WannabeRE

Radio silence - but a good reason

2009-06-02T15:36:00.002-05:00

So, here I am.

11 weeks ago we found out i was PG again. Why, R, do you continue to do this? Because I did not feel done. I felt like I had not conquered this. I beat PCOS and I wanted to beat MotherFucker too.

I did.

For the first time, we saw a healthy heartbeat at 8 weeks. 175 to be exact! Everyone thought it was a girl!

For the first time, I got morning sickness. Stopped eating meat. Ate Life cereal for dinner for 5 weeks.

For the first time, my pants stopped fitting and I actually considered getting maternity wear.

I felt pregnant. I felt sick. I felt like shit.

I also felt major psychic torture because I couldn't believe that this would actually work out and I would actually get to experience giving birth.

Turns out I was right.

Today I went in, off-appointment, because I was in a horrible state thinking that something was wrong. I was right.

For the first time, I got to see what a genetically abnormal fetus looks like on an ultrasound. It was sad, horrifying and scary. There is no way this baby could've made it. They think that what was wrong with her (it was a her, they think, based on the diagnosis of the disease) was Turners' Syndrome, which (as Dr Google told me) is a genetic disorder where the fetus doesn't get any XX chromosomes. It only happens to girls. It is 97% fatal.

I cried on the table, I cried in the doctor's office, I cried in the little room they put me in to wait for the hospital to call to schedule my D/C.

And then I stopped crying, because really, I have a daughter. A beautiful perfect daughter. And we have the ways and means to have more children. And will. And while this is sad it didn't work out it is not fair to wish that she had lived with that issue.

So in a lovely touch of irony, I will end my last pregnancy on Charlotte's Gotcha Day. The day she officially became ours. And no one can take that away.

The GNP of my uterus is definitely lagging behind the NASDAQ

2009-03-09T19:19:00.005-05:00

J and I are pretty lucky in that we still both have jobs we love. We own our home, are not under water debt-wise and are very, very careful with money. Having said that, we are by no means the Hiltons (the old ones who had a ton of money not their lame-ass entitled grandchildren) nor can we spend spend spend like we (me) would like to.

And one thing about this economy, you really have to make choices about what you spend money on.

And that, my friends, brings us to my uterus.

Who would've thought that one nice side effect of our downward slide as a country would be a renewed kick in the metaphorical ass about my (lack of) fertility? It comes to this: we can either renovate our house, or have a kid. We can either order out as much as I want, or have a kid. We can buy a nice, reliable used car to take the place of my stalled out, battery-dead, ugly, basically-up-on-4-blocks Pontiac, or we can have a kid.

Now, there is no contest there, to us. I would sleep outside and drive a Dodge Dart (remember that Mom and Dad and B?) and eat mac and cheese straight out of the box every night (who am I kidding, that last part would actually be AWESOME) to have another kid. It just sucks that we have to consider costs at all in that area.

Other people (see: that fucking octomom) can have as many kids as they want for free! Free! It's like free ice cream cone day at Ben and Jerry's, only its a kid! But for us, it is the same investment many other parents spend on, say, a community college tuition.

This is not about adopting. I have no issues with that. This is about cost. Hard cash. I have spent time over the last few days being really, really pissed at my MTHFR or uterus or eggs or whatever the hangup is in there. Because for us, it can never be a "Oh i got drunk one night and boom!" or "my period was late and who knew, right????" that ends with a $20 co-pay for the hospital charge for my entire birthing process. And I get to come home with a kid! A free kid!

Oh, no.

It has to be a process. Long, drawn out, hard and expensive.

However, unlike eating out every night or getting that Mercedes I want, what we will spend our money on will pay us back in spades. I know that. The ROI on kids is immeasurable. I just wish I didn't have to think about this ugly side.

Calling all parents of two or more kids

2009-02-17T11:21:00.002-05:00

A few questions:

1. Do you ever sleep again? Ever?
2. Have you read a book/eaten a full meal/watched TV/had any downtime AT ALL since your second was born?
3. How do you handle not shortchanging one for the other?
4. Do you and your husband/wife/partner go man on man or zone? Meaning one parents takes both kids so the other one can do something else? Or do you always divide up?
5. If you work, how did you balance the two?
6. Did your relationship with said husband/wife/partner die?
7. Do you love each kid equally? Or did you have to divide your love in half cause it was too much?
8. What do you love about having two or more kids?

This list above represents the sum total of my concerns. Looking forward to your answers.

In other news, got our references out and my employment confirmation in. Next up is the great gathering of financial papers. Once all that is done we will update our profile and I think we are done. It is much easier second time around, that's for sure.

Do you think I should get books on siblings for C? Or is it too soon? Considering she would rather EAT the book than read it?

Please don't read it as ambivalence

2009-02-12T11:20:00.002-05:00

J and I were noting last night how adopting feels different this time. Last time the minute we got the ginormous packet from American Adoptions we tore through it, making lists and gathering info and filling out forms until the wee hours. I think our turnaround on everything but the fingerprints was about 2.5 seconds.

Now that our wee hours include a wee one, we realized that we left the adoption info packet on the front table for, oh, about 3 days. We did get off our assess to bring our social worker, R, into our house on Sunday for the obligatory "have you killed anyone, is your kid thriving, and do you have a fire extinguisher" visit, but that is it. I just made appointments for us to get our fingerprints. I told someone in my department to get me a letter verifying I am, in fact, paid for the labor of love that is my job. I think I asked a few folk to write us reference letters. Haven't sent them out yet.

It is not that we don't want to do this (we do) or that we don't have time to get our acts together (we have from 7:30 on every night when C goes to bed). We are just not in a huge hurry. We agreed that we want multiple children, and that when they are like 4 and 6 it will be awesome, but we are also in a great groove with C and both of us are, I think, afraid to upset the proverbial apple cart.

Don't get me wrong. I love baby babies. I love the drool, the poo, the night feedings (really!). I guess I just wonder if I have it in me to love another little one like I love C. Will I divide my love in half? Will the part that loves J go away and settle on the new baby? Will I ever be able to say I am balancing things well? Cause now we are.

Still, though, when I look at new babies or at pictures of C from a year ago I ache. I do want multiple kids. Hell, if we can afford I want as many as that crazy-as-bat-shit octuplet mom. Except we won't, cause I was raised to take responsibility for myself and we can't afford it.

But 3? Totally in plan.

So we will get this done, and come July when J stops traveling for the year we will put our names in with our referral service and hope for another late-night text saying "your child was born". Or even make it in time to see it this time.

And we are so, so excited for that.

Time for #2

2009-02-11T10:55:00.002-05:00

So, we started a new adoption process.

How do I feel? I feel nervous. How will I balance big new promotion and two kids? How will I ensure that my marriage doesn't fall apart? How will we afford two college tuitions? How will I ever love a new baby like I love C?

I am excited, too but that is really overwhelmed by the above.

R, our social worker, came over Sunday for her first, and only, home visit prior to match. She loves us and C was her typical fantastically funny, energetic and lovely self. She kept trying to steal R's pen and scribble on our home study. Perhaps that would endear us more?

We are also on the "not trying NOT to try" (my english teacher parents just had heart attacks) for a natural pregnancy process - meaning if it happens, great. If not, at least I won't feel like I completely blocked off the possibility. After 4 m/c it feels like a triumph of hope over experience to even consider it. I just still have remnant feelings of failure for not being able to do something even idiot welfare moms who have 14 kids can do. Yes, you, stupid octuplet mom. Asshole.

I am going to start writing on here again now, the release is great for me and allows me to document our process. Stay tuned!

Pathetic Mom Alert

2008-09-23T18:26:00.002-05:00

I know, it has literally been months. What do you want me to say. Life gets busy and also boring. So I have nothing to write about, and no time to write it.

I need some support now though.

I find that now that C is cruising and pulling up and trying to walk she is also REALLY unfocused and no longer cuddles, sits quietly with us, or really makes any sign that she knows who we are. Now at the park instead of peering lovingly in our eyes as we push her on the swing she stares at the little boy next to her. When we go on the jungle gym she is more interested in playing with the older kids than being "walked" around by Mommy.

Where is that little mushy girl I loved to hold for hours and hours? Who would smile when we walked in and reach for us? Now she just wants out of this crib, now, thank you, and fuck you very much if you get in the way of me reaching for the safari-themed playstation.

The other thing I notice is that she won't sit still for anything. Diaper changes, meals, presidential visits. Changing her is an effort to keep her on the table and putting her clothes on is such a production she usually ends up hitting her head on the floor (where I place her to dress her so as not to have a recap of the great changing table escape) or screaming so loudly J wonders out loud why, oh why, do I beat her so (kidding. OMG totally kidding)?

Basically I am really thrilled she is so mobile, and independant, and curious. I am so glad that she is active and healthy and shows the right amount of interest in her surroundings. I just feel sad that all that attention that I used to slurp up like a grape soda is now focused elsewhere. Is that normal? Probably. Pathetic? Well, yes.

Will she ever hug me again, other than when I feed her at night and she is so tired and milk drunk that she finally, finally, lets go of the 10 books and 5 plush toys and 6 rattles that she carries around in her fists and teeth WHILE crawling and cruising? And then she gently reaches for my hair or my nose and holds on and looks me in the eye for the first time all day and I am so, so happy.

Gotcha Day!

2008-06-04T09:19:00.003-05:00

This is an informational blog posting for those of you with working uterii.

A little known or understood fact about adoption is that when the birthparents sign the relinquishment of parental rights, C doesn't become our kid at that point. In fact, the birthparents release her into the custody of the adoption agency. This meant that the night in the hospital we left with her, the social worker from the adoption agency had to carry her out and then gave her to us in the parking lot. It was midnight so the whole thing felt really weird.

The adoption agency then "releases" her into our custody (in the parking lot), and we continue the process. This means, in our case, 6 more home visits by the social worker. We have her from a custody perspective but her birth certificate still says her bm's last name and we cannot travel outside of the country with her, get her a passport, social security number, or anything else that biological children get from birth.

After all the social work visits, designed to ensure she doesn't have rickets or big unexplained bruises, we have to go in front of a judge. In Texas, this happens 6 months after the adoption date.

J flew out last night and just called to say it was all done. He went before the judge, who asks a bunch of questions like "Do you testify that Charlotte is not your biological child" and "Do you testify that she is 7 months old" and stuff like that. I am sure he promises to love, honor and obey as well.

She is ours. Forever.

At the start he felt it wasn't a big deal as she felt like ours from the start. After 300 poopy diapers and night feedings and drool and smiles and laughing, she is ours and has been since day 1. However now she is ours in the eyes of the law and no one can ever take her away from us. I think even J, Mr. Stoic, was moved as he said he really wished I was there and that it was really, really special and amazing.

Thank you all for your support and love over this journey. 18 months from the first IVF to her seems like a long time but really, it happened fast. I only hope our next adoption goes as smoothly.

Baby C is a Guberman!!!!!!!

Full disclosure

2008-05-22T21:03:00.002-05:00

My blog has been pretty damn honest up til now. So while it pains me to do so, I have to share what happened today.

I have been a single mom now for over 2 weeks - J is in Bermuda at his yearly giant major event that is a big cash cow for him, but takes him away for a long time. I had my mom here which was AWESOME and so helpful, but have been on my own this week since Tuesday morning.

None of this is an excuse but instead an explanation for why I may not have been as aware as I usually am.

C has been getting up at 5 am each morning, at which point I cuddle her and take her into my room where we snooze for about another 30 minutes and then get up.

This morning we followed our routine and I put her on the changing table, with one hand on her tummy as always to keep her from moving, while I looked for clothes for her in the drawer in the changing table. All of a sudden I hear this LOUD thump (that I will never forget) and there she is on the floor, looking shocked but completely unhurt. Somehow she wiggled out from under my hand without me feeling it, and threw herself over the side of the changing table in about 1 second flat; I had merely glanced away while looking into her pants drawer (which is IN the changing table) for a new pair. Just that long. My hand never moved but now it was pushing air down as she was gone.

She landed on her side and was cushioned by the thick carpet, but she was shocked and I was shocked and she began to cry. I picked her up carefully but quickly and began a total body scan with my hands to determine if anything was out of place or felt wonky.

Thank god she was 100% fine and even stopped crying after 2 minutes, and just lay on my shoulder with this "WOW that sucked and scared me and you sort of suck" position. Within 10 minutes my nanny C had shown up and baby C was already playing and smiling. Nanny C said she was totally fine, that happens, etc. I said not to me. Never again.

I am in a shame spiral so deep I wonder if I will ever get out. I know it happens. I know babies are resilient. But the subsequent day-long Dr Googlefest resulted in lots of stories of concussions, broken backs, and even worse. Now granted she had NO SYMPTOMS of any issues but I just couldn't believe how irresponsible that was of me. I chastised myself all day.

I also emailed some good Mom friends who made me feel better with stories of their own children going off the edge of the bed, slamming fingers in car doors, toppling babies out of their slings, dropping full water bottles on their heads, and the like.

How did we all live through this?

I click baby C in now to her changing table every single time. Before the hand was ok, now it's not. I will never leave her on a bed, chair, dresser, etc because she is obviously quick and agile. Basically I have built a bubble in which she can live, quite nicely, for the next, oh 60-70 years. At which time I hope to be dead and not seeing the risky behavior she engages in, like going outside and touching things.

So, there it is. I feel like a bad mom. My kid took a header off the changing table. 3 feet down. She lived to tell the tale, but I think it might be too early to say the same about me.

Where she's at....

2008-05-20T11:07:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine recently posted on her blog what her son was doing and it occured to me that anyone still reading probably wants to know the same about our kid.

Our kid rocks. That is where she is at.

She is sitting up almost on her own. She loves to eat everything, even her nasty rice cereal. Well, except fruits. She likes bananas ok and applesauce is cool but peaches and pears suck. She makes this face that kills me like we have fed her dirt. She is starting to prop herself up on one arm, a precursor to crawling I am told. In terms of What to Expect, we are right on target.

She is also the 95th percentile in height, 75th in weight and 50th in head size. Small head, long legs. She LOVES standing up and can sort of "walk" if we hold her hands. She won't lie if she can sit, and won't sit if she can stand. She has almost pushed herself out of her bumpo, which makes me nervous.

Most importantly, she knows who I am! She smiles at everyone but I get a special one. She cries if I leave the room, and watches whatever door or staircase I dissapeared through or up. When I reappear she beams. While in her exersaucer she looks over at me every few minutes as if to say "are you watching Mommy? watching me? Are you still there?" and I clap and say I AM WATCHING YOU! YAY!!!

The drool is out of control. She has two bottom front teeth that are in but more are coming, I bet. She chews on EVERYTHING and if there is a huge, elaborate toy or station she will spend the entire time licking the tag.

She sleeps on her side all the time. She rolls like crazy and then when she finds herself on her stomach cries and whines. She loves her "blankie" which is a pink thing (damn) that we immediately take from her once she is asleep.

She screeches like a dinosaur. I think it is pre-talking but dammmmmn is it loud. This morning she got up at 5 am and I cuddled with her in bed til 6 so I could sleep but she was grabbing my nose hard and screeching and I finally gave up and tickled her til she cackled.

If she can get carried around she loves it. She doesn't like being alone and loves watching people's faces. Her cry is infrequent and tearless, as I don't think she really is upset. When someone sneezes or slams a door she starts and frowns and cries tears hard for about 2 minutes.

I think that's it. She is the love of our lives and is endlessly fun. I love coming home to her and having her reach for me.

This blog is the least snarky, cynical or evil I have ever written. Maybe I am happy?

A pic for you all!

Today

2008-05-11T12:56:00.001-05:00

Is a day I used to hate. Now I love it.

Funny how things change.

Well.

2008-05-07T17:52:00.004-05:00

C's in college, doing well. We have 4 other kids and J and I are retiring at the end of the month.

Oh! Wait! It hasn't been THAT long...

Things here continue to be blessedly, wonderfully normal. C is progressing like a champ and true to her parents is loud and crazy and active. She doesn't sleep through the night yet which sucks but honestly, we love seeing her at 3 am even if I have fallen asleep and the bottle has fallen out of my hands. Yes. I am that mom.

Balancing work and home is actually do-able at this moment. I do feel as though I am one illness, accident, diarrhea episode, nanny sick day away from my house of cards tumbling down but for today, that house still wobbles. But stands. Work is going great and in fact I am up for a promotion that I will know about sometime in 2008. Or 09. We don't move quickly there.

I cannot tell you how much I am loving being a Mom. In fact to this day I wake up every day to her dulcet tones (WAAAA WAAAA WAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH) and smile. If any of you, beloved friends or family, woke me with that crap I would level you. But her? Every poopy diaper is a dream, her screams are our lullabies and her drool our elixer. Actually that last part is not true, it is fucking gross. But seeing her little baby teeth come in and hearing her make noises that one day MAY be talking is the highlight of my day. To give you a sense of how much I have changed it is 70 and sunny today and I am sitting in my house with her, not antsy to go outside. We have so much fun.

J left for his big 3 week trip today so we celebrated Mother's Day last night, which was fantastic. He is really thoughtful and got me a fantastic gift - a Breville Espresso Machine. Hello! Literal cup is literally flowing over! Once I read the tome that is the directions I will make cappucinos for the entire East Coast. Most importantly though he spent his last night not working or packing but taking me to dinner at Marseille, a place where we had our third and "seal the deal" date. No, not that. It was the date where I realized I did sorta like him and we had our first kiss. Really fun.

Anyway I have not posted much because the mundane routine that is my life (love it! love it! love it!) is not that interesting and that is fine with me. We plan to start the adoption process again come November so in the interim if anything interesting, or lots of uninteresting, things happen I will post. I miss writing but the only reason I sat down tonight is that J isn't here to play with and Baby C is sleeping peacefully. I am going to try to post a pic of her here so you can all ooh and aah that our kid is better than any kid. Except yours, of course.

The latest

2008-03-14T09:44:00.002-05:00

Things baby C is doing:

Rolling over, mostly to the left but sometimes to the right
Smiling up a storm
Laughing!
Eating rice cereal. Or sort of eating, sort of wearing
Cuddling with everyone
Being tall and chunky - 75% in both height and weight
Holding her head up beautifully
Pushing up on her arms

Things her mom is doing:

Stressing out over working FT
Upping her dose of SSRIs to calm the anxiety that something will happen to my family
Picking fights with J
Threatening to quit Sirens even though she doesn't want to
Loving C and J so much it hurts
Loving being a mommy

So, all in all, things are well.

The Big Reveal

2008-02-18T10:36:00.002-05:00

Since we got home with Baby C, J and I have wanted to tell our oldest niece, who is now 5 1/4, the story of C. She was the only niece or nephew old enough to grasp it when we talked about C's birthmom or adoption, and we felt uncomfortable having to censor ourselves when she was around.

Last night the entire clan got together for an impromtpu dinner (thanks J and S for hosting!) and we felt it was the right time. We took M, our niece, downstairs to the family room with her parents and told her. She was snuggled up to me and J took her hand and did a great job telling her that Aunt R and Uncle J couldn't make a baby in Aunt R's belly, and we wanted a baby and family so bad, and a woman in Texas had a baby and couldn't take care of her, so asked us to take her and make her our daughter and love her forever. And that Baby C is her cousin forever.

I told her how there are all kinds of families, families with all boys and all girls and one kid and 12 kids (she just saw Cheaper By the Dozen - to which J added later "and those people are really socially irresponsible") and that this is how we plan to build our family. J added that in November we will try again to bring another baby into our family by adoption. And that baby will be her forever cousin as well.

I then added that this was not a secret, and that she can ask anything she wants, and that she is welcome to tell anyone, including her friends, or any kids at school.

After we said this, we said to M, "Is there anything you want to ask?"

To which she said "Can I go color now?"

It was a start, right? :)

Weird moment

2008-02-12T22:02:00.001-05:00

Today I looked at Charlotte and realized she will one day be a woman.

Whoa.

HELLO Hello hello....

2008-02-08T16:00:00.000-05:00

On Thursday I talked to a senior person at work who was telling me all about her employees' drama. I get this a lot, being in HR.

This particular drama was of interest to me as it is a fellow PCOS-er who has had a bitch of a time getting pregnant. She has been through many rounds of IUI and IVF, to produce crap eggs and/or not get that positive beta. She has no idea how much I know about her but I watch her sometimes in meetings, wondering if she too feels dead inside and couldn't focus on discussions around media hits or PR programs.

Well, turns out that she was on a regime of Provera this month and AHA! she ovulated! Hey, that happened to me!

What didn't happen to me then was that somehow she and her husband accidentally timed it right and AHA! she is pregnant. Naturally.

Of course as a PCOS-er she is worried and of course as a "natural" pregnancy this feels very tenuous to her. She is 5 weeks and just got over the "holy hell I was taking something to make my uterus expunge stuff whilst pg" scare and has a pg that for now is sticking.

Again, she knows nothing about me knowing this.

She presented at our all-staff meeting on Thurday. She stood in front of 300 people and talked about something. Who knows. I was staring at her belly. I was thinking, "does she have to pee for the 100th time today? Does she feel anything? Is she counting down to the next RE appointment to see if it is alive?" I felt exhausted and it wasn't even me.

It made me think, do I want to be pregnant again? In theory, yes. Not only do I wish I had had the feeling of a baby move, or see my nose or J's eyes on something tiny, but I also hate it when I fail at something. I rarely do it because I either work at it til I succeed or I walk away (quitters sometimes win when they decide they don't want to do it anymore!).

In this case, I have walked away. I still feel this echo of envy, though, at her pregnancy. What i don't feel envious of is her fear and anxiety and over 50% chance that this pregnancy will end in nothing but an ER or some pills. So I guess I would say that Iwant to give birth, but don't want to go through the pregnancy. I am not up to the stress.

I would never trade C for the world. She is mine, through and through. She feels like she came from me and she is as much my blood as any biological child would be. How I got her is less important every day, but still, she won't have a birth story to hear and I won't be able to say "oh yes, you get that slouch from me" or "yes, dad does have a crap attitude and you really got it from him". I hope she's ok with that. I think I will be.

Back to the coal mines

2008-02-06T21:39:00.000-05:00

I head back to work full time week after next. Next week is a 4-day'er which will help me slide back into the chilly waters of full time work and full time mommyness. Augh, as Charlie Brown says.

I love my job. I just wish I had a whole day to spend with C, then an alternate universe to step into that would ALSO allow me to be at work all day. I love dressing up and wearing makeup and drinking lattes. I love talking to smart people and solving problems. But I also worry that C will call our nanny "Mommy" and that I won't have enough energy to spend on her at the end of the day.

I see now how women are fucked. We have to decide; mommy of the year or corporate ladder? I feel like if I want to take some time to spend at home I have to take a slowdown on my career. That corporate America will look at me askance for wanting to try to balance both sides of my existence.

None of this is new but it is new to me. I now understand those women who rush out of work at 5:02, harried and guilty, to get home and try to squish 9 hours of time into 2 pre-bedtime hours. Its like i hate it when she goes to bed because it means I wont see her for another 18 hours.

Will this ever pass? How do we do it and not go crazy?

Sweet Jesus...

2008-01-25T18:43:00.000-05:00

...she slept through the night.

Well, almost. She went down at 10:30 and got up at 4:30. And then slept til 8:30.

