Toward the weekend

A few good things:

1)I got one of the jobs I applied for.

It doesn't start for another 3-5 months, but I am told that when the position opens up officially and there's some work to do on the specific project, I will have a job. I do not need to interview again. They really liked me and think I'm a good fit. So I got the job. At some point.

Hmmm... something about that scenario seems familiar....

2)I get to work from home tomorrow!

We're testing out some software and I get to work from home all day tomorrow which is a rare treat. I do not have a flexible job and things like this rarely come up. So working from home on a Friday seems super excellent.

3) We printed out 5 full copies of our profile. It looks really good. I've decided to crochet the pages together instead of using a ribbon because we're more crafty people than ribbon-y people. So I'm figuring out how that works. But it looks really good. Somehow, though, picking it up made me a little sad. But it's okay.

Today is my nephew's birthday. He's 12. I can't believe it. Just shocking. Wow. He's such a good kid. Time is weird.

I think that's all that's going on right now. I guess things are kind of okay. Looking forward to the weekend.

All's Quiet

I finished my three adoption books. I think I learned a lot from them. I gave Secret Thoughts to my mother to read because I thought it would help her understand better. My brother and SIL never said much about L's adoption and how she or they would approach the issues that might come up. They didn't educate us much about adoption. It was never a secret or something shameful. It just was.

Now that we're approaching becoming adoptive parents, we're taking a very different stance. We want to tell everybody all about it. Once an actual baby comes home things will shift, but we want to educate first. I think some of the differences between our situations is that they choose adoption after they had been matched -- it was a parent initiated adoption. They never went into a waiting pool so the situation was very different.

Anyway, if you haven't read The Kid by Dan Savage, I can't recommend it enough. Though there are some differences in the situation as they are a gay couple and didn't deal with infertility in the same way most of us have, he is sensitive to the concept of infertility, and he really speaks to openness in adoption and the implications of raising a child genetically related to someone else.

The most insightful part to me is when they take The Kid home and how it affects his birth mother as well as how it affects Dan and Terry. It is incredibly moving, and it really encapsulates all of the difficulties that are part of the adoptive process. To enter into adoption with eyes wide open is incredibly important, and it helped me to share their story and do just that. Along with the birth mothers I heard from a couple weeks ago at our Adoption Agency meeting and this book, I feel like I am preparing myself for what adoption will truly be like.

So, I'm still feeling contemplative about all of this. Doing a lot of thinking and not a lot of doing. Not much else is going on. The weather is getting cold, the leaves are turning, and I'm thinking about life.

Oh, and I think T and I have decided to sell our two vials of donor sperm back to the cryobank. I don't think we're going to do any more dIUIs.

And if the Routan commercials with Brooke Shields piss you off as much as they piss me off, complain to them by clicking on Contact Us at the bottom of this page. I told them that I now hate the Volkswagen brand since they started these commercials -- and I used to own one.

Show and Tell

I just finished myself a purse! I absolutely love it. And I did the zipper so well! Yay me!

Alright

Have you seen those horrible Routan commercials? They're making me want to put a hatchet in the TV. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

Books

So, in my sadness I bought some books. I bought the Dan Savage The Kid book, Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother and Making Room In Our Hearts. I'm almost done with Secret Thoughts. It makes a lot of sense to me. It is good to be reading these things and putting myself in someone else's head, I think. She has gone through this and is just writing what she feels. It's almost like reading someone's blog, I think.

In Making Room, it is really interesting to read the birth parents' point of view and the adoptees' point of view of how all of this open adoption stuff works. What I especially like is it's the perspective of older children or adoptees that are now adults and have grown up with open adoption. This is the part that I feel the least comfortable with. It's not the part while we're raising our children that freaks me out as much as what happens after our children are adults. So, this book is helping me get a peek of what it will be like.

I spoke again with our facilitator last night. I still like her. I think I may even start filling out her application. I really think we will be going in that direction, but I don't want to commit until we have our agency meeting that discusses search expansion. I told this to her and she understood. She thinks it's good that we are doing all of this research before making a commitment. She understands that this is an important decision and it has to be the right fit. This is why I like her.

T has to work today, so I am home by myself. I think I may go to a craft store that is closing and see what is left and on sale. I am also going to work more on the book. It is done, but we decided to double side it so I need to move things around so that the holes we punch in it don't pierce any words or pictures.

Hanging in....

Having troubles

Last night we went to a meeting with the agency that is required before our adoption can become complete. We talked a lot about birth parents. Two birth moms came in and spoke to us. It was amazing. It was moving. These women are amazing. It's incredible what they have done.

It was also heart breaking.

Sometimes I question my ability to do this. Then I look at my niece L. And my cousin's wife. And my former co-worker. And some of my delightful fellow bloggers. They're all doing fine. I can do this.

But still, it's difficult to feel anything but that adoption is making the best of a bad situation. As heartbroken as these birth moms were, nothing could convince them that they made the wrong decision. They love their children fiercely. Reading letters and seeing pictures of their children thriving is bittersweet, but it definitely helps to reinforce their own ideas that they made the proper decision.

I'm just feeling loss on so many levels right now. I feel the losses of birth parents, of adoptees and of adoptive parents. Right now I am thinking the most about the losses of the birth parents. I really identified with the story of one of the birth moms there. I was listening and crying, and I am just feeling empty about this.

At least I got some good questions to ask the facilitator about birth mother counseling and such. We have two more meetings to go to. I think our agency does a really good job with all of this stuff, which is comforting.

But I'm just in a weird place right now. I guess I am grieving again. I'm sure I'm grieving for myself, but I also feel like I'm grieving for the birth mothers too. I don't know what's going on. All I know is I feel sad.

I'm going to temple tomorrow and I'm supposed to atone. I'm sure atoning would probably be good for me right now, but I just can't bring myself to do it too much right now. But I will sit with my family and I will think about all of these things.

And I hope that I can be forgiven by anybody to whom I have done wrong.

Howdy

I'm still here. Things are okay. Thank you for all of your kind words. It definitely lifted my spirits.

Incidentally I immediately applied for another job and had another interview today. This one went better than the other one, so it's time for me to wait again. I'll be less devastated if I don't get this one as I'm already prepared for what that feels like. But I'm feeling reasonably good about it. I dunno.

Rosh Hashanah was okay. I went to temple with my parents and my brother. There were all these discussions about the barren women in the bible. Sarah was barren until god gave her Isaac. And the Haftorah talks about Hannah and how she weeps and won't eat because she is barren. It made me sad. And there were some babies there, too. Dinner was good. My chicken soup with matzoh balls came out super yummy.

I'm glad tomorrow is Friday. We don't have much in the way of plans. We're going to watch the debate and stay up late tomorrow watching the Red Sox. Have a good weekend!

Failure

I didn't get the job.

So, it is true. I just can't seem to succeed at anything.

Busy

I'm still here. Still haven't heard about that job. I just figured out today that I had my interviews way back on Sept 4 & 5. That was three weeks ago! I feel like that is so long to be waiting. I guess I don't have a lot of patience.

