France and surrogacy

Apart from the obvious - ie. it is illegal to have a child by a surrogate in France, there are also some less obvious elements which I thought I'd list

For starters, there's no information anywhere. Hence why I bother writing this blog. Even doctors don't know a thing about it. I am apparently the first ever kidney patient in Paris' biggest kidney hospital (Necker) to be going down this route. The IVF lady I'm going off to see isn't sure how she's going to get my embryos released for me to take abroad either.

That takes us to my second point. I can have the IVF treatment in France, link my jewels up with the other conkers and produce little humans, but then I can't have MY (I emphasize the possession here) little beings to do with what I want. I can't then take them over to another country if my purpose is, heaven forbid, surrogacy. I can get a note from the Food and Drugs Association in the US to get through the beeping and lasers at the airports and not frazzle the little humans on their first transatlantic flight, but I wouldn't get that far as I'll be met with security guards and custom officials when I try and open the fridge door in France.

So, we look at our bank accounts once more, and join dots and make calls and recognise that this is a game for stubborn people, and stubborn I'm going to have to become.

Yes, I'll do the treatment here, yes I'll work out how to connect them with someone in the UK (who's more lax on the relinquishing possession front), yes I'll then work out how to connect them with someone in the US, and then, abracadabra, little humans maybe get a chance to defrost.

pics on Sodahead
It's minus 6 outside, and it's almost Christmas. This is a frosty Christmas story for you. I can not believe I'm the first to work all of this out. If anyone's been through all this before, please drop me a line? I'm looking for some thawing advice.

Thanks

French Social Security Downturn

I go to collect my medicines the other day and am told that I'll only now be reimbursed 100% for those which are 'generic'. If I want the formal brands, I have to pay for them.

This is new French President, Hollande's, influence. And I'm not averse to it.

I try and liken the minor fear I feel at carrying home a shopping bag worth of generic drugs to keep me ticking over this month to something I read in the paper a couple of month's back; in Greece, people were going to the pharmacy to find there were none of their drugs left. People like me will have gone to keep themselves going and found that the door was shut. Absolutely terrifying.

I now carry my pills in my bag with me at all time. I walked past a stupid film poster of Ewan Mcgregor caught in a natural disaster and thought how stupid I'd feel if everyone else was surrounded by devastated houses and lost family members and I'd be freaking out about running out of immuno suppressants.

It also reminds me of a recent campaign a friend of mine has started, #icancer. 'What price a life?' asks Dom, a former colleague and friend of mine who has a type of cancer which there is as yet no available treatment for. Or, I should say, which there is a treatment for, but, because it isn't a treatment which will bring phamaceutical companies profit, is still stuck in a freezer in Sweden. He, and some hard core campaigners, are trying to raise the £2 million it would cost to get the treatment out and in use to stick two fingers up to protocol.

The whole idea of likening money to health is odd. If we provide people with medicine, shouldn't we also provide then with food, and a bed and a roof over their head? Isn't it odd that I can carry my bag of medicines back to my flat and walk past a tramp in the street?

Is it odd we can feel so outraged by families in the US becoming bankrupt by losing their house because of medicine bills and then forget to continue counting how many have died of malnutrition in a food crisis?

What I do know is that, when I went to the pharmacy, I felt that surely something was wrong and that I  would be given the same medicines as before. I felt I deserved it. Some sort of superiority.

Similar to another feeling I don't like in myself since the operation but which I think I just about understand. I would walk up steps in the metro surrounded by commuters and in my head, think, 'look, I can walk up these stairs faster than you and I've had a transplant'. Gross. Not proud. Let's pass that off as a warped version of self-motivation and determination.

Anyway, this is a rambling blog because I've (touch wood) not been ill since March or thereabouts. My doctor actually called me 'healthy' a couple of months back which made me giggle. My creatine is stable at 200-2010, whatever that means! Seems odd to be stable when you know, if you looked a little deeper, you'd see the knees were starting to buckle, but I'll take it. This means I've had time for reflection and realised that I'm actually pretty lucky.

It means that my new year's resolution not to be kidnified has actually happened and I've realised it just in time.

Moon Face

Steroids give you a moon face. They bloat up your cheeks and make you look like a pre-preppy teenager who might break out in a tantrum, acne or love angst. I believe it's an odd redistribution of fat that sometimes creates a hunchback, and can also land on the face. I am 32. Thanks to my daily pills, If you don't look too closely around the eyes or forehead, I could pass for a high school kid. When I smile, the tops of my cheeks have been known to touch my glasses. A sort of chipmunk. An exaggerated version of Renee Zellweger. A mOOn.

I guess, if this is your thing, it has certain advantages: A woman in a coffee shop asked if I was old enough to vote the last month. Someone in a party asked when I was going to graduate. Personally, however, I don't want to be seen as an adolescent buying organic goods and ground Colombian roast. I feel uncomfortable in meetings with strangers at work, and dress up to make up for it.

There are oodles of postings online of people desperately seeking a way out of their exploding cheeks due to prednisolone to no avail. I'm only on 10 mg of the stuff but it's been almost a year now and the side effects are growing roots.  I have been noticing my face appearing remarkably similar to an apes shiny bottom in most people's photos on facebook all of a sudden. Studying the development, I realise my cheek bones are now paling in comparison to the cheeks that are propping them up.

This is vanity, pure and simple. And obviously no one is going to bother weighing up health against a thin face.  I asked my doctor if I could stop the pills and she told me no. It could bring back my rejection. 'You look sweet!' she said. Hmmmm

When I get a new kidney, hopefully I'll come back off these darned things and my face will morph into that of a supermodel's. That's the thought that gives me the confidence to blast through my squidgyness when I need it. Inner beauty etc... Buried under a layer of insulation. It is a shame, after all, to spend what is meant to be the prime of my life looking (and therefore feeling) like I've just quaffed a gallon of bacon butties. 

This is a day when I'm taking full advantage of the fact I write a blog. I'm having a whine. It suits my image.

Meeting with a Surrogacy Agency

Having spent 3 hours listening about adoption from the French, we thought it only fair to listen to 3 hours about surrogacy from an Agency. A US agency, of course, for whom 25% of their clients come from France. Clever monkeys.

I learnt several odd things.
For our roughly $90K, we could start with IVF in France, bringing over frozen embryos on the plane with a piece of paper from the 'Food and Drugs Association' in the US to show to their customs officers explaining why we're carrying 'blood related materials'. (Made me laugh to think that, if we were to do this, that journey with the embryos in a box under my seat would be the closest I'd get to gestation). Hey, gee, to be sure we get enough embryos over time, we could buy an 'Embryo package deal'. How simply marvelous.

Men don't have the same problems with freezing or thawing their own jewels. Sperm could survive if used to stick down a stamp on an envelope and sent like that hrough the post to the US. That means women could still get pregnant from that stamp if it was inserted in the right place. Makes you think twice about sleeping in dirty sheets, doesn't it...?