Her mother, however, was up more often, sure that she had died. I went in a few times (ok a lot) to make sure she was still breathing. My friend R says that will pass and I, too, will sleep through the night someday, but I am not convinced.

In other news, I have a friend-date next week set up by a woman at work who has a dear friend with an adoptive daughter 2 weeks younger than C. She seems lovely and smart (she is very, very senior in her company and seems like a great working mother compatriot) and all. What she seems, however, is different than me in how she is dealing with adoption.

I am the adoptive mom who works on her kid's LifeBook all the time, ensuring that the first few months of her life are fully documented and that her birth story, birthmother, travel story and adoption process are all duly noted for posterity. I am the adoptive mom whose parents thoughtfully sent her "Tell Me Again About the Night I was Born" by Jamie Lee Curtis, and I read it to her occasionally, adding details about her own birth, time at the Candlewood Inn, etc.

This woman doesn't have a lifebook. She has never heard of Jamie Lee Curtis's book. She is thrilled that her daughter looks like her "because it makes it easier" and doesn't tell anyone she is adopted.

I am not going to judge, because i have had enough judging. I am however interested in how we are dealing with this differently.

Both of us feel powerfully connected to our kids. Both of us struggled for years before getting the moniker we all craved: mommy. One us, her, has not told anyone that her daughter is adopted, and doesn't get stupid comments like "Will you raise her any differently than you would a natural child?". There is so much wrong with this statement that my relative (not close) made to me I don't even know where to start. But I guess I brought it on by being so open about her adoption.

I will be interested to note how she deals with things as the babies grow. Will she grow more comfortable telling people? Will I grow more reticent, less likely to be asked how I lost all the pregnancy weight, and start to forget how I got her and focus on that she is ours?

And if I buy her "Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born", will she be offended?

Best.Week.Ever

2008-01-21T10:51:00.000-05:00

I just had my 39th birthday and it was the best one ever. Having both J and C in my life has made me feel 100% complete. Cheesy, but hey.

I also just had the entire fam here for a fantastic visit! Grandpa W and Aunt B met C for the first time and of course ate her up.

We had her naming ceremony, with about 60 folks, and it was a great day. We had so many happy moments and great pictures and the ceremony, which my sister ran, was just what we wanted.

My cup runneth over.

Mensa Pottymouth

2008-01-11T09:23:00.000-05:00

Scene: Three nights ago I was at the computer, J was putzing around the office and C was in her playtime activity center between us.

All of a sudden she makes the loudest noise she has ever done - and it sounded like a word!

I turned to J and said did she just say that? J nodded.

The good news: Our daughter is a prodigy who spoke at 2 months.
The bad news: Her first word was "fuck".

Oops.

Faux Mom

2008-01-08T20:35:00.000-05:00

I went to a Big City Moms lunch today with my dear friend R, who has a great baby named H that I love like my own. R is my type of mom and I literally don't think I could've done this whole baby thing without her and my friend Y. They are my rocks. I say this because any comments about the attendees of the lunch do NOT include her in the slightest.

Anyway, this event.

It was about 15 NYC moms and their kids, various ages, mostly within the first 3-4months. The purpose of these events is twofold - 1., the leader shares topics of interest (today's was Big City Secrets and included a list of stores, restaurants, parks, etc that are kid friendly in NY. Awesome) and 2., to showcase new (expensive) accessories and tools and highlight whever we happen to be as the best place to bring kids. Sort of a salesy pitch with info.

Let me set the scene for you. Picture the most giant diamonds you have ever seen in an engagement ring. Every mom was thin, hot and had perfect hair. They all talked about the many classes they took their 5 week old to and the boutiques and little cafes in which they had mommy dates with other thin hot moms. R and I agreed later that "these were not our kind of people", which is an understatement. I love my kind of people. These are not them.

It was a bit overwhelming for me. But what really bothered me is that everyone there had a biological kid. How do I know that? Cause at one point or another they all whipped out the boob or the boob milk in a small bottle and it was obvious. One of the giveaways was a book on breastfeeding and another a bottle cooler for breastmilk. At one point the leader of the group mentioned they had an adoption workshop coming up and she awkwardly said "I was really surprised at how many people adopt....really....so many!" Except no one there. I didn't say anything right then but later it came up and those around me asked many questions that made me feel uncomfortable. And it was partially my fault because why do I feel like I have to "come clean"? Like it is some shameful secret I have to divulge to be honest? It ISNT!

It was the first time I felt like a poser. Like I had borrowed my sister's kid and pretended she was mine. Like I was not good enough. And before you start on me, yes, I know in my heart she is my kid, yes I know in my heart I am a good mom. I love C so much it hurts my heart and I would die for her. I know I don't feel any differently than anyone who has a child with their genes. I just felt bad. I felt left out. I felt less than. I felt weird and sad and like people were looking at me oddly. And I felt sad for C, like through no fault of her own she will have this "Thing" out there her whole life and will have to answer questions about it. I want to protect her from that, so much.

I realize that my current mom friends were all there through my fertility treatments and miscarriages and failed adoptions and now with C, which means they are like family and I feel 100% comfortable with them. I feel like a mom with them. I can be myself and not worry if my lip gloss is on my teeth. They love me, accept me, accept her and truly see us as the family we are.

It is just women I don't know. We all judge and we all watch and we are all insecure. I hate that and want to be secure. If it wasn't about adoption I know i would worry that i hadn't lost enough weight or my boobs were too saggy or whatever. Actually i worry about that anyway, but that's a side issue.

So I am planning to start a mom's group of adoptive moms. I have two of us already, and the woman who ran the thing today has another woman she wants me to meet. I am going to connect us and make us a family too - but also stay close to my other mom friends. I don't want to be insular, I want to grow my community.

J took my hand very tenderly tonight when he heard my story about lunch. He felt bad, I think, that I felt bad. He understood how i felt because while he doesn't find himself in similar situations he has read all the books and knows this is part of the process. I know it too and will hopefully soon become totally comfortable in my own skin and potential stupid questions and thoughtless exclusionary behaviors will roll off my back. I can't wait for that.

In other news, I took C into work today and the amount of love that poured out and adoration showered upon her was beautiful. She smiled and tooted and didn't pitch any fits. It was great.

OH quick story speaking of toots.

At the beginning of the lunch, it was quiet as all these trophy wives (R excluded of course) talked about their kids and ages and their "secret weapon" like products or tricks. About 3 people in C cut the HUGEST fart during some absolute quiet. I was forced to say, redfaced, "That wasn't me". The group totally laughed. Nice. I guess she didn't like the company either. That's my daughter! I love her!

A hot steaming cup of manic

2008-01-04T22:25:00.000-05:00

So I went to work for real yesterday. Got up, took a shower, left the house. And I didn't cry.

I believe this makes me a shitty person, as everyone else I know cried. Everyone else i know realized that they were leaving their children in the care of someone they barely knew and while all of us had done our due diligence, who knows what happens.

By all rights, I should've been a wreck. It is not like I don't spend most days thinking of all the horrible fates that could befall J or C and my heart stops and my breath catches and I have to physically shake it away.

And yes, our nanny is Jesus Christ Herself in terms of Nannyness. I love her. I want to marry her. She is great and responsible and loves C and writes down how many poops, bottles, naps and tummy time sessions C has. She looked up "constipation" today on her phone and left me a recommendation for a glycerine tablet because C hadn't "gone" in two days.

And as soon as CA left, C pooped. CA can move people's bowels. Hooray. But that's not altogether why I was not completely devastated to leave C home.

It is because I like work. I love work, actually. I like getting my coffee in the morning and being a big girl all day and helping people and making decisions and listening to my team and thinking and creating things. And I love it that every hour or so I take out my phone (which I now take with me everywhere in case CA calls) and look at my gorgeous daughter. And I love it that I have a daughter. At the end of the day I RUSH out at 5 pm (I changed my schedule so I leave early to get home to relieve CA so C sees her parents) and wish the bus home faster so I can hold her in my arms. C, not CA. CA is too big. But my day is full and I am so glad that I work AND come home early to see her.

So when I am "supposed to" cry, I don't.

Then tonight, C was really fussy. I was feeding her and she fell asleep which was great cause she is cute as hell when she sleeps. She was in my arms and her dad sneezed (damn him and his uncontrollable physical reflexes!) and she jerked awake and scared herself and she cried.

I soothed her back to sleep and then, as I was weirdly staring at her as I often do, I noticed that she had glistening tears in her eyes.

She cried tears for the first time.

And I bawled. J had to comfort me. I was so sad she was sad and so moved that she was crying and so happy that her tearducts work. And I was so glad I was there to see it and J shared in it too.

So I cry when I am not "supposed to".

Know what? I think "supposed to" can go fuck itself. I am a mom now and I will trust myself and I will NOT start with the "I am a bad mom" self talk because that goes nowhere. I will enjoy this and revel in it and be present when I am with her, and be present at work when I am there, and strive to not shoot for balance because that is bullshit but instead shoot for presence. My life is full and wonderful and I should show up for it, right?

Real tears. Imagine that.

Off to bed. I am so tired. All this emotion and lack of emotion can be draining.

No one puts Mommy in a corner

2008-01-02T09:38:00.000-05:00

So our new nanny, CA (to identify her from C, our kid), started today. My initial fears, which included shaken baby, dropped baby, ignored baby and starved baby, have been replaced with the fear of, well, being replaced.

As soon as CA got here she took C (which was great) after washing her hands (which was also great). C immediately started smiling at CA, bigger and better than any smile to me. Basically CA is her favorite person in the world. And I am chopped liver.

Then CA put her down IN HER CRIB (something J and I have never mastered without C waking and immediately crying with outrage that we dare to put her down) and she is still sleeping. Like a log.

Mommy neuroses, which are never far from my mind, are really going nuts over this one.

Why doesn't she smile at me like that? Why won't she go down when I put her down? What can I do to make her love me more?

What if she likes CA more?

I guess this is a good problem to have. I mean at least her caregiver is a loving, skilled person. I just don't want to be replaced as the most important and fantastic person in C's life.

Wow. Immature mommy. Love it.

So what and now what?

2007-12-29T03:08:00.000-05:00

What to do with a blog that is all about infertility when I have come out the other side and have a baby? Not one of my body but of my heart? Do I write about every little smile, fart and sleep more than 3 hours? Do I tell you that my life is so full I cannot believe I ever lived without her? Or is that trite, boring, not cynical enough?

I will tell you that my fertility issue is an annoying relative that I am so glad is gone. I tell J that he gets a MILF who will never have saggy boobs or stretch marks (though of course anyone who has those needs to bear them as the beautiful marks they are of what they got to experience, that I never will).

I feel happy that I have let go of my fertility and am finally (mostly) at peace with never being pregnant again. Staying pregnant again? Whatever it is, I am glad to see the back of it.

This month, for the first time since May 2006, I was happy to see my period. Really happy.

Am I cured? No. Am I at rest now? Yes.

So what do you all think?

Turn this into a book?

Stop writing?

Start a new blog somewhere about the trials and tribulations of a working mom?

Turn this into an adoption blog to help people understand my experience and, more importantly, help ME understand this experience?

What say you?

Not much is new...with me.

2007-12-17T17:26:00.000-05:00

Showering more frequently.

Thinking about going back to work PT

Struggling to find childcare

However, baby C is growing and growing! She was 9 lbs 4 oz at her last drs appointment and grew an inch and a half! She is crazy big.

She grabs our hands and looks in our eyes.

My heart still melts whenever I pick her up.

We sent a letter and pics to S, who is having a hard time with the adoption. I feel awful but also so, so glad and thankful to her.

Ok baby C is crying and my heart needs to melt again.

The status quo is dead

2007-12-05T18:08:00.000-05:00

Everyday is so different. I mean the things that stay the same are:

1. I am still showering every third (or fourth) day
2. I still have hardly left the house
3. My nesting instinct is so strong I have never been so organized. J too, we went grocery shopping last night (I took a shower to celebrate it!) and we spent a good 50 minutes putting groceries away in our pantry that implemented a new, fantastic organizational system (non-soup cans on this shelf, soup on that shelf, spaghetti materials on this shelf, etc)
4. My teeth are slowly starting to rot based on the fact that brushing my teeth is optional most days
5. I still love C so much I could just eat her little face.

The things that change are HER! Her schedule is anything but. Basically she used to sleep all day, all the time. Now she sleeps for 30 minutes at a time once or twice a day. Thank god the night sleeping continues to be at 3 hour stretches. But while I once had all day to fix up the nursery, return calls and emails, write thank yous, eat, etc I now have a grand total of about 2 hours total, in short bursts, where I can start things but not finish. I rush around like a madwoman during those times and if the phone rings I ignore it as I MUST CLEAN AND ORGANIZE.

Who am I?

I used to envy women who stayed home as having a life of leisure and time to burn. Now i realize you are a slave to an 8 pound person who knows no clock. Nothing ever gets done and forget doing anything for yourself, like reading the paper or a magazine. Or even watch TV. I read the paper this morning while feeding both C and myself. It was amazing. I grew another arm.

I have not worn a watch in weeks and only pull out the wedding rings when I am going out. Cause you know, looking as good as I do, I am sure men are LINING UP to get wit' me.

Basically I can't believe how busy things are and I hope they calm down. Cause when you add 9 hours of work time to this whirlwind I am not sure how I will do it and what I will have to give up. All that's left is sleep and that is a precious commodity too. So, we shall see.

I am really enjoying this, and her. This is what I waited for. It is so worth it.

Q: when your daughter projectile vomits up her milk, what orifices does it come out? A: All!

I'm bringing sexy back

2007-11-30T13:24:00.000-05:00

I am not dead. I just look like it.

The post title is not an homage to that boycandy, Justin Timberlake, but rather something very funny my dear friend Y says to her husband. As you know Y has a 2 month old, M, who is awesome and cute and sort of betrothed to our daughter (I never tire of writing that) C. I was telling her that I have altogether stopped whatever meager attempt at self-care I once had. Showering is optional, and I am on day 3 without one. Brushing teeth before 4 pm is a victory. I have worn my same "Lovergirl" bathrobe that my singing group got me for my wedding (J has a matching "Loverboy" one) every day to the point where its normal whiteness is now sort of grey and also yellow where formula stained it.

Not really sure what Im doing all day. Yet the time goes.

I am so appreciative of all your phone calls and emails and adorable baby gifts. Your excitement for us is overwhelming and beautiful.

My dear friends R and Y, who as you remember were both pg this year, have been invaluable at the "why does her umbilical cord smell bad" questions that are alarming but not quite bad enough to call the Ped. Though I have done that. At 11 pm.

I love my faraway mom friends who send me emails with great advice and also coo over her pictures when I know she sort of looks like a baby chicken and makes noise like a penguin. She is my chickenpenguin tho.

My family is so wonderful and when Grandmas and Grandpas call and ask how their granddaughter is I choke up.

I have not slept more than 3 hours in a row in two weeks.

I have had to get off a few conference calls from work (yes I am sort of kind of working, at my leisure, ha) because C made a poopy diaper and I cannot stand her living in filth. I, however, am PigPen reincarnate.

And I am so, so happy I cannot stop smiling. I love waking up at 3 fucking AM cause I know I wil see her sweet face. I love when she fixes on my face for a fleeting 2 seconds, because I know soon she will recognize me and be glad when I show up. I sing to her songs about Charlotte and Charlie and always end RockaBye Baby with us catching her when the bough breaks cause I hate that song and how it ends. And last night I sang her to sleep with Tri Delt songs. She especially loves mmmm my sister.

And what is really special is when J leaves the monitor on and I hear him talking to her. I love him so much.

I am dirty and gross and potentially very, very smelly. But it is all good.

Giving Thanks

2007-11-22T11:22:00.000-05:00

So yeah, this year sorta sucked.

Between my fertility issues, my father's cancer and heart issues, my mother's broken wrist, and multiple adoption dissapointments, we just wanted 2007 to retire and shove it up its ass.

However, here it, November. And my parents are healthy, my sister's pregnancy is going swimmingly, our friends are healthy and happy, and we have Charlotte.

We couldn't ask for anything more. 2007 ended up ok.

So thank you to our families who have been a resource of undying support and love.

Thank you to our friends who have listened to our bitching and let us cry and provided so much love and support.

Thank you to our adoption staff who brought us the world's best reason to be thankful.

And thank you to people who read me whom I don't know. I click on your blogs and read your journeys and feel inspired and less alone and hopeful and excited for you.

I am feeling so thankful this morning I had to wake J up and tell him. That wasn't smart, or nice, but it was meaningful.

I also locked us out of our bathroom at 5 am but that's a different story. Ha.

Love to you all and please take a minute today to feel appreciated and loved by the Guberfamily!

Guilt - its not just for breakfast

2007-11-21T11:15:00.000-05:00

So last night J and I were online looking for childcare options, because even though I am not going anywhere near work until January we live in a ridiculous part of the country where childcare is hideously expensive and hard to come by so we have to start very early. At first I will be working from home and only in the office 2-3 days a week, but we are determined not to put her in day care until she is 3 months old. We think the one on one care is the best thing for her.

As we were looking, I felt myself start to cry. I have long known that I would go back to work after the birth of our child. There are two reasons: one, we need my income to keep C in designer binkies and, oh, say, housing. Two, I have worked long and hard on my career, am in a place now where I am in a senior position, and I completely love my job and working in general. So it is partly necessity and partly keeping me happy. I fully plan to have a flex work arrangement so I can be home early to feed, bathe and love her up, but will continue working.

I felt such incredible fear and guilt last night about leaving her with someone else. I worry so much that whomever we choose will shake her, or ignore her, or not smother her little face with kisses every ten seconds like we do. What if we hire a sociopath? What if we hire someone who will steal her? And it will be all my fault because I went back to work. The guilt and shame were overwhelming.

Being here, with nothing to do but pay attention to her, has been excellent. However, without my computer and link to the outside world and emails from work coming in, I think I would've gone nuts. And I know that staying home for me full time is not an option but I completely understand why people do it. In addition, all my working mom friends say that they feel awful when they leave their babies at home, and I used to nod and try to understand but without experiencing it it is impossible. I will rely on my working mom friends to help me feel ok about our decision and to help me continue to balance being there for my daughter and also being there for myself.

I think this is just the beginning of the conflict and guilt. I think if it wasn't this it would be something else. I know that a happy mommy makes a happy baby, but I want to install nanny cams in every nook and cranny of our house to make sure our childcare professional is just that.

NO ONE will put our baby in the corner.

BTW my favorite time with her right now is after we feed her - she closes her eyes and goes limp (which of course scared me at first, thinking I killed her with feeding, but now i understand it is milk coma) and then she starts to smile - sometimes with both sides of her mouth and sometimes with this smirky one side thing. Her cheeks are filling out and she will definitely be a FatBaby which we LOVE. I tell her all the time I am going to eat her. We sing to her and talk to her and I make up stupid songs about Charlotte and Charli and Chuck and whatever. She is going to think her mother is an idiot. And about her, I am.

Charlotte, Pt 2

2007-11-20T14:38:00.000-05:00

So the next day we got on the plane, wide eyed and with that feeling you get like the day of your wedding when you haven't slept but you aren't tired because you are so wired. As we pulled away from the house at 6 am I told J, hey, this is the last time we may leave this house as just us two.

On the plane we swung between elation and fear - elation that this may happen, and it hadn't been called off yet, and fear that we would land to a message saying it was off. We slept on the plane a bit, mouths wide open. Once we woke up we pulled out "50,000 baby names" and started brainstorming around middle names, as we had already decided on Charlotte.

As we landed we scrambled to turn on our blackberries and cell phones, but there was no message. After almost 2 hours in the car rental place due to a bait and switch of our Jeep Cherokee for some weird car we had never seen, we were on our way. J now says we should've gotten a minivan but I told him to shut his mouth :).

We arrived at the hospital and basically ran to the front door, where our social worker was waiting for us. She took us upstairs and set us up in our own room, across the hall and a bit down from the birthmom, whose door was shut. A nurse came in and introduced herself, and like all the nurses, was incredibly sweet. She called us Mom and Dad for the first time.

Soon we heard the sound of wheels coming down the hallway and within a few minutes our daughter was wheeled in.

Now, that was one of the most powerful moments in our lives. I mean basically we were laying eyes on our future child and I am not sure about J, but I was thinking "dear god let her be healthy and i hope we think she's cute". Yes, lame, but it felt like an arranged marriage or blind date where you hope you like the guy. :) Once we saw her my eyes filled with tears and I was so, so happy because she was gorgeous and wonderful and peaceful.

Now I won't say I loved her immediately. I think that took a few hours. I will say that once we picked her up, awkwardly, because we were sure we would snap her little neck, she snuggled in and we were sold. As the day wore on and we spent the entire day in our room with her, we learned to change her, feed her, and we took turns holding her while she slept. We know now that was a bad idea because she grew used to it, but whatever. We had waited a year and a half for her and were in no position to let her sleep alone. The entire time, though, we were cautious as until the relinquishment papers were signed she was not ours.

We asked Lindsay, our social worker, if the BM wanted to see her. She went to ask, and it turned out S wanted to see us all, because she thought seeing us so happy with the baby would make her feel better.

S is beautiful. She has long, thick dark hair and gorgeous eyes and a strong nose and wide mouth and is truly lovely. She was so nice, and while she did seem sad she also seemed happy to have made us so happy. We talked for awhile and then took a few pictures for C's lifebook. We also hugged her.

That first night J and I went to babiesrus to get all the baby stuff we needed, like car seat and pack and play and blankets, etc. We felt scared because we didn't want to have to be there the next night, returning everything.

We went back to the hospital to feed her and say goodnight and ended up going to bed very late again. Our last night of sleep!

The next day was the big day. We spent the day with C, and then left at 5 to eat dinner and run some more errands. At around 1 pm, Lindsay came in to let us know S was leaving the hospital and that she wanted to see C one more time. That was the scariest 10 minutes of my life but all ended well and C came back into the room with Lindsay safe and sound. We ended up helping S leave, carried some of her bags, and helped her into the car. I got teary as she left. How do you thank someone who gave you your daughter?

The social worker,Laurie, met us at the hospital at 10:30 or so, bringing her husband as her witness. We actually had a great time with them - and would be friends witht them! He and J really got along as they are both irreverent as hell. They were great and were very, very supportive. We felt like they were family as soon as we started talking.

At 10:50 our phone rang, it was Lindsay on her way to S's house, caught in traffic, giving us a heads up that the signing of the relinquishment papers would be late. Damnit. Dallas traffic sucks.

At 11:40 I started to get nervous. What the hell was taking so long? I knew S and her husband M had to read everything, but come on.

At 11:57 the phone rang again.

She was ours!

Ok she is crying now. Write more later. Thank you all so much for your beautiful emails welcoming Charlotte in our lives, and yours. We are so happy.

Charlotte, part 1

2007-11-19T12:11:00.000-05:00

So, here is what happened. I will probably not get done as she is sleeping on Daddy and soon he will want his computer back.

I got a call while in Chicago for work, one week ago today, from our adoption referral service about a potential situation in Dallas. The BM was a 20 year old Native American/Hispanic healthy female, BF a caucasian healthy male. No drugs, no alcohol. DREAM situation. And she is due on Nov 24th. Our only pause was HOLY SHIT Nov. 24th? I called Jeff immediately and we agreed to be presented with other potential birthfamilies.