We're also still trying to figure out about expanding our search. We've spoken to a facilitator that i like, got some information from a couple of attorney's offices and got a packet from an agency in another state. It is very difficult to sort through all of this information and determine which is the right fit for us. I really like the facilitator I spoke to, but with a facilitator we have to find our own attorney to use and it seems like there is a lot of contacts to maintain to make sure everything is done legally and ethically and is sound. Agencies are more all-in-one which we originally liked and which is a big reason we chose the agency we're using for our home study. But now that seems to have kind of flown out the window a little.

But I'm sure we'll figure it out and we will be able to find our proper fit. At this time I think it's this facilitator, but we are not done with our research.

That's all that's going on here. I'm glad tomorrow is Friday!

My opinion

I spent much of this week and this weekend seeking out adopted people and adoptive parents to get their views on all of this stuff. The result? Everyone is different.

Every adopted person is going to approach their adoption in a different way. For some it was bad. For some it was good. For some, it was both. Some thought about their birth parents every day. Some almost never did. It just depends on the individual.

I have to say that the people I spoke to personally (which is only a small number of people, granted) generally do not feel this way about their adoption. My guess is that most people who do feel this way probably think these people I spoke to are trying to spare my feelings or haven't truly looked inward or something like that. I do not think this is true.

I simply think that you just never know how things are going to turn out.

I am hopeful that because we will have some openness in our adoption and we will be able to answer questions our children have as best we can about their genetic history and the circumstances of their birth that this will mitigate a lot of those painful feelings.

Still, everybody's experience is different, and you just never know what is going to happen. And this is true for every person in the world that has ever existed.

My external (read: blog) discussion on this is now complete. I will forever think about these issues. Having this brought up on my blog has made me realize how ready I am to parent and how much emphasis I am focusing on how our children's lives will be as they grow up, and that is really good.

I have shut off comments on this post. I'm skeptical I will allow any further comments on my blog regarding the pros and cons of adoption.

Of course, like anything else, you just never know what will happen.

We now return to your regularly scheduled blog.

Thinking

At the suggestions of some of my new 'friends' I decided to check out this book they keep mentioning. That book is The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child by Nancy Verrier. I haven't purchased or read it yet, but I wanted to check it out to see what kind of book it was and what different types of people thought of it. It actually looks like a reasonably interesting book and I'm glad it was pointed out to me. That being said, I think people could have let me know about it in a bit more of an understanding and less off-putting way. I may borrow a copy or get it from the library or something along with my other adoption reading.

I also have reached out to several adopted (adult) friends and adoptive parents to discuss some of these issues that have come up on my blog. I am not finished reaching out yet, but I think it is important to get a diverse perspective on things. I don't appreciate being blindsided by people and most of these people didn't do their 'side' any favors by approaching me in this way.

I spoke to a facilitator yesterday about our search and actually liked her. She's sending me some more information about what she does and how she works. She focuses a lot on birth mother counseling which is important to us. I also got a packet from another attorney's office to check them out. At first glimpse of the packet I'm not getting a good vibe but I will look a bit more closely with T. Both of these people came recommended from our agency who also puts a premium on birth mother counseling, which I like. I want to make sure we find a good fit for us when it comes to our search.

Still here

I'm still here. I'm still plugging along. Nothing new is happening.

I'm waiting to hear about a possible promotion from work. I really hope I get it and I thought the interviews went well, but I'm still really nervous about it. I know they are interviewing 2 or 3 other people and I just have this weird feeling that they're going to think somebody is a better fit. I mean, it's not that they're going to think I'm not right, they're just going to think somebody else is right-er. This has happened to me before in a job.

I just sometimes feel like I'm a jinx. So why should this job be any different?

The weather is fabulous. It's cool at night but warms up during the day. I love it.

Exhausted

I'm feeling pretty spent and exhausted through all of this blog turmoil. I am still sorry for those people who have had bad experiences in their adoptions. This doesn't mean they had bad adoptive parents or that anybody did anything bad in particular, but if they are feeling that adamant, something somewhere in that process has gone wrong for them. And I am truly sorry for that. I promise I will do my best to do whatever is in my power to ensure that our children will know they are loved by us no matter what and that their birth parents love them and that they can get in touch with their birthparents when/if the need arises and their birthparents are okay with it. But we never know what the future will bring.

I wish I could make everybody have a positive life experience.

All I want in this world right now is to be a Mommy.

Anyway, I'm now exhausted by this thread so I don't think I will post about it for a little while. You all can continue your comments. I will continue to moderate them.

Comment moderation

It seems that some people who are anti-adoption have found my blog. I have left their comments up and tried to address their viewpoint a little bit. But I do not want my blog to be a place where we are having an argument over whether adoption is okay or not. Some adoptions are okay, and I am sure that some have also been done in a non-ethical and non-moral manner.

Neither of us are going to change each other's minds. Again, I have left their comments up on a previous post. If you are interested in reading more about the anti-adoption movement please refer to the book that one poster left as a comment, or you can link to their blogs and get more information, I am sure.

This blog is a diary for me. Yes, it is a diary that other people can read or comment on, but I just can not put myself in a place where I am arguing with people who do not agree with how I am creating my family. I have turned on comment moderation now and I will no longer be publishing these clearly anti-adoption posts.

I have to go to work now, but I wanted to post this now.

Anonymous adopted person?

There's an anonymous person commenting on my blog. From what I read of these comments, my guess is that this is an adopted person, but I cannot be sure.

I'm not really sure how to react to this anonymous person. From the comments I am assuming that this person has had a difficult time with the situation he or she has lived in. It seems to me this person was adopted and was never comfortable with it. Of course I do not know this and I am making huge assumptions and leaps.

Now that I am ready to become an adoptive parent, I have been trying to educate myself as much as I can about adoptive parenthood. This is why we've opened ourselves to more than just sending a picture an letter once a year to our child's birthparent if that's what that birth parent wants. I have heard the stories of many adopted people and birth parents and adoptive parents and the only thing that I have learned is that the story of each member of the triad is as varied as the people in the world.

Mostly this person has been telling me that I am selfish and that I'm not ready to be an adoptive parent. These comments don't make me feel bad, which is how I am sure that I am ready to be an adoptive parent. I get the feeling that this person feels abandoned. I don't want our child to feel that way, and that is why I want to maintain communications with our child's birthparents so that when we have questions we can ask them and have answers. Also, when the child is old enough, if both sides want it, there can be communication or visits, if it is appropriate.

I am sorry that this person has had a bad adoptive experience, if that is the case. I hope that he or she can find peace in the life that they lead. I am not sure why, but of the several (teen/adult) adopted people I have spoken to, they have not expressed the level of bitterness in losing their biological family as this person seems to have. Yes, they have all had some curiosity and some feelings of loss, isolation and loneliness -- some more than others. From all of the people I talk to, ever person reacts in a different way to their lives. This would be true for biological children as well. I am hoping that the openness we maintain in our triad will alleviate these feelings and give our children some answers.

