REFERRAL!

We have news. We accepted a referral today, the same little guy who appeared and then disappeared in July. We now have a lot of paperwork and a lot of waiting ahead of us but our lives have taken on a new meaning somehow already.

I keep hoping this is real and is not going to slip away somehow. After 2 miscarriages, many failed cycles, and over 7 years of trying to have a baby, I am scared of being disappointed again. But I'm so happy right now!

Let's hope for a very satisfactory situation by the middle of 2011!

Status update

We've had an emotional week but we have crossed another hurdle for now.

First of all, the emotional week stems from having a referral slip through our fingers. The bottom line is that Intended D and I had yet another realization that every step in this process is a growing experience.

It was too good to be true, and it worked out best for the little guy, which is what we all want.

And today, I finally put the dossier in the mail today! I know this sounds backward considering I'm talking about referrals and our dossier is just barely getting out the door. Well I'm going to avoid trying to explain it because I can't really explain it. It was an opportunity and it's gone.

Anyway, I had been waiting for our dear lovely friends to get me their letters, which all 3 provided very quickly. This has made me treasure these wonderful friends even more than I had before. I know that all 3 of them moved really quickly to make this happen because they all know how long we have struggled and they want us to be successful. Maybe they want us to stop complaining, I don't know. But Intended D and I are so lucky to have these people in our lives! So we got last of the letters last night and I was able to put it all together!

Our adoption agency wants 3 original copies of the dossier (and several photocopies of it!) and compiling the dossier was extra excessively time consuming because stupid me got all our forms notarized without having them fully completed. We were rushing because Intended D was going out of town for an extended period of time and I wanted to get the dossiers out to the agency before he got back. So what did this stupid act mean? It means:

1) I had to write each individual document 3 times by hand

2) I couldn't screw up or I'd have to do it all over again once Intended D returned

I also had financial documents and I had to block out the account numbers and again, in my haste I didn't do this before I made photocopies. So yes, I got to do each copy by hand individually. After I borrowed a black sharpie from someone else in my building. Yes it just kept getting better and better.

Well I'm so happy to say I put the dossiers in the mail today. SO happy. Yes it was a pain in the ass and it's possible I screwed something up and will have to fix stuff. But it's done for now. Another step forward. Bring on another referral universe! We're waiting!

Short and sweet

This is gonna be short because I only really want to post an essay I read the other day. It's basically about how much a person learns about themselves going through infertility and striving so hard to become a parent.

I really love it.

Here it is: How infertility has improved my life by Maude Allen

Collecting documents

We are gradually moving forward in this process of adopting. Today we spent $60 getting our police records and another $10 for the bank to send a silly letter indicating that we are their clients and how much money we have in which accounts. Talk about nickel and dimed. God forbid we just get into our account online and print up our balances. Too simple. The gentleman said he couldn't do it himself but somebody in India (yes, outsources!!) had to fill out an electronic form for us, "and it costs $10 to do this..." My response was almost "of course it does..."

Need to keep a running tab of all these expenses. We had a new friend at support group talking about how EVERYTHING in the adoption process costs money and at the time, it seemed like they were just complaining and they should suck it up. Well I'm now joining in on the complaining!!! And yes, because we are infertile, we have to suck it up. It just gets really old to have to keep sucking it up. I'm thrilled about the prospect of adopting. But I'll say what has been said time and time again. I'm frustrated by how unfair this process is. "Well, you could always adopt..." "fuck you."

OK now I've said it. Deep breaths and now we move on.

We have submitted our I-800A and are now we're getting our dossier ready to go.

The homestudy is done (and was submitted with the I-800A) and was really a relatively easy process. I think this is attributed to a really stellar agency that we worked with for the homestudy. I would send ANYBODY to these guys. They made it really unoffensive and as simple as possible. Although when we were in the thick of getting the homestudy done, it felt ridiculous. We started with getting fingerprinted at the county courthouse. Which was just about the most offensive event I could have imagined! Time to report our progress to date:

Homestudy began in mid-April. We had to get fingerprinted, go to the homestudy agency to get interviewed, have the social worker come to our home, get physicals for the homestudy (and the dossier), submit copies of our birth certificates & marriage license. We had to take 10 hours of courses online, and have background checks in every state we've lived in since we were 18 years old. I think that's it but I'm not positive.

So that homestudy was put in the mail with our I-800A form and on Friday 7/16 was sent to the US Citizen and Immigration Services office (part of homeland security) along with a check for $830. They have to approve that we are eligible to adopt internationally.

So now we are compiling our dossier which is composed of a statement from the bank indicating our finances, other info on our assets, tax information, personal references, medical history, plans for child care, criminal history clearance, birth certificates, marriage certificates, photographs of us and our lives, and all sorts of notarized documents which I do not understand but will sign where I am told. I know there are more, I just don't have the list in front of me. So today we got 2 more things crossed off the list.

Part of me knows to just keep moving forward, cross things off the list, and get to the finish line so we can hurry up and wait. But there are those brief fleeting moments when we think about what we have to go through and it just feels so unbelievable. yes, unfair, unfair, unfair. First infertility treatment, now going through the process of adopting. It's not simple.

Intended D and I were talking the other day and it made us feel better to really think about how we are literally working with our country and the adoptive country's governments to get a child U.S. citizenship. This is no simple matter and it makes it understandable why there are so many hoops to jump through. It's definitely a big deal. First our government has to find us eligible to adopt (this is the purpose of the I-800A) Then the adoptive country has to determine that we are eligible to adopt (using the dossier). Then the adoptive country gives us a potential child and then our government has to decide whether it's ok (the I-800). And then the adoptive country has to go through the process of placing their native child into foreigners' hands. Pretty intense and no surprise that it takes months and up to years to get this managed.

