Should I have more children?

just1more · Jul 18, 2008

First of all DaLaHu, welcome and while I obviously wish you didn't need to be here, you will discover a great group of people on this site.

I can't answer your question, like others have said I don't think anyone can.

However, I do want to clarify another option as it was mentioned. While it is not for everyone, there are thousands of kids in this country, and overseas, looking for parents willing to love them.

My wife & I have adopted 3 times, in addition to several 'home-grown' kids. The most recent adoption was of a 6yr old with CF, thus why we are now here as well.

While yes, adoption can cost, you can also spend nearly nothing. Some basic options are:

International: you can get anything from a baby to teen, costs range greatly from as little as a couple thousand (~$5 for our 1st son), up to $30K+ for a 'perfect' baby from China or Korea.

Domestic-foster care: if you adopt a child from foster care, it is FREE. All costs are covered by the state, and if you accept a child with special needs (can be as simple as over 3, or things like ADHD) you are often eligble for a month stipend until they turn 18.

Domestic-private agency: there are several well respected private agencies that coordinate adoption, often babies that would end up in foster care that the mothers choose to give a chance at a family w/o the state. These range in cost, however one of the largest which is in NYC has a sliding scale based upon your income to make it affordable.

That said, again I can't imagine being in your position; the risks are so high, but at the same time having a child is wonderful. I wish you the best as you & your wife look at this decision.

PS: if anyone is interested in more info on adoption, please feel free to PM me and I can answer just about anything. If I can't my wife can.

just1more · Jul 18, 2008

First of all DaLaHu, welcome and while I obviously wish you didn't need to be here, you will discover a great group of people on this site.

I can't answer your question, like others have said I don't think anyone can.

However, I do want to clarify another option as it was mentioned. While it is not for everyone, there are thousands of kids in this country, and overseas, looking for parents willing to love them.

My wife & I have adopted 3 times, in addition to several 'home-grown' kids. The most recent adoption was of a 6yr old with CF, thus why we are now here as well.

While yes, adoption can cost, you can also spend nearly nothing. Some basic options are:

International: you can get anything from a baby to teen, costs range greatly from as little as a couple thousand (~$5 for our 1st son), up to $30K+ for a 'perfect' baby from China or Korea.

Domestic-foster care: if you adopt a child from foster care, it is FREE. All costs are covered by the state, and if you accept a child with special needs (can be as simple as over 3, or things like ADHD) you are often eligble for a month stipend until they turn 18.

Domestic-private agency: there are several well respected private agencies that coordinate adoption, often babies that would end up in foster care that the mothers choose to give a chance at a family w/o the state. These range in cost, however one of the largest which is in NYC has a sliding scale based upon your income to make it affordable.

That said, again I can't imagine being in your position; the risks are so high, but at the same time having a child is wonderful. I wish you the best as you & your wife look at this decision.

PS: if anyone is interested in more info on adoption, please feel free to PM me and I can answer just about anything. If I can't my wife can.

just1more · Jul 18, 2008

First of all DaLaHu, welcome and while I obviously wish you didn't need to be here, you will discover a great group of people on this site.

I can't answer your question, like others have said I don't think anyone can.

However, I do want to clarify another option as it was mentioned. While it is not for everyone, there are thousands of kids in this country, and overseas, looking for parents willing to love them.

My wife & I have adopted 3 times, in addition to several 'home-grown' kids. The most recent adoption was of a 6yr old with CF, thus why we are now here as well.

While yes, adoption can cost, you can also spend nearly nothing. Some basic options are:

International: you can get anything from a baby to teen, costs range greatly from as little as a couple thousand (~$5 for our 1st son), up to $30K+ for a 'perfect' baby from China or Korea.

Domestic-foster care: if you adopt a child from foster care, it is FREE. All costs are covered by the state, and if you accept a child with special needs (can be as simple as over 3, or things like ADHD) you are often eligble for a month stipend until they turn 18.

Domestic-private agency: there are several well respected private agencies that coordinate adoption, often babies that would end up in foster care that the mothers choose to give a chance at a family w/o the state. These range in cost, however one of the largest which is in NYC has a sliding scale based upon your income to make it affordable.

That said, again I can't imagine being in your position; the risks are so high, but at the same time having a child is wonderful. I wish you the best as you & your wife look at this decision.