No, anonymous poster, we are not going to 'seal' any records (unless that's what the law does) and we hope to always have a way to get in touch with our child's birth parents, so we can communicate with them if the need arises.

We just hope our child will grow up knowing how much of a loving choice their birthparents made by finding them a loving home where they were wanted and cherished and cared for and loved more than anything.

--------------------------------

I just realized that my anonymous poster could be a birth parent. If so, perhaps their triad is not as open as he or she had hoped. If that is the case, I am terribly sorry. I can't imagine the difficulty of that situation, and I just know it takes a truly loving parent to make that choice for their child to know that being raised in another home is what would be best for him or her. I know adoption didn't always work that way, but I am glad that adoption has moved forward in that respect in these more modern times. If adoption is done legally, morally and ethically, it can be a good thing for all members of the triad.

Support

We went to a support group for waiting parents today. It was good. There was nothing mind boggling nor was there any sort of breakthrough, but it's nice to be around people who are in a similar situation to us and for us to talk about it. The biggest thing I realized at the group today was how far we've come in terms of our willingness to be open. We feel very ready to have a semi-open adoption. We are not in a place where we want to exchange identifying information, but we are more than willing to have more frequent communication that just sending a picture and letter once a year. We are neither scared nor threatened by this. We feel that this type of relationship will be a benefit to our child. I never thought I would be able to say those things and mean them, but I am doing that now. And it makes me feel good.

We got a little feedback about our book and have a few final changes to make. These last changes are the most difficult because I don't really have a similar but better photo to substitute for the three we want to change. But we will find something and we will "glue it down and move on." And then we will be done. And then we will be officially a waiting family.

We mailed in our "Matching and Placement Consideration" form today. We tried to be as open as we could with our choices, but to be honest we could only go so far. We are open to situations we would have never put ourselves in had we been able to get pregnant, but we are not really willing to enter a situation that we would never expect (a drug addicted baby) or would have been a surprise (a special needs adoption). This is where we are right now, and we can always change our minds in the future.

Sometimes I feel bad about this decision, and sometimes it makes me sad, but I refuse to allow myself feel bad because I want a similar situation to what I would have had were we able to have biological children. It would be unfair to a child to accept a situation you are not ready for. And that's the way it is.

Today was a pretty good day. We both got our hair cut. We had a lovely lunch and then went to the support group. I looked at some yarn and we visited my parents before they left for a trip to AZ. I feel much more relaxed this evening.

Tomorrow we will have a mellow day at home and we will take care of some things around the house. I will work on getting those final three pictures together and Monday is the start of a new week. I hope it will be a better one.

Crazed

I feel crazed. I'm not even sure a lot of stuff is going on, but I feel like it is.

Our cats had dental work done yesterday and we have to give them medication and feed them wet food, which they refuse to eat. I tried soaking the dry food, and only one of them will eat that. This, though minor, is feeling kind of big.

I finally called the pediatricians. I didn't get through to one, and the secretary of the other one said he would call me tonight after 5pm, but it's 6pm now and no call so far. And I didn't drive my carpoolee home because I didn't want to talk to a pediatrician about the questions I had with her in the car, but now that is for naught so I kind of feel bad.

I have therapy tomorrow morning and am working 10-6. I'll call the doctor who was supposed to call tonight in the morning to see what happened. I think I may try to call the other pediatrician too, while I'm at it.

I had a conversation with the woman who deals with birth parents from our adoption agency today about my dear BM letter. It's good and only need a very small amount of tweaking. I tried to send them our photo booklet via the web but they couldn't handle the technicality of it and they couldn't see it so I had to mail them a CD. I'm very concerned that they won't be able to see the file on the CD either.

The person who is the hiring manager for the job I interviewed for might be quitting.

T is having some crazy shit going on at work with people leaving or thinking about leaving and other chaotic stuff that just make life incredibly difficult.

Did I leave anything out?

Today was a sad day

I was sad today. I read a few blogs and saw a few successes. I know it's selfish and awful, but seeing other people's successes still makes me sad. I mean, I am happy that people find success. I certainly don't want people to be stuck in this horrible place we all know. But I still find myself feeling jealous and sad when I see someone else reach the goal of parenthood. Also, another one of T's co-workers' wives had a baby today. Sure, it was after 42 hours of labor, which does not make me envious in any way, but this will be about the fifth birth in his department in the last year. These people were married after I'd already had two miscarriages and we found out about T's translocation. They're also more than five years younger than us. I'm just tired of all of this. I'm ready for it to be our turn.

We watched the Patriots game (Tom Brady may have torn his ACL!!!) and watched some of the Sox game. T saw me being sad, so he said we should go out and not sit around being sad. So, we went and got a super yummy crepe and saw Hamlet 2. It helped a lot. That movie was funny! Yes, there was a small theme about, and I quote, "shooting blanks" but if I was able to overlook that part, the movie made me laugh and it was well done. It was totally ridiculous but somehow oddly profound, and I loved the music. I'm glad we got out and were in another place at least for a little while. Restful weekends are good, but it's really bad for me to sit and do nothing for too long because I end up being sad.

I'm doing better now, but it was a sad day. Now I have to go and make another baby hat for yet another office baby. Sigh.

Things that are happening.

I interviewed for a new position in my company today. I really want this job. I answer the phone all day and I'm just ready to move away from the phones and find a new challenge. This job has been great for me. It's been 6 months and I like the company and I just feel ready to grow a little bit. I think the interviews went well, and now it's just a waiting game. I know that several other people are interviewing for the job. They are also internal candidates, so it could be close. I will be very disappointed if I don't get this job, but I am not confident it will be mine. I have a good shot, don't get me wrong. But I don't feel like it's a slam-dunk. I think I did as well as I could, though, so now I just have to wait. I hate to wait.

In other news, I finished my photo album booklet thing for the adoption. I still have to finish up the final version of the Dear Birth Parent letter, but I send my version of the book off to the agency for 'approval' from them. It was a lot easier to make than I thought it would be. It was actually kind of fun in the end. The letter is much more difficult. I only have one or two passes left on that one, but it's not as fun as putting photos together.

The only big thing left on the adoption front is deciding how much exposure to drugs and alcohol is okay. I need to talk to a pediatrician about that, but I haven't had time to make the phone call and I'm really not sure what to say. I think I just want to have a phone call at first, but how do I introduce my situation to the secretary who is going to answer the phone?

"Hi. My name is Rachel and my husband and I are trying to adopt a baby and want to understand more about the effects of drugs and alcohol on a fetus, so we were hoping to talk to the doctor about that."

I dunno. I think that's weird. Maybe it's not.