It's just tough. Ultimately we are very happy about this path and cannot imagine it any other way anymore. But losing my ability to imagine the simplicity of conception and childbirth is what I privately mourn in moments of weakness.

Letting our guard down...

We've been in the process of moving to a different apartment and we are finding ourselves talking about the prospect of our child who will be our new apartment with us. It's been a strange experience. To be honest, I am a little scared about this new shift in our thinking-- what if we are disappointed again? How would we handle that? When we first started trying to conceive so many years ago, I planted tulips in the fall anticipating when they bloomed we'd be expecting a child and that was 7 years ago. Are we setting ourselves up for failure again allowing ourselves to be hopeful that we will actually be parents?

All our friends who have adopted continue to tell us that we are now embarking on a path that won't fail as long as we remain determined. We are letting our guard down little by little...

Another article about infertility...

It seems weird to me that seemingly all of the sudden salon.com is publishing articles about infertility. All the articles I've seen so far have been basically of the "here's a funny/cynical/hipster-infused/heartfelt perspective on infertility". There's one today about jerking off into a cup to produce a sperm sample.

Again, I somehow couldn't relate anymore. I only vaguely remember giving my first sample and I did have a lot of these feelings: I hoped not to get stage fright on the big day, was wondering what the room would be like, videos or mags or what,...I just had no real idea about what it would be like other than stuff I saw in movies (like the scene in She's Having a Baby for example). Anyhoo, all in all it was easy for me. I for some reason don't get to embarrassed about it and was able to view it as pretty much a mechanical thing I had to do. Unlike the author of the salon.com article I viewed my "job" in the fertility corporation Intended Mommy and I were running as the easy part. She took shots, spread her legs, was generally poked and prodded and looked at with a spot-light in a room of AT LEAST two relative strangers. I jerked off in private into a cup. How bad can that be? Not so bad in the grand scheme of things. Hell, most guys actually jerk off on their own time for no particular reason other than some quick pleasure! No woman volunteers to go to the Dr's office, put her legs in the stirrups and have a vaginal ultrasound with a big wand that is digging around looking for ovaries. It's not fun. Plus, it's almost always followed by a blood draw. Sweet!

Lastly, DO NOT read the comments to the salon.com article! People on the internet (most of them at least) or some of the nastiest most purposefully hurtful people. It brings to mind an old phrase in my mind where the only response to these people is "what makes you think anybody gives a shit about your fucking opinion on something you obviously know almost nothing about."

the homestudy

We had our social worker come to our home for our homestudy this week. I feel like I've been going through the motions to get through the "to do" list without really knowing how to process what a strange experience it all is. I'm happy to report, however, that the homestudy visit was really harmless. It was our 2nd time meeting her, the first time was when she did our individual interviews in her office. The agency we have selected for our homestudy is really great and I have nothing but good things to say about them thusfar.

Our social worker used the time to interview us further, but to also talk about what to be prepared for in the process of adoption. We discussed the potential for physical and developmental problems, as well as emotional challenges with attachment disorder and other issues that may arise. Adoption is a life-long process.

I found myself fairly emotional through the conversation, trying to hold back my tears almost the entire time...and it's hard to put into words why exactly. These are all issues that Intended D and I are well are of. We have read as much as we can about the possibilities, and we understand that we have to be prepared for a lot of possible challenges. I suppose having to talk about it out loud made it more real and less of a hypothetical. But until we are faced with real situations, how can we possibly really know what awaits us or how we will deal with it...

Not much else to write for now. I thought I'd be able to reason my feelings out as I was typing them but the words aren't flowing right now.

Hmm, interesting...

Serono (a fertility drug company so feel free to question their motives) has an ad campaign out called Increasing Your Chances and there is an article at salon.com about it. They are pretty interesting and speak pretty well to the infertile community in my opinion. I don't really have much else to say about it...I was curious about what Intended Mommy would have to say but she hasn't gotten around to taking a look yet.

However, I noticed an interesting thing while watching them. I could relate and all of that but I found myself a little more "detached" then I usually am from this kind of thing. I think that the whole adoption process, as it becomes more and more real, is crowding out these feelings associated with infertility. It's not as if adoption is somehow a cure. It isn't. But, I'm finding myself less interesting in being infertile....less interested? Hmm. I'm not sure what that means or how to express what I mean but I'm just not interested in thinking about all of that right now.

It's probably b/c today we got another phase of our home-study accomplished and are on the finishing stretch. Of course, it will still likely be another 18 months or so until we are actually parenting a little rugrat and a million feelings are still to be felt and a million things have to go right and a million things could go wrong...but...the ball is rolling.

Little girls vs. little boys

Intented Mommy and I went to an adoption open-house-type thing for some adoption agency a few months back. It was a 2-3 hour seminar type situation with a few speakers giving some basics about adoption and their agency in particular. One of the speakers--the owner or biggest shot in the room--posed a little riddle: why do people adopt little girls more often than little boys?* She said there was an answer that she was not going to tell us....ok, fine, food for thought.

I thought about this for a while trying to figure it out. The thing was that I always pictured us adopting a girl but wasn't sure why. On the other hand, I always imagined we would have girls naturally if that come had to pass. (My brother has two girls and, in a weird way, it just seems like girls are natural for our family right now. There are many more boys in the last 30-40 years and I think that the law of averages is making me subconsciously think of girls....anyhoo...I digress.) So why girls? There was presumably a logical explanation.

