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When I die, am I going to be labeled H's adoptive mother and CC his mother? I don't begrudge her that title. She is truly his mother and gave him life. I would never recognize her as anything else.

But I'm his mother too.

(It was this article that made me write this.)

Shiva

Shiva is sort of like a wake for Jewish people, except it lasts longer than one day. It's part of mourning. You can find out more about it by clicking on the link, if you're curious.

We went over to our friends' house tonight. They are sitting shiva for their son.

While trying to make sense of this, I found out about SUDC. We made a donation in his memory.

They are doing as well as can be expected, I guess. They are both coping in their own ways. It's hard. There was still baby stuff around the house -- a play pen, a high chair.

His mom said to me quietly that she knew we probably understand what they're going through more than anyone. They wrote a letter of reference for us to the adoption agency for our home study.

My biggest fear was that I would cry and she would comfort me. It happened a little. But I comforted her too.

It was good to see them living and dealing. I think I can be sad for them and yet still live my life. Because that is the best way to honor the short life of this little boy.

No title

This is my 450th post. My third year blogoversary is next week.

It has been more than three years since my first pregnancy.

All at once we are in the same place and not. We have been through so much since I started this blog and I have a completely different view on life (in some ways) than I did back then. Yet we are still not parents.

I feel in a weird place. I am still grieving for my friends' lost son. How do I move on when they cannot? We are going to see them tomorrow. My therapist tells me that I can mourn with them for a while, but I need to find a way to move on. I can have empathy, but I have my own burdens to bear.

We all need to move on and live life because what else can we do?

I know many of you have had to move on from your losses. I read your blogs and I see your ups and downs. I know that I try to do the same. Though we all have our own types of losses, we each figure out how to do it in different ways.

I'm not sure I've truly moved on from my loss, so perhaps that is why I'm feeling theirs so closely? Is there such a thing as feeling someone else's tragedy too much?

I just feel like I know what it's like to walk through life carrying a silence. I know my losses are different than this couple's loss, but I feel like I can truly feel it.

I say that spring is my favorite season because it's so nice for the weather to become bearable, but spring means blogoversary, my birthday and mother's day. I feel the passage of time so strongly. I suppose I should hate January because 3 of my 4 miscarriages were in January (I think), but for some reason I don't really think of miscarriage anniversaries that much.

I wish I could feel like it's okay to think about trivial things. I think about updating my facebook status, but how can I do something so trivial when my friends are enduring so much suffering?

How do I let go?

Loss

You go through infertility and you think you understand loss, and then something else happens.

A very lovely couple we know lost their toddler. During his short life he was deeply loved and appreciated. Now, without explanation, he is gone.

I know loss. All of us know loss. And yet.

My heart is broken for them.

On Time (as in waiting while time passes)

So, two years. That makes about two and a half since I was first pregnant. And little S, who was due 4 months before I was due is going to be 2 in July. I remember thinking how I didn't know what I was going to do if I wasn't pregnant by the time S turned two. But here I am, facing the reality that I will not be. And though it took E a long time to have a healthy pregnancy, I will assume that she will be pregnant again while I will remain fully and wholly un-pregnant. At least I'm confident I will not be pregnant with anything healthy. I wouldn't be surprised if miscarriage number 5 is in my future, though.

The funny thing is, I'm really doing pretty okay in real life. Babies don't make me really sad anymore, though I don't feel like holding other people's babies or ooohing and aaahing over pictures. I don't like hearing endless stories about other people's children. But the sight of a pregnant woman doesn't make me want to cry. I have really come to accept that this whole pregnancy thing just isn't going to work (though I do, in all honesty, hold out a small bit of hope for a miracle), and we're just going to have to grow our family through adoption. I'm even coming to believe that our genes aren't so great anyway, and wouldn't it be better if they had other people's genes. And I do really believe that in a physical sense. It's a little bit harder to deal with in a mental sense -- but luckily personality resemblances are a lot more learned than physical ones. I'm really coming to believe that I can live my life this way and it's okay.