T and I don't have plans for the weekend, which is great because last weekend was so insane and it's supposed to really rain tomorrow. I'm excited to stay at home, maybe watch some Net.Flix and knit. Then we can watch some football on Sunday. Fall is here, but the weather is really warm so I can't really tell. The traffic is bad again, though, which is always an indication. I like the fall when it gets really cool at night so you can sleep with the windows open and pull up the covers, but during the day it warms up a bit and it's nice to go outside. I love that kind of weather. That means there will be apples soon.

On Bristol Palin

There have been so many comments and discussion about this young girl's pregnancy, Why should a 17-year-old girl be forced to marry a high school boy who says on his Facebook page that he never wants to have kids? What about their futures?

Does nobody know how many people are waiting to create a family who are ready and more than willing to take on the responsibilities of parenthood?

I just don't get why making an adoption plan doesn't even come up!

Isn't that most likely the best decision for Bristol, for Levi and for the baby?

A long long weekend

We've been full of house guests this week. It's been good, but busy. Jess was in from Wales, my friend Jen needed a place to crash and a little bit of help moving, and we had dinner with my parents both with Jess and E&R with toddler S. It was a crazy long weekend. It was fun, but I'm glad the house guests and plans are coming to an end, though. It's fun to have them, but it's always fun to get the house back.

Tomorrow is our last home study visit. I'm desperately trying to make the house seem as clean as possible. It's clean enough, but I kind of want it to be even cleaner. I also want our yard to look better, but I suck at stuff like that. I'm going to try to force myself to work on it later today as it cools down. I'm 2/3 done with the book for the potential birth parents, and 2/3 done with the Dear Birth Mother letter. I'm feeling pretty good about all that I accomplished (of course, with the help of T). Our home study will be complete soon, and we will be a waiting family.

Kinda freaky. But good.

There is a waiting family support group meeting in the middle of September that I'll want to go to. I think if we're not officially in that stage by that date, we'll be only a week or two away from it.

Then it's going to be time to work on our search. We're going to contract with another agency to do a national search in addition to the local searches that our agency does.

Things are finally coming together.

On Adoption

There are two women at work that I see regularly who are pregnant. I generally do pretty well around pregnant people -- I just have a twinge of jealousy, a small internal eye-roll and a small amount of panic that they're going to talk about it. I cannot really talk about pregnancy.

But the other day I just had this realization that I really will never, ever be pregnant long enough to give birth to a living baby. This thing that women around the world generally do, I will never do. And I will not be excluded from this thing that women do by choice. I was boxed out of it against my will, despite Herculean efforts.

I know when I have my baby (babies) I will love them more than anything. I know I am emotionally ready to be an adoptive parent. I have never been more sure of anything.

But I just can't believe I will never be part of that club. And it really does make me sad sometimes.

Book started

I finally started to work on the book. I feel like I have a completed draft of the Dear Birth Mother letter and I have about 25 or so pictures in somewhat of a layout for a book. I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for getting all of this down. I'm getting much closer, and I'm trying to keep my "glue it down and move on" motto in the back of my head while doing this. We are going to do the booklet in "landscape" format (which hopefully is okay) because the computer program that I am using won't let me switch the pages around. If this isn't okay, all of my work will be for naught, so I suppose I should check on that. Hm.

It's funny how few pictures we have of the two of us. We have some of one and some of the other, but not a lot of both. I'm going to include a montage of my knitting/crocheting and some pictures of the "baby's room." I have pictures of the house and yard. I suppose we should go to some of the nearby parks and include that in there too.

The captions are really difficult. I want to be informative, but I also want to make sure our personality shows through.

I've also noticed there are more pictures with one of my brother's family than the other. This is probably because we spend more time with one than the other, but I wish I had a couple more of that other side. There are only a few pictures of my nephew and they are only in big groups. He and I are pretty close, so I want to get something in there.

This book is so hard. It feels so inadequate. I feel really accomplished with what I have done, but I just am not feeling too good about all of this working out. Sigh.

Tomorrow's Monday and it's off to work again. I wish I could take a couple days off, but alas that is not in the cards for me. Next week is a long weekend, so maybe that will help a little.

But I did start the booklet, and that is a really, really good thing.

Blogging for the sake of blogging

Thanks for the carpool comments. I think I'm going to do the quiet time thingy. I like carpooling because it's good for the environment. I'll try it for a while longer. Neither of the other carpoolers have cars, which is why I drive all the time, and I don't want a later shift and there is no such thing as an earlier shift, so my hours are my hours. We'll see how it goes. I exchanged 3 sentences with the genius today and didn't get annoyed. If I can keep him quiet enough it might be okay.

There's still a lot going on. My friend Jess is coming from overseas on Wednesday and I need to prepare the bed for her. Then my friend J is staying at my house one night over Labor Day because she is moving and has the out by the 31st/in on the 1st problem. Meantime our last Home Study Visit is Tuesday 9/2 and our yard looks like crap. That probably won't make us fail, but I'd like to have pictures of a nice yard for our book. Maybe we should hire someone. We are not do-it-yourselfers at all. I can do a little bit, but my darling T is really no help at all. He's much more of a pay-someone-to-do-it type.

I wrote my paragraph about T. T has started his paragraph about me, but I need him to finish it. I'll make him do it tonight.

We have plans to see E&R and baby S this weekend so we can take pictures of us with little S so that expectant parents can see us with a kid.

Work's feeling a little tedious this week. There is a lot of moving around going on in my department, so I'm hopeful that this will open up a promotion type position for me.

Our poor girl kitty was feeling ill and went to the vet and is now on antibiotics. She is doing much better now, though. So this is good.

I feel so busy. I know busy is good, but I also feel like I want to slow down a little. I want to take a day off work, but I don't have the vacation time and I requested time off for the Jewish high holy days and I need all my hours for that.

I guess that's about it from here. My mind is spinning.

Carpool

About a month after I started my job, a woman sent me an email saying she lived in my neighborhood, and it turns out that we live on the same street. She lives on one end, and I live on the other. I casually mentioned that we could carpool. Turns out that her husband uses the car and she took public transportation to work, which took about an hour and a half and cost over $100 per month. She leaped at the chance to carpool with me.

She told me there was a guy who works in her department that she gave rides to the one day a week she sometimes got the car. She asked if I could bring him along as well. Not knowing who he was, I said sure, as long as I didn't have to go out of my way.

Turns out that guy was the annoying guy I had noticed in the hallway before. Not even knowing him, he rubbed me the wrong way. I heard them talking often, and I had always hoped to stay as far away from both of them as possible.

The woman is a little quirky and talks about her kids too much. But I can live with that. The guy (who I have nicknamed "the genius") drives me bat shit. There are not many people that I really actively do not like, but this guy is one of them. Even him being near me bothers me. He just drives me nuts. He has no social skills, he talks too loud, he thinks he knows a lot when actually he knows nothing (hence his nickname) and he is just a generally annoying person. Other people at work feel the same way about him. He's just one of those people that just doesn't get along well with people in general. He's not mean; he's not malicious; he tries to be friendly; it's just that his social overtures do not work. His mother had to take him out of school to home school him because he got to much crap in middle school. Nobody likes him. Including me. I don't wish any ill will toward him. I just want him to stay away from me.