PS: if anyone is interested in more info on adoption, please feel free to PM me and I can answer just about anything. If I can't my wife can.

just1more · Jul 18, 2008

First of all DaLaHu, welcome and while I obviously wish you didn't need to be here, you will discover a great group of people on this site.

I can't answer your question, like others have said I don't think anyone can.

However, I do want to clarify another option as it was mentioned. While it is not for everyone, there are thousands of kids in this country, and overseas, looking for parents willing to love them.

My wife & I have adopted 3 times, in addition to several 'home-grown' kids. The most recent adoption was of a 6yr old with CF, thus why we are now here as well.

While yes, adoption can cost, you can also spend nearly nothing. Some basic options are:

International: you can get anything from a baby to teen, costs range greatly from as little as a couple thousand (~$5 for our 1st son), up to $30K+ for a 'perfect' baby from China or Korea.

Domestic-foster care: if you adopt a child from foster care, it is FREE. All costs are covered by the state, and if you accept a child with special needs (can be as simple as over 3, or things like ADHD) you are often eligble for a month stipend until they turn 18.

Domestic-private agency: there are several well respected private agencies that coordinate adoption, often babies that would end up in foster care that the mothers choose to give a chance at a family w/o the state. These range in cost, however one of the largest which is in NYC has a sliding scale based upon your income to make it affordable.

That said, again I can't imagine being in your position; the risks are so high, but at the same time having a child is wonderful. I wish you the best as you & your wife look at this decision.

PS: if anyone is interested in more info on adoption, please feel free to PM me and I can answer just about anything. If I can't my wife can.

just1more · Jul 18, 2008

First of all DaLaHu, welcome and while I obviously wish you didn't need to be here, you will discover a great group of people on this site.
 
 I can't answer your question, like others have said I don't think anyone can.
 
 However, I do want to clarify another option as it was mentioned. While it is not for everyone, there are thousands of kids in this country, and overseas, looking for parents willing to love them.
 
 My wife & I have adopted 3 times, in addition to several 'home-grown' kids. The most recent adoption was of a 6yr old with CF, thus why we are now here as well.
 
 While yes, adoption can cost, you can also spend nearly nothing. Some basic options are:
 
 International: you can get anything from a baby to teen, costs range greatly from as little as a couple thousand (~$5 for our 1st son), up to $30K+ for a 'perfect' baby from China or Korea.
 
 Domestic-foster care: if you adopt a child from foster care, it is FREE. All costs are covered by the state, and if you accept a child with special needs (can be as simple as over 3, or things like ADHD) you are often eligble for a month stipend until they turn 18.
 
 Domestic-private agency: there are several well respected private agencies that coordinate adoption, often babies that would end up in foster care that the mothers choose to give a chance at a family w/o the state. These range in cost, however one of the largest which is in NYC has a sliding scale based upon your income to make it affordable.
 
 That said, again I can't imagine being in your position; the risks are so high, but at the same time having a child is wonderful. I wish you the best as you & your wife look at this decision.
 
 PS: if anyone is interested in more info on adoption, please feel free to PM me and I can answer just about anything. If I can't my wife can.

Sheridan · Jul 18, 2008

Okay, I have an 8 yo with CF and a 1yo with CF too. We always planned on having 3 children since before we were even married, when Jordan was diagnosed it really knocked us for six. We took a couple of years to think about things and then decided to try again for another baby naturally. After 2.5 years with nothing we began to look into IVF with PGD. We had a cycle and got some eggs and they were fertilised, but unfortunilty I developed Overian Hyper Stimulation and they could not go ahead withthe cyle and PGD. I had to take a break for 6 months. However during that time the science lab closed and we ran into all sorts of problems with the IVF.

I went through terrible highs and lows with the whole process of just trying to get the IVF going again, and the intense desire to have another child. My husband was very scared of having another CF baby, as he felt it would detract from the care we could provide. Finally when Jordan was 6.5 I came to a point were I thought I would be able to cope just fine with only having one child, but that is when my hubbys clcukiness came to the forfront. I felt that I couldn't face that whole IVF thing again and he was still scared of CF. And he knew that even if I got pregant and we found out the baby had CF I had every intention of going through with the pregancyso we brokered a deal.

Try naturally for 12 months - just through normal relationship sex (not baby making sex if you know what i mean!, If it was unsuccessful (did I mentioned that he was diagnosed as very low fertility), we would once again go through IVF, but only 3 cycles, if that was unsuccessful look into overseas adoption.