Anyway, you hand over your genetics and they're 'transferred' into the surrogate (for $5K) who you've already chatted with on skype to introduce yourself and check you get on. This is a relationship, according to the agency we met. You're going to be in close contact with this lady - to the extent that some might demand to have you in the delivery room at the end of the day - so your relationship is very important from Day 1.

You spend the weekend with her and her family, and then potter back home. You can then make trips for the 3 month scan, finished with a trip lasting roughly 2-4 weeks (depending on how easy the birth is and if they're twins) for the birth.

I'm 32 so my eggs are almost of 'donor value'. That's to say, they shouldn't be too far off the gold standard that they get from their donors. (Super donors, I discovered are 23 years old and have given eggs that have been successfully implanted in the past. Sigh. It's sad to be told up front you're past your prime.) If frozen, my eggs/the embryos lose about 5% of their success rate only so my probabilities of success per transfer are as follows:

1. 65%
2. 77%
3. 93%

Not bad.

All told, with legal fees, medical fees, insurance fees for the surrogate if they don't have it, travel for the surrogate to the clinics, monthly charges for food/clothes, and the fee that goes to the surrogate for her time, it's 90K. Add on 5-8 for twins, add on 5 per extra transfer you need to make, add on 10 if you can't get frozen embryos and need to go to the US for IVF, and you're getting the full picture.

They explained that not many of their 'intended parents' (ie people like us) were of our age because this thing is so darned expensive.

They said more French do it than Brits because while French think about science fiction behind it, so do the Brits but they also care deeply what their neighbours think of it too --->

Those are the options. Question now is if we want either of them, or whether the hand that Fate has dealt is the option we should take instead. The update on the kidney, so you know, is the results got worse again, going up to 190 and then 193 over the past month (I need to be at 160 maximum). My chances of getting a 'oh go orrrn and give it a go' from the doc are now not very likely. What would you do?

Adoption - it ain't easy.

Yesterday was an 'information day' we attended to be steamrollered with the reality of stats, waiting times, and massive punches to the head about adoption.

There are 24,000 people in France who have a certificate saying they can adopt children. That's the same amount of children as there are in the entire world who are up for adoption.

There might be millions of children in poverty and in need of loving, caring parents, but they're not up for adoption unless a judge has ruled as such. Quite right too.

Once they're up for adoption, it's a mad scramble by hopeful parents and adoption agencies from loads of countries trying to get their feet in the door first. This leads to countries creating incredible demands for adoptive parents.

• Colombia put up ads, like Job ads, saying they need 15 parents. First come first served if you tick all the boxes. The rest of the applications get shredded. 
• Russia demand that you report back for the next 18 years of the child's life once you've adopted.
• In Bulgaria, you have to define on a 5 page questionnaire the child you're looking for. It's not about what you're like as parents-to-be. It's whether the child up for adoption fits exactly the child you want to look after. 
• Some African countries demand papers signed by priests.

As for adopting babies, we were told that it simply wasn't possible from abroad. You might be able to from Ethiopia, but you'd have to be under 35 years of age in four years time. The whole room of hopeful French parents sitting around me snorted.

You might be able to adopt a baby in France. The huge total 24 babies who were adopted last year did go to parents. But before you get too comfortable, we were reminded that most of the mothers were alcoholics or drug addicts. Drink while you're pregnant and your child can have serious development issues that only show up as they grow up. Age six you might discover they can never read or write. 

A 'celibate' (as they're called in French) next to me who was obviously hoping to adopt was told she'd have no luck in Africa. Most African countries demand five years of marriage at least. I tick that box. Shame then that I was only in the market for caucasian. The only time my neighbour could start scribbling in her book is if she would be comfortable adopting a handicapped child from China.

Some parents worked out a quicker way than working through the Hague Convention of certificates and regulations and went for 'individual adoption' where you run to a country outside of the convention, find an adoptable child, and get your signatures down on some papers fast. Russia fell under that category last year and subsequently found hundreds of its children adopted by French (the third biggest adopting country after Italy and the US). Those doors are closed now, apparently, and all eyes are on Vietnam.

Made me realise that people who say Adoption is a wonderful thing - giving a home to a child in need etc... - aren't quite right. There must be about 50 times the amount of parents than there are children. The only really selfless adoption, and where the parents deserve medals, are when a disabled child is adopted, or a child who's in his or her teens.

Made me realise too that you can't quite weigh up the alternatives of a newborn adopted child verses a newborn child from a surrogate because that's not realistic. The reality is a newborn child from surrogacy that costs you more than a college education in the US, versus a 6 year old from Africa or Asia that would join us in about five years time. Easy to see why surrogacy is now turning up in articles in OK! Magazine, in the Daily Mail, in daily conversations and on many peoples' bank balances.

Creatinine Chart

I think you should be able to click on this and make it bigger in another window.

Before I bore some of you senseless over internet discoveries regarding reproduction, let's remember what brought us here in the first place - Kidnification.

I just wanted to draw your perhaps wandering attention to the little slide in results that's happened recently. That slide has happened over the past 3 months, and it's still sliding. 150 points is where I need to be to be able to produce that vomit for that horrible doctor lady I met. 120 is where I started. You might say I'm feeling a little proud/hopeful/excited/impatient at the moment while I wait for another month to pass.

Seriously. Where do images like this come from?

Remember that Creatinine rises with a curvy line on a graph so that a slight rise when you're at 120 means a lot more than a rise (or fall) of 10 when you're up where I am.

Remember too that I was up at way over 300 when I presented myself to my GP in 2009 with a headache before my transplant.

Lastly, remember that kidney health doesn't just mean time-consuming things like kids, but also time saving for whosoever might be the generous Donor No.2.

Little Miss K is a lot like Heather here. Proud as Punch.

The pitfalls of surrogacy – Look before you jump

No-one else is writing about it, so I’m stepping up to the plate. Turns out that official advice on surrogacy is something that is a dangerous game. Defy anyone to mess with a money making business after all.

I’m not saying that I’m suddenly a nun. I just had my eyes opened to the realities of a fast growing demand on a deregulated market. Add to that the complexities of my dearest country, India, with massive poverty, a douse of corruption and a lot of discrimination and things get a little messy.

Look before you jump.

Children born to surrogates in India are paperless. They’re stateless. They have no citizenship. You have to apply for that citizenship, creating that child’s existence on a blank piece of paper. I suppose in a similar way to the process of creating that child’s existence in a petri dish that you did nine months earlier.

If the surrogate mother is married, you have to acquire permission to parent the child that was born to her and her husband, despite the fact that the child’s made from your genes. You acquire permission and then you apply for a passport. Thus rack up the months. 

If the surrogate mother is not married, you’re on to an easier ride. But don’t get too comfortable. Remember your context.

Money makes the world go around

Clinics in India are making a fair whack through this sudden infertility escape route. Of the $23,000 you pay for your child (or, as the Embassy told me “they quite often come in twins. I should warn you”), only $1000 goes to the mother. Do with that what you will.