The next day I got a call at 1pm from Terri, our referral service, yelling into the phone "You are going to be a mommy! You got picked!". Now, we have been here before, as you know, so while we were excited we were still cautious. J and I decided that it was time to tell our work so I sat my two bosses down after a long day of meetings and told them I would be gone in a week. While they definitely felt as freaked as I did, they were 100% supportive, having both been aware of my history of m/c and being parents themselves.

That night J and I talked many times, made flight reservations, and planned out how we would spend the weekend. I hardly slept, thinking of this baby inside her mom's belly and how she may be ours.

Til Terri called again and said she was probably going to go on Sunday and could we go Saturday?

Well, ok!

Except then the next day, when I had a 5 hour presentation to the senior partners in the agency, biggest moment of my career thus far in my new job, I got a vm from J during our bio break. Mom was being induced that night and we were leaving the next morning. I can tell C that I heard of her impending birth while peeing.

I took a deep breath and grabbed both my bosses again in the hotel hallway. I told them, and again while they were totally freaked, as was I, they were great. Meanwhile my amazing husband was booking a hotel, car, flights, calling his family, getting directions, and basically managing this entire process.

Somehow I made it through the rest of my presentation, and then left for the aiport in a full car, so I still couldn't call my family or talk to J.

Once I got to the airport I called my office to do a conference call with my team to tell them I wouldn't be coming back to work for awhile. I had a 5 page document with to dos that I basically delegated out to everyone. They were thrilled though, again, this happened so fast they had no time to react.

Of course my flight was delayed 5 hours so I arrived home at 10:30 pm, in time to throw somethings into a suitcase, take care of our pets, run around the house, etc. Imagine getting ready for a 2 week vacation with 1 1/2 hours of warning. Yikes. J and I were in the zone, barely talking but instead communicating through grunts and hand signals. Good partners.

All night I kept waiting for the phone to ring and terri to tell us it was off.

Instead we got a text message at midnight saying "Congratulations! Its a girl! 6 pounds 13 ounces, 21 inches"

J and I looked at each other, wide-eyed. It really hit me that we were about to become parents with about 48 hours of notice.

Ok gotta get off the computer now. Looking forward to finishing this, probably at 5 am. First doctor's appointment today!

Announcing....

2007-11-17T02:23:00.000-05:00

Our daughter, Charlotte Rose.

Born November 14, 2007. 6 pounds 13 oz, 21 inches. Her birthparents signed the relinquishment document tonight, so she is ours!

This has been the biggest, best whirlwind of my life. J and I are over the moon, exhausted, scared, sure we will kill her in the first 48 hours, and so, so excited for you to meet her.

Yes, I think things have turned around.

More later once we get the hang of this whole parenting thing. Crazy.

All is Well Today

2007-11-09T15:53:00.000-05:00

My father got through his angioplasty with only one Happy Birthday balloon in his artery! He has some small blockage in another one but they are managing it with drugs.

I am so relieved. Let's hope for a speedy and full recovery.

Could this be the turnaround that we have been waiting for? Dare I ask?

Sweet, sweet meds

2007-11-05T20:54:00.000-05:00

I am so hooked up.

You know you are having a bad time of it when the doctor, whom you have never met, hears about your year (as an answer to the question "why are you seeking SSRIs?) and prescribes you giant doses of it and some Xanax thrown in without you asking and then says "Jesus. You know, R, things will turn around. Wow. That is the worst story I have heard all day".

This from a man who probably treated someone earlier who had a steak knife coming out of their eye.

So my blood pressure is elevated. Pulse rate, elevated. Migraines need some loving from the neurologist though the GPs initial "touch your nose and then my finger" neurological exam for children showed no massive embolism about to burst forth in my brain, no matter how much it feels that way.

And tonight I take a dose of Celexa and a Xanax.

The best part about my visits to my primary care is I treat it like a 20 questions game. I have so many seemingly unrelated data needs I just fire away questions at him because hell, I am there, and chances are in the 2 years between visits I have stored up lots to ask.

Examples from today:
- "Why do I have a migraine every day?"
- "Does a birthmom who is 39 have THAT big of a chance of down's syndrome babies?"
- "What types of prenatal tests should we think about if we match with said birthmom?" (related question)
- "How dangerous is angioplasty? Cause my dad is getting one Friday" (at which point the DR said looked at me with what could only be pity and amazement and said "are you kidding me?"
- "Do I need to go on malaria meds if I am going to Argentina?"

I left, two prescriptions heavier, with a spring in my step knowing that the cold, dark place my mind has become is about to get lighter. In two weeks. Or in two hours, when I take lovely, lovely Xanax. Lovely Xanax. Sing to me.

I need help accessing my non-crazy side

2007-11-04T21:19:00.001-05:00

If I were to change careers I would become a psychiatrist in NYC because DAAAAAMN there ain't enough of them. I have been trying for a week to see one, even for five minutes, to get me some SSRI lovin and to take my anxiety down from Nuclear to Almost Manageable. I won't bore you with details of what my anxiety feels like but I think the marathon runners and I shared a common heartrate today.

I cannot get into see one. The Jewish somethingorother that has shrinks and is on my insurance said their earliest date was two.months.from.now. Ok. I will be really cardiovascularly fit at that point. And maybe dead.

No one else even called back. I am breaking down and going to my primary care physician tomorrow, and while he is not a shrink, he at least can write me a prescription.

At this point I am a junkie in desperate need of a fix. I am panicked and sweaty and breath heavy all the time. I think horrible, paranoid things about what my friends, husband and family are doing and exhibit the obsessive thinking and compulsive behavior of Monk. And most of all I am near tears 24 hours a day because I am operating at such a high level of anxiety.

Oh sweet SSRI, when will you be mine?

I Wanna Know Something

2007-11-02T20:55:00.000-05:00

Today was rough. At the end of a long, super crappy week a co worker called me and told me she was PG. Due on my due date in May. Fuck you, I wanted to say. Congrats! I said. Then hung up, shut my office door, and cried for 45 minutes.

I spent tonight at some dear friends' home, playing with their newborn and having dinner while J worked. It was really, really nice. But we started talking about the annus horribilus I have had and she and I wondered, out loud, if this is just what it is.

I mean do other people have three miscarriages and two adoption disruptions in one calendar year? Is our journey, the one that started with wanting to do what 16 year old crack whores can do, that different from other IFs? Right now with the water rising and currently 35 feet over my head, depressed, in desperate need of SSRIs and unable to find a single.fucking.psychiatrist in NYC to prescribe me meds, I feel singled out. I feel like our journey is harder. I feel like it is, as my friend Y said 'Mission Impossible', only our orders already blew up and I never even got to see them. Is this right? Can I expect more? Have we just started and every day will continue to be a fresh hell for years and years?

I want answers from others. And I am so thrilled that a dear beautiful woman has a meeting place of sort for IF/adoption bloggers called lost and found at http://lostandfoundandconnectionsabound.blogspot.com/ has listed my blog on there and asked, on my behalf, for other bloggers to come offer support. And oh boy did they. I had more comments last post than any other, almost combined, each more beautiful than the next. I spent hours at night perusing other blogs that were, in many ways, mirrors of this one. Any hope i had of being the wittiest, driest, most eloquent blog around these topics quickly dissapeared. But these women are pro bloggers. So tell me, please, oh wise sisters, is our journey normal? I mean normal for the fucked up, jacked around, subculture that is the IF to adoption journey?

Do I need to stop feeling sorry for myself? Cause I would love to. And all the fertiles in my life are accidentally making me feel like I am typhoid Mary and calamity Jane in one package. Mary Jane, as it were. My journey is SO completely different and awful compared to theirs. And I hate feeling like that because with that negativity as my outside voice, who needs negative self talk?

Tell me we are not alone. Please.

Didn't Take Long...

2007-10-31T17:07:00.000-05:00

For that shit to fall apart.

Our bm is a scammer.

Her mom called the agency and told them she m/c. Our agency, which rocks, told C (the bm) that she has to go in and get checked by the dr and bring in sonogram pics before they would pay another dime of her living expenses.

Which she did. Which said today's date and that she was 10w5d.

Except she is supposedly 22 weeks.

Not sure whose sonogram that was, or where she got it, or maybe she lost the first baby and got pg again but it's no longer our problem as we disrupted the match.

Again.

Now I understand why people get fatigued and decide to live child free. That has got to be better than this. I truly, truly, cannot stand another minute of this. I am at a total loss what to do right now.

Perhaps this blog will become about my cat. Though of course she has feline leukemia so will probably also die soon.

It's Halloween, and I got a rock.

Good and bad news

2007-10-26T16:36:00.001-05:00

Bad news: I officially had some kind of physical and mental breakdown last week which resulted in really bad physical problems and an anxiety attack like never before that lasted 5 days. Five days of pounding head, horrible fear and anxiety and a deep sense of loss and grief is too much. I called my therapist and asked for the name of a psychiatrist so I can get on meds. I guess 3 miscarriages in 9 months would do anyone in, but for some reason I thought I was stronger than that. Everyone telling me how brave I was sort of weirdly put pressure on me not to recognize the dangerous place I was going and it all came down around me.

Bad news: We got our test results back. DPR was a girl. A poor girl that will never be born. I was so upset. We had not anthropomorphized the fetus but hearing it was a gender really hit me hard. In addition it was totally chromisomally normal, which sounds like good news but really isnt, as that means they don't know why I keep m/c. Fuck. Double fuck.

Good news: We ARE MATCHED! Our baby is due March 3. The paperwork is signed, we talked to her on the phone, and we loved her. She seems very focused and ready - this is her second adoption of a child - and she is 4 months along. J and I are flying to Tampa to meet her over thanksgiving, and then hopefully will be going down in March to pick up our kid!!!! Of course she can change her mind or something health wise could happen, but hey, we are as far along as we ever have been. We will find out the gender in a week.

WOW!

Thought I would end on a good note. No name for this baby yet, too soon. And we are too wary to joke anymore, so we will just call it "ours".

Life's little lessons are cool but still sort of suck when it's you

2007-10-17T21:47:00.000-05:00

My attitude towards a lot of things has changed.

First, I feel like maybe while there's no god, maybe there is some reason for all this. I believe we are supposed to learn things on this earth (perhaps this world view is colored by having, oh, I don't know, TWO PROFESSORS for parents?) and I am getting a PhD in Things I Don't Do Well.

Potentially I am supposed to learn patience. I am so impatient I have told complete strangers to, and I quote, "fucking move your ass" on the street. Then there was that one who told me to kiss her ass and I apologized, having evidently mistaken a true New Yorker for a tourist. My bad. I was the only person in Oregon who ever used their horn, ever, and got in trouble in 11th grade for flipping off the Assistant Superintendent of Schools for cutting me off and then driving like the old, old man he was. True story. I don't give people a break and I snap when they don't meet my expectations RIGHT THEN. I once cried in McDonalds because I didn't get the Filet O Fish I wanted RIGHT THEN. Remember that? RIGHT NOW has been my mantra since before I had a mantra and just drooled a lot. But I wanted my blankie RIGHT THEN.

I am also one who tries to control everything. My food intake, my surroundings, my husband (when he lets me, which is never enough of the time) and my life. I am in control of my job, my home, and my commute. I am so far out of control of my body right now I may as well be that dude in InnerSpace who has Dennis Quaid driving around in his bloodstream in that little spaceship. I am excreting things out of every orifice. I can't eat without it coming out, sometimes almost fully whole (ever shit out a whole cashew? Really?) in a mess a few hours later. My migraines are so extreme lately that I had to take a rest, a la my 2 year old nephew, at my father in law's birthday party. I am tired, sore, shaky, emotional and crampy. Every day is some new symptom or physical manifestation of my angst either emotional or D&C related.

In a nutshell, I am a mess.

But, I have realized, sort of accepted, and owned that i am totally out of control. I can't make my body hold a pregnancy. I can't even make my body hold down spaghetti. I can't make other people stop getting pg and I can't control when a birthmother picks us. And when she does, I can't control what she puts in HER mouth and when she sees the doctor and even if she goes through with it.

So, I say "things will work out" or "we shall see" a lot more. And it is actually ok.

I am also willing to see how this whole thing turns out. I have a sense of calm, and have through this entire last mindfuck pregnancy, that things are unfolding. I am not in a rush and am happy to just sit, sometimes for quite awhile, and relax. I like watching people lately and have even quashed my desire to punch all pg ladies in the ovaries. My commute doesn't bother me and when someone keeps me waiting at work I merely find other things to do.

Maybe I am learning. And gaining some patience.

Two skills that I have HEARD, from experts, might make raising a kid a bit easier.

Huh. Imagine that.

It's better than cancer

2007-10-10T21:59:00.000-05:00

My therapist thinks I am clinically depressed.

Really? No shit. Who wouldn't be?

How it is playing out is that I see the world very monochromatically. I am tired all the time, and things that usually give me joy don't. At least not right now. I don't eat much and want to sleep all the time but have a hard time getting to sleep. My body feels like an enemy and any leftover pg symptoms are so, so harsh.

But you know what? I don't have some nasty disease or anything, so maybe I should stop complaining. And I will.

And another thing...

2007-10-08T21:27:00.001-05:00

If I did believe in any signs or such - I would really be fucked.

I would think that maybe we aren't supposed to have children.

How else do you make sense of this?

I refuse to believe that.

There is some comfort, then, in chaos.

Phew.

Also, just in case you never get to experience this, just so you know, cramping after a D & C feels like someone has literally turned your uterus to concrete and then drove over it with a truck that has spikes on it. I.Must.Take.A.Motrin.

And on top of it I have some stomach bug that causes me to have major tummy issues. I had to run out of a meeting with the CEO of my gd company to poo.

I am officially the universe's whippin boy today.

Infertility and Existentialism

2007-10-07T17:02:00.000-05:00

I think people who have seriously shitty things happen to them, like, say, three miscarriages and two disrupted adoption matches in less than one calendar year, tend to do one of two things:

1. Decide that forces bigger than them (god, fate, the feds) know what they are doing and while we, as mere humans, dont, that doesn't mean there isn't a grand plan and we just, as mere humans, take a long time to figure out that plan. But oh yes, sista, there's a plan.

2. Decide that chaos theory rules, that there is no meaning or reasons or anything in the universe, everything is up for grabs, there is no karma or meaning or god or anything driving this bus.

Guess which one I fall into?

To feel as though there is no meaning, and that all attemps to pull together some form of reasoning for all this shit happening is wasted energy, is both terrifying and strangely freeing. I don't have to look for interrelated actions. Karma means nothing. Nothing I do matters, really. So what the hell. Eat sugar. Don't exercise. Walk in front of buses. Ok, not that. I still believe ins science, and two immovable objects will cause problems.

All I mean is that I can feel free to go live with my adoption profile, and hope that some bm and bf pick me and that they stick with the plan and maybe I will get to come home with a baby sometime before I die - cause it's totally random. Nothing I do can really affect it, no amount of praying or justifying or handing homeless people a dollar will impact it. There is no meaning and no reason anymore - just carbon molecules who make decisions based on the facts as we know them that may change or may not change.

When we got pg with DPR, I thought "OH!!! So the reason we lost 3 ivf babies (remember the first one was two) is cause i was supposed to do this THIS way! Well thank god the universe had a plan for me, and now I get it". Until the giant fuck you of the 3rd m/c. Now i don't get it again, am tired of trying to get it, and feel stupid for even thinking I could get ANYTHING.

I am 1/2 annoyed and 1/2 jealous of people who believe. 1/2 annoyed becaues it just takes a good look around to see nothing is really in charge. Fate doesn't exist and "things work out like they are supposed to" just doesn't even make sense. Really? I am supposed to have three ghost children running around our house? Really? Great! Wow, fate is cool. And WHY did that happen again? Oh yes. The answer: we don't know. Right.

1/2 jealous because to believe someone is in charge, that there is a reason for all this, that this is part of some big plan that will be revealed to you, must be very comforting. I don't have that level of comfort. I am comfortless. But i feel like for me, to see things any other way is not only rather ridiculous but also dangerous. To try to figure out why my uterus continually rejects children is best left for the RE and science. Do I think he will get an answer? No. I think there is a reason but I am one of the .01% of women who truly, no shit, no kidding, can't have children. And medical science, today in 2007, doesn't know enough to change that. Maybe if i were bleeding in 2700, we would get this figured out. But not today.

And that is a truth I can understand.

I have many friends who believe various and sundry things that fall under #1. I am thrilled to have them as friends, and do envy them their security and comfort. However to use a Matrix analogy, I took the red pill and can't seem to fit myself back in that world. I think I will get used to being here, and will find my way in a place where nothing makes sense and shit, as they say, just happens. Today though it does feel a bit cold and scary.

This goes much deeper than atheism. This goes as deep as giving up a primary belief system I have had since a child. I talked to god then. I believed that I would be rewarded for good and punished for bad.

Wow. That didn't happen, now, did it?

Surgery and Journey

2007-10-05T20:00:00.000-05:00

Had my d&c. Wouldn't recommend it but it wasn't awful- the worst part was when I had to go into the OR and get up on the table - it is like a million hands are pulling at you - putting in the IV, putting on the oxygen mask, checking vitals - etc. It was a real surgery, I was surprised. I thought it was like the IVF retreival but it was serious shit. I was at the hospital for 5 hours.

I did sit by the woman I mentioned in my blog yesterday - she made me teary with her sad face. Then her ADORABLE 3 year oldcame bounding in (who knew?) and I decided enough empathy for her - she has a fucking kid. Then I cried for myself. Cause I don't.

After surgery I woke up when J came into the recovery room. I don't remember it but supposedly I yelled out my social security number as some nurse somewhere in NYC had asked him for it. Always helpful, even when drugged. And now identity theft is on my list of things to be worried about. I don't remember it at all.

The saddest part of the day was walking to the hospital. I decided to walk from Port Authority as it is beautiful out and I love walking in the city. As I was coming up 9th Avenue, listening to Journey, this song called "Lights" came on and I was reminded of my dear college friend L who lives in Long Beach. The song always reminds me of her cause she loves San Fran and that is what the song is about. I started to get very teary as I miss her so much, but also miss the days when we were all living together in college; carefree doesn't even describe it. It was perfect.

I started wondering how things got so fucked up. If someone had told me I would've had so much trouble starting a family; IVF, PCOS, MTHFR, 3 miscarriages, etc, I would've told them to forget it. I am so glad I didn't know then what I knew now; I am not sure I would've had the strength. I still wonder if i do.

Dr S came out prior to the surgery to talk to us and said that our blood tests had gotten mixed up and that my test showed I was not pregnant. We had a good, ironic, semi-painful laugh over that. He also asked us about donor eggs or donor embryos but we all decided (all three of us) that it was not the right day to talk about that.

I did ask if he thought while in there he should just tie my tubes to prevent future miscarriages (oh wait I mean pregnancies) but he said no - I thought it might be irresponsible to get pg again but he said there is no reason to prevent. We don't have to worry about that for awhile anyway.

So we are 100% focused on adoption now. We are both excited, mentally ready, and fully engaged. Our profile will be live next week and we embrace what's next. This was a detour, albeit a nice, lovely one, but we are back on track.

Pulling Into the Station and Taking a Rest

2007-10-04T21:58:00.001-05:00

The roller coaster is over. Not in a good way, but it is over.

First, the reason we had gotten bad news on our beta is that Dread Pirate had a Buttercup. Yes, we had a twin in there. We didn't know it, Dr S didn't know, and we didn't find out til at the "yes we thought that it was dead" ultrasound last week we actually, for the first time in our lives, heard the heartbeat of our fetus. And saw the second, deflated sac. What a miracle. THat one survived.

Fast forward a week. I am getting ready to jump into the shower before flying to Chicago for work. I pee, then wipe - and voila, blood. J is already at work so I calmly call him. We agree I should call Dr S in case I shouldn't travel. I do. He doesn't call back.

I calmly (I have been so fucking CALM lately) get dressed, cancel my car service, ask J to find a later flight for me, and board a bus for the city. 45 minutes later J and I are in Dr S's office. After a coffee break at Starbucks we head back, an hour later, and see Dr K, who has the bedside manner of a Nazi. What an ass. Anyway he immediately hears the beautiful heartbeat, now at 135 bpm, and says that I have a subchorionic hemmorhage, or tear around the placenta/sac. He shows us (like we can read those things) that the sac is surrounded by blood, and while the baby is fine, I am potentially not due to the blood thinners I am on. No one seems to know what causes these, tho a vanishing twin Buttercup can cause it.

He mentions that my already sky-high m/c risk is now higher (how high the moon?) and that I need to go on bedrest til Thursday, when we have a regularly scheduled appt with Dr S and his u/s wand.

I cancel my business trip and head home. To sit. And work from home. For three days. I sleep, I eat, I pee, I work, and I google subchorionic hemmorhage until I have a PhD in phlebotomy. So far all the sites have good news. Nothing to worry about. I will carry to term. Tis just a flesh wound.

Quick aside - for those of you who know me. you know bedrest is akin to doing math for me. I hate it. But this time it was nice. I was calm, quiet (no music, no TV) and relaxed. I sat up on the couch,working, sleeping, googling. No muss, no fuss. I think I was relaxing!

Fast forward to Thursday. I had been feeling major pressure on my cervix, like my insides were going to burst out in a "here's Johnny! - The Shining" way. Other than that no more blood. Tons of symptoms, feeling crappy, sleeping 12 hours a night. Life is good.

We wait for a long time in the cold exam room and Dr S finally comes in. He puts the wand in, J watching over his shoulder. He waits and waits and finally i say "just say something". He says he will when he has something to say.

Finally he speaks.

No heartbeat.

We lost it.

Who knows what happened. Was it the hemmorage? A genetic abnormality? Did the lovenox not work?

Whatever the reason that was m/c #3 and we are packing it up.

I am going into surgery tomorrow to become unpregnant and we are getting genetic testing to see what the holy fuck is going on. Not that is really matters because for now this uterus is closed. You don't have to hit me over the head more than 3 times before I stop trying. I am strong, I am invincible, but I ain't an asshole. Obviously I am not meant to have children. So I will stop trying, at least for now. And if we ever stop preventing, I will not go to the doctor every week and I won't tell anyone and for god's SAKE I will continue to harden my heart. If it can get any harder. Look at how glib I am being now. But deep down I don't feel glib at all. I feel empty.

I was fine. I cried a bit with J, and got teary when talking to Dr S about my surgery. I told him we expected it and weren't surprised, tho we were hopeful. I asked what caused it and heard the beautiful words "Who knows". JEsus why do we pay you people????? Figure it out! We can put a man on the moon but not keep a baby in my uterus?

I really lost it at the hospital, alone, later, getting pre-D and C blood drawn. Michael Moore really knows his shit cause I was shuttled from one room to the next, as they were moving offices. Finally I get in a small cubie with a woman who is Fantasticking her chairs. She tries to log in, can't, tries again, and walks off. Never talks to me. I hear her complaining to her cubie neighbor that she is NOT going to switch offices cause she already CLEANED her desk.

I burst into tears and said to the next woman who walked by "for christ's sake I just had a miscarriage can someone please help me?". Man can those hospital workers move quickly when need be. I was in and out in two minutes. No one likes to hear those words.

