Friday, May 10, 2019

Love You Like Crazy: Secret Subject Swap

Welcome a Secret Subject Swap. This month 9 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. Read through mine and at the bottom you’ll find links to all of today’s other Secret Subject participants.

Secret Subject Swap, a multi-blogger writing challenge | www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics


My subject is: Do you think it's ethical for a couple to conceive a child who is supposed to be a bone marrow donor for their sick sibling?
It was submitted by Tamara of Part-time Working Hockey Mom.

I, as all people do, come at this topic from a place of my own perspective, my own belief system, developed mostly through my life experiences. Having been through multiple in-vitro attempts, miscarriages and even the surgical loss of my oldest son's twin (I write about it here: Lightning Strikes), I've done more introspection when it comes to having children than many people do (or have to). I have had to contemplate what having a family means in general, and what it means to me. I've had to decide how far I'd go to get pregnant, and how I'd structure my life if I could not. 

For many people, whether or not to have a child in the hopes of harvesting bone marrow for a desperately sick sibling would be a difficult decision, a moral dilemma. Not for me. It would come down to two questions, easily answered. Would I do anything I could to save my child's life? Yes. Would I commit to raise, love, care for, protect and nurture the child born into this circumstance. Yes.

I admit though, that this decision could be impacted by other factors. If I were in my 20s and the sick child were young, adding to the family could well be something I'd already planned. Were I, however, in my 40s and the sick child in their late teens, adding a child to the family would undoubtedly mean something completely different logistically. Wouldn't stop me though. I can still answer "yes" to the two questions.

It would be incredibly naive to think that the thought process ends here. In fact, the real issues are those that come about after the birth of the child. For instance, what if this child is in some way medically compromised and cannot donate the marrow? My brother Peter's bone marrow transplant did not save his life. What if this child is able to donate and the first child still dies? You have to be able to look around your dinner table every night and view this child with joy, no matter what.


Marinate, grill and dinner is done. Sweet Hot BBQ Pork Chops feature a little sweet and a little heat in this 3 ingredient marinade. | Recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dinner

Sweet Hot BBQ Pork Chops

Oh and there's more, in fact, to me, the real dilemma, is in telling the child. Much like having been born via in-vitro (not so much today but in its infancy when I did it) or even being an adopted child, there is the telling, the when, how and how much that has the most potential for emotional danger. Especially if that older sibling has not made it. Do you tell the child from the beginning so they grow up knowing, making it a non-issue? Do you tell the child in bits and pieces as they grow? Do you wait to be sure they are secure, or to judge their emotional maturity before broaching the subject? And how long is that? Because I'm going to rule out the teen years right now. Do you take into consideration that you could well be under a time constraint, that this child could easily find out from others outside the home, relinquishing your ability to control the emotional impact? Having the child would not be the issue for me, these are the decisions that would keep me awake at night.

But the bottom line is this, all those expressions of love that my sick child grew up hearing: "love you more" or "love you to the moon and back" or "love you like crazy" (mine), this child would grow up with as well. It would be my responsibility to ensure that they knew that no matter what circumstance resulted in their conception, they are adored not for what they did but for who they are.

PS: I am on the Bone Marrow registry, would donate bone marrow to a complete stranger if I were found to be a match. Would you?


Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:


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Sweet Hot BBQ Pork Chops
                                                              ©www.BakingInATornado.com



Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
4 boneless pork chops
3/4 cup barbecue sauce, your favorite
1/4 cup orange marmalade
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes 

Directions:
*Rinse and pat dry the pork chops. Place in a sealable gallon sized plastic bag.
*Whisk together the barbecue sauce, marmalade and red pepper flakes. Reserve about 1/4 cup of this sauce in the fridge. Add the rest to the bag and manipulate the pork chops so they are all completely covered. Refrigerate from 4 hours to overnight.
*Preheat your grill to medium. Place the chops on the grill.
*NOTE: how long these will take to grill will depend on the thickness of your pork. Pork should, at the very least, be cooked to 145 degrees.
*For thin chops, cook for about 7 to 10 minutes. Turn over. Using a pastry brush, brush the chops with reserved marinade and cook for about another 7 - 10 minutes. Check for doneness and continue to cook if needed.
 

20 comments:

  1. Phew, you approached this delicate topic with some serious thoughts and did a great job. I saw a documentary about several families in this situation. Interestingly they were exactly in the spot you describe: they were out of "just trying" and spent a lot of money to be able to pay for IVF month after month. It was heartbreaking. And as you say, they couldn't even be sure the baby they'd potentially conceive, would even be a match.
    Hug your boys the next opportunity you have! I guess they can't come home for Mother's Day - or can they???

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    1. YES, they can. They're within an hour from me (well, for now).

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  2. You know we've talked before about having so much in common especially with our kids. We've talked about the difficulties of our first sons, but I had no idea that your son was a twin and the other didn't survive. I. WENT. THROUGH. THE. SAME. THING! My oldest son was a twin and the other didn't survive. The only difference is mine was a daughter. We named her Samantha! I wonder if that in any way affected them.

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    Replies
    1. It often shocks me, with my blogging friends, how much we have in common that we never would have possibly guessed. I'm going to need to hear your story at some point. I'll be in touch.

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  3. Karen, knowing someone, an adult, who was saved like this (through her brother) and also being an only child and the mother of an only child- I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. And I wouldn’t know until it happened to me. A

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So very true, Alana. I learned from my in vitro experiences that what you think through in your head rationally, those lines that you draw, are often vastly different when you're in that position for real.

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  4. Hmmm...what a difficult decision. I think I would. But I would also love that next child for themself. The hardest thing for me would be that then I would have two children hurting. Which would finish me off completely. I don't handle others' sickness well at all. Especially when it's a child.

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    Replies
    1. I agree, it's an incredibly difficult situation but sadly it does happen.

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  5. Love how you looked at all the angles on this subject. And to answer the question, I give a resounding YES.

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  6. Such a difficult question I do not know what I would do and I am thankful I will never know

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    Replies
    1. Definitely a very painful and difficult situation to be in.

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  7. You answered this question beautifully and with a lot of thought. In writing this, I am sure you had to reflect on a lot of pain. Thank you so much for sharing.

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  8. Fascinating question you pose, Karen. I'm not sure how to answer this question but I do believe that people should look into their heart and figure out what's best. Leave out the bumper sticker approach to convincing everyone else of their decisions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So much thought required, not just in making the decision, but in living with whatever the consequences may be.

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  9. Such a tough prompt and you handled it so well. We did IVF and were lucky but also scared. We couldn’t hAve more and gears arise with that. What do you do with leftover fertilized embryos? So many ethical issues.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, so many issues: physical, emotional, financial and ethical. We used all of our embryos, ended clean so we were lucky not to have to deal with that issue. My friend had a baby via IVF, then had triplets. She still had embryos frozen and ended up deciding to donate them.

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  10. I honestly have no idea how to even begin to answer this question for myself especially considering I almost died having my one child. Props to you for handling it so well. It was a well thought out and impressive answer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think although I hadn't thought of it in terms of a desperately sick child, much of this question fed into related issues I'd had to face. That set me on the path of being able to answer as best I could. No one really knows what they can or can't do until (or unless) they end up in a situation they never thought they'd be in.

      Delete

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