Things took a while to get going before we bagan to work on the contract. Meanwhile Hubby got called up to go overseas for work for 6 months. He came home and for 10 days and lo and behold 2 weeks after he went back two blue lines turned up on prenancy test. Of course I was over the moon. When I called him up - his intial reaction was anger over the situation. Needless to say once his shock wore off he was absolutly exstatic.

He returned home when I was 19 weeks pregnant, and I, as I always planned refused to have any testing. although on this return date i had an ultrasound and the technician recoginsed bright bowel syndrome which can be an indicator for CF. I had a great pregnancy. CF never raised it ugly head to ruin our joy. We did make plans to get the baby blood cord bank, which was free through a partnership between the cord blood bank and CF Australia.

When Aidan was born, Chris and I knew right away he had CF because he was salty to kiss. After 2 weeks the official diagnosis confirmed our own.

Has it been smooth sailing - no. Aidan was hospitalised in March (5 months) for 3 weeks with phsydomonus (sp?). We worried about cross infection, but there was none.

Jordan has been great with having his little brother, when I was pregnant we told him that his brother might have CF and his response was 'that's okay I can tell him all about CF and how the doctors are there to look after you' - damn near cried with pride when he said that.

Would I change anything - NO! Did I do the right thing for me and us - YES! But that is us. We made a choice not to allow CF make the decision in our lives.

However, we have just decided that 2 is enough, as we belive it is not fair to have a third child. As if we have 3 CF children it will be incredibly hard, but then to have a non CF child and 2 CF children will be unfair on the non CF - how do you say no you can't have chocolate or ice cream, when the other 2 can.

I think we have the easiest way to have 2 CF children though, as we have no other children and we know no different - it is normal for us to give our children pills, it is normal to take them to the doctors ever few weeks, it is normal to do nebs, physio, it is normal to spend weeks at time in hospital.

Am I reccommending other people have 2 CF child - NO! No one can make that decision for you or even really advise you, you need to discover where you are and what is right for your family, weigh up all the factors - financially, emotionally, strength of relationship, health of current child and use these to influence you decision.

This is my story, I love my boys do I ever feel guilty NO! Not even after knowing the 25% chance, he is loved, made from love and is more precious than any child (equal with my first obviously) and we have genetics to prove that he is a rare gem indeed.

Good luck with your decision and whatever you decided know in your heart that you have made the right decision.

One other thing I will mention is that in our pregnancy contract we made a point that if we went through PGD it was never ever to be discussed with Jordan; that we selected a baby that did not have CF over those that did. Think as to how that information would make him feel.

Sheridan · Jul 18, 2008

Okay, I have an 8 yo with CF and a 1yo with CF too. We always planned on having 3 children since before we were even married, when Jordan was diagnosed it really knocked us for six. We took a couple of years to think about things and then decided to try again for another baby naturally. After 2.5 years with nothing we began to look into IVF with PGD. We had a cycle and got some eggs and they were fertilised, but unfortunilty I developed Overian Hyper Stimulation and they could not go ahead withthe cyle and PGD. I had to take a break for 6 months. However during that time the science lab closed and we ran into all sorts of problems with the IVF.

I went through terrible highs and lows with the whole process of just trying to get the IVF going again, and the intense desire to have another child. My husband was very scared of having another CF baby, as he felt it would detract from the care we could provide. Finally when Jordan was 6.5 I came to a point were I thought I would be able to cope just fine with only having one child, but that is when my hubbys clcukiness came to the forfront. I felt that I couldn't face that whole IVF thing again and he was still scared of CF. And he knew that even if I got pregant and we found out the baby had CF I had every intention of going through with the pregancyso we brokered a deal.

Try naturally for 12 months - just through normal relationship sex (not baby making sex if you know what i mean!, If it was unsuccessful (did I mentioned that he was diagnosed as very low fertility), we would once again go through IVF, but only 3 cycles, if that was unsuccessful look into overseas adoption.

Things took a while to get going before we bagan to work on the contract. Meanwhile Hubby got called up to go overseas for work for 6 months. He came home and for 10 days and lo and behold 2 weeks after he went back two blue lines turned up on prenancy test. Of course I was over the moon. When I called him up - his intial reaction was anger over the situation. Needless to say once his shock wore off he was absolutly exstatic.