Now I am in the car with them daily. The genius has been working overtime all month in the hopes of having enough money to move. "Great!" I thought. He'll probably move away so I won't have to drive him anymore.

But remember who I am and what kind of luck I have. He saw an apartment this weekend in my neighborhood and it looks like he may move around the corner. I've been able to drop him off about halfway home so that I could have a bit of a ride without him, but if he moves to this apartment I will spent 1-2 hours per day with him in the car.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to get out of this situation. I don't mind sharing the ride and the gas money with that woman most of the time, but I really don't want this guy in my car any more. I haven't said anything to him. I don't know what to say. The woman knows that I don't like him.

I feel so caught. I'm not a mean person. I don't really want to hurt his feelings. I just want my peace and quiet during my commute back. (I can't listen to the news in the car anymore because the genius starts conversations about politics and the news that I don't want to have.) I want to tell him I can't give him a ride any more, but what about the woman?

I took this job to reduce my stress. I didn't know that carpooling would cause this type of stress.

I'm trying to just forget it. "Like water off a duck's back," T tells me. Should I just suck it up and drive him and try to listen to something that keeps him quiet? Can I just find a way to tell him he can't drive with me any more?

I have never felt so stuck over something so seemingly silly.

Show and Tell

This is the lunch I had in Murdo, SD. It was home made ham salad using the leftover ham from the dinner special from the day before. The sour cherry pie was some of the best pie I have ever eaten. The diner was small and family run. Eating there felt like going back in time to when things were slower and life was all right there in your small town. It was delicious. These are the things I'm going to remember from our drive across this country of ours.

Busy again

It's a busy week. Tuesday my friend N came over for dinner. I made pesto from the fresh box of veggies we get each week. It was delicious. Last night I went to a concert with my knitting friend J. The traffic was awful and it took us 3 hours to get there and the headlining band (Radio.head) started before we were able to get there. I have never seen such traffic in my life. It is going to be difficult to get me to go to this concert venue again. Today I am working a late shift so I did get to sleep in after getting home after 1 am. So at least that is good. Then it is Friday and this weekend is our annual trip to the fireworks festival we go to. So excited for that one. We go to the Maple Barn and then we go see fireworks. It's a great day and they are the best fireworks ever.

Today before work, since I don't have to be there until the afternoon, I am dropping a large part of our adoption paperwork off with the agency. Our paperwork is nearly complete. We only have to get T's physical paperwork and it will be done.

But we still have three huge things to do. 1) Fill out the form that talks about race, drug and alcohol use in the birthparents, etc. 2) Dear Birth Mother Letter 3) The Book.

So a lot of the nitpicky stuff is all done, but those three things are the most difficult part. I haven't been working on the m at all lately. I have a draft of the letter and a folder with a bunch of pictures in it. We've been thinking about the categories on the form and we're going to sit with our therapist and talk about it. I need to contact a pediatrician in order to get some real information about the effects of drug and alcohol use on a fetus. All of these things take time (and privacy) and I need to find a way to get moving on them.

Yay weekend

I am so happy that it is the weekend. This weekend our nieces L&E are coming to stay for Saturday night. They're 10 and 11 and we'll take them into the city, probably to Fanueil Hall to go shopping and maybe out to dinner. We just bought a Wii so we hope to set that up for them. They are so excited to come, and we're happy to have them. It should be fun.

I think I've finished a first draft of my Dear Birth Mother letter. We are missing a bit and I'm sure it needs a large amount of tweaking, but it's something. I also have 22 photos for the book. We're supposed to have more like 40, so we have a lot of work to do. We're both pretty camera shy, so we have to break out the camera and start taking pictures of everything.

I have a couple of busy weeks coming up. I'm supposed to set up our appointment for Home Study Visit #3, which should be the final visit. I haven't done that yet. I just sent some emails.

I have to go clean the house a little to get ready for the girls.

I'm just so happy it's the weekend!

The support group

Well, I go to make my post today and there on my Dashboard are pictures of three newborn babies, the newest part of the blogger family and all the "buzz" at Blogger. Yay.

It used to be that pictures of newborns made me want to cry. Now seeing pictures like that just makes me roll my eyes. Is that progress? I'm not so sure.

There was only one other couple at the support group plus a social worker / adoptive mom. I guess I really need to bitch about all of this stuff because I definitely felt a little better afterward. We will definitely drag our butts all the way out there again for another one of those. We just discussed all of the issues and got to complain about how much everything sucks and we asked questions of the adoptive mom/social worker.

My new mantra from the support group meeting? "Glue it down and move on."

This is what the woman in the couple told herself after freaking out about which pictures to put in the picture book thingy. I have to take this attitude. I have to have this attitude for both the birthmother letter and the book. I just need to be truthful and choose what I choose and put it down and move on. Glue it down and move on.

I still haven't written any more. But I'm going to. And I think I can look at this with fresh eyes, so the support group was good.

In other news AF is here again. I think about going on the pill again just so I don't have false hope any more. My hope is much smaller than it used to be, and it's not like we're really trying or anything. But I can't help but hope a little. I wonder if that's bad. I wonder if I should just go on the pill so I have no hope at all. Any thoughts on this?

How to motivate

I'm sitting here at he computer knowing I need to get my ass in gear and work on the dear birth mother letter and our profile book, but I just don't know how to do it. I was thinking about it in the shower and now I'm feeling pretty sad. Since our social worker suggested that I think of it as a way to tell 'our child' his or her birth story I've been trying to determine how to think of that way.

But 'our child' is what's stopping me. How can I possibly imagine actually having an actual child? I cannot. I cannot think that way. So what am I supposed to do? How can I motivate. I am really struggling here.

All I can think of is all of our failure. How can I possibly imagine 'our child' when all we've had is loss? I just didn't think that suggestion was particularly helpful and I need something else to help myself motivate.

I just keep going over and over our story and it makes me so sad. It's amazing how many things we've tried and in how many ways things have gone wrong. I know I'm not supposed to think about it, but I do. Or I did. I was in the shower thinking about it and I went over our whole story again in my head thinking how the social worker would think it might be possible for us to have failure after failure and loss after loss but think about the book as something to share with our child. Clearly she hasn't had the same experiences as us. I believe she has two biological sons and a daughter from China, but I'm not positive.

And the other think I hate about it is that what these things are are marketing tools for T and me as a couple. I hate marketing. I think marketing is the cause of everything that is wrong with this country and I don't like anything that has to do with it. So I'm not very happy to have to market myself to someone -- especially someone who has to do something as difficult as create an adoption plan for her child.

I'm feeling so negative about this right now. How is this not awful?

Anyway, I guess I'll stop complaining and try writing. I think just getting all of this negativity out here might help me be able to work on the other things. So the blog might be even more negative than usual (if you can imagine such a thing) so I can vent and let all of the negativity out in order to enable me to work on these documents.

