It Still Sucks

Allowing myself time to process and grieve my infertility, plus moving onto adoption for our family building, has gone a long way towards healing the deep seated anger, frustration, jealousy, and utter sadness I have often felt when hearing that another woman I know is pregnant. I don't have a strong reaction to every big belly I see, anymore. I don't sit in my GYN's waiting room with bitterness for all the in-my-face pregnancies. My cousin announced her pregnancy on Facebook in May and I just kind of rolled my eyes, sighed, and unfollowed her. Small pit in the stomach, nothing I couldn't shake off in a few minutes. It was a little harder when a co-worker confided in me that she was unexpectedly pregnant. It was out of the blue, they weren't trying. Plus, I was in the middle of researching how to advocate for equal parental leave for adoptive parents and very much feeling like a second class future mom. I cried on the way home and sobbed into my husband's shoulder that I really was *so* happy for her and she will be a great mom. It is such an emotionally complicated place to be...

But as complicated as that was, it is nothing compared to the emotional monster that reared his head from the depths of my infertility pain when my best friend of 14 years told me she was pregnant in the first month of trying. Not a gut punch. A BRAIN punch. A full body, forceful slam into a brick wall. And I am right back to the anger, frustration, jealousy, and ever present, aching sadness over my own inability to even comprehend how easy it is to get pregnant when you're not me.

The adoption is not easing my pain so quickly. I'm not an idiot. She will have a baby in 9 months. I will still be waiting. She could conceivably lap me and be working on baby #2 while we continue to wait. She will have all of the normal events which mark the progression of those knowable 9 months: announcement to the family, announcement to the world, gender reveal, viability, baby showers, nesting in those last few precious weeks. We...continue to have to explain to people that no, we probably won't have a baby by the end of the year. Well, we are waiting for a match - no, a match doesn't mean we will get a baby for sure. I wish I could tell you when, but that's not how it works. No, we won't be announcing when we match because it could fall through. Maybe a year, maybe two - yes, it takes that long...There's no universally understood progression of time, marked with socially conforming celebrations and milestones, for adoption. People know we are adopting, but they honestly have no idea what that means as far as what the next year or two of our lives will look like. Neither do I. People know how to talk about pregnancy, our entire female human history is a shared experience of pregnancy. No one I know has adopted. No shared experiences to be had.

Adoption isn't a cure-all for the infertile couple. It is a means of building a family, but it doesn't fix everything, it doesn't give you everything that infertility took away. I knew this, I know this, I don't expect it to be. But I wish there was *something* that would make me forget four and a half years of trying and failing so that I could be happy for my friend who never had to try. I want so badly to be, but all I feel is sad and left behind.

My sister promises that after babyhood is over, all parents are the same, we won't feel so obviously different because our child's milestones will be the same no matter how they came to us. I hope to God that is even only mostly true.

Wildly Vacillating Emotions

I am so excited to be a mom! Wheeeee!!!

I am so terrified of introducing an infant into our daily lives! Aaaaaagh!!!

We're gonna have a baby! Eeeeeeeee!!!

We're going to ruin our marriage! Heeeeeelp!!!

That kind of sums up for you where my head is at these days - which is to say limitless joy and bottomless terror and all points between just for good measure.

I know I can't be the only person to look at impending parenthood and feel this see-saw of emotions, but I still feel alone in it. We worked so hard for this, so long for this - I must *really* want it, right? I must be nearly desperate for that baby, for motherhood, for my life to make a 180 degree turn and look nothing like my current existence.

Well, no. I rather like my current existence, actually. If I've had a bad day at work, I get to come home and binge-watch Stargate episodes if I want to. I sleep in until 8 on Saturdays. We can have sex whenever we want!

Half the time, I am so excited to be matched and placed. I can't wait to be a mommy and do all those parent-y things. But the other half of the time I am gripped in terror that I am inviting big trouble into my life. What if M and I start fighting all the time? What if our baby just has one of those temperaments where they cry all. the. time. What if M only *thinks* he wants kids, but then, when we have one, he doesn't want to change diapers, do bath time, or car pool to Little League?  I am so scared that right now my life is perfect and I am about to destroy that perfection forever. Literally so scared that M need only say the word and I would probably drop this whole adoption thing.

Is that okay? Is that normal? I sometimes think I must not want children that much if I'm having these thoughts...but then I insist to myself that other people probably feel this way too and they just don't talk about it. Infertility and adopting both give you soooo much time to sit and think about all the things that could go wrong. I hate that ::sigh::

I will just keep working on our profile, and enjoying the way our life is now because it has a term limit. And I will breathe and remind myself that that is okay.

It Really Was Going Too Well

Fuck you universe. Fuck. You.