The rest of the money is swallowed by the clinic.  These clinics are businesses, and they have ways of squeezing more profits. It does seem a coincidence that many of the blogs out there hear of the children being born at 7.5 months, instead of 9. An earlier birth makes for a faster recycle of the mother, and a higher pay per month for that woman than if they waited the full term. A more vulnerable pre-term baby needing medical attention can put pressure on a faster turn around of papers in Embassies too.

Are the clinics telling the truth when they say the mother’s not married? One Immigration officer noticed that the name of a surrogate mother on the exit visa of one happy couple with their new child was the same name as had been on an exit visa used just 5 weeks earlier. If you’re not sure, and the Embassy’s not sure, your waiting time just increased a few more months again.

Back to healthy basics

Lastly, remember your values and live by them, despite whatever yearnings you may have. We’re all humans. These women are taking a health risk for your sake and because, no doubt, they need the money.

Where do the surrogate mothers live? What are the conditions like? If six appear to be living at the same address, it’s likely they’re not being housed anywhere as the clinic says and are probably just sloping home, possibly to a slum.  If the moral argument’s not doing it for you here, think of the future health prospects of your newborn. It can get murky.

FACT: 30% of the papers that are put into the British Embassy in Delhi for citizenship of surrogate children are fraudulent. 

BUT Surrogacy can be a smooth process if you've done the right research  

Follow your nouse. 

• Ask questions. Visit the clinic. 
• Ask to meet the mother. 
• Ask to see where she lives. 
• Ask about the conditions. 
• Ask if you can get proof of marital status. 
• Ask fellow clients how smooth the process was. If it took them 12-14 weeks and not 1000 questions, likely the clinic they went through is known by the Embassy and the papers they produce are legal.  If it took much longer, think again. 
• Ask how many children the mother has had. Surrogacy’s been a phenomenon there for 2-3 years, and women can only have 5 children by surrogacy by law in India in their lifetime. Think of how many births they’ve been through, what it’s done to their body and if there are any implications there for the medical supervision your clinic is offering them
• Read this page of guidance from the British Embassy in India

And then, then, you decide whether to take the plunge or not. 

To reproduce, or take another's produce. That is my current question

Looks like living in France might be spicing things up, legally speaking. I’ve mentioned that this country has particularly strict views on the issue of surrogacy.  Should have figured, what with the Mary figures brightening up churches in every arrondissement around. Not that inclined to go into it too much on this forum.

Thinking about it anyways, it's not as though Mary went down the traditional route anyway! What has she got to say about the matter!? Ruddy hyprocrits. (please don't spam me).

The US passport my husband so conveniently holds also doesn’t turn out to be all that exciting either unless we also had proof that we’d lived in the US for the past five years.  So we are left with 3-6 months wait in India for a UK passport for a kid post birth. I've actually used my 'contacts' and am now in email conversation with someone at the Consulate in Delhi. Remarkable how odd connections can come in handy when you least expect it.

Hmm. Why can't I just build a womb out of some whale blubber and chewing gum and grow a baby in my spare bedroom. I could feed it peanuts and apple juice.

Back to choices of clinics and stomachs, though, Delhi seems to have higher success rates than Mumbai at 75% chance of pregnancy the first time around, 97% the second. (I need that poker lady's advice again...). Indeed, in Delhi, you can spend a smidgeon more and have eggs put in two surrogates at the same time – a sort of explosion of our Genetic DNA out for the picking. It’s highly likely we’d get ‘Twiblings’ - a sort of Tweedleme and Tweedleyou - but I guess that might not be a bad thing. At least we wouldn’t have to go through this all again. Chapter of bizarre online searching over for once and for all. Issue of infertility shelved forever. Back to being Traditional Nuclear Family, normal but for our dark secret etc...

Putting all my energies into this does two things. Firstly I get carried away and think I could move heaven and earth. I could easily convince myself I had Jesus tendencies. What the service provides is, after all, a Mary like conception. But secondly, it does scare me when I step back and realise that this the online world i've suddenly become a global expert is also something that I have a choice about. Oh yeah. Forgot about that.

With a clinic lined up, a Consul General considering the legal loopholes for me and a few Indian ladies answering my every email 10 minutes after I send them, it’s decision time. To take the plunge or not to take the plunge. To reproduce, or to take another's produce.

Ca c’est la Uber question.

Onwards and Upwards

Thank you for those who took the step of writing to me. Sorry to my husband who's querying my use of the word 'squidgy'

As promised, I bring you an entire posting on adoption and surrogacy. Get ready for a five minute lesson on why not to worry about your own fertility if you are, and on the weird and wonderful world we live in.

ADOPTION.

Photo to sum it up on the right

(being realistic about the age of the child in this case...): 

Welcome to the wonderful world of the Hague Convention. Before this was brought in, adopting from the US was a cinch. The Millibands did so for their two sons in 2007.
Now you have to apply for a homestudy in the country where you live. The 'Agrement pour Adoption' in my local language. We took a deep breath and have sent off the first of what I expect will be a barrage of documentation. Surprisingly, the French on the phone I've come across so far have been remarkably nice. This is rare, but perhaps they're carefully selected from amongst maternal nice people.

9 months later, apparently, after criminal record tests, medical certificates, photos, psychological tests and interviews with social services types (11 hours of interviews in total, apparently), you get your receipt. That lasts 5 years and for one child. With it, you can apply to adopt a child in any country within the Hague Convention. Most end up adopting from Africa/Asia because there's less of a time lag. We'd be going Caucasian and hopefully a baby. "I'm writing because we are interested in adopting a Caucasian newborn" go these remarkably surreal emails I've started sending to find an 'outgoing' adoption agency in the US.

Guess that if you didn't get the dream choice, as you couldn't bear the wait, the process would look a bit like this (right): 

The oddest part of this whole thing is coming across, on practically every adoption site, these dreadful photo listings of children who are up for adoption. I pick one, at random, to show you. It's dreadful to see them all lining up like that. For the older ones who are more adept on computers than me, it must be harrowing to see yourself up there for ages and no-one clicking 'interested'. Soul destroying no doubt. It is no surprise that the vast majority are disturbed and 'difficult' children. The 'ads' make devastating reading.
This is not a light and cheerful pass-time.

SURROGACY.

Delighted to say that I think I've made some good discoveries. The fear of surrogacy is that you part with 4 years salary and then the surrogate mother doesn't get pregnant/miscarries and you're left really sad and also really broke.

• Los Angeles (due to US medical fees) is simple but crushingly expensive at around 100-150K$ (depending on whether you need an egg donor too)
• Ukraine is about 20K$, but there are loads of reports of fake pregnancies or trafficking babies to pass off as genetic ones, and people running off with your cash, so I think I'd also opt for 5-10K$ with a legal firm who manage all the transactions and check your surrogate mother isn't a Nigerian with a fat cigar.
• UK we'd need to find a surrogate mother who liked the look of us. We'd have to move back too. There are no fees that swop hands between you and the mother. This is altuism at its best.
• India again is interesting as, while only costing around 25k$, it did have the downside of having to wait 3 months in India post birth to get UK citizenship for your child. My clever husband was born in the US, though, so we could apply for US citizenship which only takes 3-4 weeks, return home to France and apply for UK citizenship from here. As a Brit, you need to add on 5K for a 'parental order' so that you become the mother. This is tedious, but probably necessary.