Ideas:
1 - Intended Mommy had told me (I don't know how true this is but I feel like she told me she knew it was true) that girls tend to take care of their parents when they get old. Ah-ha. That's why adopted parents want girls. To take care of them in old age. That seems pretty logical...but it didn't really resonate with me. Although, maybe, in part, I have the impression that boys are a little more rebellious and harder to control, more of a challenge to parent (which seems crazy since girls/high-school/dating seems like a nightmare) which dovetails nicely into the question of will the child be there to take care of you in your old age. This is also pretty culture dependent because often girls get married and become part of their new family and have responsibilities thereof.
2 - This is one I though of recently. One thing I grieve the most in this whole infertility experience is the whole miracle-of-life thing: the pregnancy, the newborn, the hospital,...the dream. If we had a little girl then chances are pretty good (although not guaranteed) that she would eventually have a baby the old fashioned way and we could vicariously experience the whole miracle-of-life thing that way.
3 - What else could it be?

Then I figured I would google for a while and see what the interwebs have to say. I found this old slate article: Why Do Adoptive Parents Prefer Girls. Of course, WDAPPG is the subtitle because slate.com just INSISTS on having some pithy little sophomoric catchy title for all their articles, hence, this one is called "Bringing Up Babes". Ahhhh, get it? Babes. Girls. A play on the famous old 1930s movie "Bringing Up Baby". Honestly, half the time I don't read these articles out of spite for the juvenile title! But, again, I'm off track...

So, according to slate it seems that there are a few things going on.
In a natural child birth, i.e., no infertility, no adoption:
- Men prefer boys
- Women prefer girls, although, women can be convinced to also prefer boys because boys pass down the family name which is, evidently, important to people.
- Add in a little bit of "boys play with boy dolls" (I know, action-figures!) and "girls play with girl dolls"--for example, my mom was SOOOO happy to finally have girls in the family (my nieces) so she could dress them up all pretty blah blah blah--and that adds to the gender preference even more.
That's the first part of the equation. The second is that:
- Women are usually the deciders (thanks W!) when it comes to the adoption process and make a lot of the decisions, hence, they tend to choose girls just like the "natural" situation--in which they don't really have a choice at all...just a preference
- When the men lose the genetic connection they figure "girls, boys, what's the difference?"

I guess that's it...the article goes in to much more detail. It's pretty interesting. But I wonder if that's all it is. The thing I find super fascinating is that in primate societies the males often are more bonded and protective of their sister's (is sister the right word?) offspring than their own. The reason is that there is a chance that their own offspring are not genetically connected to them, i.e., their ape of a spouse was a bit slutty. On the other hand, as long as they are sure that their sister is their sister, they can be sure that her offspring are genetically connected to themselves. Clever little monkeys, eh?

Lots of evolutionary stuff is involved in this sort of thing so I just wonder if there is more to the girls vs. boys thing in adoption.

Also, I read on the interwebs somewhere (where???) that maternal grandparents are often more involved and supportive of the adopted child than paternal grandparents. Apparently, the reason is that once the familial genetic connection is lost the paternal grandparents lose interest. Pretty lame, paternal grandparents, pretty lame.

* Obviously, there is the consideration of demographics and the fact that girls are more likely to be put up for adoption the world over and blah blah blah. But, the fact that adoptive parents prefer girls to boys persists when all this stuff is factored in.

Another Mother's Day

Another Mother’s Day has passed.
Luckily, I have pretty thick skin. We sent Intended D’s mother flowers for Mother’s Day. We missed her call and she left a message to thank us for the gift. In her excitement, the end of her message began with a “Happy Mother’s D……” and trailed off, and she quickly recovered with a “Happy-All the Women in Our Lives-Day!”… Bless her heart. I know she tries and I’m lucky to have parents and in-laws who try to be sensitive. Mostly it hit my sarcastic funny bone and I couldn’t help laughing at how thoughtlessly that came out of her mouth… and then I quickly quieted down because I didn’t want to hurt Intended D’s feelings.
Hell, even our home study social worker (who has years of experience and whom we connect with incredibly well) wished me a Happy Mother’s Day! I tried really hard to not be annoyed at her either. Her enthusiasm was out of trying to convince me that this whole adoption journey WILL have positive results and the word “motherhood” is now a safe word. But if my adoption caseworker says it, how can my mother-in-law know how taboo it is?

And so back to the pain of Mother’s Day. I have been able to see it strictly as a nuisance or an annoyance more than a painful experience. For me, it doesn’t rank with the twinges of pain I experience at the mention of baby showers, pregnant women, or boisterously proud new parents. I know I am lucky because I have a mom I get to celebrate. I don’t live near her but in my heart, it is a day that I relish my mother’s presence in my life, the influence she has had in creating the person I have become. I have too many friends who have lost their mothers. I grieve for those who don’t have a mommy to celebrate on Mother’s Day more than I grieve for myself for not having a baby to call me mommy.

Parent History Form

What to say? We're in the middle of the homestudy and just told our current apartment complex to take a hike along with their 14% increase in rent. Come on!!! So, we're moving down the street which delays the homestudy or costs us $350 more so they can come out and see our new apartment after we move..and still delays it. So, we're waiting on the home visit part of the homestudy.