The saddest part was right as we were getting called to come in to Dr S's exam room I saw another couple come out. I recognized a fellow miscarrier. She was crying, tears streaked her face, he was comforting her and looking miserable and uncomfortable. She had on comfortable clothes and you could just make out the smallest bump. I heard later she was further along than we were (8w3d) so I can't imagine. She probably had started to bond with it and buy baby clothes and look at the Pottery Barn Kids catalog instead of burn it in effigy like I do.

It was all I could do to stop myself from walking over and hugging her, long and hard, and crying with her. And at that point I had no idea we had lost it. I just knew they had, and I knew how it felt. J told me to stop staring but I wasn't staring - I was trying to will her my empathy across the room. I wonder if she felt it.

I also saw another couple I had seen in there before getting treatment, with that "we're newly pregnant and isn't the world beautiful?" look. Like on their second or third ultrasound before the fear kicks in. I wanted to get up and smack her in the fucking ovaries and tell her to harden her heart! Take it down a notch! Stop beaming - it may be gone already! You will end up curled in a ball, crying!! But I didn't. She will find out on her own, I fear.

A quick request

2007-10-01T15:18:00.001-05:00

Please send good thoughts to my uterus. It needs it. Thanks.

Miracles

2007-09-24T12:34:00.001-05:00

A few things:

Dread Pirate is fine.

I will now return to silence about him.

Talk amongst yourselves.

I will give you a topic - my friend Y, whom you have heard about on this blog, had her beautiful baby boy, Matteos, last night - about 15 minutes before she was supposed to be induced. I guess she scared him right down the birth canal. I saw a pic and he is stunning! She is a star and we send much love to her, A and baby M. She called today and while she sounded tired, she sounded so happy. I hope to join her at some point in that feeling.

Fingers crossed!

The sun'll come out, tomorrow...

2007-09-23T20:16:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is a big day.

We have the DPR doctor's appointment. I am in denial and keep thinking of scenarios where he is ok, which is much nicer than thinking of the various things I will have to go through if he is not. I have actually been quite calm this weekend which makes me wonder if I am finally learning what it is like to leave control at the door. For the most part. Sort of.

Our birthmother already backed out - she found some couple locally. Huh. We are not even really upset because it didn't seem real and also they have ANOTHER one they want to present to us tomorrow. Either they are really into us and want to see us matched or they are dying to scam us out of money. We will talk to them tomorrow at 2:30 to hear about this other match.

We are really ok. I swear. I took a 2 hour nap today and plan to go to bed NOW (9:19 pm) because i am so tired and overwhelmed, but we are up for this. I think.

I told you this was a roller coaster. Glad you are along for the ride. As my friends K, L and C from the west coast know, tho, I fucking hate roller coasters.

Ok ready?

2007-09-21T07:58:00.000-05:00

So I haven't been writing not because nothing is going on but because everything is going on but I wasn't ready to share. Now I am. I am at work doing this (bad R!) so it will be short and to the point.

Good news: I got pg. Naturally. Like, no fertility, no IVF, nothing. Just good old fashioned marital relations (sorry Mom and Dad for the reminder that I have sex). Our reaction gave new meaning to shock and awe - we ended up taking a test in the Stop n Shop bathroom in Wayne, NJ after I had not started my period. And when it was positive we just looked at each other. I think my hands were shaking. And then a woman came in the bathroom and kicked J out.

I mean who knew we could do this the right way? Why did we spend thousands? I have some great nerve damage and pychic torture as a parting gift, right? So that makes up for it.

I am 6 weeks and 4 days today. Around there. Cause see, when you do it naturally you don't actually KNOW altogether.

The pregnancy was going swimmingly, actually. Betas rising, symptoms flowing. Tired, big boobs, some nauseau. My lovely sister is pg also and she came to visit last weekend and we took tandem pregnancy naps. It was awesome.

Til yesterday.

Bad news: Well, sort of bad news. Unfortunately I started spotting this week, and then my betas from yesterday did not rise like they were supposed to. They did rise, but not enough. We have an ultrasound Monday and are holding out hope but are also realistic enough to know that betas don't lie and unless something really kick starts in there, Dr S may have bad news for us on Monday. I am sending great vibes to Dread Pirate Roberts and hope you do too. We decided to call him that as we know I am uber-high risk and that at any moment this could go downhill. Every night we say "good night, sleep well, most likely kill you in the morning" (if you haven't seen Princess Bride go rent it). It is sick, yes, but we never said we were normal.

Yesterday I was very upset as I have done everything right. No sugar, taking my metformin, even shooting myself daily with blood thinners so that my motherfucker gene clotting issue doesn't hurt DPR. But, most m/c are unexplained and if this one goes down that path we probably won't know why. I am of advanced maternal age, so it could be genetic, or there could be something else going on.

BUT, we are staying positive - while I dread the physical pain I may have to undergo psychically I feel so blessed that GUESS WHAT I AM FERTILE! I AM FERTILE! I AM FERTILE! I made a sign and flew it from my balcony. Except I don't have a balcony or sign making kit. But I am metaphorically flying the Fertile Banner.

Now we have to fix the "staying" fertile problem.

Good news: AND then we got a call Tuesday night (as I was spotting and freaking out) that we were picked by a birthmother! She is in Florida and is about 16 weeks. Due date is in February. She has had two boys so we are expecting another one, but of course who knows.

Now, everyone. Realize that it is early. Realize she could change her mind, or her ex boyfriend could derail the process, or there are a plethora of things that could happen. However, we are cautiously optimistic enough that we are planning to allow the family to throw us a baby shower, we have a plan to start calling day cares, and we are actually talking about it as "our child". As in, some woman in florida is walking around gestating our child. We are so happy about this. And she is drug and alcohol free. Stay healthy, birthmom!!!

Phew. Ok I am out with it all. I am so glad to be able to share the drama that is our lives lately. I went to bed at 8 pm last night.

More Monday when we have more info.

Dread, we love you and want you to live.

Gestating adopted baby, we love you too.

Work Work Work Hello Boys!

2007-09-07T18:47:00.000-05:00

Not much going on here to share - just waiting. And working.

Worked my arse off this week - strategic planning for '08 and I sat in meetings from 8-6 every day. I ate enough goldfish and fruit salad to kill a normal human. If i have to look at another spreadsheet or pretend to give two shits about someone's growth plan for a certain account I will definitely barf up said goldfish and fruit salad. Worked late tonight and am finally done with the lack-of-work-life-balance week.

We are working with this adoption referral service called Bouncing.Babies and it is amazing! She calls us every few days with referrals - some of them are great and we ask her to present us, and others are a nightmare. Her first referral to us was triplets, if you remember. Her second was great and we asked her to refer us. Her third was a woman in a methadone clinic, which was not the issue, but the full open adoption complete with visits and requests for money was. Today was a 19 year old Native American woman in a drug treatment program who drank three times a week. No thanks.

So, things move forward. In strange ways.

I may not write in here as much until there is something I can talk about. The day to day details of my life are just not that interesting. Yet.

Off to bed. It is not even 10 pm.

Selfishness - its not just for breakfast anymore

2007-08-29T21:36:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking a lot about selfishness lately.

People always say that adoption is so selfless. That it is helping a child and wow, isn't that so nice of us?

Well, no. What's nice is that we get to be parents, something that we couldn't do on our own. We want a kid, we are trying to get a kid, and when we do get a kid, we will be happy. So really, adoption is about making US happy. Is that selfish? Sure! Do we hope the kid benefits too? Of course!

I have made reference to everyone being pregnant. Seriously, 3 of my best friends are pregnant right now. As I have said I am so happy for them, enjoy hearing their stories and like being close to people who are gestating. Having said that, I have found lately that the sharp edge of jealousy or dull edge of sadness tends to show up after a lot of time with bunches of pregnant people, so I have started to be more introverted, spend more time alone or with J, and sort of hide when I need to. Selfish? Definitely. But I am hoping in doing this I take better care of my pregnant friends and do not make them feel bad or take out my infertility on them. That would be unfair.

I am starting to regain my balance, meaning taking time for myself when I need to. This summer was a whirlwind of activity, with literally every night bringing a show, dinner, rehearsal, drinks or a movie with J or a friend. I had no time to myself and it started to show. Now I am turning down more and more offers, not because I don't like the people, but because I want to spend time at home. This week I cooked TWICE. That doubles the amount I have cooked, ever. And it wasn't mac and cheese. Once it was SCALLOPS. Seriously. Really. And J ate it! Sucker.

J gave me three months of yoga classes at a cool studio in NYC and I have been saying no left and right to make time to go to yoga 4-5 times a week. One, because I am cheap and want to make the most of the free pass. Two, because being centered in myself again, healthy, fit and calm are all good ways to weather the slings and arrows of the adoption wait. It is all about me.

Selfish? You bet.

But I don't think selfishness is an altogether bad thing. People I know with no boundaries tend to get taken advantage of, get mad, and then get passive aggressive. This causes hurt feelings, bad blood and a lack of communication.

I have recognized these things in myself and want to stamp them out.

So I plan to be healthily selfish. I plan to make time for myself, take care of myself so I can take care of others, and be honest about what I can and can't do, and will and won't do, so that I don't take it out on others if I feel like i am about to break. I have felt that way for almost a year and am so, so sick of it.

What have you done selfishly lately? Try it. You'll like it.

My list

2007-08-26T21:22:00.000-05:00

The NYT had an article on list making today and how it is the new hot thing: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/fashion/26list.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Here's my list:

Things to do while waiting for our fucking background check to clear:
1. Learn to cook
2. Take yoga 12 times a week to keep my tension level down
3. Not let our cleaning man be our once a month solution - that's nasty
4. Read Ayn Rand's 3 most famous books and that includes all the long diatribes on capitalism (shit she is boring)
5. Watch Burn Notice (it is SO GOOD and that Jeffery Donovan is hot hot hot)
6. Get a kitten
7. Convince J that it was a good idea to get a kitten
8. Return emails in a timely fashion
9. Populate my Facebook page with all kinds of super cool you know like stuff
10. Work really hard and make myself indispensable at work so that when I ask for 3 months off after less than a year they give it to me
11. Start searching home listings for real estate we can buy in 10 months
12. Sleep more

Gotta go get started. Lots of time to kill. Lots.

A mixed bag of triplets

2007-08-25T16:39:00.000-05:00

So i started up with the support chat rooms again. And it is great. I already have a new group of supportive folks waiting for their newborn domestic baby with me. One woman private messaged me with the name of some adoption faciltiators - who are women (usually) who have been touched by adoption somehow and who help match birthparents up with adoptive parents. They are not licensed and when a match happens you have to then involve your home agency to take care of the legal fees. You usually pay the faciliators around $1500 for placement fee, and the rest of the fees go back to your agency. They work across the US and have a good network that provides them constant leads.

Yes. It sounds sketchy. And there are some sketchy adoption facilitators. But 70% of all the US's adoptions take place through private adoption (an attorney finds you a birthmother) or facilitators. The key is, like contractors, to take steps to ensure the process is legit.

So I talked to one facilitator yesterday. She was great. Nice, asked me the same questions the agency did, etc.

And then she called me back at 7:30 last night and said that because we had said we would take multiples she had a birthmom with TRIPLETS in Oregon and were we interested?

Holy. Shit.

After we picked ourselves off the floor, had a few minutes of funny musings around the tri-stroller and tri-crib we would have to buy, we politely declined. But we felt full of hope - if this woman could match us before we were even done (we would be done by the time the bm gave birth of course) we won't have to wait long at all!

But wait.

First, adoption facilitators may not even be legal in NJ. We may have to forgo any of that and focus on only licensed agencies, which is more expensive and may mean a longer wait time. I emailed AM AD today to ask.

Oh, and as our social worker R left us today she mentioned that the background check would take up to two months. We have had our stuff in for only 3 weeks.

We got a long wait till we go live. Really long now.

So triplets, we say goodbye. Going live in the next 60 days or so, forget it.

I am officially stashing my "What to Expect in the First Year" away for the next few months as we wont be needing it.

And I think I have to take up a hobby to pass the time.

I am so dissapointed.

No, really, I'm happy for you

2007-08-22T21:50:00.000-05:00

Everyone is pregnant.

Everyone. If you are reading this, please run to the bathroom and take an HPT and I promise you it will be positive. Even if you are a man. Hell, even if you are a houseplant. I believe my cat, Jezebel, is currently pregnant and she doesn't even have a uterus anymore.

Here's the thing - I am happy for people. Really. Everyone has a journey and some people have the infertility (until now) one and others have this part easy and other parts hard. If the universe is abundant, there is no reason to begrudge anyone for what they have gestating in their uterus. This is not really about other people.

However, I am tired. Tired of being constantly reminded about my infertility by walking around this fertile and gestating city. Tired of being happy for others and not myself. Tired of having to tell myself it will be our turn soon (which we have no fucking clue about, one way or another - our birthmother is probably out there but we have NO CONTROL as to when she finds us). And mostly tired of the unending dull pain that is our infertility.

And you know what, adoption isn't the same. It isn't. I have wonderful people in my life who count me among the expecting and that makes me feel so, soo good and so accepted. I love it. And i lull myself into thinking I am. Sometimes my fingers lazily drift to my (semi) flat belly. I have moments of feeling normal again.

But at the end of our journey to become parents will be lawyers and social workers and potentially a badly upset, scared birthmother and a potentially fought-over and genetically unknown child. It is not the same. It is not bad, it is just not the same.

Our social worker tells us this often, that adoption is not the same, and we nod because we will say anything to get her to give us a baby, but you know what, she is right. That doesn't make it worse, it just makes it different. And we already feel different.

I compare it to a cut you get. And then while you are reaching for the car door or opening a can of soda it opens again, only this time worse. I feel like not being fertile is the deepest, grossest, nastiest cut I have ever gotten and I can't seem to get that band aid to stay on. I will be walking down the street, happy as can be, sun is shining, and someone walks by me with a giant belly, their fingers lazily stroking it, and I am thrust back into the pain a bit. But after all day of reopening the cut the pain is a bit worse and I want to go home and hide.

And you know what, I am not mad at "her" anymore. Others' fertility has no impact on my own. It just seems that we are the only people in the world who just couldn't make it work. The IVF never worked. The pregnancies never stuck. The rabbit never really died, but my two children did.

I know, rationally, that we are not alone. But it sure as shit feels that way sometimes.

Surf camp and parenthood

2007-08-19T20:40:00.000-05:00

As a hopeful parent to be I am lately fascinated by this thing called parenthood. I watch moms and dads with their kids and am amazed at the amount of sacrifice involved. As someone with no (living) children, to believe that one day soon I, too, will be using my bare hands to wipe snot off my kid or get up 10 times in one night to feed him/her or save enough money to keep me in spa treatments, in Manhattan, for the rest of my life, but instead use it to send Baby G to college, seems outrageous.

This weekend J and I went to the Hamptons with my sis's and bro's in laws to help my cool SIL run a surf camp for autistic children. It was, in a word, breathtaking. To see these kids face their fear of water, the life jacket, strangers, noise, whatever, and still go out and sit (and in many cases stand) on a surfboard was so, so beautiful. To watch little Isaac, who was maybe 4, go from screaming bloody murder about his mom letting go of his hand on the stairs to being dropped by a 5 foot wave (approximately 3 feet taller than he is) and come up laughing his cute little ass off was really moving.

What was also moving was the dedication these parents showed to their kids. We were literally there all day, and at 1 pm or so my niece and nephew (and husband, I may add) decided to bury me in the sand. A few of the surf camp children came up as well and joined in. There were maybe 5 kids there, and the level of affectedness and ability to interact was quite varied. But the one constant thing was their nearby mom or dad or both, guiding them, helping them interact, involving them in the process, or, in some cases, working alongside them in silence as a constant presence. None of the parents looked tired, or stressed, as I am sure they are. They just looked so happy to be there, on a sunny day, watching their children have fun.

I have a dear friend with a son who has autism and I read his blog faithfully. I would say religiously but I don't do anything with religion anymore. But I digress. Anyway, he and his wife have a 5 (?) year old who is autistic and they recently moved to a bigger city due to R's job, and the good news is they have a great program for his son. The amount of time and work these parents put in to provide T a great life is amazing, it is beautiful, and it is totally 100% normal for them. Meaning, this is their life. When T hugs his mom or sings, it is their favorite moment of the day.

People say having a child with any developmental disability is really hard, and I have to say I agree. However, every parent, regardless of where their child is on the growth, IQ or social skills chart, seems to get so much out of that child. I love that. I can't wait for that. And if we are blessed with a healthy child, great. And if over time something develops, we will do what my friend R, and millions of other parents with children that need help, do - we will make it happen for our child.

What a cool group to be a part of.

As I type this with my nicely manicured fingers which i have time to go and get, drinking a cup of tea I can sip at my leisure, about to go to bed for a solid 8 hours of sleep uninterrupted by the 2 am feeding, making plans with friends for dinners and shows, I say, bring it on. I am ready. I am ready to make it not all about me.

Do me a favor, readers? Print this and send it to me when our baby is about 3 months old. I have a feeling I may forget I wrote this.

All the news that's fit to piss me off

2007-08-15T21:45:00.001-05:00

Lately I have felt trendy. When I was a 30-something singleton in NYC, Sex and the City was all the rage and felt like everywhere I read was a reflection of my life.

When I was getting married, everyone was getting married! I read magazines that talked about me, lots of shows like Bridezilla and Celebrity Weddings and such were on the tube, and I was basically the center of the universe. Again.

Narcissa, thy name is R.

I feel the same way right now, only it feels less good.

There is a glut of recent articles in many local rags like the NY Times and NY Magazine about infertility, adoption and "non-traditional" parenting. Peggy Orenstein is an infertile who got fertile, and Rebecca Walker is a f-cking idiot whose mother's fame got her a book. They represent both sides of the debate around adoption and parenting and infertility. Peggy, regardless of her miracle baby at 43 or something (which is a false hope story if I have ever heard one, tho good for her), is a huge fan of infertiles and writes with care and concern. Rebecca Walker writes with her head up her arse.

In the middle is this chick: http://nymag.com/news/features/35817/. My supercool friend L sent me this and I read it a few times, swinging from the dizzying heights of self-satisfaction to the deepest depths of sadness and then over to my familiar hometown of defensiveness.

On the one hand, she shows the multiple ways people build their families and also talks semi-positively about transracial adoption and people who choose to adopt based on altruism rather than infertility. On the other she definitely makes snarky side comments about Madonna and Angelina Jolie and other celeb adoptive moms, while also seeming to show an utter lack of understanding as to why people adopt. Incredulousness seemed to be the major emotion in this article.

She also asks really broad questions like "Is adoptive parent love the same as biological parent love?", and then never answers it. And that is because it is a stupid question. Every parent's love is different. Every kid is different. And by the way, knock it off about biological children - that is a misnomer - every kid is biological. No one is adopting robots, tho of course that was the theme of last Sunday's NY Times Magazine. But this is not a robot blog. I digress.

The whole article seems to be more provocative than educational; more controversial by design than interesting. She said nothing, took 5 pages to do it, and left us with what I felt (next stop, Defensivenessland!!) was sort of a "I am writing about this but am WAYYYY too fertile to be a part of this" when she mentions offhandedly "when my child was born".

Some, most or none of you may agree with my take on this article. The point is I want someone to write something different. Let's hear some science. Someone do a study. I have been told that stats show that adopted kids score higher and lower on test scores. That adoptive kids are more and less well adjusted. Which is it, people?

Basically, writers, leave my life alone. Stop looking at my choices as being anything but the selfish need and want to parent a child. Stop making me feel bad for my choice to parent a trans-racial child. Stop looking down your nose at people who make different choices than you, either because they want to, or because they have to.

I will now get off my defensive high horse and resume reading entertainment mags that purport that "Stars Are Just Like Us!" Ah, sweet hypocrisy. I know you well.

Editor's Note: A quick wannabere shout out to Mrs Jones - Love you and am sending big happy thoughts your way...

I get by with a little help...

2007-08-14T15:40:00.000-05:00

I was thinking today about my friends. I talk a lot about my family here and how supportive they are - and I am so happy and blessed that that is the case. My parents talk about our future baby in the same tones as they do about my niece, which makes me so grateful.

But I also have some pretty rocking friends. First, my parents' dear friends, K and G, are our sage advisors, having adopted a Korean baby 20-something years ago. They send little emails or funny comments at the best times and make sure that we know we have them pulling for us in a way that someone who has not adopted cannot do.

I also have the lovely ladies of Oregon/California who email and call and let me know that they may be far away but they are thinking of us daily.

I was thinking about this because I spent Sunday with my friend Y, who took a day out of her 8th month of pregnancy to meet me for lunch and then to walk me around Buy Buy Baby, which is like a Home Depot of baby shit. Also, my friend R, who is 7 1/2 months pregnant, walked me around Babies R Us a few weeks ago. What these amazing ladies did is give me the straight skinny on what we might need, decisions we need to make, and what is available in the land of baby stuff.

This has been great for me as I have read everything and reviewed things and made lists and then totally freaked out because there is so much to know. I mean it is SO overwhelming out there. And unlike other things I have had to shop for, this is serious as making the wrong choice could hurt our baby. My god, what if I get the wrong car seat, with no head support,and my baby gets whiplash? What if I get the folding-side crib and baby G gets his or her fingers caught? Every decision is fraught with this idea that if you fuck it up you are basically Britney Spears.

So Y and R taking me by the hand, almost literally, and sharing with me their decisions and what to look for and which brands offer the best quality for the best value was, in fact, invaluable. J and I are ready to at least start thinking about maybe registering. Or at least he is willing to go to BBB with me and start to fgure out what we want and then find them online for cheaper.

I also have a great friend, L, who is preggers AND adopting who gives me books and articles about adoption and parenting that help me learn and grow. She turned me onto Peggy Orenstein and turned me off Rebecca Walker. All while gestating and doing a big job. Her interest in me and support of me has really, truly, made a difference.

I wonder how people without a giant network of support, which I feel blessed to have, ever get through this.

I also found out that if I am not at my job for 12 months I do not qualify for FMLA when Baby G shows up. So if he or she shows up before June 2008, which I hope s/he does, I may be having some very difficult conversations with my manager. But, I keep telling myself, a job is for now. A child is forever. Hopefully. I plan to go all Scarlett O'Hara on my own ass and say "Fiddledeedee, I won't think about this today, tomorrow is another day" and just move forward quickly on the materials and still hope that the process moves quickly. Even if it does cost me my job.

Fiddledeedee.

Pittsburgh is cool

2007-08-13T03:10:00.000-05:00

I am up at 4 am as I am traveling to Pittsburgh for work today. Not sure why I got up so early as my car pickup is not til 5 am, but whatever.

Lots moving forward here - we have finished gathering photos and feedback on our profile and will be sending it to the profile gods tomorrow night. It takes about 14 business days to get it formatted and made, and then we will up and ready to be selected!!! Our last home study is a week from Saturday - she takes about a week to write it up and then that will be done. All of our paperwork is ready to go except Jez's shots, which will be done a week from Saturday. After that, we are live!