Of all this lot, I think this agency is taking my interest the most, and answering my emails quickly and efficiently. According to one of the million online blogs/websites I've read on this all, that's something not to be disregarded. This is about efficiency and professionalism after all. It's a 'process'. They have a UK branch, they find you another surrogate if your 'chosen one' isn't able to get pregnant for no further fees and they have legal advisers for the genetic DNA checks and visa applications. Hell, they even send a chauffeur to pick you up from the airport. I've got about 20 email addresses of other 'intended parents' who've gone home with their tiny packages too. Next step blanket emailing 'Hello, I'm looking to etc....'. Again, very very surreal.


That's all. I hope this is more positive than the last update. Onwards and upwards as I said. Who knows, I might end up with triplets.


[If this was useful, you might find a more recent post about a meeting with a surrogacy agency I had interesting too, and - 'pitfalls of surrogacy. Look before you jump']

No Kid Kate

I got the final no-go day before yesterday. I am officially forbidden from having children.

An incredibly unsympathetic, horrible woman ran me through statistics as though she were reading the sports results. 28% chance of pre-eclampsia, 1/3 chance of miscarriage, 8% chance of losing up to 10% of your kidney function = chance of losing the whole kidney. My last biopsy showed a fairly beaten up kidney. If there's a problem, there's a 'technical removal of the child'. All these stats are because my 'creatinine' (ie. kidney function measurement) is at 170 or thereabouts. It needs to be below 150 to call the idea safe, apparently.

A mini part of me feels that it has come down to 170 from 200 over the last month and might, therefore, possibly drop again slowly if we all pretend that we're not paying attention and look in the other direction. I'd love to see that horrible lady next year with a creatinine of 130 and ask her burp my baby, or wipe its bum. Perhaps I should just vomit on her. That should do it.

The vast majority of me (99.9%) knows that the game is over.

This is sad. I am officially, most definitely sad about this. This is a rough punch to add to the beating. I'm bruised. I feel terribly terribly sad for my heroic supportive husband. I wonder what his life would have been like with another woman who could have his children and take on his incredible brains, charisma and squidgy loveliness.

Facebook is rough at times like these. Photos of others moving on to the next phase are tough viewing. Walking down the street can occasionally be a bit of a battle too if you're in mummy-ville. Pharmacies have baby rows, supermarkets have prams in every aisle. One couple I met a fortnight ago who got married a year ago and were expecting their second asked if my husband and I had just got engaged. Having been married five years already, it was obvious their assumption was due to us not yet having kids. Even looking at my belly in the bath and realising it wont ever be pregnant as every girl imagines it might be as they grow up is an odd thought.

One could get dramatic about it - I've lost my purpose/I'm not a woman etc. I could beat my chest and wail like a banjee but that's not my bag. But, as my generation start popping them out, discussing names, genetic similarities and school options, it does nonetheless feel odd to be starting to take the pill for the first time in three years. (Let's at least hope they give me some enormous Wabs).

I will be practical about this again in the days to come. I will fill these blog posts with research I've done about adoption and surrogacy and I will be positive about the 'wealth of options available to us in this century of modern science'  etc. blah blah blah. I may end up feeling lucky as I adopt a wonderful child and feel special at the individual relationship our modern day nuclear family builds together. A battle won is a satisfying thing. And if that can translate into love and union then I can be hopeful I'll feel I got the golden ticket rather than the short straw.

Yes this is personal. And yes I'm posting it on the web.  I need people who know me to know. Then we don't have to talk about it.

Postherpetic Neuralgia

I have the dreaded fear. I'm 6 weeks post the start of my shingles. I am still itching. I'm also still not sleeping. This is called Postherpetic Neuralgia. The nerves where my shingles were have been frazzled and are having spasms. They like to spam out at night time when I'm trying to sleep. This is what over 60s and immuno suppressed people get apparently with shingles. 95% of us will get over it within a year. The remaining 5% keep on squirming and scratching till kingdom come. Please, dear lord, let mine subside soon.

I'm currently writing this with cling film wrapped around my belly to stop my clothes setting off the itch. I, of course, married a particularly hairy man, and so cuddles are proving a little hard at night too. I will create myself a body sized condom so I can give him a night time hug. Maybe on alternate nights, or full moons, he'll let himself be wrapped up instead of me, or both side by side, like two chrysalis ready to hatch out when it's feeding time.

 

Met a renal consultant at a wedding over the weekend who shook my hand and bet with me that my next kidney would last forever. He said I looked ridiculously healthy to not be doing well on the current kidney and said he wouldn't be surprised if I defied cautions and lasted on my current transplant with pregnancy and the lot for a good few years yet.

He went on to explain that renal consultants treat their patients like china dolls because everything is a complication waiting to happen. In no other walk of medical life do you get patients treated with such kid gloves. He is a renal consultant hoping to take this approach through to cardiac treatment. I am a renal patient wishing I wasn't practised on in bars and weddings and parties. I get so excited to meet renal doctors, but it's unfair really for them to talk to me as they can't tell me anything I don't already know and what I do know I don't want to be told again when I'm trying to ignore it all. On the other hand, how they're meant to know any of that when I'm always so excited at the possibility of learning something new is beyond me.

I'm a medical addict. I know I want more, but I know it's probably bad for me. I get so excited when I hear that there might be some of it/them floating around at a party, but it would be better for all of us if the two of us never hooked up. Reminds me of when I first got sick and didn't know any better. I was told kidneys lasted only a few years by someone (no comment). I was told that my heartburn (from not having enough iron) might give me a heart attack if I didn't stop moving (yup. that stopped me in my tracks for a good few weeks!). All these naughty bits of information I got from people on their down time and then wished I'd never heard once I'd digested them. Especially when they turned out not to be correct anyway.

There is but one God and one mediator between God and men and that's my consultant. Let's hope my Lord and Father will prescribe me some itchy-scratchy tonic when I visit my chapel in the morning. Amen

Hot Diggidy

Also, while we're on the good news vibe, I just found my creatinine has gone down to 173 (must mean I've gained about 5% kidney function back = a few more months?) and I have a plethora of white blood cells. Literally. I have thousands of the things. They're just hanging around socialising with each other whiling the time away.

'How it's goin?'
'yeah, good, yeah. You?'
'yeah. great'
etc...

C'est tout. I'm going to log off and enjoy the sunshine. x

MASSIVE ORGAN DONATION DEVELOPMENT

This article sent to me by my mother in law shows that they are making amazing advances in organ donation. If you put in stem cells of your organ donor with their donated kidney, then the recipient can wean themselves off immuno suppression within the year! At least 5/8 managed to do that in the first trial that just took place in the US.