He returned home when I was 19 weeks pregnant, and I, as I always planned refused to have any testing. although on this return date i had an ultrasound and the technician recoginsed bright bowel syndrome which can be an indicator for CF. I had a great pregnancy. CF never raised it ugly head to ruin our joy. We did make plans to get the baby blood cord bank, which was free through a partnership between the cord blood bank and CF Australia.

When Aidan was born, Chris and I knew right away he had CF because he was salty to kiss. After 2 weeks the official diagnosis confirmed our own.

Has it been smooth sailing - no. Aidan was hospitalised in March (5 months) for 3 weeks with phsydomonus (sp?). We worried about cross infection, but there was none.

Jordan has been great with having his little brother, when I was pregnant we told him that his brother might have CF and his response was 'that's okay I can tell him all about CF and how the doctors are there to look after you' - damn near cried with pride when he said that.

Would I change anything - NO! Did I do the right thing for me and us - YES! But that is us. We made a choice not to allow CF make the decision in our lives.

However, we have just decided that 2 is enough, as we belive it is not fair to have a third child. As if we have 3 CF children it will be incredibly hard, but then to have a non CF child and 2 CF children will be unfair on the non CF - how do you say no you can't have chocolate or ice cream, when the other 2 can.

I think we have the easiest way to have 2 CF children though, as we have no other children and we know no different - it is normal for us to give our children pills, it is normal to take them to the doctors ever few weeks, it is normal to do nebs, physio, it is normal to spend weeks at time in hospital.

Am I reccommending other people have 2 CF child - NO! No one can make that decision for you or even really advise you, you need to discover where you are and what is right for your family, weigh up all the factors - financially, emotionally, strength of relationship, health of current child and use these to influence you decision.

This is my story, I love my boys do I ever feel guilty NO! Not even after knowing the 25% chance, he is loved, made from love and is more precious than any child (equal with my first obviously) and we have genetics to prove that he is a rare gem indeed.

Good luck with your decision and whatever you decided know in your heart that you have made the right decision.

One other thing I will mention is that in our pregnancy contract we made a point that if we went through PGD it was never ever to be discussed with Jordan; that we selected a baby that did not have CF over those that did. Think as to how that information would make him feel.

Sheridan · Jul 18, 2008

Okay, I have an 8 yo with CF and a 1yo with CF too. We always planned on having 3 children since before we were even married, when Jordan was diagnosed it really knocked us for six. We took a couple of years to think about things and then decided to try again for another baby naturally. After 2.5 years with nothing we began to look into IVF with PGD. We had a cycle and got some eggs and they were fertilised, but unfortunilty I developed Overian Hyper Stimulation and they could not go ahead withthe cyle and PGD. I had to take a break for 6 months. However during that time the science lab closed and we ran into all sorts of problems with the IVF.

I went through terrible highs and lows with the whole process of just trying to get the IVF going again, and the intense desire to have another child. My husband was very scared of having another CF baby, as he felt it would detract from the care we could provide. Finally when Jordan was 6.5 I came to a point were I thought I would be able to cope just fine with only having one child, but that is when my hubbys clcukiness came to the forfront. I felt that I couldn't face that whole IVF thing again and he was still scared of CF. And he knew that even if I got pregant and we found out the baby had CF I had every intention of going through with the pregancyso we brokered a deal.

Try naturally for 12 months - just through normal relationship sex (not baby making sex if you know what i mean!, If it was unsuccessful (did I mentioned that he was diagnosed as very low fertility), we would once again go through IVF, but only 3 cycles, if that was unsuccessful look into overseas adoption.

Things took a while to get going before we bagan to work on the contract. Meanwhile Hubby got called up to go overseas for work for 6 months. He came home and for 10 days and lo and behold 2 weeks after he went back two blue lines turned up on prenancy test. Of course I was over the moon. When I called him up - his intial reaction was anger over the situation. Needless to say once his shock wore off he was absolutly exstatic.

He returned home when I was 19 weeks pregnant, and I, as I always planned refused to have any testing. although on this return date i had an ultrasound and the technician recoginsed bright bowel syndrome which can be an indicator for CF. I had a great pregnancy. CF never raised it ugly head to ruin our joy. We did make plans to get the baby blood cord bank, which was free through a partnership between the cord blood bank and CF Australia.