Saw a new doctor to get my adoption physical. She was nuts. She is an Eastern/Western doc whichI thought I would love as I thought hell, maybe she can fix me up with a homeopathic remedy as well as modern treatment, but instead she spent most of my appointment asking me about my infertilty, telling me I was "weird" and "unusual" for having the genetic mutation AND PCOS, then telling me to pray to God for help with my infertility. Huh? She also had pamphlets in all kinds of languages all over her office about how god can cure you. Double huh? I of course being me informed her I was an atheist and she then redoubled her efforts to get me to be in touch with God and pray to refind him. I was tempted to search for "atheist" on dictionary.com on my blackberry to show her that in fact being one meant you don't actually BELIEVE in god, but instead finally said "can you please finish the exam as I have to get back to work?". I was there an hour but 45 minutes was religious haranging. Jesus. Literally.

We also had a 2 hour call with A, our Adoption Counselor. She went over our Planning Questionaire in great detail, telling us how our answers measured up in terms of what they usually find. The fact that we are willing to do transracial, specifically Latino, bears out well for us as that is vast majority of the birthmothers they see. J is thrilled as he loves Latino culture and would love the chance to parent a Latino baby. I was just thrilled as I thought she was going tell us we were 3948609380965 years out from getting a baby as we were too stringent. In fact just the opposite happened, she really was positive and supportive and told us we looked great.

I want to find out how I can check on wait times - AA says it is 3-9 months in our particular type of adoption - but I wonder if that is BS and really it is 3 years but they don't want to scare us off.

There was a question in our weekly newsletter about stay at home moms versus working moms and attractiveness to birthmothers. The adoption counselor gave the "well lots of different birthmothers want lots of different things" answer but I wonder if the fact that I work will hurt us.

In fact we sent our profile to a few friends who gave GREAT feedback on small areas we could clarify and tweak and a few mentioned that our jobs sounded very "busy" and that we may want to focus less on our seniority and more on the fact that both of us have a lot of flexibility in our work. We talked at length about this, totally agree with the feedback, and are doing just that, but it feels shitty that we have to play DOWN our careers rather than celebrating the fact that we both have been lucky and successful. Society sucks. But, they are 100% right - we don't plan on having our child care raise our baby and want to show that we are able to be flexible and be home more often. Sigh. I never thought the only glass ceiling I would hit would be in my ability to be seen as a good mom.

Lately there has been some epidemic of people in my life getting pregnant. I have felt sad, happy, jealous, mad and thrilled for these folks but wonder if at any time I will ever truly get over the pain and if it will stop hurting. I hope so.

Must take shower and go fly to beautiful downtown Pittsburgh. Remember when Sienna Miller called it Shitsburgh? Huh. Will keep that in mind.

Fingerprints and cop cars

2007-08-06T19:24:00.001-05:00

So this fingerprinting thing, needed to start the adoption background check, has been a clusterfuck.

As you well remember last time we tried to go J didn't have all of our paperwork and I maturely melted down.

This time it got much more interesting.

A bit of background - we flew in on the red eye this morning from Miraval, an amazing spa in Arizona. We earmarked this half day off (I had to be in at 1, and J had to be in as soon as he could) to get our fingerprints, thus starting our lengthy background check. J also planned to get some car stuff done as our registrations had lapsed. Also, due to an unpaid parking ticket he never got in the mail as they sent it to his long ago address, his NJ license was suspended. Which was fine, as he had a perfectly good NY one and had no idea that his NJ one was an issue. Since he TURNED IT IN over 2 years ago.

So we are merrily jetting along on 1/9 today, on our way and on time. Birds are singing, the sun is shining and we are moving quickly.

Too quickly. A Newark cop pulls out and immediately pulls us over for doing, well, shall we say, above the speed limit.

I look at J and say "oh shit, we may be late" and he says "nah, we'll be fine".

Fast forward to J being hauled out of the truck, with the ignition off, the keys in the nice inner-city, murder-capital-of-the-world cop's hands, as we have a lapsed registration and a suspended license. J is frisked and summarily thrown in the back of the cop car.

At this point we had already known this may take some time as the cop told us that he couldn't let us drive off with a lapsed registration and suspended license, so we called fantastic Bro in Law S to pick us up on the side of freeway like so much road meat.

Once J was, shall I say, escorted rather brusquely to the back of a goverment issue I called S again. At this point, no one was laughing. Cop comes back to tell me i have to wait in the truck until the tow truck shows up. Then he would take J and me to Newark's Penn Station (get your own train station name, Newark!! Stop stealing New York's!) where we could catch a train back home.

Soon J comes back to our hot car with 100 pieces of paper, each representing a small down payment on a house, that we will have to pay to get our car back. Then the tow truck shows up and we have to go back into the cop car.

Ever been in the back of a cop car? The seats aren't padded! It is just hard plastic, the better to throw you off when he turns corners and I am sure clean up when you puke/bleed/whatever. At one point bad cop also got tired of waiting for red lights, probably wanting to be rid of the yuppie couple (I asked him if I could bring my latte into his car!) who were too "busy" to manage their car issues, and turned the sirens on to get through a few of the longer ones. Now that is a trick I can get behind.

He also had this giant touchscreen computer right by his steering wheel that had, on the screen, a bunch of scary looking names and crimes. It also had our names in giant print saying "HIT" (meaning our registration had pulled a hit on VICAP or whatever) and, and I swear I am not kidding, a floating icon of the Genie from Aladin in the upper right corner of the screen, assumedly to be his "guide" through the police databases of Newark. It was like the paperclip you click on when you need help in Microsoft Word. Only his was.a.genie. In a bottle.

I had, and I am not exagerrating, 8754757497594 questions for him. Had he shot anyone? Seen a murder? Booked a druggie? Was Newark as dangerous as everyone says? Why a cop in Newark and not, say, Maplewood where he would cut his own mortality rate by over 75%? Did he use his gun much? How fast had he gotten his car up to?

Instead I sipped my skim decaf latte and kept quiet.

After being dumped at Penn Station (the OTHER one) while a group of commuters and some of Newark's more colorful crew stared, S pulled up, like our hero, and picked us up.

Where he drove us to the fingerprinting place and we got it done.

Goddamn fingerprints.

I Dream of Baby

2007-08-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

My sister in law is cool. She and her husband adopted a baby 2 years ago and have really been our guides through this, and Sunday we went over there for dinner and they told us their story, start to finish, with no details left out. We loved it. It was more detail than we had heard and their honesty, courage and joy was really beautiful.

One of the things she says is that she knew her baby was out there. She felt him, and was ready to get him when the time is right. She knew he had been conceived and was waiting for them.

Me? Not so much. I have been waiting for that "feeling" - the one that says our baby was conceived. All J and I do is sit around hoping some condom is breaking somewhere with a 4-star hotel and Diapers R Us nearby.

Last night I had my first baby dream.

The baby was, to be honest, more a mini version of our nephew J. He looked and sounded like J, and in fact was a mere newborn but was walking and talking like J (mostly saying yukky and potty). I remember thinking it was weird, like we had adopted another J - as the real life, older one was around in the dream as well.

I now wonder if that was my brain processing that we are, in fact, adopting a baby J -meaning a wanted, loved and desired baby that will come to us. Our own version of J, just for us.

It wasn't earth shaking, but it was the first time I had dreamt of our baby. I hope he or she comes back and that he or she starts to take some form that is unique to them. I cant wait to see.

Paperwork Paperwork Paperwork Paperwork Paperwork

2007-07-30T19:19:00.000-05:00

Guess what we have been doing?

WRONG! We have been fighting.

See, J and I usually get along fantastically.We are not the Bickersons and seem to actually be on the same wavelength most times. However, something about adoption paperwork makes us communicate like crap.

Anyway, so after R2s visit we realized we had many more things to do than we thought. Cat immunizations, supplemental life insurance forms, etc. So we begin to pull it together. Saturday morning we get up at the crack of my ass (sorry some sorority sister taught me that saying) to go to the fingerprinting place, where J has made an appointment and been responsible for all the documents. J casually mentions that he can't find this one piece of paper and oh well, it's fine, as he filled it all out on line and he is sure they have it. I get a bit nervous as we made this appointment literally weeks in advance.

So we get to this lovely, cozy fingerprinting place (picture a fax machine, ugly carpet, signs stating all kinds of scary things and a radio BLASTING Beyonce) and realize that yes, we need that form. Goddamit. I cannot take work off right now as they are totally getting that pound of flesh from me each day - meetings from 8 am til 6 am is the norm. J feels bad and I am really pissed but trying to be nice. I sort of succeeded. But mostly didn't. I am not nice, right?

We then go to the DMV to renew our registration and get new, NJ licenses (I will NEVER give up my NY one!! NEVER!!! BWAAHAAAHHAA!). Once there, as the atmosphere is tense, we go to separate lines, one the DL line and one for the registration.

I have no idea what the deal is and what I am suppoesd to do but J says call me if you get to the counter and I will come over. I get to the counter, call him, and he doesn't answer. I stammer "uh, I am not sure what i need" and tell the person behind me to go. I call J again. Turns out he is in the bathroom. That seemed egregious to me.

We finally get to the front and the woman says we need to get our DL before we can register. Except we never checked to see what type of ID we need, and once again, we have to leave empty handed.

I am furious at this point. J is also mad, at himself, but also at me because as you know, I do not suffer in silence.

Let's just say the 3 hour drive to the Hamptons was alternately chilly, then explosive.

Fast forward to Sunday night when we calmed down until we found a packet of paper I thought J had mailed. I exploded again and he did right back, saying he is not the boss of adoption paperwork and why didn't I send it in?

Touche.

Lastly, today we had a miscommunication about going to the bank to get something notarized. He showed up at 12. I had a meeting til 12, which I thought i told him, and so showed up much later. He was literally holding the notary hostage so she wouldn't go to lunch. He was pissed at me. And I at him.

But then we had lunch and laughed and decided that from now on, we will only communicate about adoption via notes, and with our lawyers present.

Home visit

2007-07-27T21:11:00.000-05:00

Wow. I am really drained. It just hit me that I spent every waking minute this week with lots of people and frantic.

Home visit went great - R2 is really nice and stayed for about 2 hours - she asked us basically the same questions we answered on our application but I think she wrote more her opinions of our answers and paid less attention to the answers themselves. I am a crack interviewer after the last job hunt and based on her body language and her manner I think we did great.

She laughed when she saw our references as our friend R and she share a name, she mentioned that they even spell it the same and I told her we took that as a good omen.

After the questions she took a tour of the house with us and talked a lot about how beautiful it was. She gave us some suggestions around babyproofing and asked for a few things (life insurance form from my work and Jez's shot record) that we need to get for her, but overall said we are "in great shape" and " have a really good mindset" about adoption.

She is quite young but also seems very on top of it, we like her and think we would be friends with her. We at least look forward to our next home visit, which is August 25th. This time she stays for 3-4 hours, interviews us separately and together, asks a ton of questions and basically gets real nosy. We should have everything she needs at that point.

The only sort of annoying news was that our background check takes awhile and doesn't even start until our fingerprints are done, which is tomorrow. It can take weeks. That may put us back, but not by much.

Our plan is to have our profile 100% ready so that when she says "ok, you are approved" we can hit send and go live ASAP. She warned us around wait times and I am starting to think we may have quite a wait. More families are considering adoption right now than is usual. I have always been trendy, right?

J and I went to dinner after and picked at each other all dinner, probably from exhaustion. We are both firing on more cylinders than we ever have before (good practice for parenthood) and our slip is starting to show.

Thank you to everyone who emailed and checked in today, I will think of more details i am sure but right now I have a date with Harry Potter and my big fluffy bed. Hey, that should be the next book.

To everyone I said I might call, I'm not. You don't want to talk to me now. I am incoherent.

Next up - document compilation and home study #2!

So much to talk about

2007-07-27T14:42:00.001-05:00

The home study is tonight and the cards, well wishes and flowers (well, well wishes at least) are flowing in. The amount of support is lovely.

I am excited but also looking forward to this whole process being over, and having our baby home.

To that end, I have to admit that the first thing I did when I got the new HarryPotter was to read the last chapter. Yes. I am that person. I wanted to know what happened at the end so that I could enjoy the journey. J feels opposite - he believes knowing the end spoils the journey. How are we married? Anyway I am not proud but I don't lick it off the ground - my sister and my father did the same thing and we didn't even check with each other.

I want to know the end of my adoption journey. Why doesn't this come in book form?

I spoke with Dr NoBedSideManner, She-Who-Cannot-Communicate (sorry, I have Harry on the brain) and I do NOT have abnormal homocysteine levels. So no pills or precautions needed! I am really glad - and now can forget about it.

Will write an update tonight on The Visit. Expect to be let down - I think it is only an hour. The next one is the really big one with psychological questions and separate rooms for me and J and such.

Reading is Fundamental

2007-07-25T20:52:00.001-05:00

Just got Harry Potter, five goddamn days late.

Can't talk. Reading.

Will R2 think it is rude if I read while she is here?

Bye.

Home study cleanup begins

2007-07-23T21:06:00.001-05:00

First day back at work since vacation and holy crap it was nuts. I had one of those days where just keeping it together is success. I am not used to the pace at this place and managing the day to day and strategic at the same time - it takes a lot for me to say I am overwhelmed, but, there you go.

After the gym tonight (Idaho has fattening food) I came home and we started House Cleanup 2007 as the home study worker, R2, is coming Friday night now! She called and said something came up and did I mind moving our date? Uh no. Actually I did mind as we had plans with some of our favorite friends but I am sure as shit not going to tell her that. "Yes, Um, R2? We planned to drink wine and eat late so I am sorry that night isn't going to work for us. And yes, we plan to spank our child".

So tonight it was cleaning my office, otherwise known as the Room Where Paper Goes to Die. I had shit everywhere, including under the bed. I cleared it all out and put it away and sort of organized it. I then cloroxed every surface so that it smells nice and looks shiny as that is the future nursery and I know she will be going in there.

In other news we got my insurance card so are officially done with our adoption planning questionaire. We also received most of our reference letters from our dear friends. We have our fingerprinting this weekend. All that's left is the remainder of the letters and our profile pictures, which we have but need to organize. I think we will make our Sept completion deadline with, oh, a month to spare.

In not so great news the current edition of the adoption newsletter we get from our agency said that adoptive families are at an all time high, which is good in that it draws birthmothers but bad in that we have a lot of competition. I am hoping our favorite quotes from Dodgeball and Wedding Crashers will help us stand out. I mean I think we are interesting and unusual and will raise some funky cool kids but that may not come out in the 10 page profile. Once it is live I will let you know so you can judge for yourself.

I am breaking out like a 15 year old. That is because I actually ovulated again this month, which is an all time record for me - two months in a row! I guess the metformin is doing something besides making me sick.

Breakouts are fitting as my high school reunion was this weekend. J and I told a few folks about our adoption and low and behold two good friends of ours are also adopting and another good friend and his wife had fertility issues and are considering living child free. Just goes to show you, we are out there. Like the X files. The XY files?

I-da-Ho

2007-07-19T10:44:00.001-05:00

We are here in smalltown USA visiting my folks and awaiting the start of my 20th high school reunion. So far it has been a fantastic trip - our time in Oregon was amazing - great friends to see, great weather for the most part (an anomaly there) and really fun times. In fact my last night there I got teary wondering if we should move back there - I am in the same "space" as my other friends there (starting a family, looking for a nice place to live, wanting a simpler life) and it would be so great to go back there, buy a beautiful house, get an easier job and have our kid grow up with tons of friends.

And then it started to rain.

And i remember why we left :)

Anyway I love those guys out there so much and really want to make an effort to go there more often to connect with them.

So, yesterday my folks had some of their friends over to see us and it was so, so nice. Everyone was very interested in the adoption and our good friend K and G, who have an adopted grown daughter, came as well. Everyone else left and I was able to ask my ugly, dirty questions of them and their answers comforted and soothed me. There is something about having people who have "been there" talk to me about their experience that makes me feel much better.

Today we are heading to larger town north of my hometown to ostensibly go jet skiing and boating but it is rainy and cold so we will just go up and see the water and eat out in a nice restaurant and then come home. It has been 90 degrees and sunny here for like 6 weeks and we show up and it pours. Maybe it is us. Anyway, we don't care.

Being here and what it brings up in me could fill 100 psychiatric journals. It is so weird to be somewhere you grew up, with your new husband and new life, and try to reconcile the two. I really like it though and it reminds me how lucky we are. If someone had told 10 year old R what my life would be like I would never have believed it.

One week til the home study! Man we need to get cleaning.

It's Tired Out

2007-07-13T22:35:00.000-05:00

Once again I am blogging the night before a trip - this time to the west coast for a few days in Oregon and then my 20th high school reunion in SmallTown Idaho where I was raised. I am really looking forward to both parts of my trip, and taking J home with me. He has been, of course, but it is always 40 degrees and raining when we go and now he gets to see both places in full sunny hot thank you gw bush for your shitty climate control weather.

A quick vent - Nicole Richie. Pregnant. That skinny drug addled bitch? And I'm not. Pregnant, that is.

Done now.

So SWR (social worker R) is coming over July 28!!!! This first visit will probably be her tour through our home and feedback on anything we have to change. We will also "get to know each other" which hopefully won't be so hard as I build relationships for a living, and she seems cool. 12, but cool.

Most of our stuff is together - we are waiting on my insurance card for the initial Adoption Planning Questionnaire, and for the home study packet we are missing that as well. Next up the Saturday after she comes is our fingerprinting, and then the final home study (there are two total). After that, we send in our Adoption Profile (sort of like match.com for unwed mothers) which is almost done. I spent a few long nights writing our answers to the 100 intrusive questions and J edited and added his special sauce. We are ahead of the game with that and will have it turned around quickly once we get the rest out of the way.

Once the profile is in, we wait. And wait. And I can only hope that the quickness with which the rest of it has happened will continue.

Gotta go pack. Must look my best for the reunion, if no other reason than to draw people's eyes away from the fact that I am sure I am the only person there without kids. Yet.

2007-07-07T19:15:00.000-05:00

No title again today. F'ing blogger.

So this morning I mention to J that we really need to get in gear and clean our house up so that our future social worker won't declare our house unfit for parenting and leave us with no choice but to move and start all over.

We are not Miss Havisham, with papers and mice and dust, but we are a bit lax in the cleaning and clutter department. We have a cleaning man whom we love but he comes once a month and we don't, er, do anything in between. Anyway, J says "we are MONTHS from a home study, no rush" in his typical "R is a freak let me play Playstation" way.

Then, 5 minutes later, he leaves to do some errand and I check the messages.

We have a call from a young, perky social worker named R (she has the same name as one of our dear friends so that is good sign, right? right? c'mon help a sista out) who says "Hi! I am your social worker - your adoption agency called and I wanted to set up your first home visit!

Holy. Shit.

I immediately start rearranging our bookshelf (?) which is chock-a-block with Stephen King, Tom Clancy and other top notch literary genuises. I put our adoption and infertility books front and center, sort of a "look, we are educated, we would be great parents cause we can read about parenting". And after I get all that done I think, what am I doing? Like she will say "these guys can't be parents because all the spines aren't facing the same way."

I calm down a bit and remember to call J, who is in line to get our truck inspected, and tell him that a. he was wrong and b. holy shit get home so we can immediately take apart Casa G, install baby gates, paint the nursery and start vacuuming under the bed.

Instead he comes home and calls Social Worker R back and leaves a message with his best "i would be a great dad" voice.

She hasn't called back yet.

I wanted to call 100 more times but J thinks stalking our social worker is not a good way to start off.

Instead we went hiking today and talked about our thoughts around spanking, day care and college for our child. We talked about our marriage and our lives and what was coming next.

And all I could do was picture us, next summer, on this same hike, with J and our future baby in a baby bjorn.

I can't wait.

Bring it on, Social Worker R. I will wow you with our book spines.

2007-07-06T22:58:00.000-05:00

For some unknown reason I can't post a title today. WTF?

So my title is: A Woman Outstanding in Her Field

Here's the question - how do you make your adoption profile stand out? I consider myself a pretty good writer in that I can spell and took grammar and have some HELLA English genes with my folks as, well, my folks. But when I put finger to keypad to create our adoption profile what comes out is the same shit everyone else writes.

Dear BirthMother, thank you for considering us. You must be overwhelmed. We promise to love your child and kiss its boo boos. We have money we will spend on pony rides and cheerleading uniforms. We will watch their soccer games which are really more like visual representations of anarchy, only slower.

Blah blah.

We have to literally answer 100 questions on our favorites and how did we meet and tell us about your pets and home and do you like your family and what do you like about each other and and and

And it just goes on.

And when I write it, and then check my work against all the other folks with profiles on the adoption agency site I realize, if I were a birthmother I would post 10 of these suckers and throw a dart as we ALL LOOK THE SAME. Same cheesy couple picture. Same obligatory family wedding picture that shows that we all still talk to each other. Same honeymoon shot in Hawaii or Italy or Indonesia (well, that's us). And same trite words that try to hide our desperation.

EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHOSE PROFILE I HAVE READ IS INFERTILE

Who knew? Who knew I had so many sisterfriends all over the country (most in my least favorite state, Ohio)?

So I ask, kind reader - J and I are cool folk. We live in a cool urban place. We have cool jobs. We are going to be cool parents. So how can we draw the birthmother's eye in a good way? How can we stand out? And no, swearing is not an option. We did, however, use Dodgeball and Wedding Crasher quotes in our "favorite quote" section. That might do it.

A word from our sponsor

2007-07-02T21:42:00.000-05:00

Just in case we thought the pain was over, a quick station break this weekend reminds me that what we went through was not that long ago.

Not sure what set me off. I spent all day Sunday with two friends and their 6 month old. That could've been it. Or the fact that the last infertile blogger friend left whom I read (tho don't know personally) just found out she was pregnant. Maybe it is the plethora of happy, glowing pregnant ladies who traverse the streets of Manhattan every day, absently rubbing their bellies and glowing in their fertile way. I am not sure. Whatever the reason, I am in a funk.

I am still very, very sad that I will never be pregnant again. I am still very, very sad that J and I won't ever get to have the "he has your eyes" or "she smiles like you" conversation. I still feel the loss and pain of two failed pregnancies - when I allow myself to think about it it is almost too much to bear that I would be 7 months pregnant right now. I feel like my pregnant fairy, who watches over women and their fetuses, is on permanent vacation or perhaps got fired. All around me gestating is going on and I am empty

J doesn't want to cycle again right now. And I agree with him. And in fact that means maybe not ever, because once we get into adoption wait mode it is just wrong to cycle. I am half sad and half glad - sad because it was my last hope for pregnancy and glad because I can't imagine going through it again. I completely respect and understand his feelings and have some of them myself. I am so conflicted about it I dont even know how the hell I feel right now.

I also feel angry - and worried that if I did cycle right now it would be from some weird spite that I feel towards the fates or whatever. I would not be cycling for the right reason. I would be doing it to tell the world to fuck off - that I will not lie down and let this wash over me. Yet here I am, letting it wash over me.

I do want to be a parent, but I also wanted to experience pregnancy. I want to feel everything in life and missing out on this is a big deal to me.

Mostly I feel scared. Scared that I will feel like a parental imposter my whole life. That others won't feel I am a "real" mom. More scared that I won't feel like a real mom. It's like when i take a walk with my niece - if people stop and tell me "your daughter is so cute!" i immediately say "she's my niece" so that no one thinks i am posing. Like they care! I wonder if i will say "oh thanks, you know I didn't birth him/her" because I will feel like they are thinking that anyway. This is an awful feeling that biological parents never have to face - no one will doubt your baby is your own. What if i doubt it?