Tomorrow, however, we have individual interviews with the case worker. It can all be very intrusive and humiliating and unfair if you think hard about it. Before that though we need to fill out our Parent History Form. It has 20 something questions such as,

"Describe the family in which you grew up. Please include parents' ages,... How often do you see them?"

"What was it like to be a child in your family?..."

"How long have you thought about adopting? Who spoke first of it?..."

Anyway, at the end of the day I rambled on and on like Jack Kerouac for 10 pages or so. Intended Mommy slapped down about 10 of her own. I had half a mind to say "Look, I have a blog with about 70 posts and I'm pretty sure all the answers to these questions are somewhere in there." Actually I think the blog helped a lot when it came to this form b/c not only had we thought a lot about stuff like this we also put finger to keyboard on a lot of it already.

Most adopters dread the homestudy. It's apparently full of lots and lots of paperwork and appointments. Actually most people bitch almost entirely about the paperwork.

It doesn't really seem so bad so far....

Really?...I give up

Today I found out that I didn't get a job* that I worked really really really hard to get. I felt like a had a really good shot and, in a lot of ways, it would have been as close to perfect as we have dared to dream lately. Needless to say, I'm very depressed about this and it makes me feel like a failure. The funny thing is...it got me thinking.

There were two things that I expected to achieve in my life. The two expectations where, in actuality, my long-term dreams but I didn't really consider them dreams because so many people achieve them with relative ease. One was to have a family; make love to my wife, get her pregnant, and have children. The other was to go college and graduate school in order to get the sort of job I always wanted. Now, this job is not "rock-star" or "football-star" or some stupid unattainable bullshit like that...it's not to be a billionaire or anything like that.. It's a job that most people would guess is readily achievable....as it should be considering it requires a fucking Ph.D. and, once you get it, a shit load of work and relatively modest pay.

Well, as this blog attests: the first goal/dream/expectation is not to be**, and evidently the second goal/dream/expectation is not to be. There is "always next year" regarding the job...but the writing is starting to appear on the wall in a darker and more readable shade and it is pointing to either (1) lowering my job expectations even further then they've already been lowered or (2) switching to "plan B" (after I figure one out!) and convincing myself that it is better than "plan A" would have been.

Somewhere along the line the following transformations occurred.
Expectation --> Goal --> Dream
My expectations in life became goals as I grew up and realized you don't get everything you want. Then goals became dreams since we could never seem to achieve our goals.

Lately, the most apt phrase to describe my thoughts is "How did I get here?"

* In principle, I could still get it but my chances are very very very slim.

** I know I know I know. Our goal is to be parents and adoption allows a person to parent in a very satisfying and beautiful way...but I'm fucking feeling sorry for myself right now and I just do not want to fucking hear it!

Honesty is the best policy...right?

Ok, the title is hyperbolic. But I still think the point of this blog is for Intended M and I to be honest and understand our feelings about lots of different things. That said, IM is likely to be pissed or disappointed or annoyed with me for this one.

We're going on a trip in 3 weeks or so to a so-called "developing country". Intended M decided to start birth-control-pills so she doesn't have to deal with having her period in an uncomfortable situation. It makes sense and I understand her point.

The weird thing is that I find it frustrating*. It's so stupid. We are literally getting our fingerprints taken today in order to jump through one of the adoption hoops** and I'm finding myself frustrated because IM is going to be on BCPs for the next month and so there is absolutely no chance of her getting pregnant in the next month and likely a month after that. Crazy! We've been doing the naughty unprotected for YEARS and I still get frustrated when she's on BCPs? Really? I also get frustrated when we can't seem to do the nasty when she is likely ovulating. Again, really? It also used to happen when she took BCPs to ramp up to an IVF cycle. What do I think is going to happen? A miracle? I think it's pretty much evident through examples all over the world and in our own lives that miracles do not exist. It's pathetic.

* I also find myself sad and frustrated when IM starts her period. Honestly, it's pathetic. I just have one of those personalities such that if something is not literally impossible then I think there is a chance. It may be a 1 in a million chance but it's a chance. I'm like fricken Lloyd Christmas, "so you're telling me there's a chance."

** A quick question to all you mothers out there that gave birth the old fashioned way. Did the state and federal government take your fingerprints and do a criminal background check on you before you were allowed to take the baby home?

Location, location, location

Yesterday, Intended M and I are at Barnes and Noble checking out travel books for an upcoming trip. I was having a pretty depressed day and feeling like life was unfair--yeah, boo-hoo, life is fair compared to what? Anyway...back to this post. Intended M thought "I'm gonna go see what type of adoption books they have", couldn't find them in self-help, asked an employee (or probably team-member as they're corporate overlords like them to call themselves!), and was told they were in the Family-Health section. (I think it was family health...something like that.) So we go over there...me reluctantly since I was just not in the mood for this sort of thing yesterday...and they have (1) a totally weak selection of literally about a dozen books and (2) they are right next to all the "What to expect when you're expecting"-books and the "How to be a super breast-feeder"-books (are there such books?) and (3) there was a woman in that section sitting on a chair breastfeeding her baby with her doting husband attending to her and (4) it was right next to the Children's book section. Really?!?!

Now, I don't expect people to be completely sensitive and I suppose in some book publisher sense it is totally normal to put adoption books along side these others, that is, I'm sure at some big publishing house, the publishing-arm that publishes pregnancy books also publishes adoption books. But Barnes and Noble is trying to SELL books. There is a different calculation involved--location, location, location! I doubt the male impotency books are right next to the "how to look good naked"-books for young hot women!