I think I have dealt admirably with everything life has thrown at me in 31 years. And I have learned to move on, to heal, to make do, and to find the good in truly shitty situations. And I have been so happy ever since M and I committed ourselves to adopting, no matter the pain that came before and which still lingers a little. We are planning, we are saving, we are staying positive.

So why are we being punished with a broken car? Hm? What fucking lesson am I still learning that necessitated this new problem? I have sucked it up and said "okay" to the outrageous idea that just because I can't squeeze out my own offspring, that it is justifiable I be saddled with a $30,000 price tag for having a family (heaven forbid we decide we want 2 kids!). And if that price is 100% necessary, why can’t I fucking catch a break in the rest of my life so that I don’t have to feel like I am choosing between a safe/reliable car for M or having a goddamn family? Not many people are “blessed” with that particular challenge. Lucky. Fucking. Us.

We *were* on track to be done saving after this year. We *were* going to be able to pursue adoption without digging ourselves into bedrock, financially. But no, that's just too good, too kind of God. Clearly we needed this journey to be HARDER, because dammit, it hasn't been enough of a challenge. We were finding *way* too much joy in this pursuit. It should break us. Then we might deserve to reach the other end of the rainbow.

It's not just the addition of a new monthly loan payment that upsets me, though that will drastically restrict our ability to save within our anticipated time-frame. Its that we will have to *take* money already saved and use it for this, instead of for our FUTURE CHILD.

I hate and despise everything today and there are no words to make it better. I will calm down, I have to for M's sake, but right now I get to be as fucking pissed off as I want because this is NOT FAIR.

Living

Harlem, by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore—
      And then run?
      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over—
      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags
      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?



I feel like all my dreams are on hold. Put off into the future for one reason or another. I feel like a derailed train. Or a train bound for the wrong destination. Have I missed the last switch-track? Can I get back on the rails and moving again?

I wish I had known in college just how out of step I would feel doing "traditional" work. I tell people there must be something wrong with me because I think it's crazy to spend a life toiling away in an office. Maybe I just have a sucky work ethic? Maybe I'm un-American. I used to dream about staying at home and homesteading, only when I was feeling particularly stressed out and crazy. And I've told myself it is a silly fantasy. But I think more and more about it lately. I think about how much better of a parent I could be if I didn't work full time. I think about how self-sufficient and environmentally friendly and *healthy* my life could be. If I could be home. Instead of in an office, dreaming of the things I would do if I had the time. There is never enough time; I am forever away from home. And when I am home, all I have time to do is play catch up with all the chores that I've fallen behind on. Because I was sitting in an office somewhere doing nothing particularly important. Just wasting time.

I want more time for gardening, time to learn canning and other food preservation methods, I even want to learn how to spin wool! I'm going to try to slowly learn these things anyway, but it takes so much time and there's so little I can do in one sitting. I want more time for projects around the house, things I know I can do or learn to do. I want to feel useful, like the things I do matter. I want to wear the clothes that I like, instead of whatever is "professional" and "office appropriate". I want to sing, prance, curse, and laugh as loud as I like. All things that you reeeeally can't do in an office. I want to do work that feels satisfying. I want to stop feeling like I'm wasting my life. I want to *live*.

It's not that I don't want to work. I do. I just want to do different work. Work that serves my family and maybe my community (if I could ever get good enough at something to sell or trade). I'm happy with my hands in the dirt. I feel accomplished when I'm covered in sweat after finishing a task. Why did it take me so long to figure this out? I feel like I'm living someone else's life. Is this a mid-life crisis?

Unfortunately, my desire to live a simpler life remains a dream deferred. We cannot get by on just one paycheck yet. Not with student loan debt. Not if we want to adopt. And I hate that it feels like I am choosing between having children or living a more enjoyable and satisfying life.

Langston Hughes was right - it sags, like a heavy load. I will keep dreaming though because right now, it keeps me going.

The Internet is my Best Friend and my Worst Enemy

No problem is unsolvable. No question cannot be answered. You are never the only person in the history of the world to come upon a certain issue. As my favorite fictional FBI agent, Dana Scully, would say "The answers are there, you just have to know where to look."

So of course I am researching adoption *to death*. And the internet makes researching any topic so easy because more information than you could find in a whole library is right at your fingertips - just a quick Google search away.

However, the internet contains a lot of...noise, for lack of a better word. I had no idea how many different communities and schools of thought there are on the topic of adoption. And in some of those groups, emotions run high. Particularly adult adoptees and birth mothers. Now, I am desperate for the knowledge I can gain by reading adoptee narratives. Adoptees are the ones in the "adoption triad" (am I using that right?) most impacted by the adoption process - the early loss, a life of feeling different or "other". I get that, which is why I want to see the process from their eyes.

