A decade of parenthood - Already

Today our oldest celebrates his 10th birthday.

I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the past decade and how much the adventure into parenthood and this amazing boy have changed our lives.

I was further convinced to draft this up this morning as we were lucky enough to have beequammie be a guest speaker for Black History Month. Bee conveyed the importance of “resilience” and the importance of being proud of that "resilience".

So which that ... here we go ... make sure you tie your seatbelt before you read thru this … lol.?You’ll see why as you read thru our journey. I haven't gone in-depth on many details in the interest of being brief and I'm saving the in-depth details for when I write the infamous book everyone tells me I should write.

Although our 1st born joined us 10 years ago on this date, our journey into parenthood starts 16 years ago, well before we welcomed Jean-Daniel into this world.?Like many, we got married and wanted to start a family as soon as possible.?We started our attempt to get "pregnant".?One year without success went by and my wife, being in the health services, suggested we go see a fertility doctor to ensure we both were medically capable to “make life" (yes, could be said many different ways).

All test results showed that we were capable of having children, but that my wife’s egg reserves were lower than average.?After a sales like pitch for “in-vitro” services, we left with a fertility pill prescription.?I could go on about this experience, but it is not of significant importance for today.

We tried the prescribed fertility pills and as many do, we decide maybe we are putting pressure on ourselves and need to “let it happen naturally”.?When the prescription runs out, we do not go back to refill it.

Another 1 1/2 years go by and we decide to go back to the fertility clinic to refill the fertility prescription.?I did not attend that appointment because we both figure it was a simple prescription refill appointment, BIG mistake not to attend, HUGE.?I received a call from my wife post appointment, I should say a tearful wife, putting it mildly, who is attempting to let me know some apparent horrendous news, but I cannot understand a word she is saying.?Once calmer moments arrived, I was able to comprehend that my wife had been informed that it was believed that she had entered “pre-menopause” at the age of 37.?Which meant that the odds of us having children were extremely low, the Dr could not say it was 0% because as you know or may have heard of someone who has had a child when they thought their menopause was done.

We scheduled another appointment with the fertility Doctor.?During this appointment the Dr explained why he could not say for sure that we were not able to have children.?Yes, my wife was entering menopause, but there was still some eggs that would be making their way out.?The "when" and "how many" eggs is the unknown.

I always appreciated the Dr’s explanation of this time in a women’s life.?He compared the end of a woman's ovulation cycle as turning off a water tap, it's not an instantaneous stoppage, the water will have some droplets of water drip, no 2 turn offs are exactly identical with reference to # of drops and the spacing of time between the drops.

The Dr presented the options, all with the % of potential success.?The best option for us to start a family as soon as possible was the “donor” egg route.

My wife and I spoke openly about our options, adoption, in-vitro, donor egg (at the time in Canada you needed a donor but could purchase donor eggs in the US).

After brief attempts with the fertility clinic in Canada and with their coordination, we decide to begin our “donor egg” journey with the US Fertility clinic.

Following many months of test, meetings, appointments, finding a donor, negotiating that we wanted multiple egg from the same donor as we wanted multiple kids with the same DNA, we started our 1st attempt.

What does that consist of, my wife being a super trooper, super star.?30 days of many fertility processes (too many to detail), although I will mention, it includes 30 days of a daily Glute injection and 2 Glute injections every other day.

With that my wife would become pregnant and 9 months later Jean-Daniel was born, oops, nope, not that easy, we didn't make it to 39 weeks. 32 weeks later Jean-Daniel would arrive, 2 months premature. ?He would be taken from us immediately, he was in an incubator, was fed thru a nasal tube during the next 2 months. Not to mention that we had to leave him nightly only to come back the next morning.?We were blessed that he did not have a single complication related to being born premature.?He was a healthy baby boy just wanted to come into this world sooner than most. Lol

We would think that our journey to parenthood would now fall into auto-pilot.

Again, oops, nope, not that easy, at age 2 1/2, Jean-Daniel would be diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.

We started our real adventure from that point on, coordinating services, learning everything about autism, counting # of words in his vocabulary to ensure we can track progress (20 + words at age 3 1/2).

This beautiful boy, Jean-Daniel, change our lives, change my life, forever and I would never go back to who I was prior to him entering our lives.?Thanks to him I am a better person, a better man, a better husband, a better manager, a better friend, a better brother, a better son and a better father to my other 2 children (yes, all 3 created at the same moment in time but with different birth dates almost 2 years apart each … amazing what science can do).

jD is now 10, the boy who had 20 words in his vocabulary, who would make that. 130 within 1 month, now speaks French, speaks English, writes in French and writes in English, loves to sing, was taking piano lessons pre-covid, is a great swimmer who loves the lake and pool, is participating in an CarletonU Autism study, is loving and caring to his younger siblings, I could go on forever.

I AM HIS VOICE ... HE IS MY HEART.

I wish him a Happy 10th Birthday, but I thank him for allowing me the daily opportunity to learn to see this world thru his lens of this world.