Needless to say, we didn't look through their crappy selection of adoption books. I was thinking about why their selection was so crappy and figured it was probably because they don't sell many adoption books. I wonder why? :) I also thought about telling them...or emailing them...or whatever...but then I figured...who cares?

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting.

Baby Clothes and Baby Steps

A couple weeks ago, Intended D was looking at some stuff on cafepress for some reason and stumbled across some adorable baby onesies with funny things written on them. I've been really working hard on being optimistic now that we have begun the adoption process. (we sent in our homestudy application last week!) I told him he should order a couple of them because they were so cute. I said: “When we want them in the future, maybe we won’t be able to find them!” And a couple days later, I discovered Intended D had indeed ordered baby clothes!!!!! You cannot imagine my shock when I opened the package.

Over the years, Intended D and I have known a lot of couples (mostly women) out there who began collecting baby clothes, baby shoes, baby whatever as soon as they started trying to conceive (ttc) . Hell, my sister-in-law bought a pair of baby Air-Jordans before she was married OR pregnant! (And unfortunately for her, she had 2 little girls whose bows and ruffles probably never matched the Air Jordans. They are probably still sitting in a box somewhere. Tough times….) I digress…

Back in 2002/2003 when we started ttc, we made 2 big decisions related to our planned critter: we bought a video camera (yes, VHS.…) and we bought a more reasonable vehicle with better mileage and 4 doors. Both seem like big purchases but we thought they were practical in the grand scheme of things. Somehow in the beginning, we resisted buying any baby clothes because it seemed premature until we knew whether we would have a boy or girl... and besides, we didn't have a ton of space as apartment dwellers. Anyway, as our reproductive journey turned into an infertility journey, we nixed the idea of investing in any other baby paraphernalia. It was just too heartbreaking.

Four years ago when our niece was born, we bought her a little t-shirt that had a Muppets-theme to it that Intended D and I both thought was really funny. Turned out it was too tight for her by the time we gave it to her. And rather than sending it back, we made a big decision. We kept it. Partly because we were both too lazy to pack it up and send it back. We let it take up space for a while, it collected dust, and finally decided we'd just hold onto it. We boxed it up and put it in storage. At the time we were doing IVFs. That shirt is still sitting in a box somewhere. I’m not certain where it is but I know we kept it.

From time to time Intended D has looked at baby onesies and t-shirts-- when we were doing the donor cycle and thinking about the possibility of twins, he was looking at silly ones like shirts that say "I'm with stupid" that are pointing at each other. Most of the time though, through our infertility journey, we've avoided looking at baby paraphernalia. It's just too painful. Most of the time we feel like we'll never have a baby. So purchasing clothes just feels so pathetic.

My friends I have made in the adoption world keep telling me that the great thing about adoption is that at the end of the day, we WILL have a baby in our home. Intended D and I have struggled to really believe that. This experience has had so many disappointments that we don't believe in ANY GUARANTEES. But I am so happy that Intended D purchased those two onesies -- he bought 6-12 month sizes so that we'll definitely be able to use them. It feels like such a big step to actually allow ourselves to "dream" again-- to believe we might be successful despite all the failures. We are maybe, just maybe, on a path to believing that adoption might actually result in a baby.

For now I'm not sure what to do with those shirts, but I'm glad we're keeping them.

This morning on NPR...and two posts in one day!

I woke up hearing this this morning...being read by Garrison Keillor which made it a little odd. Intended Mommy was still sleeping.


Useful Advice

by Catherine Tufariello

You're 37? Don't you think that maybe
It's time you settled down and had a baby?

No wine? Does this mean happy news? I knew it!

Hey, are you sure you two know how to do it?

All Dennis has to do is look at me
And I'm knocked up.
Some things aren't meant to be.
It's sad, but try to see this as God's will.

I've heard that sometimes when you take the Pill—

A friend of mine got pregnant when she stopped
Working so hard.
Why don't you two adopt?
You'll have one of your own then, like my niece.

At work I heard about this herb from Greece—

My sister swears by doing quai. Want to try it?

Forget the high-tech stuff. Just change your diet.

It's true! Too much caffeine can make you sterile.

Yoga is good for that. My cousin Carol—

They have these ceremonies in Peru—

You mind my asking, is it him or you?

Have you tried acupuncture? Meditation?

It's in your head. Relax! Take a vacation
And have some fun. You think too much. Stop trying.

Did I say something wrong? Why are you crying?

"Useful Advice" by Catherine Tufariello, from Keeping My Name. © Texas Tech University Press, 2004.

...I hope I don't get in trouble posting this whole poem...but...well...I'll link to where you can buy more of Tufariello's poems. So there.

No, you're a dink!

We had friends over for lunch yesterday...a nice lazy Sunday. They have a 14-15 month old daughter who is a cutie-pie :) Anyway, we got to talking about rent and cost of living and stuff like that and how our previous apartment was very expensive and the father (my friend) says "but you guys are dinks". I said "what? what's a dink" and made a joke about how I've always been a dink thinking of all the times my older brother called me a dink! He said "double income no kids". Check out wikis explanation for DINKY.