You might be surprised how hard it is to find adoptee narratives. Way harder than finding the chronicles of adoptive parents. There are many, complicated reasons for why this might be, but regardless, it is a reality that is making my search more difficult. And there is only so much help I can glean from an adoptive parent explaining how they deal with questions about adoption and race. I'm more interested in how the adopted person deals with those questions on their own and how their parents provided the tools to do that in a healthy way. That's something that only an adoptee can explain. But here's another road block: the internet often serves as a safe space for nothing but negative, unproductive talk.

In my desperate search, I reach out and immediately cling to *any* adoptee writing. And there is a lot of negative writing coming from adult adoptees on the internet. Some of what they say resonates with me - validating the lack of the adoptee perspective from the mainstream adoption rhetoric, the suffering related to old, closed adoption practices, the importance of confronting racism and prejudice with transracial adoptees. But there is so much more to these adoptees' writings that scares me. Pointing out every word and action prescribed by other adoption communities and basically ranting "wrong wrong wrong!" "as an adoptee, that offends me!" It is terror inducing because the words and actions they are picking apart are things that sounded perfectly acceptable and appropriately sensitive to me. For example, one of the websites I found tore apart a popular "What not to say to an adoptive family" video. According to a collective of adoptees, everything in the video was wrong and the adoptive father who made it is a terrible, ignorant person. I was shocked!

But who am I to question the adoptees' perspective and opinions? What the hell do I know? I pride myself on my critical thinking and reading skills - always questioning information that is presented as "fact" but doesn't back itself up with objective evidence. You can't really do that when it comes to something as personal as the adoptee perspective. And my initial reaction to the negative views by adoptees is pretty much "Well, that is a valid opinion and I am recoiling from it because it challenges my pre-conceived notions. I cannot reject this information outright or I won't learn anything."

But honestly, what is there to learn? In the whole of the article about the video, no one made useful suggestions for what could have made the video better. At best there were vague, general ideas offered, such as "This video is focused solely on the adoptive parent when really the questions are all about the adoptee. The adoptee should always be considered and involved in dealing with these situations!" Ummm....okay, but how do you meaningfully involve a *3 year old* in the situations that the video discussed?? No help there, the comment did not elaborate. That is beyond frustrating for me. You can't just tear apart something that is done with every good intention, call it ignorant, and then not supply guidance for how it can be corrected or done better. That's just not helpful!

I am so frustrated to know that I am asking the right questions (for example, how do I know that the trans-racial adoption process does not damage the adoptee?), seeking knowledge and information from the appropriate sources (namely, seeking out adoptee narratives rather than adoptive parent reports of how children adapt), and yet still not finding the guidance that I need. There are so many opposing views about adoption and I can't believe how difficult it is to wade through the muck and discover the truth!

I have gotten so fed up with the wild west of the internet that I turned to my university's library for academic, objective resources. I have ten or so peer-reviewed articles to read about various aspects of transracial adoption. At least if there is any negativity in them, they will point back to specific data that provides a "why" or a "how" for the claim. The only other resource I have found that hasn't made me want to scream is the book Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge.

If all this frustration and questioning leads me to be a better adoptive parent, I hope I will consider this madness worthwhile.

Do I Have Enough Black Friends?

I don't know what triggered it, but all of a sudden last week, I was back on the "let's research trans-racial adoption" bandwagon.

I really haven't touched the idea since January or February. For a variety of reasons: Late-winter malaise, frustration with how complicated and expensive it is, and mental exhaustion. I think I needed more time to fully process the fact that life is not going to exactly be easy whether we choose to live childless or to adopt. No matter what we do, all of our choices are firmly outside the circle of "normal" (I'm gonna play fast and loose with a lot of loaded words, but please know that if I put them in quotes, I mean the word is supposed by society at large, not by me in particular). I think that was the hardest for me. No matter how hard I tried to be "normal", it just did not happen. And I never asked to be in this position! I don't want to stick out. But here I am, through no fault of my own, choosing in which way do I want to appear "odd" to others.

You might notice I am fixating on what other people will think. I don't know why I do that. My husband pointed it out on Friday when I told him I was researching again. He is...interesting. Ever since we started kicking around the notion of adoption, he just seemed to accept it very simply and move on. I don't know how he does it. I worried that it meant he wasn't truly considering the ramifications of that choice. That he was not soul searching to find out if he felt comfortable raising "someone else's" child - a child that will not resemble us. But after talking to him more, it seems he just truly doesn't care. "There will be problems we have to face no matter what way we have a child. You can't prepare for everything. I know that we will figure things out as they come." Maybe it is different for men because even with a bio-baby, they aren't getting the early physical bonding that the mother is through gestation.