Home Study Visit #2

The second visit was better. I didn't cry afterward.

The social worker told T that I was "cute and endearing." I guess that's a good thing.

She asked about the neighborhood. There are pit bulls across the street which made her seem a bit skeptical, which freaked me out a little. (We had the meeting at our house for convenience sake.) But the pit bulls are generally under control and always behind a fence, so I guess that was okay.

She asked about my childhood. I had a ridiculously happy, suburban childhood so I didn't feel like there was much to talk about. I was a good kid. I didn't get into much trouble. I did well in school. Of course I rebelled against my parents, but I was and still am generally a goody-goody and I said so. I didn't get punished much because I was good. My punishments when I was a kid taught me to be a good teenager and adult. My parents instilled strong values in me and I think I am a good person because of how they raised me. I just feel like there's not much to say there.

We talked about the letter and the book some more. I told her that doing these things made me sad. She told me to try to get a new point of view with it -- that this would be a book we could show our child to help tell his/her birth story. But the fact that we will get an actual child out of this is not something I can even begin to fathom, so it's difficult for me to think about it that way. But I'm going to try.

She's going to try to hook me up with other waiting families. I am also having T come with me to a waiting families support group after work next week (even though it's kind of far) because I just need to find some other people doing this adoption thing.

I got a survey from the cryobank asking why we haven't ordered a vial in a while. I told them we were on hold due to pursuing adoption. I guess we're not the only ones who are doing that, even though it seems like it sometimes.

Status Quo

Things are generally the same. I spent time with my friend E and her son S on Sunday. E and I were pregnant at the same time way back in the day and now she has S. He is two. She also recently had a third miscarriage trying for a second child. We talked about that a little bit -- how much it just sucks, but how having S helps her so much.

S is a delight. He's a wonderful kid and was so happy to see me and spend time together. We ran through the sprinkler and kicked the ball and splashed in the bucket. He's really talking well now and can communicate what he wants and doesn't want quite well. I was struck with how tall he has gotten since I've seen him last. He's also the spitting image of his father, which is a slight kick in the gut for me.

It made me much less sad than I thought I would be to hang out. It does hurt a little to see what we're missing -- toddlers can be so great. But I really did okay with the visit, and that made me pretty proud of myself.

We told my brother and SIL (and their kids) that we have submitted an adoption application. They weren't surprised at all. The kids were a little excited. It seems weird that they weren't surprised, but I guess that is to be expected. They knew we had trouble. They knew we wanted kids. They knew about the DIs. Since none of it worked, it is the logical next step.

Tomorrow we are having our individual visits with the social worker for our home study. We haven't done any work at all on our Dear Birth Parent letter or our book that we have to make. I am trying to collect pictures for the book so that I can be choosy about which ones I put in there, so I suppose that's something. We really need to sit and work on it, but doing so is incredibly depressing and I don't know how we can motivate ourselves to work on this very important but very difficult thing. Getting T to write his autobiography was like pulling teeth. I suppose I can do most of the meaty work for this stuff and have him approve and proof read and edit. So I need to get off my ass.

I've been so busy trying not to be sad, and doing a reasonably good job of it, that I find it really difficult to take care of this stuff. But I guess I just need to get a draft out of me and give it to someone who can help us tweak it.

Things are as they are. Work is fine. T's work is busy and a bit difficult. People are pregnant and having babies all over the place. We are still here.

Whisper

One of the cats T grew up with who was living with T's mom died today. Goodbye Whisper. Whisper was always a sickly cat, but he kept MIL company. Since T's dad died, MIL has lived alone on the other side of the country and at least we knew that Whisper kept her company. Now Whisper is gone and T feels like she has no connections left in Oregon. He is worried that with his dad gone and Whisper gone that MIL will not have the will to live much longer.

MIL is in reasonably good health and is a stubborn farm girl, and I don't think this is the case. That being said, I do worry a lot about her living alone on the other side of the country with only a few friends.

But out here she would have no friends at all. And we don't know how she could afford to live if we moved her out here.

But these are worries for a different day. Today we mourn Whisper who died on his own at the Vet's while waiting to be put down. He always did want to do things his own way, that Whisper. And he did it to the last. He lived a long life and was a good cat. He didn't suffer and he spent his last days at home with MIL in comfort.

Take care, Whisper.

friends

Last night my friend came to talk to me. She had been acting a little funny and had said via email that she wanted to talk to me about something. I didn't have any idea what it was. I was a little nervous.

She told me that she was disappointed with me and that she feels like I haven't been a good friend lately. Right before I left on my vacation a friend of hers died, and she has been feeling down and I haven't asked about how she was doing.

I can't say she's wrong. Between the application and the vacation and getting the car fixed and coming back and starting the homestudy, I have been neglecting her. I hadn't thought about it much which is probably pretty selfish.

But I have communicated with her via email and I have asked if everything is okay. She didn't mention one word about being upset with me or needing some support or saying she was having a difficult time because of her friend's death. I am the type of person who believes in just telling people what I need. She is the type of person who wants other people to anticipate her needs.

This really frustrates me. How can you expect people to know what you need without telling them? I know this about her, but in my own madness and chaos I kind of forgot about her. I admit that. It's pretty crappy. But a small email saying that she was having a difficult time would have snapped me out of it. I just don't think that's too much to ask.

And the part that really bugs me is she started out talking about the 'pain olympics' and how my pain wins. To me, this situation has nothing to do with that. Yes, I am protective of myself and I fear pregnancy announcements. Yes, I am busy with all of this emotional crap and paperwork and I've been tending to keep to myself. But if she had told me she was hurting and sad over her friend's death, I wouldn't have said, "Oh yeah? I'm too busy being in pain myself that I can't comfort you right now." This pain olympics statement makes me feel like that is what she thinks. It's so not true.

Does this mean that is how she thinks? I'm not sure.

I'm going to try to be a better friend and remember to ask how she's doing. I'm going to try to remember that she's sensitive about how she is being asked how she's doing.

But I just can't seem to let this 'pain olympics' thing go. I think it's a bad idea to bring it up with her. I'm trying to make some plans to hang out with her, so we'll see how it goes and whether it comes up. I'm going to try like hell to not talk about it, but as I said, I'm definitely a 'put it all out there' kind of person.

Slow Weekend

It's funny how staying at home makes both T and I sad and depressed a lot of the time. We're not sure what it is about being home that makes us sad, but we both do decidedly better if we're out and about rather than relaxing at home.

T and I were watching the baseball game and while I was doing some laundry the play by play people mentioned that the wife of one of the players on the opposing team had just had a baby the night before. They both went on to talk about fatherhood and how great it was and what a miracle it is and how special it is for people who are lucky enough to be fathers to have that incredible experience.

Poor T. It just put him in a really deep funk and he couldn't pull out of it. I don't blame him. It seems that no matter what we do to try to get away from our situation, there is always something there to remind us.