I'm not saying he was being insensitive although I felt bad and a little pathetic for a moment there and gave IM a little look intended to convey our entire complicated situation. My friend's point by calling us DINKs is that we can afford high rent or certain extravagances which got me thinking a little bit. I am well aware of the enormous expense of kids--and in a lot ways "little" kids are worse...day care (for people like us) blah blah blah. But DINK generally refers to people who are childless by choice--or these days it has started to refer to gay couples sans kids which imo is not good for them either since they do fertility treatments and adopt...but I digress. As we've probably documented enough on this blog, infertility treatments are very very very expensive. We have been lucky for a number of reasons and have been able to "afford" it by a combo of luck, charity, and being smart. Many people though take out 2nd mortgages on their houses, sell 2nd cars, take out huge loans, finance it through clinics, etc etc etc. But, all in all, off the top of my head, over the last 5-6 years of treatments we have spent close to $100,000....definitely over $50,000...and we are looking at another $30,000 or so to adopt a SINGLE child...a sibling costs another $30,000. That's not chump change or trivial. My friends can add a sibling for free and WITHOUT a background check! Besides, the money they spend toward their daughter is the purest form of investment. They are taking care of her...investing in her future! Our money went down the toilet--almost literally.

Sometimes I feel like I give this particular friend slightly too much...what's the word?...I'm too understanding of his lack of sensitivity. Parents of young kids are generally self-absorbed in a strange way b/c they aren't SELF-absorbed as much as absorbed in their child. But, they basically expect that everybody else is equally absorbed in their child. So usually I give the benefit of the doubt b/c I'm not surprised that he would look at the surface of my life and think "without this little kid and all her expenses we could eat out more...fix the dent on the car...buy an Xbox..."...I don't know, whatever :) However, then I think: come on, man, pull your head out of your ass, do you really think we are childfree on purpose right now, what do you think we are waiting for, we're your age, we pretty obviously want kids, maybe we're having trouble, maybe we're in treatment? At the end of the day, though, I think it just takes experience. Without someone in your life--a friend or a family member--experiencing infertility, it takes a LOT to be sensitive to our situation. This is basically why it can feel so lonely out here.

Feeling fluctuations

I've been pretty down in the dumps lately. Actually, it's not that simple. More accurately, I've been fluctuating with pretty large amplitude and reasonably high frequency between feeling good about things and feeling depressed about things.

Let me stop and take a side trip first. I have a family member (sibling of a sibling-in-law...which I think makes her...I don't now). About two years ago she got cancer and had very very very little chance of living...but now she's alive and well and cancer free! The reason I mention her is because she is a super positive thinker (I actually suspect there is some darkness down deep down inside since she is human like the rest of us but that's neither here nor there). She borders on "The Secret" which I think is total bullshit mumbo jumbo that basically tells people that suffer failures that it is their own fault for not bringing the positive energy on themselves. Fuck you, "The Secret"! But, I have not had cancer and so she can think whatever the hell she wants and I will just try to learn something from her because she has heroically dealt with a completely unfathomably terrible situation. Ok, where was I? Oh yeah. One thing she says is that she viewed her cancer as a chance, an opportunity, to show the world how tough she was since she admittedly always talked a lot of shit growing up about how much of a hard-ass she was. Cancer was her chance to back up all that talk. An opportunity to show what she was worth and she did and there is no longer any doubt!

I try to tap into her thinking and sometimes I can. Sometimes I am able to tell myself that I always thought and assumed and expected I would be a great father. Well....here is my chance to back it up. Parenting an adopted child is not necessarily for the faint of heart. I've read too much about adoption to think it is a walk-in-the-park (not that parenting is ever easy) or the same as parenting your 'natural' child--ugh...there has got to be a better phrase than that! (I'm sure there is, I just don't know it.) To add to the challenge we will mostly likely adopt a mixed race child that is not either my or my wife's race....we would've produced our own mixed race child but...well...you get the idea. On good days, I relish the challenge and opportunity to be an adoptive parent. There are so many interesting and unique and beautiful situations that await us. The chance to connect to a different culture through adoption...or country...is super exciting. Blah blah blah.

On bad days I just feel too exhausted to step up to the plate and having a baby the 'old-fashioned way' feels like an easy way out.

Unfortunately, I'm fluctuating between these two extreme thoughts quite frequently lately. Hopefully I'll land on my 'good-day' thoughts permanently pretty soon.

speaking of cleansing...

So Intended D beat me to the punch today. (Thanks a lot babe!)
Yesterday was a start at trying to cleanse in many ways. It was spring cleaning on a beautiful day in our nation’s capital. I just read Intended D’s post and will lobby to remove the back up of the donor profile that we have saved somewhere. There is no reason to keep it in our home. I don’t want to stumble upon it in 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years. I’m over it. Like Intended D said, it was “nice knowin’ ya, and we paid you well to give us some of your genetic material.” And it didn’t work and we’re not going down that path again. I have no attachment to this stranger who was going to potentially be a genetic link to my child. NONE. As Michael Jackson sang, “she’s out of my life.”

I have a need to cleanse lately. Intended D and I are in a holding pattern as we move toward adoption, mostly because of circumstances that are out of our control. But I believe we are also in a healing mode. I have always been the type that jumps into the next step for the sake of my sanity. I am not an impulsive person, but I need to keep moving. I don’t like to feel complacent. So yes, I am happy to say I tackled our bags o’meds yesterday. And I do wish we would have had a ritualistic burning on par with the women’s lib bra burning bon-fires of decades past. Intended D wasn’t willing to participate which worries me a little bit because I think he needs catharsis. But c’est la vie. We are on different time tables. I don't think that's uncommon.