When Aidan was born, Chris and I knew right away he had CF because he was salty to kiss. After 2 weeks the official diagnosis confirmed our own.

Has it been smooth sailing - no. Aidan was hospitalised in March (5 months) for 3 weeks with phsydomonus (sp?). We worried about cross infection, but there was none.

Jordan has been great with having his little brother, when I was pregnant we told him that his brother might have CF and his response was 'that's okay I can tell him all about CF and how the doctors are there to look after you' - damn near cried with pride when he said that.

Would I change anything - NO! Did I do the right thing for me and us - YES! But that is us. We made a choice not to allow CF make the decision in our lives.

However, we have just decided that 2 is enough, as we belive it is not fair to have a third child. As if we have 3 CF children it will be incredibly hard, but then to have a non CF child and 2 CF children will be unfair on the non CF - how do you say no you can't have chocolate or ice cream, when the other 2 can.

I think we have the easiest way to have 2 CF children though, as we have no other children and we know no different - it is normal for us to give our children pills, it is normal to take them to the doctors ever few weeks, it is normal to do nebs, physio, it is normal to spend weeks at time in hospital.

Am I reccommending other people have 2 CF child - NO! No one can make that decision for you or even really advise you, you need to discover where you are and what is right for your family, weigh up all the factors - financially, emotionally, strength of relationship, health of current child and use these to influence you decision.

This is my story, I love my boys do I ever feel guilty NO! Not even after knowing the 25% chance, he is loved, made from love and is more precious than any child (equal with my first obviously) and we have genetics to prove that he is a rare gem indeed.

Good luck with your decision and whatever you decided know in your heart that you have made the right decision.

One other thing I will mention is that in our pregnancy contract we made a point that if we went through PGD it was never ever to be discussed with Jordan; that we selected a baby that did not have CF over those that did. Think as to how that information would make him feel.

Sheridan · Jul 18, 2008

Okay, I have an 8 yo with CF and a 1yo with CF too. We always planned on having 3 children since before we were even married, when Jordan was diagnosed it really knocked us for six. We took a couple of years to think about things and then decided to try again for another baby naturally. After 2.5 years with nothing we began to look into IVF with PGD. We had a cycle and got some eggs and they were fertilised, but unfortunilty I developed Overian Hyper Stimulation and they could not go ahead withthe cyle and PGD. I had to take a break for 6 months. However during that time the science lab closed and we ran into all sorts of problems with the IVF.

I went through terrible highs and lows with the whole process of just trying to get the IVF going again, and the intense desire to have another child. My husband was very scared of having another CF baby, as he felt it would detract from the care we could provide. Finally when Jordan was 6.5 I came to a point were I thought I would be able to cope just fine with only having one child, but that is when my hubbys clcukiness came to the forfront. I felt that I couldn't face that whole IVF thing again and he was still scared of CF. And he knew that even if I got pregant and we found out the baby had CF I had every intention of going through with the pregancyso we brokered a deal.

Try naturally for 12 months - just through normal relationship sex (not baby making sex if you know what i mean!, If it was unsuccessful (did I mentioned that he was diagnosed as very low fertility), we would once again go through IVF, but only 3 cycles, if that was unsuccessful look into overseas adoption.

Things took a while to get going before we bagan to work on the contract. Meanwhile Hubby got called up to go overseas for work for 6 months. He came home and for 10 days and lo and behold 2 weeks after he went back two blue lines turned up on prenancy test. Of course I was over the moon. When I called him up - his intial reaction was anger over the situation. Needless to say once his shock wore off he was absolutly exstatic.

He returned home when I was 19 weeks pregnant, and I, as I always planned refused to have any testing. although on this return date i had an ultrasound and the technician recoginsed bright bowel syndrome which can be an indicator for CF. I had a great pregnancy. CF never raised it ugly head to ruin our joy. We did make plans to get the baby blood cord bank, which was free through a partnership between the cord blood bank and CF Australia.

When Aidan was born, Chris and I knew right away he had CF because he was salty to kiss. After 2 weeks the official diagnosis confirmed our own.

Has it been smooth sailing - no. Aidan was hospitalised in March (5 months) for 3 weeks with phsydomonus (sp?). We worried about cross infection, but there was none.

Jordan has been great with having his little brother, when I was pregnant we told him that his brother might have CF and his response was 'that's okay I can tell him all about CF and how the doctors are there to look after you' - damn near cried with pride when he said that.

