Test

Test

Not so much a birthday

Today our baby girl would have been one. Well, at least according to our due date – a date that doesn’t mean much when you’re pregnant, but when you’ve lost a child, it certainly makes the spot. A lot has happened since we lost her and this is not how I thought our life would look a year later. But I don’t suppose anyone ever expects these sorts of things. In any case I wanted to take a moment and acknowledge what today should have been. So to our sweet baby girl, we love you very much and miss you everyday.

Conflicted

I’m hesitant to even write some of this here because I know what I’m about to say might cause offense for some, but you know it’s my blog and it’s how I feel and so I’m going to say it.  Just keep in mind this is my opinion.

We went through a lot this summer with the whole adoption thing.  Less than some have endured, more than others.  Needless to say the experience did not leave us unaffected.  I’ve had a lot time to process everything, a lot time to examine and feel and really get at the heart of where I am when it comes to this journey we’ve been on.  And conflicted is really the best way I can describe it.  I want wholeheartedly to adopt someday, whether that be China (which is still my first choice), through foster care or some other method, but domestic infant adoption isn’t sitting well with me at the moment.  Plenty of people are successful at this and perhaps this is just how I learned that this isn’t the best option for our family.  I’m not sure.  All I know is when it comes down to it if the only reason a woman/girl is feeling the need to give her baby up for adoption I’d rather come up with ways to help her afford it than to adopt her child.

Sure, I know some of you are thinking that this is just a knee-jerk response coming from a woman who had two mothers change their mind.  I mean who wouldn’t have some negative feelings towards adoption after our experience.  Perhaps that’s what this is, but honestly I just don’t think so.  I had some of these feelings before we even started down this road.  Namely when I try to put myself in their shoes, and I just can’t.  Because all I know is that at no time in my life, regardless of the situation, would I have ever given up a child.  And I know my family would have been right there with me.  So how then can I in good conscience adopt a child when I could instead find ways to assist the mother so that she could raise them herself?  I realize there are a million scenarios that lead to adoption, only one of which is financial, but to me (and for our family) adoption should be about orphans and these babies weren’t orphans.

Like I said, it’s a conflicted frame of mind.  Because still I feel called to adopt, but I can’t seem to erase these feelings I have.  I knew going down this road that it would be complicated, but I never really appreciated just how much.  How much your empathy can get in the way of your own happiness and desires.   I think domestic infant adoption exists for a reason and I know grown adults who were adopted as babies and who are so thankful they were so I know it works.  Maybe just for us, for right now, it’s simply not the right choice.  I just don’t know how I could drive away with a baby in my backseat knowing how ripped apart the mother felt.

So for now we’re still waiting.  Our adoption fund is still woefully low since I failed matches this summer and for now that’s okay.  We know when the timing is right we’ll find the money again.  And if we lived in any other state, we’d be pursuing fost-adopt right now, but Tennessee has weird rules for that.  In the meantime we’re concentrating on each other and on our health.  I know our blessing is just around the corner.

Still on hold

We haven’t changed our status to active yet and we’re not sure when we will.  We didn’t recover as much money as we thought we would and frankly we’re still feeling emotionally wrought from this summer.  I’m sure if we got another call, we’d find a way to be ready, but we’re just not quite ready to go full force again.  Part of me wishes they would just call, but the odds of that happening are rather slim since the last time we spoke to them we told them we’d let them know when we were 100% ready.  I guess I’m just wishing we had more of a sign of what we’re supposed to be doing right now.

In the meantime I read an interesting book recently called, Healing Syndrome O, by Dr. Ronald Fienberg.  It’s about PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome and insulin resistance) which is what I have.  It was not an easy read as he has quite a different opinion on treatment than most reproductive endocrinologists.  It’s still unclear as to how much of it is genetic, but what it seems to be is that while it starts out as a genetic issue, it can become exacerbated by poor nutrition and a sedentary lifestyle.  Both of which I’m extremely guilty of.  So reading the book made me take a closer look at myself and my behaviors.  If was I 14 now and just now experiencing the initial symptoms (as I did when I was 14) then I think I would have gotten helpful information that might have stopped everything from progressing.  But that didn’t happen so with the predisposition that the syndrome causes and a less than stellar healthy lifestyle things snowballed to where I am now.  So yeah, it was uncomfortable to read and know that most of this is of my own doing, at the same time it’s the first time I’ve had hope that I won’t always struggle with all of this.  So that’s my goal.  To get rid of all of this mess, get off the blood pressure meds, get my body back in shape and get my hormones all regulated.  That would be sooooo nice!