And we aren't just talking about adoption, here. We're talking *trans-racial* adoption. A means of family building that is weighed down with judgments from so many groups. There is an organization of African American social workers who have published their beliefs that being raised by white parents is so damaging to a black child, that they should *only* be placed with an African American family. How is that not supposed to freak the shit out of me??

I mean, I get it, I'm white, so what do I *really* know about racism and prejudice, having always lived in my white-privilege protected world. I can see institutional racism, but I can't experience it, not in this country. At the same time, does that mean I am completely incapable of understanding my limitations and working to overcome them in order to prepare my AA child for the racism and prejudice that they will face? That's not rhetorical, I am honestly asking because I honestly don't know, never having had to consider it before.

And I feel like I can't accept "permission" to adopt trans-racially from another white person, even if they are an adoptive parent or an adoption agency employee. I feel like I need to talk to an adult adoptee who was raised by parents of a different race who can tell me they did *not* get screwed up. And then maybe tell me what the parents did that kept the kid from being completely ill-prepared to face a racist and prejudiced society. I need to hear, from someone who knows, that it *can* be done so I can wear that affirmation as armor when someone inevitably verbally assaults me for raising a black child in a white household.

It's one thing to honor a child's culture of origin. That, honestly, sounds easy to me. Buy health and beauty products meant for their skin and hair type, provide books and toys that reflect their heritage, skin color, historical experiences, expose them to art, music, TV, and movies that are created by people of that culture, etc. That might be difficult if we were adopting internationally, but it's not like African Americans don't have a deep and thriving culture here in the U.S. And it's not hard to find, you just have to step outside of your white-bread world. I can do that!

It is quite another thing to be aware of the unique difficulties a person of color (any color other than white, really) faces in their daily life. Do I have enough black friends? Am I culturally aware enough? Do I know the limitations of my own experiences? Is there a way to discuss race and racism in a meaningful, helpful way when I am one of the privileged majority? If not, what do I do? Do I have to let someone else, someone of the same ethnicity, be a mentor to my child, to teach them how to handle institutional racism that I may not even be able to see at times?

When I was in college, I had friends who were African American, Middle Eastern, Asian, all kinds of different cultures and backgrounds. College is an easy place to have a diverse group of friends, I think because people mix and mingle more than happens in the "adult world". But since graduating, we've all spread out and moved away. It doesn't mean the same thing to be friends on Facebook as to be friends who actually see each other from time to time. What resources do I tap to give me support and guidance on an aspect of parenting I am completely unprepared to face? Sure, I'll join adoption groups, but if it's a bunch of other white parents I will always question if their advice is right or if we are all convincing ourselves that our interpretation of race and prejudice is enough for our kids, cloistered in our white experience, with no outside perspective to validate what we are doing. Can I do right by my hypothetical, African American, adopted child? Wanting to and hoping to just aren't enough. I need to *know* that I will do the right thing.

Does this all circle back around to fixating on what other people think? I guess it does, but in this instance, I think I do NEED an outsider's validation. It is the only way I would know I am doing the right thing because I'm lucky enough to not deal with people being racist AT me. Does that make sense? I don't want to be the blind leading the blind - I want someone who can SEE to give me guidance, and that means relying on an outsider's judgment and opinion. So what do I do?

None of this is going to keep me from moving forward with information gathering. I'm even prepared to start narrowing down our agency choices. But it is something that is permanently housed in the back of my mind. I would hope that by being aware of this issue, that it makes me fit to parent trans-racially - that it means I'm not blind to the unique challenges and I will do my best. But I also worry that my best is not enough.

I'm in an extremely vulnerable place right now, emotionally and mentally, so please be kind in the comments.

Annual Reminder That My GYN is Also an OB...

Bellies, bellies everywhere, but not a one is me.

"congratulations! See you in a few weeks"

"I'm here for my ultrasound"

"Question 10.) How many times have you been pregnant?"

Stab, stab, stab.

"I saw the note from Dr. B about the next step for you and then a few weeks later they said you were taking a break indefinitely."

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I don't have to prove to anyone that I've tried hard enough. That I've earned the right to say stop. I know that. But questions often make me feel like that's exactly what I have to do. I have to sit through another doctor's schpeal about how IVF is definitely an option. Then try to make them understand that I have not made my choice lightly, but no, I'm not going to put myself through that - I don't care what you have to say.

I could have said we've moved on to considering adoption, but I didn't. Don't know why. I guess I didn't think it would help shut down the questions. Or would lead other questions I'm even less prepared to answer.

It doesn't help that last night I dreamed I thought I was pregnant and then remembered that is stupidly impossible because I'm on birth control. Like someone can forget that.

