I always wanted to have a baby, but VHL threw us a number of extra concerns. My father died in his 40’s and my brother died young. I have had several spinal tumors. At one point I made up my mind to have a baby no matter what -- which upset Brian very much. He was not willing to risk my health, and possibly my life. We talked, we argued -- it was not an easy time for either of us. Since then I have had two more pretty scary spinal surgeries, so it became clear that it was better for this body not to carry a child.It was not easy to keep to this decision, and sometimes the "baby fever" was overwhelming. Finally I found some books written for infertile couples which helped us to get through it. We realized that we needed to grieve our loss, even though it was a kind of voluntary infertility. One of our favorites: Sweet Grapes: How To Stop Being Infertile and Start Living Again* by Jean and Michael Carter, a 1998 revised version of the winner of PMA’s 1989 Benjamin Franklin Award for the best new book in Psychology/Self-Help.

We are spending our parenting energy raising dogs and working to help needy people in our community.

* Perspectives Press, the infertility and adoption publisher, P.O. Box 90318, Indianapolis, IN 46290. +1 (317) 872-3055. http://www.perspectivespress.com/reviews.html PMA = Publishers Marketing Association, a trade organization of independent publishers. http://www.pma-online.org. q

As printed in the VHL Family Forum 6:1, March 1998. For permission to reprint, please contact VHL Family Alliance, info@vhl.org.

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