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.