Would I change anything - NO! Did I do the right thing for me and us - YES! But that is us. We made a choice not to allow CF make the decision in our lives.

However, we have just decided that 2 is enough, as we belive it is not fair to have a third child. As if we have 3 CF children it will be incredibly hard, but then to have a non CF child and 2 CF children will be unfair on the non CF - how do you say no you can't have chocolate or ice cream, when the other 2 can.

I think we have the easiest way to have 2 CF children though, as we have no other children and we know no different - it is normal for us to give our children pills, it is normal to take them to the doctors ever few weeks, it is normal to do nebs, physio, it is normal to spend weeks at time in hospital.

Am I reccommending other people have 2 CF child - NO! No one can make that decision for you or even really advise you, you need to discover where you are and what is right for your family, weigh up all the factors - financially, emotionally, strength of relationship, health of current child and use these to influence you decision.

This is my story, I love my boys do I ever feel guilty NO! Not even after knowing the 25% chance, he is loved, made from love and is more precious than any child (equal with my first obviously) and we have genetics to prove that he is a rare gem indeed.

Good luck with your decision and whatever you decided know in your heart that you have made the right decision.

One other thing I will mention is that in our pregnancy contract we made a point that if we went through PGD it was never ever to be discussed with Jordan; that we selected a baby that did not have CF over those that did. Think as to how that information would make him feel.

Sheridan · Jul 18, 2008

Okay, I have an 8 yo with CF and a 1yo with CF too. We always planned on having 3 children since before we were even married, when Jordan was diagnosed it really knocked us for six. We took a couple of years to think about things and then decided to try again for another baby naturally. After 2.5 years with nothing we began to look into IVF with PGD. We had a cycle and got some eggs and they were fertilised, but unfortunilty I developed Overian Hyper Stimulation and they could not go ahead withthe cyle and PGD. I had to take a break for 6 months. However during that time the science lab closed and we ran into all sorts of problems with the IVF.
 
 I went through terrible highs and lows with the whole process of just trying to get the IVF going again, and the intense desire to have another child. My husband was very scared of having another CF baby, as he felt it would detract from the care we could provide. Finally when Jordan was 6.5 I came to a point were I thought I would be able to cope just fine with only having one child, but that is when my hubbys clcukiness came to the forfront. I felt that I couldn't face that whole IVF thing again and he was still scared of CF. And he knew that even if I got pregant and we found out the baby had CF I had every intention of going through with the pregancyso we brokered a deal.
 
 Try naturally for 12 months - just through normal relationship sex (not baby making sex if you know what i mean!, If it was unsuccessful (did I mentioned that he was diagnosed as very low fertility), we would once again go through IVF, but only 3 cycles, if that was unsuccessful look into overseas adoption.
 
 Things took a while to get going before we bagan to work on the contract. Meanwhile Hubby got called up to go overseas for work for 6 months. He came home and for 10 days and lo and behold 2 weeks after he went back two blue lines turned up on prenancy test. Of course I was over the moon. When I called him up - his intial reaction was anger over the situation. Needless to say once his shock wore off he was absolutly exstatic.
 
 He returned home when I was 19 weeks pregnant, and I, as I always planned refused to have any testing. although on this return date i had an ultrasound and the technician recoginsed bright bowel syndrome which can be an indicator for CF. I had a great pregnancy. CF never raised it ugly head to ruin our joy. We did make plans to get the baby blood cord bank, which was free through a partnership between the cord blood bank and CF Australia.
 
 When Aidan was born, Chris and I knew right away he had CF because he was salty to kiss. After 2 weeks the official diagnosis confirmed our own.
 
 Has it been smooth sailing - no. Aidan was hospitalised in March (5 months) for 3 weeks with phsydomonus (sp?). We worried about cross infection, but there was none.
 
 Jordan has been great with having his little brother, when I was pregnant we told him that his brother might have CF and his response was 'that's okay I can tell him all about CF and how the doctors are there to look after you' - damn near cried with pride when he said that.
 
 Would I change anything - NO! Did I do the right thing for me and us - YES! But that is us. We made a choice not to allow CF make the decision in our lives.
 
 However, we have just decided that 2 is enough, as we belive it is not fair to have a third child. As if we have 3 CF children it will be incredibly hard, but then to have a non CF child and 2 CF children will be unfair on the non CF - how do you say no you can't have chocolate or ice cream, when the other 2 can.
 