At the same time, there still is a tremendous sadness about all of our loss. I feel like we have lost a lot. We've lost 3 pregnancies that we started on our own. We've lost hope that IVF could ever work for us because of T's poor genes and my poor response to medication. We've lost 8 embryos to bad genes. We've lost a genetic connection to my husband. We've lost a pregnancy with hope because we used donor sperm. We've lost hope that donor sperm will work at all. We've lost hope that I will ever be pregnant long enough to hope we can bring a baby home. We've lost several months of hope and expectation and knowledge (though not a guarantee, of course, because I've learned how fragile even late term pregnancies are) that we will know when we might bring our baby home. We've lost the possibility of experiencing a full term pregnancy.

So, though I am better in some ways, I am still feeling our losses acutely. I feel for those others who have suffered great loss. It's weird how when you've suffered a lot of loss that different types of loss feel so different. In some ways we can band together with our losses, but in other ways it just seems so personal.

It always hurts a little more when you see so many people win their battles and move on. I feel desperate to talk to those who are in a similar place -- who are struggling with all of their loss and need to motivate themselves to fill out a daunting adoption application. I know this will all feel less acute someday when we finally, finally bring a baby home, but it is impossible to imagine that and I just can't stop thinking about all of the things we have to do and the amount of time we will still have to wait.

I sometimes think it's a little bit worse that there is a chance that T and I could have a baby the old fashioned way. When we finish our application and are waiting for a match, I know we will keep trying on our own. I sort of think that is a bad thing, but I also don't think I can not try. The only way for me to do that would be to go back on the pill and I don't want to. I wish I could let go and not think about it, but I've been pregnant three times with T, so why couldn't I be again? And I know scores of people with balanced translocations who have children conceived the old fashioned way. Why couldn't it happen to us? This tiny bit of hope just kills me. I want there to be no hope so that I don't have to hope any more.

So, two years since I started blogging it is. I never, ever thought I wouldn't have a baby two years from when I started this. But I don't, and I won't have one soon. Other people have them all around me, and I have to stay inside myself and just force myself to believe that some day, beyond the obstacles, costs, waits and everything else, some day, some way T and I will have a baby.

Support Groups

I am, in theory, a big fan of support groups. I love the idea of sharing the suffering among other people who understand. I want to commiserate and complain and know that other people are feeling the same pain that I am. It's cathartic for me. It makes me feel better.

I went to a few infertility support groups while we were doing IVF. Though I didn't go through the IUI process, having had three miscarriages and determining that I was a poor responder to medication with my first IVF, I was much more a veteran than the mostly newbies that came to that group. Most hadn't starting IVF yet. I found it helpful for the most part, but I also felt like the weirdo in the corner that most people hoped they wouldn't be forced to follow in the footsteps of our losses.

Last night I went to an adoption support group. It was mostly more of the same. We have been educating ourselves for months about adoption. We have picked our agency, know what type of adoption we want and just need to get off our asses and fill out the paperwork. We have had the 4 miscarriages and 3 failed IVFs and we just don't want to do this anymore. I wanted to commiserate about the wait and the forms and the invasiveness of the adoption process. That didn't happen. For most of the people in this group, this was their first bit of education about adoption. Most people had maybe one failed IVF or were single or had other reasons to come to adoption. I spent the time feeling like the co-leader of the group because I had a bunch of the information that they wanted. I didn't commiserate; I informed. I like informing, so it was okay. I just wanted to get some anxiety out, I guess.

I don't know why I want to find more people 'like us' out there, but I do. I sort of feel lonely in our loss and failure right now. I know lots of people around have suffered great loss. I personally know people who have had late term losses and/or years and years of repeated failure, though I suppose only a handful of those are still childless now. I know how much pain and suffering infertility has caused for so many people out there. I see it all the time. So why do I feel so alone with all of this? This is just something I can't answer right now. All I know is that I am feeling quite alone in all of this these days.

Luckily I have T alone here with me, I suppose.

The freak in the corner

Another one of T's employees' wives is pregnant. She was drinking when we were in Las Vegas (5 weeks ago), so how pregnant can she be?

I wish this news didn't hurt so much. They're like 25 years old. And they got married after us.

I mentioned to the HR woman how the adoption benefit, while good in theory, doesn't work out so great. And maybe that's why no one has used it. But she said, no -- no one in the entire company has ever adopted. She would have known about it because they would have to talk to her about maternity/paternity leave.

And the cheese stands alone.