I imagine being at the playground with our kid, hiding out from the other moms because i won't want the questions. Sneaking into babies r us in the middle of the night because I don't want people to say "Oh, are you shopping for a friend?" when looking at my semi-flat stomach. Staying on the sidelines in mommy conversations because I won't feel like I had earned a place. It is ridiculous, but it is how I feel.

I am reading "Secrets of an Adoptive Mother" and crying through the entire book - it is the rawest look at adoption yet. She asks the questions that you think but never say. Will the birthmother change her mind? Why don't I love the kid yet? Will I ever love him? Will the fact that he is 10 shades darker than me mean he is rejected by whites and blacks? Will my family treat him like their flesh and blood and not like an imposter? She asks these things and it is hurtful and hard and I cry everytime I open the book. But thank god someone wrote that book instead of the happy rainbows and puppies shit that most books say. Adoption is hard and it is scary and it is lonely. And sometimes it doesn't work out well.

The worst is that my friends and family are nothing but supportive. I am the one with doubts. Everyone else seems so sure that we will love the baby unconditionally from the moment we see it. That we will never look back. That we will never miss having our own biological child. That I will get over what happened and move on. I am the one who doubts these things. And that is a very lonely place to be.

The Blog That Time Forgot

2007-06-30T07:53:00.001-05:00

I am so sorry. I have been really busy with the following: vacationing, starting my new job, flying to Vegas for a lameass conference, getting the flu, getting a cold, and getting a stye in my eye. That last thing isn't really that time consuming, truth be told, but I wanted to mention it. Anyway, it has been wayyyy too long since I wrote in here and I miss it!

Things are chugging along. Work wise I started my new job and I really like it. I have an ASSISTANT (for the first time in my life) who manages my calendar (which is weird as she wrote me the other day, "You are going to Xanadu???" totally apropos of nothing) and answers my phone. She even offered to get me coffee but I informed nicely that her my arms and legs were not painted on. She is lovely and I feel totally undeserving and like a giant imposter, like in some meeting where big wigs are talking they are going to suddenly all turn to me and say "Holy shit, we made a mistake, you are like 10 and used to wear Shaun Cassidy pants and cannot possibly be our senior HR person!". All told though i do not miss my old job and think I made the right choice.

Fertility wise we saw the hemotologist who got no points for bedside manner (she was so shy I thought we could make her cry in about 10 minutes) but who did test me for some other crap that will determine if i need to medicate for clots when I get surgery or fly or some shit. Does this end? Everytime she said 'MTHFR' gene J and I sniggered. Heh heh. Mother fucker gene. Heh heh. As one of my hometown friends wrote, "what's next, the WTF gene?". So I call Dr ScaredyPants in 10 days to find out about these other levels. She did say that if we cycle again it is Lepronex for me right after retreival and up until potentially 6 weeks AFTER the kid is born. Shots. Every night. Forever. Or it will seem so.

We talked last night (me and J, not me and Dr SP) and think that we may be the perfect example of hope over experience and cycle again in Nov or Dec. Three was J's magic number and we feel like maybe one more time might truly allow us to breath and believe we gave it that old college try. I am starting to warm to the idea, if for no other reason than with this MF gene knowledge maybe we can stop the madness? Or not. And not to say that the miscarriages are getting easier, but, well, the last one was because it was so early. Its like I have been through hell so in going back we at least know what to expect if we get there.

In adoption news we are chugging along, the home study paperwork is done and sent in, and the Planning Questionairre with the Dark Nights of the Soul questions about what race of child we would take and the medical issues we would accept is almost ready to go too. We needed to get some insurance info about my new coverage which we got. Today we are speaking to a friend's partner, who is a Pediatrician, to get the medical info and then we are golden. Once those go off we will get the home study packet which probably has 32857932875837 additional forms we need to get. We are scheduled to do the fingerprinting at the end of July, and will need to start on the adoption profile (sort of our match.com profile for birthmothers) soon. Once all that is done, we are live!!!

Last night J and I stayed up and made a list of baby names we like. So fun. We laughed a lot but also found a nice list of girls and boys names that we agreed on and so now we will just wait and see what our kid looks like to make a decision. We are starting to get excited and also realizing this is real. Guys, we may actually be parents sometime in the next 12 months!

Ah ha!!!

2007-06-08T07:43:00.000-05:00

Had my RPL with Dr S yesterday and sort of to my positive surprise there was something wrong!

I am positive for the MTHFR mutation. (Is it just me or does MTHFR look like a shortened word for MotherFucker? Shall we call it that?). What this means is that I have a blood clotting disorder that puts me at a higher risk factor for heart disease and blood clots (to what extent I have no idea but I am starting to take baby aspirin every day just in case). The MF mutation has also been tied to early pregnancy loss - my blood is too thick and it is possible that the fetus doesn't get enough to survive.

He was very clear that while this issue CAN cause m/c, it may not be the full reason for my two...though he wants me to go to a hematologist to get a sense of what the protocol would be if we did decide to cycle again. This is a treatable issue - it would require that I start on a blood thinner like Heparin right after retrieval to start thinning my blood so that the transfer would be supported. Heparin is a subcutaneous shot, in my gut, and it easy. Thank god.

Here is some more info from some webpage by Dr Steph.an Mo.ll:
MTHFR stands for Methylene-Tetra-Hydro-Folate-Reductase. MTHFR is an enzyme, which we all have in the cells of our body. It is needed to metabolize and get rid of homocysteine. High homocysteine levels are a risk factor for blood clots in the veins (DVT, PE) or arteries (heart attack, stroke, arteriosclerosis). Some people have a variant of this enzyme, which is called "thermolabile MTHFR" or C677T MTHFR. (My note: I have this particular mutation) It is due to a single mutation of the MTHFR gene. This variant does not metabolize homocysteine as well as the normal MTHFR enzyme, and blood homocysteine levels in individuals with this variant enzyme may, therefore, be slightly higher than in individuals with the normal enzyme.The MTHFR mutation is extremely common:
44 of the population have the normal enzyme
44 % are heterozygous for the mutation (i.e. have 1 variant gene). These individuals have some normal enzyme and some of the thermolabile variant of the enzyme.
12 % are homozygous for the mutation (i.e. have 2 variant genes). All of these individuals' enzyme is the thermolabile variant.

So I am special. Only 12% of the population have it. Wow I feel so lucky.

Seriously tho, I am so glad something turned up - at least we know what we are dealing with. And I feel 4% more positive that if we cycled again we may have success. Man, tho, can you say SHOTS??? I would be taking multiple a day. Is that really worth it?

I also spoke with the Adoption agency yesterday, they got our stuff. Because we are in NJ and they are certified to do home studies in NJ they said it would go quickly.

Hooray!

Checking in

2007-06-07T07:54:00.000-05:00

Today is my last day of work so this will be short - I am running around packing and saying goodbye. Not sure how I feel, a combo of sadness and relief. This place is whack.

I leave on Saturday to see my niece in LA and I am so excited. She is learning to sing now, and sings the "falling down, falling down" part of London Bridges over and over again. She also calls every older woman "gamma" thinking it is my mom. I love her so.

J and I just sent in our adoption application with the first of many checks. We basically just sent in our intention to adopt and now get the homestudy application which will take a few months to put together. We saw a sample one last night and almost threw up - it is so much info. It is dreadfully unfair (I promise not to say this often) that adoptive parents must list every illness, every problem, have a physical, get background checks and fingerprinted, and get references from a million people, and biological parents just have to have sex. Sigh. Anyway we are excited to get started. And some of you will be getting phone calls from us to provide references about the fact that we are crime-free,

Very close family friends sent us a book on adoption written by someone from my small, small hometown who is an adoption expert and is cited in many of my books. The best part is their two beautiful kids (one biological and one adopted from Korea) are on the front! I can't wait to read the book, and we so, so appreciated the gift. These two will be guiding us through this process as they went through it over 20 years ago. I feel like we have so many guardian angels through this, just yesterday I spoke with a co-worker in LA who mentioned to me that her sister's three kids are adopted, and she has hooked me up with her sister to be able to talk and share stories. My bff from grad school also offered up a few people to talk to. Our cup runneth over!!!

J and I are looking forward to focusing more on our relationship through this - infertility has many hidden costs and one of them is that sometimes the relationship between married people can suffer when both parties turn inward. We are connecting very well now and communicating fantastically about everything, and I am so, so thankful that he is so embracing of adoption and so excited. He will be a wonderful dad.

We do see the RE today to get the results of my RPL panel. Part of me doesn't give a crap anymore, if I never cycle again I will be fine. Not to say we won't, but right now adoption is #1 on our list.

I will blog from LA I am sure!

Some amazing stuff

2007-05-30T12:04:00.000-05:00

Yes I am posting from vacation but that is because my hubby is sleeping to beat the band, he is so tired, and his laptop was waiting there, all set up, looking lovely.

I finished "Adoption After Infertility" - what a f'ing great book. The author is an expert - she is an IF with three adopted kids, and even tho the book is 13 years old it is so resonant. I learned quite a bit, some of which I wanted to share with you:

Positive adoption language - this is a newer way of talking about adoption that is designed to help solve some of the ancient issues that have plagued adoptive kids and parents forever. Basically, there are a few changes to the way people talk about it. For example, the correct term is "birthparent" - not "natural mother" or "real mother". There will be nothing more real than J and I walking the floors in the middle of the night with our sick child or going to their musical recital, walking them down the aisle, being at their graduation,etc.

The birthparent "makes an adoption plan", she doesn't "give the baby up" or "surrender the child". In a legal adoption no one is forced into anything and the adoption plan must be in the best interest of the child.

Never ask an adoptive parent if they "have children of their own" as it minimizes the legal and emotional relationship between parent and child, and reinforces that children are chattel to be owned.

Telling adoptive parents "now that you are adopting you will get pg" is not helpful and can be hurtful - it really only happens in 5% of the cases, studies have shown, and it reinforces the idea that adoption is second best. And when it does happen it is usually because the people have not truly stopped fertility treatments.

If a birthmother changes her mind, she does not "choose to keep her baby", she "decides to parent". It is her baby, she birthed it, but by making an adoption plan she is recognizing that she would not be able to provide the parenting to the baby and chooses two others to be that baby's parents. Real, legal, loving parents.

You do not "buy" a baby (I am so guilty of saying this) but instead your dollars go to pay the agency, the lawyers, for the legal paperwork, and the birthmother expenses. No one profits from the birth; the IRS has made that perfectly clear.

J and I are not PC nor are we sticklers for language - anyone who has been around us knows that. But I do like the idea of using less hurtful language to reinforce our children and to help them adapt to their adoption. We will try our best to be more thoughtful about how we talk about adoption. We will fail, I am sure, but I was really interested in this PAL and wonder how many other stereotypes I accidentally reinforce.

The book also cited a very interesting study done that showed that adopted children actually have a higher GPA than non-adopted children. Only one study is cited but I found that interesting as a great misconception is that adopted kids struggle more in school. The reason given in the book is that generally adoptive families are more secure financially and seem to have more educated parents. I don't want to get into "my kid is smarter than yours" but I think adoptive kids' struggle with intelligence is a longstanding misconception.

The author also cites many books about raising adopted children - while she agrees with the theory that adopted kids share more similarities than differences with biological children she does also agree that the few differences must be managed well. I plan to get a few of these. There is so much to learn. It makes me realize that when I was pregnant I was much more into learning about the pg and didn't even think about parenting, guess it is time for us to start thinking about that, too!

The other thing that happened yesterday was I was at the gorgeous pool, working on my sunburn, and i noticed that there were no less than 6 mixed race kids around. All kinds of families, with white dads and black moms and asian moms and latino dads, etc. One of my concerns about the mixed race adoption is that our children may feel uncomfortable around us, or weird around their peers, but hell, none of these kids looked as though they felt anything but excited to be here and happy in their families. Patricia Johnston, the author of Adopting After Infertility, says that adopting is not 100% altruistic, that some of it is based on the selfish desire of the parents to have children. I am afraid of that selfishness and want to make sure that we make decisions from the start that will benefit our child. Adopting a mixed race baby does have challenges for the child, growing up with white parents, but I did not see a single trace of that in any of the families I so closely watched. Maybe I am over-concerned and too worried. And those may be the most parental feelings I have felt yet.

Aloha

2007-05-27T13:54:00.001-05:00

So I am off tomorrow to Hawaii to see J again and remember what he looks like.

For everyone who has sent me amazing adoption resources, THANK YOU!! Keep them coming. I will take advantage of every single one, once I get back.

See you all in 10 days!

Facing our demons

2007-05-23T21:22:00.000-05:00

After a whole day of dialing for dollars and asking 9 different adoption agencies about their protocol, costs, success rates, support, processes and procedures, I think we have a winner.

To us what is important is a combo of support available, expertise in mixed race domestic newborn adoption, wait time, and, finally, costs. Mostly we want to have a not-horrific experience and still be able to buy food for said baby once he/she arrives.

I gotta tell you guys this adoption thing opens up an ENTIRE can of crap that you fertiles never have to deal with.

To start, before you even get any paperwork, your decisions include:

Newborn vs. older (newborn for us), domestic vs. international (domestic as you can get newborns), special needs versus non-special needs (as much as it pains me to say we really think right now we can't do special needs, or at least not PLAN on special needs), what state, what agency, how much to spend, what to ask, what we expect, how long things will take, etc.

Then it really gets ugly.

Basically, adopting puts you face to face with your worst self. You fill out a 3764387843769873-page application where you bare all your sordid fertility disasters, your income, mortgage, savings, family history, therapy and anxiety drug experience, medical history, etc. Then a social worker comes to your home and walks around and tells you if you have too many pets, not enough seats in your car, too few bedrooms, or an unsavory environment. I am sure we will feel judged.

And they can get in line with that, because you are already judging yourself. You have never really come face to face with your own demons until you start having conversations with your husband like this: "Would we do 1/2 black and 1/2 white? What about 1/2 black and 1/2 hispanic? What about 1/4 Native American, 1/2 black and half white? What about drug use in the first trimester? Birthfather is an alcoholic? Birthmother is a medicated schizophrenic? Is that too risky for us?" Jesus. I mean, who are we to judge? And does anyone else think it is sort of hard to be making all these decisions? I mean hell, I can't even house an embryo for more than 3 weeks, who am I to judge?

It is really, really, really hard. How do you decide? Does it even matter? I was telling my therapist today (who is now my AT - adoption therapist - not FT anymore) that J and I want to do a bi-racial adoption because a. there are many, many kids out there in that demo that need homes and b. it will help us be placed with a child more quickly, because of letter a. We feel like our lifestyle, where we live, and whom we surround ourselves with will be a warm, loving, caring and accepting place for a bi-racial child to grow and thrive. Well, we hope so. I guess someone will tell us.

However, some of the materials I am reading talk in depth about the challenges of white, middle-class ignoramuses like us adopting children of color; that the kids never really know their identity, that other kids will tease them and call them horrible names, that the family may break apart due to the kid not feeling as tho he/she belongs with said parents, etc. Is that true? Who has good stories of bi-racial adoptions to white parents going well? Why do I feel like our seemingly selfless decision is actually totally selfish, and that our choice to adopt a child of color is really about us being in a hurry and it is not best for the child?

Honestly, all I care about is giving our child the best life possible. As free from ignorant comments, strife, challenge, etc as possible. I am in love with him/her already, and s/he may not even be conceived yet. (Tho I think s/he is - I just feel like this is going to go quickly)...

I need some adopting friends. I need others to help guide us and make us feel less scared and less uncomfortable. I need some good happy ending stories and to hear from people who have adopted and are having the time of their lives, even if it started with miscarriages and bad fertility and uncertainty and fear. Because we are scared shitless. But we want to build a family so much through adoption we are going forward regardless.

Hometown makes bad

2007-05-20T08:27:00.000-05:00

This is a PSA for the friends who read this blog - there was a shooting in my home town (small college town in Idaho) last night, and I wanted to let you all know that my folks (thank god) are visiting me this week so are not there...family is safe and sound...however the chances that we know at least one of the victims is pretty good as the town is TINY....we are waiting to hear who was shot. We can't even get solid info on whether or not anyone was killed, which of course we hoping is not the case.

Words cannot describe how weird it is to turn on CNN and see The Beach - this cheesy college bar in my hometown - broadcast nationally. Poor little hometown - its entree into the national mindset is over this. It was quite the nice place to grow up.

Anyway, just wanted everyone to know my folks are fine, though of course concerned for their friends.

And now, back to my fertility.

R is judgmental. That is not news.

2007-05-18T09:19:00.001-05:00

I have tried my hardest to be honest here, and want to caveat today's posting with the knowledge that I may upset some people. This is not in any way my intent, but as I said, this blog would not be mine if I wasn't honest about how I felt.

Basically, lately I am wondering why in the heck some people do fertility treatments for so long.

There, I said it.

As you know I have an addiction to a variety of websites, including ivfconnections.com, soulcysters.com (for PCOS ladies) and about 1357297589759879 others. I spent too much time on them, but found them to be loving, supportive, and informative. I also met a legion of amazing, strong, brave, and beautiful women whose stories make ours look like a proverbial walk in the park.

At the same time, some of the stories I see on there make my heart break and fill me with not a small amount of judgment. There is one woman who has been through so much - multiple miscarriages, failed cycles, starting the adoption process, one more cycle and then got pg with twins, and now just lost both boys at 19 weeks, and almost died herself. Absolutely heartbreaking. And she is talking about cycling again. Why? I don't understand.

I am in awe of her. And also wonder where she gets the strength. And why she keeps going. And how.

For me, two m/c, bad eggs, PCOS and two painful IVF processes is about enough. If I never have to get my ovaries pricked with needles, give myself a shot in my stomach, suffer through nerve damage and hardened spots that never go away, take another failed PG test or wait to bleed out my "placental product", it will be too goddamn soon.

I feel irrational anger at fertility treatments and, honestly, some of the folk who come back year after year to try again. Irrational because I know it works for some people (tho I am not sure whom, as everyone on the boards seems to fail time and time again). Irrational because I understand that people want their biological children and that makes perfect sense to me. Irrational because if these amazing women have it in them to fall down and get up 100 times, they deserve every happiness. Irrational because my RE thinks that we have a "REALLY REALLY good chance" of being parents through IVF (sorry but I call bullshit).

But to witness this extreme suffering is too much for me and I have to stop with the websites. It is like all my closest girlfriends are going through this over and over again - all the names I know, the women I love but have never met, the experiences I share, the history that is like a horror story. I want them to get what they want. And then be able to stop the madness.

I know a ton of people who got pg naturally, and never have a m/c, yet these IVF women have m/c more often than not. It is the same process over and over - watch all the BFPs, the great beta results, then a few weeks later the "I am bleeding a bit, is this normal"? which denigrates to "the u/s confirmed that our baby is gone".

Is it because we have fertility problems to start with that makes us more prone to m/c? Is it something about IVF? Why is it that the women who have the most problems getting pg also have the most staying pg? And how does ANYONE EVER have a healthy baby? It is so fucking unfair. No one deserves happiness and fulfillment more than these women. And yet they get it so infrequently.

I am not a big believer in things being "meant to be", however I wonder if somewhere some 15 year old (hopefully with an off the charts IQ and Olympic-ready physical perfection) is having a momentary lapse of reason and our future son or daughter is being conceived. I wonder if some single pg woman with 4 kids who is not in a good financial situation is crying herself to sleep, wondering if this is the one she should give up. I wonder if somewhere our baby is gestating, and we were always meant to have it, and thank god that both of our pgs didn't work out because we wouldn't have had the most meaningful experience of our lives adopting our soon-to-be-born child. Maybe this was always the plan, but we had to get there.

Regardless, I feel 100% at peace with the choice to stop fertility, for us, at least for now. It is like a 1000 pound weight has been lifted off of my ovaries, uterus, and mind. J is excited and embracing this process, as am I.

I need to accept that these beautiful women on the boards get to make their own choices too, even if it means years more of heartbreak. I just hate to see it.

A dear friend gave me a book about two families who grow close through their adopted korean girls. They are at the airport together when their daughters arrive and start spending time together over the years. The arrival happens in the first 5 pages and I had to stop reading I was crying so hard. It was moving, beautiful, and amazing. I cannot wait to get our call that our child is arriving, and to be there to see him or her, and to bring the baby into our home and hearts. I feel so good. Even with the universe being so unfair. :)

Betas R Us

2007-05-17T13:23:00.000-05:00

Man my beta just LOOOOOOVES to hang around.

It is down to 44.7, which is still big enough to be picked up by most HPTs. Amazing. Remind me never to take one of those again, they don't really tell you shit.

I do NOT feel well physically - am very very tired, crampy and sore. I am so fucking sick of having a headache. I have lived my last 6 weeks with a veil over my head, really.

Mentally I am great - my folks are coming in to spend a week and I am so looking forward to seeing them. I only have a week and a few days before I can see J, and I am starting to read all kinds of exciting things about adoption.

So, all in all, things are good. I just want that beta to drop so all the hormones are GONE. They really mess with you.

And in other news...

2007-05-16T09:09:00.000-05:00

I quit my job yesterday.
.
I decided on the PR firm, for many reasons. Mostly it is a lifestyle choice; this company is more creative, I can wear my own clothes and not a suit, the people are hilarious and swear in front of me, I get to stay in media and entertainment, and, and this was not a small thing, my commute will be easier. There are many more places right next to the city that J and I can move to once we have a kid and need a bigger space. It is in midtown so it is closer to my RE and therapist for when we start cycling again in a few months.

Also, and probably most importantly, they designed the job description around exactly what i wanted to to do, so the career move is a great one.

The thing that is worth mentioning is that I made my decision between this and the Giant Credit Card Company (turning that down was REALLLLLLY HARD) based on what will be best for my family - I will have more flexibility to spend more time with my child with this role as the commute will be shorter and they do flexible work arrangements. I won't have to leave the house at 7 am and return at 7 pm. I will be working hard but not crazy, and it is a scalable role. Making a decision on the children we will have, rather than already have, was my first step in being a parent and it felt really, really good. Before I would've taken the other role as it was GIANT and would've been a great career move, but now I am taking a great career move at a smaller place to allow for more time for me and our children. I love it.

My friend Y and I were talking about this, and she said that she too finally got to the point where she made choices based on the child she had not yet conceived - rather than making it fit into our lives, we sometimes have to change our priorities. And then she got pg after 5 years of trying. She is a wise woman.

I never thought I would want to do that, but here I am. And i couldn't be happier.

I have no plans to stay home and this job is much, much bigger than my current role. But I think it will provide me the balance that I will need. I am very excited!

I plan to stay here through June 8th (with a nice 8 days in Hawaii in the middle) and then take a week to see B and superniece E in LA. Some days at home with MFS (most fav spouse) J and then starting a new experience.

Wish me luck!

Epilogue: Keith Richards

2007-05-14T21:25:00.000-05:00

Today we verified the m/c - Keith was gone but his home was still there, though disintegrating. Dr S was happy with my uterus (ew) and said I was physically handling the m/c well - and that there was probably no need for any drugs or god forbid a d & c.

I did feel today like i was initiated into a new club - the repeat pregnancy loss club. No one wants to be a member but we are legion. If you go on any IF boards and look at pregnancy loss there are women on there with upwards of 10 miscarriages. Can you imagine?