 I think we have the easiest way to have 2 CF children though, as we have no other children and we know no different - it is normal for us to give our children pills, it is normal to take them to the doctors ever few weeks, it is normal to do nebs, physio, it is normal to spend weeks at time in hospital.
 
 Am I reccommending other people have 2 CF child - NO! No one can make that decision for you or even really advise you, you need to discover where you are and what is right for your family, weigh up all the factors - financially, emotionally, strength of relationship, health of current child and use these to influence you decision.
 
 This is my story, I love my boys do I ever feel guilty NO! Not even after knowing the 25% chance, he is loved, made from love and is more precious than any child (equal with my first obviously) and we have genetics to prove that he is a rare gem indeed.
 
 Good luck with your decision and whatever you decided know in your heart that you have made the right decision.
 
 One other thing I will mention is that in our pregnancy contract we made a point that if we went through PGD it was never ever to be discussed with Jordan; that we selected a baby that did not have CF over those that did. Think as to how that information would make him feel.

Mommy2Alysa · Jul 18, 2008

I found out I was pregnant with Kiana a month after Alysa was diagnosed. We didn't really know what CF entailed (even though I spent two weeks with her in the hospital back in BC while my husband was moving our stuff out here - that was NOT fun). Turns out Kiana has CF as well (I found out via amnio) it was hard to digest and I actually left this site for a while after some of the remarks people made me when I revealed we were expecting again. It is a little tougher as I worry daily about the girls spreading stuff between them but so far (and Kiana is now 10 months old) we haven't had any issues with her. Doing enzymes is just like doing them for Alysa. For physio we just each grab a kid and do it.

What comforted me was knowing that my girls will have a bound that most siblings wouldn't. They can support each other in a way that my husband and I cant and honestly - I wouldn't trade my girls for the world. But I dont think we will be having anymore.

It is a tough decision and people asked me why I didn't get the big A when I found out and my answer was simple - I would hate to abort this baby and then researchers find a cure (or a super drug or something) in a few years I would have lost that child for nothing. Good luck in your decision please feel free to pm me if you need to chat or if you have any questions.

Mommy2Alysa · Jul 18, 2008

I found out I was pregnant with Kiana a month after Alysa was diagnosed. We didn't really know what CF entailed (even though I spent two weeks with her in the hospital back in BC while my husband was moving our stuff out here - that was NOT fun). Turns out Kiana has CF as well (I found out via amnio) it was hard to digest and I actually left this site for a while after some of the remarks people made me when I revealed we were expecting again. It is a little tougher as I worry daily about the girls spreading stuff between them but so far (and Kiana is now 10 months old) we haven't had any issues with her. Doing enzymes is just like doing them for Alysa. For physio we just each grab a kid and do it.

What comforted me was knowing that my girls will have a bound that most siblings wouldn't. They can support each other in a way that my husband and I cant and honestly - I wouldn't trade my girls for the world. But I dont think we will be having anymore.

It is a tough decision and people asked me why I didn't get the big A when I found out and my answer was simple - I would hate to abort this baby and then researchers find a cure (or a super drug or something) in a few years I would have lost that child for nothing. Good luck in your decision please feel free to pm me if you need to chat or if you have any questions.

Mommy2Alysa · Jul 18, 2008

I found out I was pregnant with Kiana a month after Alysa was diagnosed. We didn't really know what CF entailed (even though I spent two weeks with her in the hospital back in BC while my husband was moving our stuff out here - that was NOT fun). Turns out Kiana has CF as well (I found out via amnio) it was hard to digest and I actually left this site for a while after some of the remarks people made me when I revealed we were expecting again. It is a little tougher as I worry daily about the girls spreading stuff between them but so far (and Kiana is now 10 months old) we haven't had any issues with her. Doing enzymes is just like doing them for Alysa. For physio we just each grab a kid and do it.

What comforted me was knowing that my girls will have a bound that most siblings wouldn't. They can support each other in a way that my husband and I cant and honestly - I wouldn't trade my girls for the world. But I dont think we will be having anymore.

It is a tough decision and people asked me why I didn't get the big A when I found out and my answer was simple - I would hate to abort this baby and then researchers find a cure (or a super drug or something) in a few years I would have lost that child for nothing. Good luck in your decision please feel free to pm me if you need to chat or if you have any questions.