Hell.Boy kind of sucked. It had some potential, but it didn't go deeply enough into the story and it lacked a lot of nuance. We were disappointed because we loved the first one and we had enjoyed another movie by the director of the second one. And, of course, one of the characters found out she was pregnant. Hurray! We can't even go see some comic book fantasy or watch our local baseball team without having pregnancy and parenthood shoved down our throats.

He dreamed last night that the wife of one of his colleagues had her baby (she is due any day now) and it had a heart defect and it had to have an operation and it died.

This morning I decided we should get out of the house. We decided to go to a coffee house near us and drink coffee and read (and knit). We both love to do this. So, as T got into the shower I hear another piece on the radio about how this guy was a total fuck-up until he had a son and the responsibility of fatherhood was so life changing and profound that he fixed his life up and he got his GED and now is in college and has turned his life around. I was so glad T was in the shower and didn't hear that because it would have sent him back into his funk.

We try to keep ourselves busy. We try to do things like watch sports and go to the movies and listen to the radio to keep ourselves distracted. But because family and having children is such a natural part of life, it is pervasive. We see it everywhere. We can't escape it.

How can we relax, enjoy and just let ourselves try to forget our situation while it is always being brought up everywhere?

I know all people who suffer from IF feel this way on a regular basis. The fertile world is just constantly smacking you across the face.

So next weekend I have to remember that going to the coffee shop and drinking a coffee and reading and knitting is the best thing to do for us. Seeing the children there doesn't feel too bad. Finding distraction elsewhere seems like it can just be too dangerous.

But we must distract ourselves, mustn't we?

Lonely again

I'm feeling lonely. I'm feeling a little less sad, but I'm feeling very lonely.

I want to find a support group. An online one would be fine. An in person one would be any better. I want to find other people like me. I'm feeling like I can't.

I used to take such comfort in the online infertility world. There were so many people going through similar things as me and I found solace in the shared experience.

But I'm finding more and more that I can't identify with anybody's blogs. Most of the adoption blogs I have found either have a baby already or already have a child or are concurrently doing IF stuff. Usually it seems to be IUIs with clomid or perhaps injectibles. They certainly haven't have multiple losses and multiple failed IVFs and multiple failed donor IUIs and a miscarriage using donor gametes.

And that's the thing. I just feel like we've failed so spectacularly. We've failed so many different things. I want to meet other people who have failed at so many different things like we have, but frankly it's difficult. I can find other people who have suffered great IF losses. I see people with late term losses and still births. I see people with multiple failed IVFs. I see people needing multiple types of treatment and using donor gametes. What I don't see is people failing at things across the board. I guess I think that people's failures tend to be more concentrated, I guess.

I don't know. Maybe it's selfish that I feel lonely. Maybe I'm just too busy feeling sorry for myself to accept that suffering is suffering and that all these women share my pain. And I know that these people share my pain. I really do. But I just want to find some other spectacular failures. I don't know why I feel like I need this solace, but I feel like I do.

I wrote this yesterday when I was feeling more lonely. I'm not feeling this down right now. T and I are going to see Hell.Boy and eat some food. I'm decidedly looking forward to the A/C and the entertainment. It's hot here again.

Home Study Visit #1

I cried. During and after.

I feel so empty and alone. And I don't feel one bit of hope at this point. Even though intellectually I know it will work out in the end, I cannot bring myself to truly believe that will happen. And we have been warned and know that it will take a long time, so I have to steel myself for that wait. It will most likely take more than a year. Probably closer to a year and a half. A year and a half ago I thought that IVF with PGD would work for us. A year and a half is a damn long time.

The interview was informal and went generally well. She could see my sadness and I couldn't keep it in. She said that she could tell we weren't feeling hopeful. I hope that's not bad.

I know we are moving forward. I know that we will write a dear birthparent letter and make a book and it will be shown to people and some day, someone will choose us to parent the child that they created.

But it doesn't feel real. The concept that this possibility exists doesn't make me feel any better. It doesn't make me feel like I might be a mom someday.

I only feel pain and failure and misery. I just feel like I've missed out on what so many people take for granted. I see only empty time left where we wait and wait and wait some more.

Haven't we already done this? Yes, there were differences. I do not have to inject myself with hormones or spread my legs for some doctor or midwife. But it's still all of this fake "trying" while nothing happens and we just get disappointed.

Why, why, why do we have to do it again?

The wedding

The wedding wasn't bad. The bride's brother officiated (in MA you can appoint a wedding officiator for a day and it can be anybody) and the ceremony was nice and short. It was outside. T and I managed to grab some shade, but for the poor people who couldn't sit in the shade it was mighty warm, especially for those who were wearing suits. We ended up sitting in back of a former co-worker of T's and his wife and their two-month old infant. At first I thought, "Oh shit." but it turned out to not bother us too much. I found that to be impressive. The one thing I didn't like during the ceremony is that the couple passed a small bag with their wedding rings around to all of the guests to "bless" the rings and their marriage. While a nice idea, it took FOREVER and there was no music or anything to pass the time. T had to hush me as I furrowed my brow and complained.

The Merlot at the wedding was divine and I ended up drinking a lot of it. We sat at a table with the couple with the two-month old, another couple who have a nearly 9-month old (who stayed at home) and another couple where the wife was 29 weeks pregnant. That was harder, I have to say. T worked with (or used to work with) all of the men at the table, so often times no baby talk came up, but there were a few moments where I almost lost it because it was baby talk and baby talk only at the table. Strollers and onsies and pregnancy and this and that. I got up to get myself another glass of wine during one of the discussions. I was on the verge of tears for about 5 minutes during dinner because of these conversations, but I got through it. What bums me out most is that the pregnant couple got married about a year after us. And all the people at the table were at least a few years younger than us. It just freaking sucks. None of them has any idea.

But happily that conversation dropped off and I had even more wine and then the dancing happened. T doesn't dance, but I was able to dance with random people from T's work or their girlfriends, and that was a whole lot of fun. T works with both the bride and groom and both of their parents were so happy to meet T and thanked him several times for creating such a great place to work and for treating their children so well. That was really nice for T to feel so appreciated.

So except for a few bumps, the wedding wasn't too bad. The food was good, the wine was excellent and generally a good time was had by all.

Vacation != miracle

So, having the good vacation s.ex didn't make us a baby. AF is here and how.

Not that I expected it to. I didn't. I'm still not tracking my cycles, though the EWCM is always obvious. And I know that the right things happened at around the right time. But apparently being in a good mood and feeling relaxed doesn't actually help. People just say it does.

And despite my past few PMS-y and sad posts, I've been doing quite well. Turns out that caffeine agrees with me. (Yay coffee!) And generally speaking I've been in a pretty good mood.

But despite the old bitch's arrival, I'm still feeling pretty okay. We've decided (well, mostly I've decided and T has agreed) that we're not going to be doing a dIUI next cycle either. I've been too happy to put myself through another cycle. I need to just let go and relax as I've been. We still have the 2 more vials, but we still have another year of storage. We have a year to make a full decision.