If I can just survive my 30's, after that no one will ask "When are you having kids" and other stupid questions of the like. I won't stick out quite so much. If I can just get through the next decade...

The Long, Dark Tea Time of the Soul

Props to anyone who knows the reference in the title ;-)

This is going to be.... an unholy mess of a post, apologies.

Had my mid-cycle ultrasound today. The front-runner follicle was 14mm. I have no idea what the next closest few were. It doesn't matter. Last cycle at this time a had a 17 and two 16's - as if that did me any good; still not pregnant. They asked that I come in for another ultrasound later in the week. Just in case. They don't want to tell me to trigger and all that when maybe nothing will happen. Oh yeah, cause that would suck - going to *all that trouble* and then nothing happens...

Oh wait - that's every cycle. It doesn't matter if I had gold star follies. Doesn't matter if M's sample had record numbers. NOTHING HAPPENS.

I'm frustrated. To say the least. I find it interesting that I am, and have been, ovulating ever since my surgery, but no dice. And yet, no further testing is suggested. No one has even mentioned male factor since our initial appointment. There are a million different, little things that could be wrong with M's sperm and we would never know because we've just had a basic semen analysis done. But nobody mentions it. The closest thing to a novel idea I have heard was the Guru's revelation to me of other "options" besides IVF.

I'm done, y'all. I'm not saying modern medicine has failed me, but I certainly feel like my doctors are failing me. And they are the best in the area according to "everyone". I'm sick and tired of crying, and blaming myself, and blaming God, and hating my reproductive organs. This is no way to live a life and certainly no way to try to bring new life in. I don't even want to hear their schpeal about modified protocols. It can't possibly raise my chances to a percentage that would make it worth while to me.

I came home from the hospital and cried, like I always do. Because I can lie to myself all I want about how little I care if this works. The truth will out in the ultrasound room. I looked for hope, I scraped about for something happy. I've got nothing left but frustration and heartache towards infertility treatments.

At home, my Portals of Prayer book that has been gathering dust on the hall table fell to the floor when I set my purse down. I flipped through it, looking for guidance. I keep asking God to tell me what He wants me to do - I don't care what it is anymore, just tell me!! I mulled over things for a while, asking myself various questions, reading, thinking. I think - in matters of one's mission in life - sorrow, trials, and soldiering on are expected (from a Christian perspective). But, who ever said that biological procreation was anyone's mission in life - their purpose for being here? "Be fruitful and multiply, sure - but I tried! I tried and tried! I don't think God means for me to be heavy-hearted and sometimes miserable in my pursuit of a family. He has clearly provided other options, which I am not opposed to. I thought on this, and a quiet peacefulness laid on me. I stopped crying.

I've got another post percolating.... I want to write about how much I'm looking forward to being a mom and introducing my kid to all things geek. We're big time geeks, I'm proud to say. I'm a book nerd, M is a gamer geek, and we both enjoy sci-fi and fantasy movies and tv shows (unfortunately we don't often agree on *what* shows and movies). I need to think on it some more though...

Cheers

Doubt

I live a fairly structured life. I find that I need to if I'm going to keep my head above water with chores and other adult responsibilities. This week, my typical schedule is thrown off because I'm spending two, non-consecutive nights at my sister's house while her husband is out of town. So grocery shopping that should have happened Monday had to wait until Tuesday. And then M had to work late. And we had to go shopping before I could make dinner because there was no food in the house. So we went shopping on empty stomachs with M already in a foul mood from his day.

The grocery store provides its own special forms of torture when you are already in a bad mood: lousy music, beeping scooter carts, and screaming children. M and I tried not to be unpleasant to each other, but his bad mood wore off on me and I stopped trying quite so hard. At one point I said "Can you imagine doing this with a baby?" Cue screaming children one aisle over. "Maybe we shouldn't have kids afterall. Maybe we would just end up at each others' throats all the time and get divorced."

I hate having ample time to consider such thoughts. I'm pretty sure it doesn't do any good. Because who *doesn't* find parenting stressful? But I keep coming back to the idea that I'm being saved from myself by being infertile. Because I'm not cut out to be a working mom. I'm exhausted at the end of the day *now*, without a whole other human being relying on me.

In addition to these cheerful wanderings, I find myself increasingly more disillusioned about work. Not just my current job, but work in general. Were humans really put here on Earth to spend the majority of their day isolated from the people they love? My husband and I work in opposite directions. If a medical emergency happened to either of us, it would take the other one at least an hour to get there. I see my husband, bleary eyed and mumbling, for 15 minutes in the morning. I don't see him again until we are both home in the evening, 10 and a half hours later. And then we go to bed at 9:30. How could I possibly raise a child when I don't even see my husband for more than 5 hours at a time??