Mommy2Alysa · Jul 18, 2008

I found out I was pregnant with Kiana a month after Alysa was diagnosed. We didn't really know what CF entailed (even though I spent two weeks with her in the hospital back in BC while my husband was moving our stuff out here - that was NOT fun). Turns out Kiana has CF as well (I found out via amnio) it was hard to digest and I actually left this site for a while after some of the remarks people made me when I revealed we were expecting again. It is a little tougher as I worry daily about the girls spreading stuff between them but so far (and Kiana is now 10 months old) we haven't had any issues with her. Doing enzymes is just like doing them for Alysa. For physio we just each grab a kid and do it.

What comforted me was knowing that my girls will have a bound that most siblings wouldn't. They can support each other in a way that my husband and I cant and honestly - I wouldn't trade my girls for the world. But I dont think we will be having anymore.

It is a tough decision and people asked me why I didn't get the big A when I found out and my answer was simple - I would hate to abort this baby and then researchers find a cure (or a super drug or something) in a few years I would have lost that child for nothing. Good luck in your decision please feel free to pm me if you need to chat or if you have any questions.

Mommy2Alysa · Jul 18, 2008

I found out I was pregnant with Kiana a month after Alysa was diagnosed. We didn't really know what CF entailed (even though I spent two weeks with her in the hospital back in BC while my husband was moving our stuff out here - that was NOT fun). Turns out Kiana has CF as well (I found out via amnio) it was hard to digest and I actually left this site for a while after some of the remarks people made me when I revealed we were expecting again. It is a little tougher as I worry daily about the girls spreading stuff between them but so far (and Kiana is now 10 months old) we haven't had any issues with her. Doing enzymes is just like doing them for Alysa. For physio we just each grab a kid and do it.
 
 What comforted me was knowing that my girls will have a bound that most siblings wouldn't. They can support each other in a way that my husband and I cant and honestly - I wouldn't trade my girls for the world. But I dont think we will be having anymore.
 
 It is a tough decision and people asked me why I didn't get the big A when I found out and my answer was simple - I would hate to abort this baby and then researchers find a cure (or a super drug or something) in a few years I would have lost that child for nothing. Good luck in your decision please feel free to pm me if you need to chat or if you have any questions.

Ratatosk · Jul 18, 2008

We waited until we were older to start a family. Had no idea that either of us were carriers, until DS was born with a bowel obstruction caused by meconium illeus. We originally planned to have two children, but opted not to have anymore. Hard to put down in a post what a long hard decision it was -- looked into adoption and PGD, but decided to put all our time an energy into enjoying our son. Just deciding to have another child and taking the risk was not an option for us.

Ratatosk · Jul 18, 2008

We waited until we were older to start a family. Had no idea that either of us were carriers, until DS was born with a bowel obstruction caused by meconium illeus. We originally planned to have two children, but opted not to have anymore. Hard to put down in a post what a long hard decision it was -- looked into adoption and PGD, but decided to put all our time an energy into enjoying our son. Just deciding to have another child and taking the risk was not an option for us.

Ratatosk · Jul 18, 2008

We waited until we were older to start a family. Had no idea that either of us were carriers, until DS was born with a bowel obstruction caused by meconium illeus. We originally planned to have two children, but opted not to have anymore. Hard to put down in a post what a long hard decision it was -- looked into adoption and PGD, but decided to put all our time an energy into enjoying our son. Just deciding to have another child and taking the risk was not an option for us.

Ratatosk · Jul 18, 2008

We waited until we were older to start a family. Had no idea that either of us were carriers, until DS was born with a bowel obstruction caused by meconium illeus. We originally planned to have two children, but opted not to have anymore. Hard to put down in a post what a long hard decision it was -- looked into adoption and PGD, but decided to put all our time an energy into enjoying our son. Just deciding to have another child and taking the risk was not an option for us.

Ratatosk · Jul 18, 2008

We waited until we were older to start a family. Had no idea that either of us were carriers, until DS was born with a bowel obstruction caused by meconium illeus. We originally planned to have two children, but opted not to have anymore. Hard to put down in a post what a long hard decision it was -- looked into adoption and PGD, but decided to put all our time an energy into enjoying our son. Just deciding to have another child and taking the risk was not an option for us.

Should I have more children?

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