As part of the RPL frequent flier club you get the RPL panel, which involved 13 vials of my blood and another hystereosalopinogram. I gave the blood, which they will test for clotting disorders, auto-immune diseases, chromosomal abnormalities and antiphosopholid issues. J will get the same tests when he returns from Dubai and Hawaii. I asked the nurse if she could draw blood from his testes so he can REALLY understand the pain I have experienced. She laughed and said she would look into it.

It takes up to 3 weeks to get the results back. We have an appointment on June 7th to get initial stuff back. It is not like i want something to be wrong, but I do want some answers. Its just with 5 eggs implanted, we have gotten pregnant twice and miscarried twice. That usually means all 5 eggs (4 last time, one this time) were not good - those are not good odds. At least we will know now if my eggs are the problem.

He wants to up my protocol again for next time. More reason to wait til the end of the summer, which is what J and I plan to do.

In the meantime I did a job on my left leg - I gave myself an overzealous PIO shot yesterday morning that I think I shoved so far in it went past my muscle into my leg bone. I have incredible pain there, like the world's worst bruise. The nurse said that because I have lost so much weight (again, for the wrong reasons, and I am sure i will gain it all back ASAP) I dont have enough fat to use the long needles and I needed to push them in like a third as far as I did. Whoops. Oh well, I am done with shots for at least two months now. Actually what she said was, "Some of our more plumper patients need the 22 1/2 gauge, but not you.". Plumper patients?

So we bid a loving goodbye to Keith Richards. He really was amazing. Dr S was very sad about the m/c, he said he was really optimistic even with the low beta. He still feels almost 100% certain that we will have a live birth, but sadly I dont believe him. But, it doesn't matter. We will be parents one day.

An ode to Keith Richards

2007-05-13T10:25:00.000-05:00

I have to tell you an amazing story.

As you all know we had an IVF genocide, with one survivor - Keith Richards. He fought so hard to live and made it to transfer, doubling nicely.

To my surprise, his fighter spirit continued and at 8 days past my transfer, as J was getting ready to leave, I got the FAINTEST positive pregnancy test. I began HPT (home pregnancy test) Buy-Out 2007, with the total spent around $100. Each day the line got a bit darker, and I spent most of J's first weekend gone carrying around urine-soaked sticks to various lights to see, in fact, if I was pregnant.

I took my inital beta, and got back results - 56. I was definitely pregnant but the numbers were low. Keith was hanging on and had actually implanted and was sticking in! He amazed me.

Two days later I went in again for the repeat beta and he was growing! It was 117, which more than doubled, which meant he was growing on target. However, it was still too low. Tomorrow was to be our third beta, and we wanted to see a level of 400 or so to know he was viable.

We lost Keith on Friday night, when I arrived at the yoga/meditation retreat I am currently at in the Catskills. I started cramping very badly and when I got up saturday I was bleeding. I called my RE at 5 am (that is why I pay him the big bucks) and he said there was no reason to rush home, it was done, and I am to come in tomorrow for a repeat preg loss panel of tests because this was m/c #2.

Honestly, while of course I am sad and angry, I am also so grateful for Keith - he really tried and was such a fighter. He beat 15% odds (my chances of getting pregnant off one egg), hooked on and gave me 5 days of feeling him. I love him so much for trying and am in awe of his strength. I am so sorry he is gone, but the mental prep we did for his potential for leaving really helped - when it happened J and I were sad, but calm. Dissapointed, but not devastated.

J is in Dubai so I have been giving myself intramuscular shots for many days now and am really impressed with myself - nothing says nasty like seeing a 2 inch needle go all the way in your leg. But Keith was totally worth it to me!

Now I just wait til the test results come back. J and I meet in Hawaii in two weeks, where I guess I can now scuba dive. And when we come back, we will start adoption proceedings. It is time.

We will cycle again, but I need to give myself a few months. I have lost a lot of weight (unhealthily), am crampy, sore, headachy and achy, and am so, so tired. The hormones have done a job on me and I need to get my health back.

So everyone, rather than feeling sad, please feel happy that J and I created such a little fighter. He was wonderful and strong and really showed us.

And...scene. For awhile.

2007-05-07T10:19:00.000-05:00

So this is it, I am going silent for awhile. If we get good news, I am not sharing it for months. Maybe til the baby is born, or at least when s/he gets married. You are all invited.

If we get bad news, I want to process it before any pity emails start coming in. I know I am playing hide and seek as I have been really open about all this so far but with the beta soon I just need to go back to me and J and not let in the outside world.

I say pity emails because unfortunately I have realized that I am not gracious. I have 2 people in my life (who don't read this blog) who tend to call me and say "How AAAAAARRRREEE you" which makes me want to kill them. I feel like the unspoken is "How AAAAAARRRRREEE you, you infertile sad pathetic freak, baronness of the barren!". There is nothing nice or caring about this, it is nothing but straight up pity and I hate pity. It feels patronizing and mean. Don't pity me - I have a great life, a great family, a great job (jobs?), great friends, a nice home, money to eat out every once in while, and most of all a fantastic husband. We have the means to get the means to adopt if need be, so we know we will become parents one day.

Does anyone blame me that I hate it when these two people call with that simpering "oh dear, you must just be DESPONDENT, I know I would be if I were as infertile as you obviously are"? Or am I truly evil? And if so, does our child become spawn of evil? Perhaps it is a genetic trait and so our adopted child will be goodness and light. Though goodness and light doesn't tend to last long in our household...:we tend to tease it and make it cry and run screaming out the door, while we laugh uproariously like crazy people :)

Anyway stay tuned for future updates. Once things are solidified I will post, which could be up to three months. Or tomorrow. I like to keep you guessing.

Countdown to pregnancy symptoms - T minus 3 days

2007-05-05T10:35:00.000-05:00

Today's symptoms:
Even less than yesterday.

J left for a MONTH this morning. Augh. I hate it when he is gone - it feels like a hole in my life. The house is really empty without him in it. I wish I had a pied a terre in the city for when he is gone so I can really entertain myself.

I lifted way more than 10 pounds today, had regular coffee, and plan to snort some glue later today. The first are actually true, the third is something I read about. I have a headache too, probably a PMS migraine coming on. Let this wait be over so we can all move on!

I am signing up today to spend 2 days next weekend at a meditation retreat. After breaking into tears both on the way to (thank god no one in NYC pays attention to anyone else) and at my acupuncturist because of fertility woes, j leaving, job agite, etc it has come to my attention that I am losing it. And quickly. This retreat is an hour north of the city and you do yoga and meditate and eat good healthy food for two days.

And, and this is not an accident, you forget that it is Mother's Day on Sunday and that I was supposed to be about 4 months from being a mother at this time.

Pregnancy Symptom Watch - Countdown T minus 4 days

2007-05-04T08:08:00.000-05:00

Today's symptoms:

None.

See you tomorrow.

Reasons I am pregnant, and reasons I am not

2007-05-02T12:47:00.000-05:00

Reasons I am pregnant:
1. I get up multiple times a night to pee now. At least once and sometimes two or three times
2. I have weird cramping feelings, ahem, "down there"
3. I am always starving
4. I am exhausted

Reasons I am not:
1. I can't remember how long that has been going on, but while it is new, it may not be new enough. And could be leftover from the HCG shot that has pregnancy hormone in it.
2. Look up "psychosomatic" on dictionary.com
3. I am always starving. Tho this is new - being this hungry all the time
4. I have been such a ball of stress I was not sleeping very well

and the number one reason I am not pregnant:

5. ONE EGG??????????

Hope springs eternal, though, right?

I am really stressed - rant ahead

2007-05-01T07:19:00.000-05:00

Update to the update:
Heard from the headhunter, after I meet with the brit tomorrow they will give feedback en masse. At the very least they are neutral about me - and that is the very least. If they didn't like me i wouldn't make it to this next stage. They seem happy with me and want this other man to meet me. Guess i didn't screw the pooch too bad with the senior guy. hooray again!!
Update:
Pitching the new role could NOT have gone better. She loved the whole thing and didn't make a change and is going to pitch it to the CEO and Head of HR this week. Or at least she said she was. And I figure that if nothing happens, I at least tried, right? hoo-ray!!!!!

I am not sure I have ever been this stressed out on so many fronts.

1. Job stuff. Of course as soon as i say I am staying I have a great interview at the big Credit Card Company. One that i think I may have blown. The job really does sound amazing, a ton of work and responsibilty (potentially up to 20 people on my team!!!) but also really interesting and exciting. The thing is I think the big big HR guy didn't love me. He kept saying 'I love your energy! Especially for the end of the day!' which makes me think he thought I was a total fucking babbling idiot. I was not levitating or anything but was my normal, enthusiastic self. Sigh. Guess I got too comfortable or something. Dammit.

2. I am falling on my sword at work today and pitching a new, SVP-level role for myself. And I am NOT going through the right channels. At all. Purposefully. I am going to an EVP outside of HR who is in charge of another area that is very related to my new role, and hope that she will listen. If she says she would consider it I will then go over TWO levels of HR people and go to the most senior HR person in the organization to pitch the role. Not sure where it would report. Anyway it will come out that I want out of this role and that I am unhappy. That could be very bad.

Basically, it is like closing time. You can't stay here but you can't go home. I may be totally out of a job in the near future (that is worst case) having f-ed up the outside job and raising too many questions here and not being political. And this before we enter into a self-pay IVF cycle (10k) and adoption proceedings (30K+).

It is like i am ripping a band aid off - I could just lull myself into security here but it is not right - my career has nowhere to go if I don't leave. We won't starve, believe me, but it wouldn't be great either. I am not a risk taker by nature so this entire thing makes me want to barf my guts out. I HAVE to have faith in myself and my work and know that as cheesy freaky people say, a door closes and a window opens.

3. This last IVF. We did have one little tiny embryo so the chances are almost nil. And to add insult to injury, this time the progesterone is having no side effects. Basically progesterone mimics pregnancy - sore breasts, bloating, etc. This time, nothing. It is like I am SO NOT PREGNANT not even artificial means can get me symptoms. Last time i had them all. So, I would say we can all stop holding our breaths - this cycle is a bust. Onto self-pay. Of course I don't know this for sure - but this is what I think when I am lying awake at 5 am. Ironically, I am working more hours than ever because I am basically getting in at 7 am every day.

4. Adoption. How the bloody hell are we going to afford it? What if we never get a baby? What if the mom comes and takes the baby back? This process seems so overwhelmimg, like everything else in my life.

5. J is leaving for a month on Saturday. A month. And bad things ALWAYS happen when he is gone. Really bad things like losing my rings and breaking things and cat getting sick and stuff. I hate it when he is gone. What fresh hell will this trip bring? He will be gone for the beta.

I am not really sleeping right now and feel teary all the time. My body is humming with the stress and my dreams, when I do sleep, are horrible. I have had two colds this winter which is two more than I normally get. I have all these weird bruises all over my body that I can't explain. I am so overwhelmed.

I keep telling myself that soon I will have many answers - I will know if I got fired, if I got this new role, if the cycle worked, if I survived J's trip. But getting there is a disaster.

Crisis averted

2007-04-28T14:24:00.000-05:00

Had a long talk with my SIL today at her daughter's birthday party - both of us going through the same career crisis. We decided, mutually, to stay in our jobs. Phew. I will meet with Amex Monday and then pull out of the process ( it is too late to pull out of Monday's meetings). Major leap here, but it feels right. We laughed because we are going through the exact same thing, at the exact same time. This is why I have verbal diahhrea about my life - sometimes you find others are going through your same struggle and can help you with it. And you, them.

Having some cramping and soreness, totally normal but I am reading into everything. Must. Stop. 15% success rate with one embryo. Must hold on to that. But hope floats, right? What a crappy movie.

Having sushi tonight and wine tomorrow. Live like you mean it, right? Perhaps next will be soft cheese and deli meat, just to really convince myself that this didn't work.

It is so funny, I thought being around kids all day and seeing another friend and her kid tomorrow would bug me, but I am enjoying it. I have been daydreaming about the day when J and I can drive along in our gas guzzling SUV and I can look back and smile at our baby n his/her carseat- whether he or she looks like us or not. Being around kids right now feels hopeful. I feel hopeful. I still want to go to India, but I think I will settle for reading the NY Times on my bed in the sunlight.

Deep Thoughts

2007-04-27T11:45:00.000-05:00

Now that I am on day 2 of bedrest, I realize I have a lot of things on my mind.

First, a shoutout to my cyber friend L for getting, for the first time, after like 7 IVFs, a BFP!!! I am in awe of her persistence and positive attitude. I wish her a healthy and happy 9 months. Maybe this fertility thing isn't totally shit. Oh, and just for the record - she had put back only one embryo this time - for the first time. I'm just sayin....

Second, I am in a full blown career crisis. I thought i was done with this like 10 years ago. In this case, it is a good problem - recently I have gotten a bevy of opportunities and am having a hard time figuring out what I want. I spent part of today in bed with the laptop creating a slide deck pitching a new role at work. I have a meeting Tuesday with an EVP who may be able to help me do that. I feel I have to do this, and then if it is no, I may look more closely at the Big Credit Card company I am interviewing with this week. But the real question is, do I even want to go? Or is it some trace memory inside of me that makes me feel I always need to get the bigger job? I am so sick of thinking of this and am sure you are sick of hearing it. If i stay is it intertia?

I recently read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and can't recommend it enough. It is so good - she spends a year traveling (4 months in Italy is eat, 4 months in India is pray, 4 months in Bali is love) and at one point she goes to an ashram in India seeking spiritual enlightement through meditation. Now I want to do that. Think J would be up to that? The idea of sitting somewhere, totally quiet, quieting the mind and the body and just BEING, seems so lovely. I have been so in tune with my body, especially reproductive organs, for a year and I am tired of it.

I feel like I want to break out and run a marathon, or go to a spiritual retreat for a year, or learn French IN Paris, or something. Something to get me out of my ovaries and uterus. I used to be a whole person. And doing nothing but eating, sleeping, working and taking shots and pills has made me a dull girl. Where's the bigger picture? Where is my deeper meaning? What am I supposed to do now? Someone tell me. Cause I sure as hell can't seem to figure it out. I want to move out of NY and live in Ubud or Greece or something. Make a huge change. Break this cycle I feel I have fallen into in the last year.

But instead i will go to work Monday and plan my flights for my 20th high school reunion and see friends and sing in my lovely group and try to keep my mind off of Keith/Phil in my uterus (if he is still there, even) and say bye to J as he goes off on his 3 week yearly event in Dubai and Hawaii. And in a few weeks we will know what happened, and will move forward. But I still feel I am moving sideways. Anyone want to go to India?

A bevy of ugly thoughts

2007-04-26T08:56:00.000-05:00

So now that we are embarking on the adoption option, I have so many conflicting issues in my mind. These are not pretty and not nice and also I have a sneaking suspicion that most adoptive parents feel them. So if you want to judge, do it somewhere else.

My concerns about adoption
1. What if I don't like my kid?
2. What if I don't love my kid?
3. What if i forget I HAVE a kid since there is no prep time and have to set an alarm to remind me to feed it?
4. What if we become the one family who never, ever gets a kid?
5. What if the birthmother or father steal our kid?
6. What if we get a kid who rejects us?
7. What if people say mean things to our kid? I will fucking kill them
8. What if people do ignorant things to our kid?
9. What if I never get over not being pregnant?
10. What if if our kid has major mental problems?
11. What if I fuck our kid up?
13. What if people don't respect or accept us as a "real family" and we get no support?

Yes, i know. Don't email me. All of those things can happen with our "biological" children. And I also know that #1 and #2 seem in direct conflict with #7 and #8. I already love our adopted kid so fiercely and don't even know who the hell he or she is. Right now s/he could be a blip or embryo or nothing yet. It is amazing. Is my kid waiting for us out there? Maybe.

One thing I don't really understand is the drive to HAVE to have a biological child. Maybe it is just us, but our biological child has the risk of: Epilepsy, dyslexia, OCD, anxiety disorder, horrible teeth, horrible vision, acne, scolios, infertility for christ's sake, anal retentiveness, workaholicness (that is from J - he invented the word), excessive jewish guilt and a bevy of other things. And no offense to anyone else but we ALL gots stuff. So for me, the biology piece seems a bit more like an albatross than a score. But everyone is different and if I expect people to accept my family building options I will accept theirs as well.

The bottom line is I reserve the right to move forward with this and yet maybe decide down the road to go back to IVF if we please. And i reserve the right to start putting my foot in people's asses if they ask stupid fucking questions about our adopted kid like' is that yours', 'what color are they' (we are doing mixed race), 'where did you buy them' or any of the like. And YES people have told me stories about others saying that to them.

I wish, and this is not a new wish, that I was one of those calm, ethereal people who just let others go about their business with a small yoga smile on my mouth, allowing others' transgressions against my family slide off my back. But I'm not. I am SO not. And it is part of what I like about myself - my righteous indignation and sharp tongue has served me well.

And, in other news, our single remaining embryo made it and is growing beautifully and is being put back in its womb today. DO NOT MENTION THIS TO ME AS I AM TRYING TO FORGET ALL ABOUT IT. We are calling it Phil Collins (against all odds) or Keith Richards (we thought you'd be dead by now) - that was J's idea. My hubby is FUNNY.

Again, shhh. Embryo is sleeping. And probably not going to make it. But I love the little bugger for being so persistent. It is like a genocide survivor. I said Holocaust survivor to a very jewish friend of mine yesterday and she recoiled in horror. Sorry. Sometimes my sharp tongue is too sharp.

If i seem like I have my sense of humor back today, I do. Adoption excites me. Listen folks all I want out of this is a baby. Mine, or someone else's. Legally, of course. J and I will love the shit out of that kid and raise it so that it, too, can reject his or her parents, like every other kid.

Think good thoughts! I am off to fill my bladder for the transfer.

Sad news

2007-04-24T07:37:00.000-05:00

Hi all,

I have to admit that i have been lying through omission to my blogspace friends. J and I have done another IVF cycle, this time a bit more under the radar because we didn't want to have to take out an ad on NYT.com again if it all went badly. So it all went badly, and I wanted to let you know.

This time our cycle was good and bad. The Lupron just about caused me to have a brain bleed - I have had a migraine for going on 20 days now. The Lupron migraine was of the "giant vise pushing my head together" while the estrogen migraine is the 'slow leak of brains out the ears" style. Lupron also gave me hot flashes like I was a 65-year old woman, which was HOT when I was doing all those job interviews, drenched in sweat.

This stim cycle was a dream. I was not really that bloated, felt really good, positive, happy, etc. I never had the extreme ovarian pain or twinges, never had the feeling like my ovaries were going to bust out of my abdomen, etc. Turns out that SUCKS.

So we go in Monday morning for retrieval. I know from Saturday's u/s that I have about 19 follicles, giant big ones. So when I wake up from the poking and prodding and hear that they got 7 eggs my head exploded. Look back - last time we had 25. 7 fucking goddamn crappy eggs. and 11 empty follicles. What the hell???????? So our embryologist goes to bring J in from giving his deposit and we talk to him. No idea what happened. Dr S comes in and says that as women age, their ovarian function does start to fail, and the fact that I had so many empties is a really not great sign and he is worried. HE is worried?

So J and I go home, and I go to bed. I feel much better than last time of course, mostly because i had absolutely no fucking eggs. We convince ourselves that quality is better than quantity and go to bed looking forward to our embryologist calling with great news.

Or not. Of the 7, only 2 were mature. Of the 2, only one fertilized. So he is watching it. Watching it die, I am sure.

I cant think of any other reason for this other than there is a problem with my ovarian function. J wants to talk to the RE, but i am just afraid he will say "oh well lets try again" not having any real idea what the hell happened. We are out of insurance money after this cycle and I am NOT happy about spending 10K on one fucking egg. Basically this process has been a nightmare from day 1. I cannot think of a worse thing to go through, except cancer. Between the shots, the pills, the tears, the crazy crazy diet (NO SUGAR???), the really early RE appointments, the miscarriage, the dead ovaries, the hope and then the devastated failure; I am done. Obviously I am not meant to have children. I get it, I get it. Now leave me alone.

So, we will have our post-mortem with the RE next week. We will be told "who knows what happened, let's try it again!". I will drop dead on the spot from exhaustion and pain. ANd hopefully we can all move past this in a semi-calm way.

Yes we will try adoption. And yes you can read all about it here. But first I have to mourn and cry and basically shut myself off from the world as everywhere you turn there is some gestating woman or story about some mom of 4 or something. I had no idea this was going to suck this bad, or I would've never ever ever started it.

My therapist says that fertility treatments are horrible for people. Meaning it is traumatic and gives you false hope. I am seeing her tomorrow and will definitely be having this conversation with her. I couldn't agree more. I would never tell anyone to go through this.

So, I have to say goodbye to future J and R's. I am devastated about this as I really wanted to give J a child. And i really wanted to experience pregnancy. The fact that our Stewie was the only shot we got makes me so, so sad. I loved being pregnant.

Long Time No Blog

2007-04-17T21:40:00.000-05:00

Its because I have been really really not feeling well.

You all know I have been interviewing like mad. Well I am basically at the offer stage for one of the jobs, and had the final meeting today, and I came out of there and decided to drop out of the process. It is a long, drawn out story but basically the senior level, high profile job I thought I was interviewing for has morphed into a job that feels like Toby from The Office. It is a smaller role than I thought, and while tstill technically he most senior HR role, is really not comparable to the work I am doing at my current job. As more details come out I feel like I really dodged a bullet. I feel very dissapointed and sad about it, and wish I really wanted to leave my current role and go there, but it is just not right.

I went through a tremendous emotional swing today - realizing that I was angry about the changes to my current job, fearing leaving for something I was not excited about, wondering if I was just scared to go through more change, wondering how some upcoming personal events were going to work out and affect my employment, etc. And when I realized that I didn't HAVE to take this job it was like a weight had been lifted. It felt like when I broke up with that AWFUL guy and felt so free. The interview process, in retrospect, was wrought with issues but now I can walk away (after telling the headhunter who is probably going to come to my office and bitch slap me for going this far in the process and then dropping out) knowing more about what I want.

Am I an asshole for staying? They treat me like crap now. But I can sit there and do not that much work, take my summer fridays off, know I can do my job in 25 hours, come and go as I please, and still look for something different once I feel ready. I have two more interviews this week for two other very interesting jobs, so I guess it is not like I am sitting around waiting for someone to hand me a job.

I went to a lunch and learn at work today about adoption. A friend was going and asked me along at the last minute. I figured hey, free lunch.

It was this hoity toity agency out of Manhattan that a lot of my friends use - I hated them. Well, I actually just sort of disliked them, but REALLY hated the woman next to me. She said, and I am not making this up, "Why don't you test IQ and EQ and such? I have friends who are rich and kind and fantastic and have these two AWFUL adopted kids! They wish they could've known that the kids' "nature" was going to overtake their "nurture"". The whole group gasped. And then she went on to say that she has another friend who is Orthodox who adopted a child who, another gasp, REJECTED JUDIASM. I mean, does it get any worse than this? (Is there a sarcastic emoticon???) A kid rejected his parents religion? Adoption must truly be the devil's playground. That NEVER happens with birth children (again, need that sarcastic emoticon).

