Why not roll the dice?

Since I'm not on any birth control, I basically am rolling the dice every month.  Which is 99% scary, 1% fine by me (because deep down, who doesn't want to find out they're pregnant naturally?).  This is something I battle with a lot.

Why not just roll the dice?  Well, because dice have six sides.  And HD has 2.  So, I guess I should say flipping a coin to be more true to life.  If we were to have our own children the natural way, its a 50/50 chance of passing HD on.

My period was a couple days late this month, and normally Aunt Flo is a very predictable, yet unwanted guest who visits every 28 days.  I know, TMI, but its true, and on another note, why is period talk so taboo?  Its annoying to me, and always has been.  I'm a pretty open person when it comes to bodily fluids and noises :).  Sorry!  God made me that way.

So I was a little nervous these past two days thinking what if? And even more so, because we just sent off hubby's HD info to get this process started.  So how crazy would it have been if we would have conceived naturally the month after we jumped into this whole IVF/PGD adventure?

It would not have been crazy. It would have been bad.

My mom called me on Sunday to let me know that 60 minutes was going to be showing a segment about IVF with PGD specifically.  And how they're using PGD for breast cancer, HD, and many other diseases/disorders that people do not want to pass down.  They said that they use PGD for HD a lot.

This gave me hope for our future as a world.  Knowing that people are now realizing that they can have children and not pass it on and know this 100%.  And that future generations will talk about HD in past tense.  My father had it, but my parents made sure that I wouldn't, and now my children and grandchildren do not have to worry about it.

So, I will deal with my period knowing that my body is doing what it is supposed to do, and one day I won't have to deal with it for 9 months because I'm growing a baby.

First things first

Today begins a journey I never thought would happen.

I emailed my brother my husband's HD report.  Doesn't seem like that big of a step, but believe me, it is.  I dragged my feet do even do this first step because I knew I was opening up a can of, well hopefully, a lot of eggs.  This sets in motion a giant step for our family-to-be.

Let me back up.

Huntington's Disease is nothing to mess with.  Its an ugly, if not the ugliest disease known to man.  It rears its ugly face sometimes very early in life, but more often, not until a person with HD is around 50/60ish.  By this time, there could be children and now grandchildren that will have it in their lives, either directly or indirectly.  This disease doesn't care how many kids you have.  Each child with a parent with HD has a 50/50 chance of also carrying the nasty gene.

For my husband, each sibling in his family has HD.  Thats 4/4.  Not good.  And every one of them has children that could now have it as well.  I cannot judge, because I was in the same boat.  Do we have kids knowing that we're possibly giving them this, or do we go around HD and create life knowing we are not possibly handing it down?  For a while, I will say I was in a "lets just have kids" phase.  Its so easy!  You have sex and 9 months later, you have a beautiful baby that will take your mind off of HD.  Except that each time I had the thought of, "I'm just going to try and get pregnant naturally because I love Rodney so much, I just want to have HIS babies"  the next thought was, "Shit.  What if.  How freakin selfish of you Blake."  And then a hot feeling of guilt washed over me, and I realized that I cannot do it.  Wait.  I CAN do it.  I can have children other ways, so that I don't pass HD on.  HD has to stop.  The only way for HD to stop right now, today, is for people to stop having babies naturally if they possess the HD gene.  There's no other way.  There's no cure.

And I'm going to have to explain this horrible disease to my kids no matter what.  They will already have it negatively affecting their lives.  (i like how I'm typing they, as if I already know I'm going to have more than one child)  But one conversation I will not have to have with them is this one: "Sweetie, love of my universe?  You will one day need to get tested, and hopefully before you have children, because your daddy has HD and its possible you do too."

Ok.  Now I'm ready to move on with this entry.  I'm sure you're wondering what my brother has to do with all of this.

He lives in Las Vegas with his wife and their child, soon to be children.  They are both architects and have a very close friend who happens to be a fertility doc.  How crazy is that?  

Fingers crossed, by the time 2015 is over with, I will be a mom.

So I had to send in all the paperwork regarding Rodney's diagnosis to him to give to the Dr.

And now it begins.  Its officially set in motion.  There's no going back.  As Lloyd Christmas would say, "We're really doin it Harr"