Am I seriously going to create some charming portfolio of pictures and stories that paint M and I as fantastic parents-to-be when in reality I would be cramming my parenting skills into one or two hours in the morning and 3 or 4 hours at night? How does anyone anywhere ever do this???

You know what, its the drugs talking, I know it is. Because normal, not drugged me does not sit in her office and strongly consider proposing subsistence farming in the backyard to her husband simply so she can work along side him. But honestly, there are some days when I think the Amish have gotten it right.

Dreams

I don't want to dream about being pregnant anymore. I don't want to dream about positive pregnancy tests or betas. I don't want to dream about talking to a tiny thing growing in my uterus.

Because I don't want to wake up sad and confused. I don't want to wake up feeling like crying and then wondering why, then piecing together the dream and feeling even worse. Why can I even dream about something that has never and will never happen? It should be like dying. I heard once that you can't really die in a dream because we have no idea what that would be like so our brains can't string together any experiences and images to make a dream of it. That could be total crap. But I wish I couldn't dream about pregnancy.

I don't like being teased by my own brain.

Everyone is Pregnant Except You

The statistics are on your side that if you seek medical intervention, and you only have one or two factors against you, as an infertile you will get pregnant. Might not end up with a take home baby, but you will get pregnant at least once.

I have never been pregnant. I have never had the faintest shadow of a second line. I have stared so closely and intensely at a pee stick that I could see the indentation, the chemical imprint where the reaction that creates the second line is. And that is the only thing I've ever seen.

I hate being jealous of fellow infertiles. I HATE it. I feel like slime. Less than slime. Worse than slime! They deserve their BFP - they went through hell, too! Its not like with the Fertiles of the world where you roll your eyes and take a few minutes to bitch about how they have no idea what it is like to TRY for a baby.

Instead, my stomach clenches tight. My heart pounds. A voice in my head says "Not another one...not again..." Which I quickly have to stomp out and replace with "Well, good for her, I'm very happy".

No you're not. You're jealous. You're angry. You're sad. Just plain old fucking sad. Because *another* blogger is pregnant. Eventually, they all get pregnant. I have followed over 20 blogs (I know that's not actually a lot) and everyone got pregnant except 3.

It sucks so much to be a part of the infertile of the world. It sucks even more to be part of the much smaller sub-group that never gets pregnant.

Now excuse me while I go self-flagellate to atone for my horrible, evil, rotten jealousy.

Thoughts on Living Child Free (Not By Choice)

I don't even know where to start with this one.

Obviously living Child-Free is an option and its one I have brought up a could of times here. I'm grateful, I guess, that M and I are the sort of people who *can* see ourselves living a future without children and being okay, even though that's not the way we had envisioned our lives going.

It is an attractive end to this miserable IF road because I know that when I'm not in the thick of pursuing that one thing that I simply cannot have, I'm generally a very happy person. I am able to recognize and be thankful for that which I *can* and do have. I have an amazing husband who loves me for some crazy reason even through the times when *I* don't love me. I have an insane, but loving family who I am close to, including two nephews who are the lights of my life. And I live close enough to them to be a permanent part of their lives. M and I have jobs that pay well, with good benefits, and without children we would be able to afford to travel and engage more fully in charitable endeavors and tons of other cool things.

I have no doe-eyed fantasy about how perfect and delightful parenting is. I know that having children means sleepless nights, fights with your spouse, innumerable compromises, putting other plans and goals on the back burner for several years, etc. And we are all willing to make those sacrifices for the honor of raising up decent little human beings. I also realize that a childless life frees you up from many of those stresses and leaves open many other opportunities for you to pursue. See, look at that - I'm being all "glass half full" and shit.

And then this weird guilty feeling swoops around me and cloaks me in its negativity. I feel like...if I see positive things about living child-free, if the thought of that life doesn't make me sob with loss...there must be something wrong with me. I'm really *not* supposed to be a mother because a woman who is supposed to be a mother would doggedly pursue that goal until she reached it. Not lamely give up because "boo hoo, this is *hard* and if I stop now, I can still afford to visit Europe someday."

Its like that terrible conversation we have all been trapped up in at least once where some "helpful" acquaintance tries to make you feel better about your broken lady-parts by cheerfully encouraging "well, think of it this way: you get to sleep in on weekends and go out alone with your husband whenever you want, or take a last minute trip without having to consider any children!" And you're all like "...yaaay...that totally makes up for all my hopes and dreams being cruelly crushed under the heel of reality month after month...". Aren't I just spouting those same platitudes to myself? Shouldn't it make me angry, not hopeful, about the future? I mean, I can't actually be *that* well adjusted, please! A quick glance at the history of this blog proves I'm relatively unstable. So I judge myself for being comforted by these same ideas that, given by an outsider, would enrage me.