Can you imagine!?!? It makes me seriously excited to think about it. I would be just like You hoo hoo again. No face masks, gross infections and cancer risks. No night sweats, and hand alcohol gel, and fear of traveling to developing countries and constant colds and, most importantly, no kidney rejection so likely no more operations. Come on you little doctors in your little blue coats with gloves and big brains and hats on. If this can speed up and happen successfully in time for my next transplant, things could be looking up!!!

The option of opting for Organ Donation

I couldn't help but notice that someone has ticked 'no' in my vote on the right of this blog asking people if they would like an 'opt-out' system or not. This is a subject of fascination for me.

An opt-out system is when you presume that everyone is happy to donate their organs in death unless they say otherwise (and 'opt-out'). 65% of people say they'd donate their organs but only 27% have got around to getting a donor card. The opt-out system is meant to capture that missing 40% or so of the population and reduce waiting lists for people awaiting transplants.

I actually had to research online to find what the arguments against this system could be. Mentally, my fizzes and whirrs weren't getting me any answers. The answer appears (if my research isn't missing something) to be philosophical.

The reason why, it appears the opt-out system is not appealing to some people is this. It is assuming an agreed consent by the population. But this necessarily includes people who can't make informed decisions such as mental patients, children or some of the elderly. The opt-out system, therefore, is viewed by our critics as a system that is making assumptions we're not allowed to make.

Sorry, what? Can't you just not take the organs from those people who don't have the mental ability to make informed decisions? Or do what we do in this type of circumstance for other decisions needing done, such as look to the person with the power of attorney?

The only other big argument out there is that moving to an opt-out system might provoke an anti-donation backlash where people throw their arms up in the air, get out on the streets and shout 'GIVE US OUR ORGANS BACK!' Well, not quite, but you'd imagine as much by the way some people talk about it online. Anyway, they think it might backfire with people withdrawing their support. Would it really though? Is it going to reduce the 27% of people who willingly sign up to get donor cards? It might, I suppose, risk a minor reduction in the 65% of people who say they'd donate, but we're only looking to get more than 27%. 100% is obviously going to take some time.

In the online debates, another supposed 'against' argument is that just moving to opt-out doesn't mean you immediately have more donations. ie. you also have to have a supporting system to facilitate the transplants. Is this a reason not to do it? Surely it's just a contextual remark. If opening a door doesn't have an immediate effect, does that mean you should keep it shut? Hell, I wait a heck of a long time for my Calippo to slip down to my tongue sometimes, but I don't give up just because I have to wait a while for it to arrive.

If you think the opt-out argument seems strong, then you'll be interested to see that 2/3 in a BBC poll of Welsh people voted for the system to be implemented in Wales. You'll also be interested to read that the deputy leader in Northern Ireland is calling for the system there too. (they might have a bit more to work on than just availability of organs though. Looks like they need more donated surgeons too.)

The answer, in my mind, to really reaching people on this subject is to ask people to put themselves in the position of someone who would die if they didn't get this organ - like me 2 years ago. In the debate in Ireland, one comment I picked up on was someone saying it 'should be a gift, not a duty'. But, if YOU needed a heart, or a lung, kidney or pancreas, would you be worrying about how the damn thing was wrapped, and presented to you, or would you- YOU- just want the thing straight up and quick while you're at it?

On my shingles update, this is now me. I have a mask. I have no white blood cells - ie. no defence. I'm a walking attraction for bugs, bacteria and infections. I inject myself with some incentive for my bone marrow to wake up and get cracking, but so far no cookies. Gotta stop the anti-viral drugs for the Shingles to get the blood cells back for good. Gotta keep the drugs going to stop the Shingles for good. Gotta... um. Not quite sure what I gotta do. But I'm not going to wear this mask for my party this weekend or I might be spending the next year trying to Getta me some more friends.

Prioritising Organs

I've been talking about prioritising recipients for organs (ie people like me). But I now find myself prioritising between organs.  I feel quite tongue-tied. And that doesn't mean I'm giving my tongue any leg ups in the pecking order. Or my leg if it pays it that service. Etc... (Forgive me. That was fun/stupid).

I just paid a visit to the doctor. They take the 'laissez faire' approach here in France, so I just go in to hospital once a month. Turns out I have been blasting myself with immuno suppressants at 4 times the dose my body needed. That'd be why I can't carry a mug of tea without using two hands at the moment. (And yes, that does get very embarrassing when you're in Costa Coffee bringing a tray of grande café lattés over to your new boss...) Maybe France should be more 'laissez come into hospital more regularly'. 

Anyway, apart from the minor overdose, all is great (relatively speaking that is!). I've lost a good 4 kilos somehow over the last month. They don't seem bothered. My skinny jeans are coming back out from the back of the cupboard. If only I didn't have the plague, I could feasibly get away with a crop top right now. My white blood cells have been eradicated, possibly by the shingles, so I should expect to feel feverish fairly soon. They've cut out my 'let all viruses run wild' pill (cellcept) for a week in the hope that maybe my shingles will get got and I'll start reproducing some whities out of my bone marrow. If I don't, they'll give me some for free in the shape of an injection. God dammit they're generous.

And the kid conversation (not my substitute kid (the kidney), but the real deal) looks like it's going to be a tough one if it's going to exist at all. And this is where the prioritisation of the organs come in.

You have a kidney. It's spluttering along. Conversation today went like this:

'You're not about to have kidney failure, you know' she said (my doc)
'How long have I got?' I tentatively ask. I know this is naughty. How the hell is she to know.
'How long is long?' she says. I like that. (My dad's a philosopher).
'Ten years?' I tried. That sounds an age away. An entire 'decade'.
'It's very rare', she said. 'It's possible but...'
'Five?' I interrupt to try again. This was starting not to be so fun.
She wobbled her head. I think that meant a 'yeaaaaah'. And then: 'But everyone's different...blah...blah....some people have awful biopsies.....say never going to make it.... still going on after years and years..... blah.....blah'.

So. Conclusion: I'll be stretched out on that table again in my mid-30s. And that's not that far away.

Package up that neat little summary, and then swallow the understanding that you could try to have a kid - who/how are they to 'stop me' after all (see image of possible method) - but it's going to be risky. My five years of kidney function might turn into a couple of months. And it's a guessing game to know for sure what levels of risk we're talking. 50%? 30%? 80%? It's those blasted statistics again, determining my every thought.

In a month I get to meet the best risk analyser. She's like a gambling champion. She's so quick at weighing up probabilities, she could take most people down over a couple of stumpies, but she's chosen to rumble around in the risks of life-endangering fertility issues instead.

And here's the problem. I know she won't give me a real answer. She can't. She's not really allowed. I found out a month ago that there's going to be 'A' risk of sorts. How much, our poker champion here is going to help me figure out. But then the real gambling and the (work with me here) actual placing of the chips is up to me.