I haven’t had an intermuscular shot for– well, it’s been a few months now—and I still have pain in my butt where we have hit nerves time after time. Pain not deep down in my butt where the drugs were injected, but more from nerves that are closer to the surface of my skin. I believe it’s the nerves healing. I have had numb spots on my butt for years now from the many PIO shots I’ve had to endure. I have also developed hypersensitivity on certain areas of my butt where the nerves are healing. I have a medical background and I think I understand what’s going on so I’m not my normal hypochondriacal mess about it. Nonetheless, it’s a constant reminder of the last several years of hell. I’m still healing from the injections physically and obviously emotionally. I’m sure someone more poetically equipped than I am would be able to write novels about the parallels between the physical healing and the emotional. But I’ll abstain.

The point is that I have made a decision I’m not going back there again. I’m not going to put myself through any more cycles. I just cannot. I don't think it's good for Intended D either. This has been too painful of a journey for me to consider another needle. I need closure to this experience. I am so scarred by this experience I am pretty certain I have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). No I’m not kidding. My heart rate elevates when I see a pregnant woman. I can’t look babies in the eye. – well that was kind of joke because I started picturing avoiding eye contact with a newborn. So funny on so many levels. They can’t see a damn thing anyway.

But I digress… I know I’m scarred and I know that at this point, the only way I will recover is to find resolution. And finding resolution means having a child of our own through adoption. I think intended D and I both know that. I am not happy about our plight. I just know I need to protect my psyche. I know he understands why I can’t do another cycle and I’m pretty certain he is also done with it. But deep, deep down, I think he still wants to because of the “what if…” factor. Which I completely understand. Believe me.

So anyway, yesterday, I finally decided the bags of meds in the closet needed to be addressed. We have a small walk-in closet that is more like a narrow hallway leading to nowhere and at the end of it, we’ve had bags of meds, needles, and sharps containers that have accumulated over the years. Every time a cycle ends painfully (which they always do) one of us has dropped the new accumulation of meds into the closet to get it out of our line of sight. We had lupron, ganirelex, progesterone (in oil AND suppositories), and even some follistim. I’m not sure what else. I stopped looking at the labels. This was not a great walk down memory lane. I also had more needles than you can shake a stick at. I needed to purge it all. I could not tolerate the thought of this paraphernalia existing in our home anymore. I want nothing to do with them. They have caused us nothing but pain.

So I pulled out all the bags, threw all the meds away (I thought about donating them but to be honest, they have been sitting in a closet that gets 30 degrees in winter and over 100 in summer… I wouldn’t even want to use these meds anymore even if I WERE cycling!). I still have the sharps containers and the bags and bags of needles which I’ll take to the RE clinic when I have a chance.

Unfortunately it felt very anti-climactic. I tried to bring Intended D into it by asking for his help and letting him throw away a couple vials. But he wasn’t interested in participating. I feel like I need a ceremony or something. Or a party. Maybe that’s what we need. A 'WE'RE NOT FUCKING WITH MY BODY AND OUR MINDS TO TRY TO CONCEIVE A CHILD ANYMORE' party. Do people have those?

Ritualistic cleansing ... but I don't really feel cleansed

Yesterday I started cleaning out an old laptop of mine. My mother-in-law could use an "Indian-soap-opera and Solitaire playing" machine and the old laptop fits the bill pretty well :)

Anyhow, I was looking around and deleting old files and I came across a folder with info about the egg donor we eventually chose. Hmm. I had saved the "bio-data" and about 10 pictures. We had stored this info b/c we figured it would be good to keep this stuff for our eventual child and I was in charge of storing it b/c we also figured it would be best to "hide it", in some respects. We didn't want it easily available for IM to look at any time she felt the need...I have better will-power when it comes to stuff like this :)

The reason we wanted to sort-of limit the availability of the donor's pictures and bio-data is due to this: we went to a donor-egg support group once and the leader, who had donor-egg twins that were toddlers at least (I think), had mentioned that she would, in weak moments, look at donor pictures (or remember donor pictures) and realize that her children resemble the donor and not her. That was not a feeling she particularly enjoyed. (This reminds me of my great idea!)

So...anyway...I deleted them (although not really b/c I have a backup somewhere and I'm not going to delete the folder in the backup b/c I just don't care enough to do that) and I'm not sure how I feel. It didn't seem really momentous b/c the donor really doesn't mean anything to us anymore. The cycle didn't work. I appreciate what she was willing to do to help us (and we paid her pretty well for the help) but it didn't work. So there is just no connection between her and us. "It was nice knowing ya" sort of thing.

Earlier in the day, IM had thrown away all the medication we still had (progesterone, lupron, blah blah blah). She seemed to want me to participate but I didn't really want to. I'm not sure how I feel about it but she was pretty exhilarated...I think. I think I feel a little bit sad and pathetic about it. She has been ordered to write about it....we'll see.

Faith in humanity partially restored...

First of all, I fucking hate William Saletan! He is just fucking terrible...so pretentious and so 'all-knowing'....ugh. He makes me want to hit somebody in the face, preferably him. To those that don't know, he writes these "Human Nature" articles for www.slate.com and he is basically a self-styled bioethicist or sexual ethicist. Good Lord. As I've said before, "get a real job b/c nobody is interested in your half-baked opinions."