I tell myself I must unfit to be a parent because I can see life another way. And that's kind of sick and twisted to. Its beyond stupid to say "I don't deserve to be a mother because I won't move heaven and earth to achieve it" because MOST WOMEN DON'T HAVE TO. They have the luxury of it just "happening" for them, they didn't make any kind of extraordinary pursuit - it *fell* into their fertile. fucking. uterus. And all of these feelings are cobbled together inside of me, battling it out. Its rather nerve wracking, really.

Also, what if we *do* decide to live child-free and then in ten years I find myself regretting that decision so much that I just want to die?? What if my husband is taken from me by illness or accident and I have *nothing* left for the rest of my life because I don't have kids? Or what if we do live to be old but then there is no one to take care of us? Who takes care of the elderly that don't have children? Is it super depressing? And its not like you can ask someone that - "Hey Aunt Mary, I'm very sorry about Uncle Jim's death. Now that you're all alone, do you wish you had had children who could take care of you?" Oh yeah, that's *real* tactful and sensitive...

You might think, since I have so many worries and concerns, that this is not the right path for me - that it sounds like we should keep trying. Because at least then, if it doesn't work, we would definitively know that not having children was not within our power to change, no matter what. Unfortunately, short of some test coming back and saying "CurlySue, you have no eggs" or "M, you have no sperm and you never will", there will ALWAYS be a *chance*, however small, that we could have a baby. And I'm not going to live the next 8-10 years of my life that way, until advanced maternal age reduces my already small chance into basically nothing. I will NOT do that to myself or my husband. Which leaves me no choice but to create my own cut off point.

Cue continued self-judgement, now about the criteria used to choose the cut off point. I can't win.

When Enough is Enough

I have been debating the end of the line for a long time now (obviously). I think halfway through my cycle in March is when I really started to let go and grieve for the biological child(ren) I will never have. Which is an awkward mental position to be in when you know you intend on doing a couple more medicated cycles. Mental gymnastics is not new to anyone this far down the IF road, though.

The *when* and the *how* of moving on is tricky, unfortunately. I had a sort of self-made road block in the form of stopping before IVF. I didn't always know IVF was too much for me, but I figured it out before it became my only option, which is good. And it felt like that decision made life less chaotic. I knew exactly when I would stop TTC: when IVF became my only real option. However, I didn't consider whether I could make it to that critical point. I guess I didn't think the well of my emotional fortitude would run dry in advance of the so-called "end".

So I've kicked around these thoughts - ruminated on them to see how they taste. And finally, after finding my footing, I brought the issue up with M. He never expresses much of an opinion on the topic of our IF struggle and if/how we will have kids. I don't know if its because he doesn't want me to feel pressured by his opinions or if its because he could be happy no matter what happens - his reasoning is something he discusses even less often than his opinions. I asked him how he would feel if I went back on birth control and all my other pre-TTC meds. He said that he would respect my choice, that medicated cycles are much, much harder on me than on him, but he does not feel ready to quit. I asked how much more was he wanting to do. He would like to finish out the IUIs we had planned on doing this year.

I'm glad he said that, in a way. Just *thinking* about doing 2 IUIs before the end of the year conjured up a million different negative emotions and images for me. I officially have no good or positive feelings left about TTC; at least, not TTC in the way that we have to do it. My mind cannot think or focus on the hopeful, positive outcome - it only dwells on the inevitable and the fact that I sign my happiness away for 30 days. For nothing. For more of the same: B.F.N (emphasis on the F). And I'm sick of all that sadness being the ghost at the party for any special occasions that happen to fall within those 30 days. I could only think of 1 month that would not be an emotional land-mine field if we did a cycle: August. That's it.

I explained all this to M and we came to a compromise. One more IUI, in August of course. He says that last cycle will be enough to give him closure on this phase of our lives and then we can move forward into whatever comes next. For me, that will involve continuing to help my family navigate the new and scary reality of my mom in a wheelchair and slowly researching adoption. I will not make any decisions until I know for absolute certain how M feels about adoption. I think I could be fine no matter what we choose to do after ending TTC. Life is full just as it is, there is no gaping hole for a child to fill, and that's never been why I wanted a child in the first place.

I'm sorry my posts have been very scant recently. There is so much going on in my family and my life and none of it particularly relating to infertility. I try to keep this blog focused on my broken lady parts and hypothetical children. If anyone is still out there, I appreciate you sticking around. I do follow all your stories, just being derelict in my commenting duties. Some day I will get back to business as usual - pinky swear!

Why

That's the question, isn't it? We all ask it. All the time. About everything that relates to our struggles to conceive.