Life goes on

We haven’t gone back “active” just yet, we’re waiting until DH comes back from his conference before we make a final decision about what we want to do.  In the meantime I’m working on me.  I decided that I might not ever be ready to do full-fledged fertility treatments again, but we might try naturally again sometime in the future.  I’ve never had a doctor tell me I can’t get pregnant on my own, just that our odds weren’t great.  Coincidentally I’ve been having issues, a 3-week long period to be exact, so I went to the RE today to have tests run.  I forgot how wonderful everyone in that office was.  They went through my file and said that based on the fact that the baby we lost was a “normal girl” and my hormone levels at the time were normal then there’s no reason why I can’t carry a healthy baby to term.  It gave me a little hope.  It’s still terrifying, to be sure, as all the tests and sonograms and the threat of another miscarriage is waiting in the wings, but no good thing comes without risk.  None of this changes our adoption plans.  We still feel called to adoption.  And we’ll continue pursuing it, we just might pursue the other stuff next year sometime.  But I have a lot to do to get my body ready for that.  My body is still in rough repair from all the fertility meds and obviously my hormones are way out of whack right now.  They ran a battery of tests on me today, including 3 vials of blood and hopefully we’ll have some answers soon.  We’re still hoping we find our baby soon, this year would be so great, but we’ll wait for the right one no matter how long.

Support

I don’t even know how to say thank you for all the kind words and cyber hugs from all of you.  Many of you, I know and I really couldn’t ask for better friends – I don’t know what I’d do without you.  But so many of you are just out there, on your own journeys and you don’t know me anymore than you know those you pass on the highway, yet you stop to give me encouraging words and share stories of hope.  What a blessing each of you have been to me and to my husband.  We know we aren’t alone on this adoption road (or the rough terrain of infertility) and it’s nice to be reminded of that.  So thank you – all of you – for your love and your words and your prayers.  I know many will rejoice when we finally bring our little one home.

Again

We have another failed match.  We’re just at a total loss.  I spoke with our contact at the agency and she said that in all her time there she’s only seen 3 failed placements.  It just seems statistically improbable that 2 of them would be the same couple, but I guess we’re living proof.  Not sure what we’ll do from here because our adoption fund is now drained.

Waiting in a hotel…again

We waited around until we got as final of a word as we could before we got in the car. We left TN around 8:30 (EST) last night and drove through the night and got in this morning at around 9:45 (CST). Needless to say we’re pooped. We spent the day at the hospital and met the birthmother J and her sister and their mother. All of whom were amazing women. It was truly a pleasure to spend the day with them and by 2:00 J had signed hospital paperwork which gave us the right to visit the baby in the NICU as well as to take her when she’s discharged. Oh, it’s a girl. And she’s in the NICU only because she swallowed some meconium and they wanted to take some precautions and give her antibiotics and watch her for 48 hours. She’s already had 2 x-rays and her lungs are clear and she’s doing really well. She was 5lb 13oz and 18in long and while we originally thought she was only 35 weeks, the nurse told me this evening she suspected she was closer to 38 weeks. Of course nothing is final until it’s final, but J met with a social worker today as well as her attorney and if all the paperwork goes through, she should sign tomorrow – if that timeline doesn’t work, we’ll have to wait until Monday because her attorney will be out of town this weekend. I really can’t say enough good things about this family, their support of J and the fact that they went above and beyond trying to make this day special for us – calling us the Mom and Dad from the moment we walked into the door. They even waited on the birth certificate until we arrived so that we could select a name. If the signing goes well, I’ll let you all know what it is. In the meantime we’re going to bed and we hope to hold our baby girl again tomorrow and really hope we can bring her back to the hotel with us.

Rollercoaster: Take 2

We got another call from our agency today and there is a mother in labor right now. They wanted to know if we wanted our profile read to her – well, yeah! So now we’re waiting again and since the mom is in labor, then I’m not sure what kind of timeline we’re working on at this point. In the meantime my mom and I are painting the guest bathroom (AKA the kids’ bathroom) and trying to keep busy.

Back home

We had such a nice, relaxing visit in Texas. It was good to get away and forget for a little while and although it feels a bit bigger and more painful now that we’re home, it’s good to be back in our house with our kitties. We haven’t heard anything new from the agency, but I’m guessing it could be a while. I know there are rescue families out there who have been active with them for months and have never heard anything. And we know that our child will find us somehow, we just hope it won’t be much longer. And while we would never select a child based on gender, it would be nice to have a little girl for the pink clothes and blankets I bought. We won’t know until the end of the month (after the billing cycle) if we’ll get any money back on the attorney’s retainer. It would be nice, but we’re certainly not holding our breath. One day at a time and someday, all of this will have just been part of our journey.