Basically this woman should've had "REJECTED" stamped on her head the minute she started talking. And this great guy in the room said, loudly, "I know lots of biological children who suck. It is not the fact that they are adopted that makes any difference".

See? I can't leave this job. They do Ultimate Fighting Championship at lunch!

Anyway HoityToity Agency was just too too for me. Few newborns, no mixed race, and 2 year wait. Forget it.

I did call J and tell him I went because we agreed not to do anything about adoption until we made decisions about cycling again. And then I went. But as I told him, I didn't learn anything.

Various and sundry random and uninteresting things

2007-04-09T11:05:00.000-05:00

I have a crazy headache I have had for 4 days. Like eyes bugging out, wake up with puffy face headache. I am on 2 extra strength Tylenol every 3 hours and still not working. I wonder, am I dying? Or maybe just wishing to to get away from this headache. Huh. Hormones.

We had a great weekend in Lake George with some friends. Lots of food and laughing. I broke my no sugar rule a few times but all in all was ok.

Job interviews go on - have my final one this Friday with the first job, and a second to be scheduled this week. I need to remind myself every minute that I may not get these jobs - my current job is going from bad to worse and I basically told my manager last Friday that I was unhappy. I didn't give any ultimatums but if she reads between the lines she will know. I just have to keep reminding myself that i NEED this current job and not to burn bridges. It is hard to do behind the veil of pain that is my head and I may just snap and throw my SpongeBob slippers at someone.

Must get off computer. Bright lights are like nails in my eyes.

The way we were

2007-04-05T23:36:00.000-05:00

I was re-reading some of my earlier posts to get some data on timings, dosages, etc of my last cycle and was really struck by a few things:

1. I was, for me, really positive at the beginning of this. I kept saying "when" instead of "if" and talked about being a mommy a lot.

2. I was SO obviously pregnant right before the beta. As I read my symptoms I kept thinking HELLO??? Why didn't i know? Why the Birthday Breakdown? It was so obvious. Peeing all night? Cramping? Bloating? Duh.

3. My last cycle went amazingly well. Fast, easy (except the OHSS but even that wasn't so bad in retrospect) and successful. I should ever be so lucky again.

It's like seeing the "before" pictures of a beauty queen who falls in a vat of acid - I didn't realize how good I was having it. Now I am sometimes a bitter, broken bag of questionable eggs who doubts whether she will ever know pregnancy again, never mind HAVE the baby. It is just tragic. Not what happened, but the change I have experienced because of it. I hardly recognize myself.

When you read other IF blogs it is a common theme. One of my favorites, http://herveryown.typepad.com/herveryown/, talks about being one of "those bloggers" who at the bottom of the page writes about betas and bottles and as you page up, and move forward in time, all of a suddent writes about falling HCG numbers and D & Cs. She says it is like knowing what will happen in a horror movie - you want to tell the girl to RUN! HIDE! Don't look under the bed! Or in the uterus!

I want to go back to relative ignorance. But I can't. So how do I get back to some place where I can be excited again? Hope? Wish? Think of whens instead of ifs? Can I?

Why is everything so complicated?

2007-04-04T16:30:00.000-05:00

As you know I am in full interviewing mode now. Well, sort of. I had an interview today for Overreach job 2007 #2 - meaning yet ANOTHER job where if they give it to me they are truly crazy. It went very well, and she is passing me onto the next step forward. I am also now a finalist at #1 - final interview is next week. Then if they like me, the offer. Or, if not, the boot.

As I sit in interviews with both these jobs I get SO EXCITED by them. I am so bored at my current role and both of these offer me new, exciting opportunities, a whole new group of people to get to know, a new business to immerse myself in, travel, etc.

Yet each of these jobs offer me new, exciting opportunities, a whole new group of people to get to know, a new business to immerse myself in, travel, etc. And are those good things if you are trying to get, and stay, pregnant? Or adopting? Will I have flexibility? Will my stress level kill everything in a 100 mile radius?

If we cycle again if I get pregnant, do I start a new job and say "Hi! Im R! I am here for 6 months and then gone again!". Or what if we get pregnant and I stay here to take it easy and we miscarry again and I am stuck with no baby and nothing at work to take my mind off it? Or what if I start a new job, and miscarry, and right after starting have to take a week off? Or what if we don't cycle again or don't get pregnant and stop trying and go with adoption? Is a new, scary overreach job better than an old, easy one? And what if I stick with what I know, and in a few months, things change again and I get my old department back and I am happy at work here again? And what if what if what if?

My therapist told me to stop asking that. And reminded me that I can only make decisions when 1. I get an offer 2. cycle again 3. find out if it worked.

I can't help but think sometimes that if Stewie had stuck I would not be facing all these questions - I would be 15 weeks pregnant, sitting here in a cushy, for the moment, job, planning the nursery and shower or my next meal or whatever happy, clueless about miscarriage pregnant people do. This infertility has made even my job search more complicated.

All these unknowns are really chapping my control freak ass. What do you guys think? Go for a new job or stay with the comfort of boring? Discuss.

Also, a question that has been bugging me lately. A controversial one. Am I really infertile? We tried for 5 months on our own but it was only 3 periods with my long, anovulatory cycles. I ovulated, I think, 2 out of the 3, but one was like a day 45 ovulation so that egg was probably seriously f'ed up. I definitely have PCOS. That definitely causes infertility. We have definitely been doing this a year with no luck except our IVF baby, and we all know where that ended.

But what if after all this we decide to stop trying, but I stay on the Met, eat crazy healthy like I have been, and just enjoy normal married conjugal relations and hope for a miracle? Could my aged, f'ed up body squeeze out ONE good egg and J's super sperm find it? What if we expect nothing, but get something?

Of course this would be while we were in adoption proceedings, as I cannot sit around and wait for something that has like a 5% chance of occuring at my advanced maternal age (I swear to god that is what they call it), but stranger things have happened, right? I am sure SOMEONE got pregnant with PCOS whle they weren't looking, right?

I hate hope sometimes. It really takes over and makes you feel good. Damn it.

PGD, PCOS and Dr Google - see update at end on crappy Rebecca Walker!!!!!!!

2007-04-02T16:40:00.000-05:00

So i mentioned that if we cycle again we will potentially do PGD, or pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. I did a bad thing and did some websearching on it. Not good.

Basically the site I checked out is called www.mypgd.blogspot.com and it is a database of folks who have done it - their age, number of eggs retreived, number that were "chromosomally and genetically normal/abnormal" and what the outcome was. Holy shit. TONS of these people never even get to transfer because ALL of their eggs are abnormal. What a bummer. But a total possibility for us.

Yes, one could say that if folks are doing this there is a reason - and in fact most of them are carriers for one or another of the most godawful genetic issues. I saw almost no one on there for PCOS which may be bad or good. Maybe PCOS folks don't need it usually? Tho Dr S thought it was a good idea. But these women had like 15-30 eggs and NONE were viable. Jesus.

What it made me wonder is - how the fuck does anyone get and stay pregnant? How do we as a race continue to survive? This reproducing crap is really tricky and there are so many things that can go wrong. It is just amazing to me.

As you all know I have many, many, many pregnant friends right now. I also have many friends pregnant through IVF. I realized that I don't have ANY friends with PCOS. That i know of. And that our little fertility issues are really specific to us, and everyone else's is specific to them. I have two friends with unexplained IF, two who are lesbians and for whom this is the only way to get PG, and others with various and sundry other issues. No one who has PCOS and thus no one I can really commiserate with. I have www.soulcysters.com and that helps, but again - everyone who posts usually has some big reason they are on there. Am I getting the worst case? Are the folks on there skewed one way or another? Cause if you check it out you should have a big glass of vodka in one hand and some Prozac in the other.

Dr S and J basically cut my hands off to get me away from the net, but couldn't you argue that arming yourself with knowledge is a good thing? Is surfing the web bad?

If it's wrong, I don't want to be right. Because in this crazy time a little info, even if it is totally skewed, feels like taking control.

In other news J and I are going away this weekend to Lake George. We are going with some friends of ours whom we met when they bought our house, which sounds like a recipe for distaster, but in fact has been fantastic. I am looking forward to a few days of fun and cooking and sleeping and kayaking.

UPDATE:
A fellow friend told me my post on Rebecca "the bitch" Walker's blog made it to the Washington Post. I am the one who commented about the insenstivity of her writing. I really dialed it back from "I hate your guts".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/29/AR2007032902320.html

Also - Erica Jung better watch her ass. I might be figuratively gunning for her next. She writes "But not everyone feels that way. A lot of people feel very intensely about their adopted children. Whatever your feelings are, you should be able to write about them, even though they're taboo feelings."

A LOT OF PEOPLE FEEL VERY INTENSELY ABOUT THEIR ADOPTED CHILDREN?

I DARE anyone out there in blogland to find me someone who DOESNT feel intensely about their adopted children.

I ask, again: what in the hell is wrong with everyone?? I thought adopting was a mitzvah.

I think if we end up adopting I may have to take anger management classes.

We take a break from fertility talk..

2007-03-30T08:28:00.000-05:00

to bring you a funny story. I may live in the big city, but you can't take Idaho fully outta me.

My good friend K works for a major entertainment magazine and she from time to time makes my entire year by taking me to a cool industry event. She has been my ticket to the VMAs and other fun things. This is not why I love her - she is the coolest chick ever, funny and kind and awesome, but being with a funny awesome kind person at an amazing party is just icing.

She took me to the Sopranos premiere party the other night. It was a to-do at Radio City, with 2000 people in various stages of appropriate and inappropriate dress (some of them looked like they were channeling Adrienne). The entire cast was there and we watched the first two episodes, which btw are absolutely fantastic.

At the afterparty we ate lots of pasta and then walked around doing our favorite thing, seeing famous people. I swear THEY ARE JUST LIKE US. They were eating and talking to friends and doing interviews.

We saw James Gandolfini and Lorraine Bracco and Jamie Lynn Sigler (skinny b.itch) and then, the coup de grace, walked within 2 feet of Edie Falco. I worship her, both for her acting and her just general coolness. So K is in front of me and I grabbed her arm and said "THERE'S EDIE FALCO!" and I mean I said it really loud. Like football game cheering loud.

Well, because famous people ARE just like us, she was not in a soundproof box, and since she was maybe .5 feet from me, she turned around like she maybe knew me or at least was just a normal person who heard her name being yelled by a total stranger.

I ducked and TOOK OFF because I was so embarassed. There is a fine art to starfucking and I crossed the line - stare, but don't draw attention to yourself or the fact that you are starfucking. K totally cracked up and we left soon after. I hope to be invited back to a cool industry event someday, but need to probably exhibit tremendous cool until then.

A friend recently told me he had a friend at another event and was seated by Cher. This friend said, as loudly as I did, "OH MY GOD THERE IS CHER" at which point she turned around (see: not in soundproof box) and said "OH MY GOD I AM CHER". If that had happened I would've moved back to Portland just to get away from the shame.

Reb.ecca Wal.ker sucks.So does my attitude today.

2007-03-28T15:02:00.000-05:00

See, I put PERIODS in the middle so she can't SEARCH me. Tho she posted my bitchy blog comment. Please, folks, if you have an issue with her post on her site - all the other posts are really suck ups. I was the only one to call her insensitive.

I have nothing more to say about that other than I got more email about that post than any other blog entry thus far - all saying how she sucks. Love it. Thanks everyone.

Get ready for a whiny blog entry. I promised myself to be true here and this is how i feel today. Look away if you want to maintain the image that I am strong and tough. I actually wrote this and then rewrote it as it was just too pathetic and I couldn't stand myself. So here is the less pathetic version.

I am having a rough day today - maybe it is the trip to the IFT (infertility therapist) - that always brings up so much, 0r maybe it is because I am not sleeping much lately. Basically I realize that my overwhelming emotions these days are fear and anger. I feel "angry" that all this happened so far. I feel "angry" that we landed on the wrong side of the stats this time. I feel "angry" that to even think about getting pregnant I need a team of doctors and months. I feel "angry" that i am the only one going through this that I know right now and wish I had a large circle of other angry ladies, cause i know for sure there are many, many other ladies out there writing similar pissed off entries into their blogs. We could go out and pick a fight with some street gang, and based on how I feel, I would win. In fact, I think the Fierce Fighting Infertiles should be a part of Bloomberg's anti-gang strategy.

And, for fun, I also feel "worried" (why am I putting these emotions in parens? no clue) that i am not only infertile but also unable to carry a child to term. The fear is overwhelming and sometimes threatens to swallow me up. When I think about cycling again my mind has to look away. It just seems to defy nature that I had BOTH issues last time. Tho of course I know intellectually that is not the case. Happens all the time. And worse stuff too.

My IFT specializes in treating folks like me and she said that what I feel is totally normal, which comforted me a bit. I am in new territory here and really need a map. (well, and a nap.) Her support is really welcomed.

She is starting a support group on Wednesday nights that I am going to be in, which I think will do wonders for me as for the first time I will feel less alone and less like a freak. Which is how I feel, lately, about 100% of the time. I was telling her today that I basically feel like I cannot pull off what the average cockroach (fertile cockroach, that is) can - reproducing. Of course we laughed but both realized I was not totally kidding.

Yes, I am not just my ovaries. Yes, I have a full and lucky life. I am not forgetting that. I am just a bit overwhelmed today.

In other news...R is a misanthrope.

2007-03-26T21:26:00.000-05:00

There have been quite a few news and magazine articles lately that have really bothered me. And not to sound like Grandpa on the Simpsons but it is making me want to write a 'strongly worded letter' to, I don't know, someone.

First, I guess Alice Walker (whom I love) has some bitchy daughter named Rebecca. It was in the Times magazine section last weekend. I guess they are estranged, probably because the daughter sucks. Basically she was this anti-establishment person (the type that is usually borne out of privelege, who grows up with NYC with rich, artsy type parents, who wears hemp clothing and has a driver, who goes to Williams because she wants to be a poet, who has never worked a day in her life) who dated a woman (wow, how incredibly edgy - who gives a shit in this day and age?) and then dated a man, got pregnant and is raising her son. All fine. Except she wrote this really self-aggrandizing book about having a child (emphasis on HAVING). Here is a quote from the NYT:

"The most incendiary notion in “Baby Love” may be that, for Ms. Walker, being a stepparent or adoptive parent involves a lesser kind of love than the love for a biological child. "

BITCH!!!

Who the fuck writes that?

Then I picked up Oprah this month. Giant mistake. I did it because a friend said that there was an article about adoptive families. There are actually 3 articles in there. And in 2 of the 3, it is all about how the adoptive child found their "real" mom. The third article is about how stupid people are about multi-racial families through adoption. Basically it is the most depressing thing about adoption I have ever read. The second article goes so far as to have a sentence about how a grown woman who did geneological work to locate her now-dead birth mother and father feels that now that she has found her "real" self, can pass on her "real" identity to her child. Never mind that her adoptive parents clothed, fed and loved her. Jesus. Ingrate.

Lastly, I am annoyed at this NY Times article about day care kids, which stopped just short of saying "Hey, you, you want a Jeffrey Dahmer? Send your kid to DAY CARE". Yes, the outcome of the study was that kids in day care had more behavioral problems than those at home. Yet all the pithy headlines fail to mention that day care kids are also seen as having better vocabularies. So maybe our kids go to the principal more often, but they can discuss Nietzche whilst there.

That's beside the point, however; my point is that there is enough agite about stay at home moms versus working moms, with working moms usually getting eviscerated, or at least quietly judged, and this just throws fuel on the fire. I plan to work, and be a great mom. My friends' (and sister's) kids who are in day care LOVE it and are beautifully socialized and behaved. I also know people who enjoy staying home, and their kids love that too, so do what you want people! Just stop judging each other!

So, if I were a clippings person, here are the headlines today:

"Adoptive kids really just want their real parents; who gives a fuck who really RAISED them"
"Adoptive parents have no idea how to really love their children, since they didn't birth them"
"Day care is akin to "crate training" your child"

Yes, I am bitter. Yes, a lot of the statements I am making are hyperbole. The point is, who gives fertile angsty woman the right to make a whole lot of infertiles, for whom adopting is the only chance to experience parenthood, feel bad? Who gives these adopted kids the right to reject the people who raised them just because they are not genetically related to them? And who gives people the right to judge how other people take care of their children?

These people all suck. And I am evidently defensive. Perhaps I will print this out and bring it to Infertility Therapist. She'd have a field day.

Quick update: I got so pissed after writing this I put a comment (concise, not inflammatory and no swear words) on Rebecca Walker's blog: http://www.rebeccawalker.com/blog/2007/03/new-york-times-clarification.html. I highly doubt she will approve it and it will post as the rest of the comments are from sycophants, and I know from my IF blogging community that people are PISSED. Tempest in a teapot, but the tea is all ours.

Injections- the gift that keeps on giving

2007-03-25T11:02:00.000-05:00

I had a nice day yesterday - slept in, then went to get a massage and then hair colored and then dinner with our friend R & D. Great day.

I realized during the massage, which was a gift from J, that I still have quite a bit of pain around the injection sites from my progesterone in oil shots expertly given to me by my husband. He did a great job, it is just the needles are giant and the progesterone is in, well, oil, so it makes these giant lumps that ache like a deep bruise for days on end. And I get one a day.

It is mostly my upper butt and front of my legs. It makes me wonder what the hell we did in there - it feels like nerve damage - sort of tingly and sore and sometimes sharp pain. It also makes me wonder what it will feel like when we start again. Natasha the strong-armed massuese made me cringe, so a 1 1/2 inch needle will probably force J to peel me off the ceiling. And we are doing this again? Jesus.

And I mean Jesus as an expletive, not a prayer.

In other news I am taking myself shopping today to get a few new suits, I have fully embraced this job search thing and got another call this week for an interesting one, so I figure it is time. And if I change my mind, I can always start wearing suits to my current role. That will fuck with them.

Spent an hour last night trying to get a feed put on here - what that means is that you can subscribe to wannabere, and when I write a new missive you will get it sent to your personal email. No more pesky COMING TO MY WEBSITE to get my latest info - it is all sent to you in the privacy of your own email. It sounds like the ultimate in laziness but honestly it is really nice. Anyway both J and I tried to get it to work and didn't have much luck, we will try again later today. If all else fails I will call R, she is my own personal techie, like Nick the IT Guy on Saturday Night Live, only nicer.

Now I'm done

2007-03-22T16:11:00.000-05:00

I ran into someone at work today whom I think is the last person I will ever have to tell about the miscarriage.

It is a guy with whom I have worked closely, who is in one of my client groups, and who is high maintenance as hell so we have talked a lot. He also lives in the Small Suburban Town I used to reside in, before I threatened to kill myself and forced J move back to civilization, so we know some of the same people.

I know that he has triplet boys. I also know that no one ever really has triplets without IVF. So when I found out my beta was so high, in a moment of weakness told him that I may want to talk to his wife if we were having multiples (remember - Dr S said that was a possibility at one point). He was thrilled and hugged me and told me all about their cycle with the trips (she got OHSS, etc so there was a lot in common). He made me promise to follow up with him as soon as we knew.

Well, then, we found it was only one. And then we found out it was, actually, none. And I never called because I forgot and this man is quite senior and I didn't see leaving a voice mail for him saying "Hey, Mr SVP - just wanted you to know the baby died! See you in the cafeteria!"

So today I was walking into the elevator bank and there he was. Huge hug and questions all around. He said his wife is in today getting her transfer(so he is an asshole husband who isn't home helping her, I take it!) for a 4th. They only put in one so no real danger for multipes. He says "So....is it twins?" and I said, really uncomfortably, "Uh, actually it was one and we lost it". Cue silence. He then says very sincerly and quietly, " I am so, so sorry". I had to run then because I was starting to well up and didn't want this man seeing it.

At least that is the last time this cycle I will have to say that. I would love to say that is the last time I will ever have to say it, but I am not able to.

You're not there, god, it's me R

2007-03-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

One interesting thing I became aware of in the last few days is that I no longer believe in God.

Now before you all start sending me hate mail, I am not saying YOU can't. I am saying I don't.

I came to this realization the other night at dinner. I was eating with my best friend from college, B, who is a Very Devout (read: drinks, has sex with women and then goes to church on Sunday) Christian. I kid - I love B and think he actually does live Christian values - he is such a good person. Anyway, he said that his church in NYC was praying for me. First to get pregnant, then to stay pregnant, then to heal from the miscarriage. I was so touched and told him thank you, very sincerly. The funny thing is he didn't want to share my name in case anyone knew me so he had them praying for "Erin". Whatev. Erin it is. Its the thought.

What I loved about that was the idea that 5000 (yes - megachurch. Side note: where does that exist in NYC? And is it for rent?) people were sending good thoughts my way. The common voice of so many humans must do something, and I loved the gesture.

He then asked if I had been praying too, or going to synagogue (uh, B, you have known me for like 20 years, have I ever gone?). As I answered, I realized that NOT ONCE through this horrible time have I prayed to god, talked to god, or even given god any thought at all.

I realized then, at a bar in Hell's Kitchen (ah, the irony) that I don't believe. Am I am not sure when this happened. I was raised Jewish in Idaho (yea hardy har har) by two parents who definitely seemed to believe in god. Or something. My sister is a Hebrew Bible scholar (Side note: she is smart as hell - I can't even READ the bible much less know every passage in 8 languages), so I can only assume that she has some feeling for, or about, god. Me, nothing. Fact is, an atheist friend of mine asked me as recently as 2 years ago if I believed in god and I remember saying definitely yes. I wonder what happened? I am not "mad" at god. I am not "railing against" god. Or her. Or whatever. I just have no thoughts at all for any higher power.

At first I thought I was agnostic. Meaning I believe in something guiding the universe, just not sure what it is. Then I realized no, I actually don't believe in that either.

Now this didn't happen as a result of the miscarriage in one of those instances when people say "no god would let a baby die in utero and then make me carry him around for 2 weeks" or "no god would make a woman infertile AND make her have difficulty carrying to term" and get mad and stop believing for a time. No, I never thought any of that. It just never occured to me that anyone could do anything for me but me, J, a team of doctors, and family and friends. And about 100 years of reproductive medicine.

I think I am, at heart, a "scientist". Meaning, I believe in science. I believe in medicine. But I also believe in science that is less, er, scientific. I believe in the power of thought. And the power of chinese medicine (hi fabu acupuncturist!). I believe that me envisioning the little embryos on the operating table after the transfer burrowing into my lining (as I was peeing 100 gallons into a bed pan in front of no less than 5 people) helped them actually implant. I believe that my calmness for two days after transfer, when I listened to nice music and rested, helped me to acheive pregnancy last time.

And yes, I may even believe in that goddamn (somethingdamn? nothingdamn?) book the Secret - at least that if you want something, try to get it, and are truly grateful and not entitled, you will bring positive things to yourself. That is why I am in therapy. To bring positive things. And to begin focusing on other people, too, so that I don't turn into a hopeless bore. It is time for narcissa, queen of putting herself first, to start to put others first, for the first time since this whole IF journey started. Like my husband or my two wonderful preggers friends who are telling our singing group next week. I want no part of getting in the way of that, and will rejoice with them for the next 6 months.

So the net net of this is a higher power doesn't have a place in my life right now. Maybe someday it will. But I am comfortable and do not feel alone. Metformin, prenatal vitamins, my RE, lupron, follistim, and embryologists comfort me. And, most of all, all of you.