Why us? Why this? Why didn't that treatment work? Why am I not pregnant? Why why WHY??

And there are rarely answers... Except for this time.

I know why I didn't get pregnant last month, and possibly any of the other months I have tried for the past 2 years. I know why I haven't been blessed and burdened with the responsibility of a tiny human who relies heavily on my time and attention.

Last Monday (April Fools Day in the States, how fitting), my Mom lost the ability to use her legs, maybe forever. She got up for the day, like any other day, and soon after experienced a partial infarction of her spinal cord. A stroke in the spinal cord some doctors say.

There was no reason for this. My mother is not at risk for a stroke of any kind. She is a very healthy 56 year old who's only serious condition is psoriatic arthritis. The doctors (there are so many of them now) stare at her, baffled. It is as though God reach down through the clouds and touched her back.

I can't really describe the past week. It has been at times hopeful, and at times, horrifying. Sometimes it feels like nothing will ever be okay again. And sometimes I believe that miracles are possible, and she may yet walk again. She is alive, that's something. She didn't break anything when her legs gave out, that's something too.

Thank God I'm not pregnant.

There, I said it.

I was able to be fully there for my mom and dad during one of the scariest weeks of their lives. I was in a unique position to drop everything and just be available for anything at any time. That has meant the world to me. My sister can't do it, she has Bear and A to look after. And we all have to pitch in to help my brother adjust because his Asperger's makes events like this 10 times as scary for him. I filled a role that only I could and only because I don't have any kids and I'm not pregnant.

I never thought I would be thankful for NOT being pregnant, but I know better now.

They are still trying to figure out how all this happened. My mom still has a lot of pain and the doctors are attempting to manage it in a way that lets her lead a normal life. And no one knows how much of her functions she will regain. She moved to an inpatient rehab center where she will learn the tricks to living as a paraplegic. We continue to pray that it is God's will she walk again.

Until things settle down, until I know Mom will be okay, until I know if she can live at home or if my parents will have to buy a one story house, I'm taking another treatment break. I was already starting to come to terms with a child-free life, so I haven't given it a second thought. It seemed obvious and natural. The family I *have* will always come before the family that *may be*. There are so many life lessons I am learning from this horrible experience. And I am bemused at the way I have received an answer to my so often sobbed question: Why?

Digging Deep

I have read, and I have probably even said, that going through fertility treatments takes great strength. I believe that. And yet, I don't feel strong at all. I feel incredibly weak and broken. If I am whole, I am littered with cracks and chinks - so very fragile.

Today I feel normal, like myself, for the first time in 2 weeks. Last night, while I cried on M's shoulder, I told him he is enough for me. I don't *have* to have children. I *want* to have children. He said that I am all he ever wanted. I said I am willing to do another IUI in May and hope that I won't have the same extreme reaction to the meds. If I don't become a basket case at the end of that cycle, I can go through with the third and final IUI. If I *do* have a very strong reaction to the meds again, I am done. There is no point putting myself through the emotional meat-grinder ad infinitum when this clearly isn't working.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time exploring child free not by choice blogs. The room no one wants to enter on the Stirrup Queens' Blogroll. Every Infertile's worst nightmare. Their blogs are proof to me that there is life after treatment cessation, and it does not have to be full of sorrow over what might have been and crying over daily reminders of what you don't have. I also learned something important from their stories. By the time they finally stopped treatments, most of them were so emotionally exhausted, so completely heartbroken by their struggles, that they could not even consider other avenues of having children. They didn't have it left in them to go through the process of adoption even if they wanted to because of how much infertility treatments had scarred them. Others had kept at treatments into their 40's and were "too old for consideration" by many adoption agencies (public adoptions aren't as strict, but its very hard to adopt an infant that way).

Not that I am judging their (or anyone's) choices, but I don't want to be that. I don't want to keep at this until I am a beaten, bloody pulp, completely unrecognizable even to myself. That's not how I would choose to end it. I think IVF would do that to me. IUI is already practically doing that to me. I want to say enough is enough while I still have years left to grieve my loss, think about pursuing adoption, and enough of my heart and mind still in tact to carry me through the difficult filing process if that's what we choose to do. I'm not willing to let the pursuit of children destroy me and my relationships with other people. I can make peace with my life without having to go that far.

I know that medicated cycling makes me crazy. I also know that when I am *not* cycling, I am normal. I can see babies, mothers, pregnant women, and NOT want to hang myself. Yes it hurts, but it DOES NOT ruin my day. And I can keep in mind all of the wonderful things I *do* have, and the experiences that are possible in a future without children.

So I am digging deep, finding the strength to get back on the hormone roller coaster at least one more time. I can see the exit in the distance, and that definitely helps for now.