Here is a prime example of why I hate this fucker. I actually didn't have the stomach to read the whole thing so I jumped down to the comments where I was expecting to be even more pissed off from reading the usual "these people weren't intended to have kids anyway, they should stop playing god" type of bullshit. Well, much to my happy surprise the first comment said this (from "AJ"):

This is preposterous. People only "get" to the point of buying eggs when they've reached the very end of a long, painful and emotionally enervating process of infertility treatments. No woman or couple would opt for someone else's eggs to create a child, if they could use their own. When people select for certain characteristics in the eggs that they procure, they are attempting, as best as they can, to select for traits that are similar to what they would have expected their own genetic child to have had. It is possible that there may be inflated egos that inform that selection, yes, but the 40 year old chemist who has done three rounds of IUI, three rounds of IVF, suffered a couple of miscarriages, and is a hundred thousand dollars poorer for all her efforts, should not be faulted for seeking the gametes of a woman who is similarly brainy, blonde/brunette/redheaded, tall/slim/athletic/curvy, so that she can "get" a child as similar to her as possible.
Noone would choose someone else's eggs as a first option in trying to build their family. This articles, and articles like it, have little basis in reality.

Thank you AJ! I couldn't have said it better myself.

In fact, most of the comments are pretty decent and put Lord William (I'm stealing Digby's very fitting name for him) in his place, that is, he has no goddamn idea about what he is talking about.

Perhaps there is some collective education going on? Maybe people aren't all that bad...other than good-old Will.

Facebook sucks

This blog is really a journal. I don't expect or care if anybody else reads it. Also, I'm hoping that someday I'll turn it into a screenplay and finally cash in on all the pain and suffering!!! So, it's probably best if nobody reads it so they don't steal our great and depressing stories. A guy can dream, right? :)

Ok, so what is new? Well, for one, facebook kind of sucks ass. My old girlfriend from high-school has reappeared out of the blue and found me on facebook. At first I thought "wow, she's still alive!" Then it became obvious why she had reappeared--so to speak. She was pregnant. She finally had something that she was proud of...something to say...some reason to reconnect with old friends. (At least that's what I suspect was her thought process...and coming from where I come from I think I can understand the feeling...it was very obvious in hindsight.) In a lot of ways, good for her. I'm happy for her. Things have not been particularly easy in her life so far and she deserves some good luck and happiness.

Of course, often stories like hers are the type that drive these fertility 'myths' b/c she told me that she was really surprised that she was pregnant "it was a shock" b/c she was told by the Dr (no doubt some total quack told her something that she wrongly interpreted) that she would never get pregnant. I'll bet dollars-to-donuts that the Dr told her she had endomytriosis and might have trouble getting pregnant and she interpreted that to mean she would NEVER get pregnant. Ultimately though, who cares. She has her miracle. So...her boyfriend accidentily got her pregnant. How sweet. I remember a million years ago when IM and I would get 'worried' from time to time when her period was a little late. Ha! Joke was on us b/c it just meant her cycles were all fucked up most likely...besides we were super careful. Good thing we were so careful, right?

This brings me back to facebook. Since old-girlfriend is my facebook-friend I get to see some updates about her pregnancy...some pictures blah blah blah...today I got to read how, although she is due in 4 weeks, she will probably deliver in 2. Fine. Good to hear. You can 'hide' people on facebook but I don't want her completely hidden. I also don't want to spoil her fun. I cannot, however, participate in her excitement....from a distance I hope and pray everything goes perfect...and she lives happily ever after.

Alright...I got nothing else today. I have the flu and am feeling pretty down and depressed. Such is life.

Ummm...what was I saying?

Yeah, well....what's going on? In an attempt to not drop this whole blog/journal completely and let it disappear I thought I would try to say something.

The last post was Dec. 14th or something like that which is about 3.5 months ago.

Since then we have done the following:
- went to an adoption support group
- went to an adoption open house
- visited a lawyer and put him on retainer (is that the right terminology?)
- considered private adoption and enlisted our marketing guru friend to help--although this hasn't really gone anywhere as of yet. It's a lot of work and a little overwhelming to even get going. It's sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack.
- wrote up a "Meet IM and IF" letter to prospective biological mothers--that was a pretty emasculating and humiliating experience...
- considered domestic agency adoption and thought about all the issues surrounding trans-racial, mixed-racial, blah blah blah adoption. We're already a mixed race couple so, well, who gives a shit right?
- considered international adoption
- received a check for $25,000 from our IVF clinic for our shared risk program :) So I guess there is an upshot to failure, but I would trade that money any day....besides it just gets invested into adoption.

Our good friend and 'mirror' couple has recently announced their pregnancy as well.

Emotionally? I don't know. Wrecked. Distracted. Work has been helpfully distracting both IM and me but I think we are both itching to get things going again. It's just really amazing when other parts of your life creep into the infertility part. You realize how different, and mostly impossible, your decision making strategy is due to the infertility. For example, moving to a different state because of a job opportunity is now horribly complicated. I guess at least we are not, and won't be, in the middle of a IVF cycle which would certainly prohibit moving and even traveling. Anyway, I talk to my father from time to time on life advice and what-not and he, being such a planner, is always trying to advise towards planning for the future. Is he kidding? He knows our story. It is just too hard to understand I guess. We had plans. 6 years ago we had plans and children were a BIG part of those plans. Things change. IVF is very hard, but possible, to plan. Adoption is pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to plan...impossible in the "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" type of questions. "Well, 5 years ago I didn't see myself here, so well, who fucking knows!?!?"

Well, that's about all I got right now...I'm feeling a bit numb about the whole thing. On the other hand I no longer really fantasize about IM being pregnant and us having a baby. I fantasize about our adopted baby--whoever he/she may be. I guess that is progress. It can just be pretty lonely out here. Not many people can understand how we feel and empathize in any meaningful way. That can be a very lonely feeling.