or you ask for it comes within you naturally.”
I HAVE ALWAYS wondered how it’s like to finally settle down, have a family and raise a child of your own, to fully commit to something that is of a life-long engagement.
But not everyone is blessed with the gift of marriage or family, or blessed with a bundle of joy. In Parentlife magazine, Sandra Glahn wrote about the turmoil and pain of infertility or the inability to have children. This is one matter not openly discussed as it seems to affect most especially men’s ego.
Glahn laid down possible alternatives when confronted with the dilemma of infertility.
Medication
For women with ovulation problems, fertility drugs can help. Some couples believe it’s wrong to use “unnatural means” to treat fertility problems. Others see taking medication as the equivalent of chemotherapy to treat cancer or insulin to treat diabetes. Those choosing to use drugs should be monitored carefully by skilled medical personnel.
Surgical intervention
Diagnostic surgery can uncover hidden causes of infertility. And corrective surgery often helps.
Surgeons may, for example, correct fallopian tube blockage or endometriosis, which affects the uterine lining.
In men, surgery can reverse vasectomies or repair structural damage and varicose veins in the testicles.
High Tech Options
Example of this is artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and other high tech procedures, provided doctors mix sperms or eggs of the spouses and take precaution to honor life even at the one-celled stage.
Embryo adoption
There is this situation wherein a woman had three embryos implanted in her uterus and five frozen following an in vitro procedure. After she had triplets, she faced emergency surgery to remove her uterus. That left her with three choices — destroy the additional embryos, find a surrogate to carry them to term, or find someone willing to adopt the embryos. The process of finding someone to adopt these embryos is known as this.
Embryo adoption is relatively new — developed in response to the more than 100,000 embryos that sit cryopreserved, suspended indefinitely in frozen oblivion. No matter what you believe about the ethics of cryopreserving embryos, embryo adoption is an option that is emerging as an alternative to destroying them. Some might see this as a rather inhumane procedure.
Adoption
Adoption is the solution for only one of the many losses in infertility — the loss of the ability to parent the next generation. Most experts encourage couples who pursue infertility treatment to exhaust medical options before pursuing adoption, as the two experiences require working through separate sets of losses. This is why so many infertile couples find it aggravating when their friends encourage them with, “You can always adopt.”
Some couples deeply grieve the loss of a jointly created child, the pregnancy and breastfeeding experiences, and a continuing family line. For them, adoption will never fill these voids.
However, once they reach the “resolution” stage of their infertility, other options look more appealing. Only then can adoption become a wonderful solution for the longing and the loss.
My take on the matter is that whatever methods you use, for as long as it does not alter your faith and you still allow God to take full control over the outcome of all these, it shall remain something which could be God-given and for a purpose./PN
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