So, can you see the dilemma?
A. I have a kidney. I try for a kid and I lose my kidney so I have to ask someone else to give me a kidney. I might not get to keep the kid either as I'd likely have kidney failure/moved onto dialysis while trying to grow a baby inside of me.
B. Perfect world. I have a kidney. I try for a kid and keep the kid and the kidney.  Everyone feels very kiddy.
C. I pay someone else to have a kid and I keep my kidney, but I've used their womb/ovaries.

Seriously. I hate this next abbreviation, but it probably fits right now: WTF?

Also, why are someone else's ovaries less important than my (first) transplanted kidney? Or, seen another way, I surely can't ask for someone else's kidney because I put my own ovaries before them? Then we're no longer talking about a transplant to save my life, but are talking about one so I can try for a kid. That's quite a different issue. Again, I'm being quite gourmand even thinking about it.

But, seriously, what percentage risk isn't too high, then, for me to do it? And how the F am I meant to make that call.

Anyway, I just have to wait a month - 4 more weeks - till I find out more. ahh. So. What shall I do tomorrow?

This Resolution will not be Kidnified

I made a couple of New Years Resolutions. My first was not to allow 2012 to be dominated by my kidney.
What I've realised though is that, in actual fact, this blog is kidnifying me. Thinking about this blog and kidney news, everything is acquiring a kidney taste (gross). My Resolution has been Kidnified. By me.

I watched The Descendants last night, for example. Instead of taking away reflections on the family's dynamics, anguish, and great acting, I have harboured away my reactions to the doctor's words at the start 'we need to start thinking about organ donation' about a lady in a coma. It made me realise that it's no wonder, I guess, that all those on organ donation lists don't end up donating, because when it comes to the punch, who wants to think about that when they're having to deal with their relations passing away.

'Go in peace' they say. And can peace involve organ donation?

Going with my kidnification, I found an incredible NYTimes article this morning talking about regulations on which patient on which list should get a kidney going spare first. Currently, these regulations are a 'little bit like the Wild West'. “There has to be some regulation' says Dr. Robert A. Montgomery, a transplant specialist at Hopkins, 'and it has to be fair, because if people don’t think it’s fair, they’re not going to donate organs.” Well said.

Because the US is so sprawling, and has such a (subjectively speaking) warped health system, there's no joint pool of kidneys that can be used for paired kidney donation (where you give for your sister, for example, but aren't a match, so your kidney goes to another couple, and their kidney comes to your sis).

“Organs should be seen as a national resource,” were the wise, well put words of Dr. Sandy Feng, a transplant surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco,

Without this national pool, you see, you have people making their own calls in their own registers/states as to whether a patient who rejects more/faster than others (and here we might be talking about me if my kidney doesn't hold on in there) should get a kidney before or after others who might be perfect hosts.

What do you think? If you're younger, should you get a kidney earlier so you can get back out there and play? Or are you fitter and can hold out on dialysis longer than someone in their 60s so should be put to the back of the queue? What about me? If my dad's kidney doesn't hold out longer than three years in me, for example, should I be put to the front of the queue because of my tough journey, or right at the back because I wasn't appreciative enough the first time around?

And doesn't it seem odd that there aren't regulations on this already? If you were given the job tomorrow of looking at kidney transplants, wouldn't that be one of your first questions: 'how should we distribute kidneys that become available? and shouldn't there be standard rules on this?'

How many people have to pop off every year, fall sick with kidney disease, weigh down on health systems and sell their personal stories to the media to get your attention?

A donation by a Good Samaritan, Rick Ruzzamenti, upper left, set in motion a 60-person chain of transplants that ended with a kidney for Donald C. Terry Jr., bottom right. 

I talked about paired donation before in a previous post. This image above comes from an article explaining how one dude gave his kidney in an altruistic donation, and it sparked a chain of no less than 60 kidney donors. The article is amazing. It runs through so many personal stories of nephews giving to cousins, ex-husbands giving to much hated ex-wives for the sake of their children, lovers giving to each other, sons to mums and more. There's more emotion wrapped up in that little photo above than can be contained in any blog post/article or documentary. And it shows that waiting lists are pointless when there are enough donors out there to fix the problem.

It also pointed out some stats (I told you I live by them) that I didn't like. A third of donors won't match the people they want to donate to, even if they share the same blood type. I was lucky the first time around, for example, because not just my dad, but also my brother and my cousin were matches. And that was out of just 6 people tested (my husband, mum and other brother, much to their chagrin, were not). But I read in this article that part of the reason that matches are so hard to find is because of antibodies that can build up due to previous transplants, pregnancies etc... These antibodies mean that, close matches in terms of blood types etc..., would just be rejected if plumbed in. I have an antibody that's just arrived. Does this mean that my brother and cousin are no longer matches? That's my safety net right there. And I've just found a hole in it.

Happy as a Bean

Audio interview: If I had four kidneys, I'd give three, says a man who gave his kidney to a friend who was number 8003 on the waiting list who was going from flying to dying before his eyes.

So nice to hear in his voice how happy he is. 

Reminds me of my dad's smile when I woke up after the operation.

'You look like the Cat who's got the cream' my brother told him when he saw him. [click link to see fellow beeming cat]

There, another heartening story. Racking them up.

It is excellent that these sorts of stories do get picked up, and on BBC's flagship morning news programme no less. More work needs to be done so that it's at the top of the news more frequently. The underlying warning to take away from the heartening story above, though, - the shriek behind the giggle - is that his friend was 8003rd on the waiting list. That's no laughing matter.

In Canada, there's a shortage of donations, so over 200 people died last year when their bodies couldn't take dialysis any more (the swarm of chemicals it sends through your veins is not natural). I would go insane if I ended up in the same situation. Every night, I'd be thinking about all the organs going to waste every day. Each could so, so, so easily be giving these exhausted, dialysis soldiers a break.

And South America is suffering some odd, inexplicable kidney epidemic at the moment, with people falling left right and centre, and doing 'home made dialysis' to keep themselves alive (no idea how that works). Hell, even Hugo Chavez was struck down, albeit for slightly different reasons.

These stories aren't one off. All of them are really pretty dramatic. And the answer is so blindingly, bleeding obvious. It is more than insane that we, in the 21st century of surrogacy/IVF and laser eye surgery can't join the dots.

1 + 1 = 2. We learnt that aged 3.

Roar

Campaigner or Complainer?

Having made this blog public, I'm now rather self-conscious. I'd been hiding behind a 'I'm just as good as the Jones'' front but I just blew it in 24 hours. oops

It has made me look objectively at my musings and I've realised I sound like Moaning Myrtle. I am making kidney transplants, and organ donation out to be a bad thing. I am not encouraging donation. I'm probably terrifying potential recipients. I'm likely upsetting my dad.

I don't want to lie. But it's unfair, and unbalanced of me to use this as a groaning board. When I cycle on a velib around Paris, go to parties, head out for dinners, dangle my feet over the Seine, feeling like I could be Mrs Jones/Mme Bertrand (maybe better than her even), I don't write about it. And that's not fair.

Given that it's the 14th Feb, I wanted to tell you a heartening story that's happened to me since September 2009. First though:

Happy Valentines Day

An old lady, probably in her 80s or 90s, sat in the bed opposite me in my Hammersmith ward last year. I don't know her name. (It's odd, but I really like old people. They have figured their stuff out. Unless they've turned cranky, which in itself is probably just honest, they're usually always kind, because they know that kind is good, unarguably so, so why not shout about it). She had come in for emergency dialysis. She hooked herself up to the machine, which looks like this (right) for those who haven't seen one before. Your blood goes out to the machine in one tube with a whirring noise, gets filtered and heads back to home all clean through another.

She sat there for the 3 hours that it took, and then she lay, quietly there and we had a natter. She had been on and off dialysis for 8 years and was scared of the operation, so hadn't pushed for it even though her son had offered his kidney. She was tired. Dialysis tires you out. We talked, she was very kind (you see?). Her face had rivers of smiles etched all over it. If you find someone you connect with in a kidney ward, even if they're decades older than you, it's very hard not to feel like you're deeply invested in them. Odd, inexplicable probably, but true. 

I got back to my book after a while (Love in the time of cholera - my docs kept encouraging me to read something a bit more uplifting....) and I noticed that she was crying. I HATE seeing old people cry. I gave her a hug, frail that she was, and her shoulders relaxed. I wanted to bundle her up and do puzzles together in my flat, eating baked potatoes and playing cards, but she might have asked to move wards if I'd suggested that so I came up with a better plan. 

(Don't know who this is, but it's pretty bang on)

I gave her my massive whoopa (Made that word up. It works) headphones, and my Apple Mac and set her up watching 'The African Queen'. She seemed very bemused at the technology, but turned the volume up to the max so the whole ward could hear it and sat back in her bed. A few minutes later, it felt like raining gold when I peeked up and saw her giggling to herself at the film. Her shoulders were actually jiggling up and down, she was so loving the movie and the romance between Humprey Bogart & Katharine Hepburn that never gets tired.

Now, though it seems like a sad story, tell me that doesn't make you feel warm inside. It most certainly warms the cockles. And just before the 14th Feb comes to an end too. 

I treasure that memory and I wouldn't have it, nor plenty others like it, if I hadn't been plonked in the strange situation that I'm in. 

ps. my shingles has got one heck of a lot better thanks to tramadol and 2 other pain killers, and time. My back looks like a horror movie in a gruesomely exciting way but I won't upload a photo of it for fear of losing one of my two followers of this blog (one of which is me).

pps. My creatinine has dropped to 181. Big smiley face. 

ppps. I had to spend Valentine's Evening in a Gp ward to check out my shingles rash. Slightly drooping smiles on my face. 

lastly  I realise I'm now publishing this the day after Valentine's Day due to nasty GP waiting hours (and they say the NHS is bad). But every day is the 14th, as says Outkast, right? So let's all be jolly, everywhere, all the time.  I'm a campaigner after all. That's right. x

Jingle Shingles

I have Shingles. That's what the abdominal/back pain was. From a weird stomach discomfort three days ago, it developed into immense pain last night, waking me at 7 am with spasms of nerve endings being electrified from my spinal column where the virus is nesting.

I was a bit like one of those David Attenborough elephant seals, flopping around my bed and the floor trying to find some relief. I found some paracetamol - fat lot of good that did me - and continued to flop around until I found 3 hours of peace lying in the position that a Muslim man at prayer might find himself in if he fell asleep mid-worship.

I rang my uncle - my dear sweet uncle - who, because he was a GP once, must forever find himself dealing with frantic, panicking friends and relations like me hoping he can diagnose them down a phone line. After snotting quite a lot down my free.fr landline, I hung up, hoping it was muscular ache that, for some reason, was just nailing me to the floor. Oh yeah, to add insult to injury, I had to do a pregnancy test just to check it wasn't a baby growing in my fallopian tube causing the insane pain. Nope, nothing doing there....

I felt it was pathetic to be so in agony over muscular pain. I was far stronger than that, I thought, before the transplant. The operation and subsequent infections - injections - complications n' 'conflictions' have left me a weaker woman, there is no doubt about that.

So it was almost with glee that I noticed I had a rash on the right side of my back where the pain was. At first I thought it must be that I had a poisonous kidney infection bubbling to grow out of my body. But after googling 'back pain and rash three days later' I diagnosed myself with the old lady's plague - Shingles.

Shingles is a virus that hangs around in your spinal column from the days back when chicken pox arrived to join the pimples settled on the peaks of your cheekbones. Later in life, when your immune system is low (hello all transplant patients and elderly people) it comes out to get you. While I associated it with depression and bubbly spots, turns out it's god damned painful too. As though someone's injected your muscles with some stiffner, and, for good measure, has got hold of the corner threads of your muscles and is regularly twisting the end of them so they contort in pain.

My journey down to the hospital both yesterday for my scans/xrays and today to finally be diagnosed, I felt like the people sitting around me on the metro must think I had muscular dystrophy of some sort as I writhed around out of control. Makes sense, in fact, that they give you the same drugs that they hand out for epileptic fits. Shingles do give seizures as it turns out.

Anyway, another infection to add to the list. I'm really racking them up.

They say that every transplant patient's journey is different from the next. And the first person who said that to me said her journey had been a breeze. I am fast getting the feeling that mine is a bloody nightmare. Perhaps I should shut my mouth and let others, like me when I first heard that line, believe the transplant's a one stop shop for a permanent fix. Not that I'm saying I'm not eternally grateful, and that this life is a gazillion bambillion times better than dialysis. I guess I'm just allowing myself a little grumble. That's allowed isn't it?

[K49KKZKMVN6H]

Is surrogacy greedy?

Well some just don't think twice do they. Story: Chinese parents have eight children by surrogates. 

(and, yes, all of these children are RIDICULOUSLY sweet. Especially the dumpling [sic] in the middle. Oh and the crying one. Asian children are always very cute, infact. Hmmmm. Nope. Back to own race. More on this later. Am garbling... In actual fact, though, this is a transparent portrayal of my thought processes these days. Garbled, dizzy thoughts that could all have huge implications if they don't land in the right formation.).

Interesting stat in the article, though, that 10% of couples have fertility problems. While my particular kidney related problem might be my current fascination, I do realise that I'm not on my own in facing these questions. In actual fact, knowing up front that this is my deal - nul points - is no bad thing. The waiting, the endless hoping and failing, must be the most soul destroying process, no doubt.

It seems stark that, while 10% of people are going through this, 10% of people aren't having children with surrogates. I think I might have got a little greedy thinking that it could be an option for me.  I've already had one borrowed organ. I shouldn't just move onto the next one so easily (ie. maternal functions on top of a kidney). I could be seen as just a little 'gourmand'?

I woke yesterday to this dull annoying ache positioned right above my kidney. Behind my ribs. In my back and  my stomach. Having been a hard nosed anti-hyperchondriac dudette prior to my kidney troubles, I now find this little stomach pain makes me go to bed early, tucking the sheets up under my nose and feeling terrified at what it could be: appendicitis? Pancreatitis? Something gross in my colon? Kidney infection/stones? Fallopian tube pregnancy? I ring the doctor to be comforted and they've prescribed me an xray of the kidney and my abdomen and a whole series of blood tests. I will woop like a chimpanzee on my way into hospital and hope I don't come out with blue skin.

Welsh Supremacy in Kidney law

It makes me warm inside to think of Wales pioneering their way forward in the UK as regards laws about organ donation. I sometimes hide the fact that I'm all of 1/16 Welsh, but today I'll say it loud and proud: Rwy'n dy garu di, Wales.

Little Wales is moving to an opt-out system where everyone will be on a organ donation register unless they've said they do NOT want to be. It presumes consent unless told otherwise.

Already, Wales has shown that it's full of a mature bunch of citizens with donation rates of just under 30 per million deceased, far beating those of England (only just over half that), France (around 24/1m), Italy (21/m) and Belgium (20.5/m).

And, for those who have always poked fun at the Welsh, you should understand that there are no boundaries to where the kidneys donated by Welsh could go, so that people needing transplants in England will likely be receiving Welsh kidneys by the time this law comes into effect in 2015.

If England doesn't catch up soon, therefore, there'll be 1000s of us turning partly Welsh every year. Now I'm delighted, even proud, especially on this particular day, to know this. For those of you who find this strange, well there's only one thing to do about it - join the opt-out campaign for the whole of the UK. I'm just saying...

The possibility of the Immaculate Conception

Stop the press. Rebekah Brooks has child by Surrogate
Do you think she's got an injunction on the name of the surrogate mother?

If, at the age of 43, on police bail, and, at one time, named 'the most hated woman in Britain, she can find someone to carry your child for you, surely we could too?

While we're reporting the news as well, I just discovered, relevant to my last post, that in 2008, one in five of every pregnancy was aborted. That makes a staggering total of 43.8million abortions in that one year. I'm most definitely pro-choice, and I don't want to suggest that I'm not, just that all these things take on a different perspective in my current situation.

The immaculate conception, given all the wonky tonky medicines and procedures that you can do nowadays just doesn't seem all that impossible. Mary was really onto something.

Adopting an attitude towards Adoption

Turns I was right to try and join the dots between abortions and baby adoptions.

With abortions in Europe no longer such a taboo [see left], and single mothers are fairly commonplace (In the UK about 1 out of 4 families with dependent children are single-parent families!), it's no wonder that there aren't so many babies up for adoption.

This means that the UK and France (countries I have an interest in given that I straddle [sic] the two) find that adoption campaigners pick on the same subject: social services are slowing down the adoption process because they're dealing with a child who is often a few years old, rather than a newborn. The problem being, of course, that, by the time social/legal services have digested the issue, the child's likely a few years older again and even less easy to adopt for potential parents like me hoping for the 'Traditional Family Dream'. [see right]

America, meanwhile, holy land that it is, does have stronger views on Abortions, and adoption agencies have picked up on that, resulting in the Juno phenomenon.

It appears, that for between $4-10,000 you can adopt a baby in America straight from delivery. Meanwhile, however, Americans appear to be adopting faster from abroad than from their hood. The U.S. Department of State reported 12,753 immigrant visas issued to orphans entering the U.S. in 2009. 
Why? It's a question of waiting time (families are more particular about what they want when adopting from their neighbourhood than if adopting from abroad), fees, legal complications (that differ per country) and many other quagmires of complicated footnotes, secret costs and emotional pitfalls.

And here I sit, feeling like I'm oddly online shopping for a child.

I'm weighing up the costs, delivery, the ability to congest all the terms and conditions before I sign on any dotted lines, different countries/companies' policies and the knowledge that I'll probably never know for sure if I've made the right choice until it's been delivered to my door step and I'm making it part of my every day life.

Plans unveiled to increase live kidney transplantataions

Plans unveiled for increasing living kidney transplantation in the UK at any rate

Apparently, this means that different ways of donating, including paired and pooled donation and altruistic donations for any recipient in need are going to be invested in (and heavily marketed I assume). 

 

Paired/Pooled donation being this [right] 

Altruistic donation being this [left] (imagine the giver also being blindfolded):

 

In my bed in Hammersmith, London, where I had my transplant, I was next to a couple who'd been part of a triplet transplant. He needed a new kidney. His wife wasn't a match. She donated and her kidney was received by someone in Scotland. The person in Scotland's partner's kidney was received by someone in Birmingham whose partner's kidney was received by the man sitting next to me.

If that scheme could be invested in more, then maybe we wouldn't be relying on waiting lists turning around as we currently do. Only this week I found out that, of the 400 deaths each day of 'declared donors' only 2 have their organs used for transplantation.

The starkest statistic is that, in 2010/11, there were 1.5K kidney donations from dead donors and 1K from living donors. Of all the millions in the UK who say they have donor cards, only 1000 are turning into kidney transplants a year. Given that I'm 2.5 years into my kidney transplant and look like I might soon need another one, I'm invested in getting this system working better. Deeply invested, in fact. Scarily so. 

This weekend I found myself thinking through the order of priority in which I might ask my relations for their kidneys. My ever generous uncle, my brother, my cousin, my in-laws... If my kidney is on its way out after a couple of years and I'm not even 32, I might actually have to project plan my way through to survival. Please would someone get cracking on the stem cell research. 

Watch this moving appeal from Michael J Fox.

I hear ya.

Pro-life and adoption agencies

Someone isn't doing the maths. One one side you have women who are pregnant, don't want the baby but can't face abortion. On the other you have couples desperate for children who can't have them. Mix the two together and you get explosions of fizzy pop and marshmallows.

Seems that Prolife doesn't much care about what happens once the child is born, though, just that the child is born at all.

I recognise that, if you've made the step to adopt a child that's not your own, some might say it's not that much further a push to consider adopting a child that is 3 or 4 years old and comes with a difficult upbringing. The heartstrings are sensitive after all and they're talking to a primed, overly effusive maternal audience.

However, Adoption UK have this terrible Wall they put up showing how wonderful healthy children have perfect upbringing with love, security, milk, cuddles, education, trust, family, attention, friends etc.... Watch, then as they bring the bricks crashing down one by one in this excrutiatingly painfully slow process with explanations for dummies where they say, eg, 'Love. They may not have had any and might not want yours'. 'cuddles. They won't have had many due to abuse and won't trust yours'. 'FRIENDS. Coz they didn't get cuddles they might not want friends etc...'. I sort of expected them to then write 'HUMAN NATURE. Due to not have all those previous bricks, they might not be normal'.

Anyway. You get my point. It seemed rather over the top, although I know they're just trying to ram the point home. Smashing that dream again I guess.

POP