Our S.ex Offender Registry info came back to us. Happily, neither of us is a s.ex offender. Yay!

Have a wedding to go to tomorrow. I'm not a big fan of weddings, but it is what it is. I'll know a bunch of people there, so it shouldn't be too bad. The weather is okay today and I think T and I are going to go eat tips and drink beer and watch the Sox game.

Things are okay.

working the week away

Work really helps me. Even if it's frustrating or annoying, it's so much better than me sitting at home being depressed. So I'm doing better now. Things are going pretty well there, so going to work is a good thing for me.

We have our first home study meeting next Tuesday. It's supposed to take about 2 hours. I'm not feeling nervous about it. I think we'll get through most of the home study stuff pretty quickly. I think the thing that will take us the longest is the Dear Birthmother letter and the booklet thingy we have to make. I know I'll be mostly responsible for doing it, so I have pretty much myself to rely on. T will have to hook up the photo printer so we can print out pictures, though. And he'll give me input and look things over. I'm just the motivator in the family.

It's really freaking hot in these parts right now. So I'm just sitting here sweating waiting for T to come home. We're going to eat some leftovers for dinner. I haven't been cooking much at all lately. It makes me feel lazy, but I just have no motivation sometimes.

I think that's it for now. Just a regular work week this week and it seems to be helping. I have to get a gift for a wedding this weekend, but I don't know when I'm going to make it to the store. I have half of the gift, but I need the rest. T works with these people, so I guess I can just have him bring it to when they come home from their honeymoon. I'm just waiting for them to announce their pregnancy. I thought I would die if they got pregnant before me, but now that I know it will happen I've found a little bit of peace with it. I'm not freaking out about it when I think of it. When it actually happens, we'll see how I react though.

Still the blues

Going to the party definitely helped. I thought it might and that's why I forced myself to go. Getting out of the house and talking to other people helps me keep my mind off of things and stops me from falling into the depths of despair.

Last night I dreamed I was pregnant and there was a heartbeat on the ultrasound. Somehow people found out and were getting all excited around me. I was freaking out that people were excited. "Stop it!" I told them. "We don't know anything yet." I wasn't excited. I was just nervous.

Then I woke up.

Needless to say, I'm not feeling particularly happy again. Down in the dumps again this morning. But I'm going to meet a fellow blogger for lunch, so hopefully that will draw me out a little.

And then it's back to life and the real world and a full week of work tomorrow.

The Blues

I'm feeling sad right now.

I'm waiting for T because we need to go to a party to say goodbye to someone who just had his last day at T's work. He and his gf are moving out of town. Neither of us want to go to this party, but we feel obligated. T didn't go to the after work goodbye drink thingy, so we're going to go tonight. I don't want to go. I just want to stay at home and feel sorry for myself.

Today I filled out the sex offender registry form, the CORI check form, the CORI check for DSS form and a request to get my birth certificate because neither my parents nor I know where the original is. It's some good steps, but it sucks to fill these things out. It just makes me remember how unfair this whole thing is. We still need to have one of the CORI check forms notarized before we send it off. We found a copy of T's birth certificate when we were in Oregon. I have a copy of our marriage license. So there are a bunch of things to check off of the list. We had our TB tests check today and we both were negative. My doctor's visit form is complete. T's will be in a couple of weeks. I know that's something, but I just feel like crap. Crap.

Well, T has come downstairs and we have the address, so we're off. Maybe going out will take my mind off of things.

The fireworks last night were pretty damn good. It's always good to get out of the house.

Independence Day

Yesterday was Baby S's second birthday. I asked E&R for a referral letter for our adoption. I also found out that E had her third miscarriage and D&C last week. That really sucks. I feel so bad for her. I knew she would get pregnant again before we had a baby, and I'm so, so sorry that she had to have another miscarriage. It's so unfair and it really, really sucks. But I'm also jealous that she was able to even get pregnant. Which is kind of silly, I suppose. She has suffered so much loss too, but she has never endured any ART and has had a live birth. Still it really sucks to have to endure so many losses. I know her son and the lack of ART is no comfort to her in this situation. A loss is a loss no matter what. It's a horrible place to be in. That being said, I'm selfishly kind of sad that they're trying again, though we had discussed it before and I knew it was coming. I thought I would be completely distraught on S's second birthday being still childless with no hope on the horizon yet. I was certain I'd be pregnant, at least by donor sperm by now. And here they are trying for #2. And failing. And having losses as we've had losses. But also having had some success. The whole thing just fucks me up and puts me in a weird place. I hate that everything about all of this stuff makes me unhappy. But it does. I'm not sure how I'm going to take E's second pregnancy. During the first one I was sure I would be pregnant at some point, if in some non-traditional manner. This time I don't have any hope for a healthy pregnancy. I could probably cope okay if we had a baby, but being childless through another pregnancy will probably really hurt.

Yesterday I was so happy and felt so lucky. My name got chosen at random to be let out of work with pay early. As I work in a call center, that is a rare occasion indeed. I never win anything out of luck. Ever. Yes, several people were chosen, but still I was convinced that this was a sign that things were going to go well for us this year and that things were looking up. But now I'm back in a dark and gloomy place.

Hopefully tonights fireworks will make me feel a bit better. I absolutely adore fireworks.

I'll leave you with some more pictures of our trip.

Badlands National Park, South Dakota.


Me on Jackalope. Wall Drug, SD. (Ignore my fat rolls, please.)


Devil's Tower, WY.

Yellowstone National Park, WY

Back

We're back from our trip.

It was cool and fun. We didn't sleep in the car once. We saw some amazing things. The pictures are all on T's laptop and he's resistant to moving them over, but I was able to scrounge two.


This one is a buffalo that was just strolling along the street as we were driving through Yellowstone. You see he has not a care in the world. He's just trying to get to where he's going and this road was the easiest way to get there. The photo may be blurry because we were in a moving car at the time this photo was taken.



The next photo is just some cool geo-thermal stuff bubbling and spilling and building up to make a big mineral formation. Just so pretty and neat. Yellowstone was cool. But I can't wait to show some pictures of the Badlands. That was my favorite. But here is said rock.

We saw an amazing thunderstorm while in Spearfish, SD. It's so flat there you can see lightning for miles. It was incredible. We also stopped in Jackson Hole, WY where we had a wonderful

It all went pretty well until we passed Boise, ID. We were only about 30 miles from Oregon and 400 miles from our destination when there was an accident. I was driving on I-84W and a pickup towing a camping trailer was driving east on I-84. The pickup's driver's side rear wheel came off. The wheel, luckily, rolled along side the pickup and didn't go into traffic, but the brake assembly (we think) which looks like a tire assembly only without the tire on it rolled across two lanes of traffic, across the median and smack dab into the passenger side front bumper. We rolled over it and it made a big bump. I pulled over to the median and the damage was pretty bad. T said his arm was hurting and I realized that the side airbag had deployed and hit him in the shoulder. The front bumper was torn off and hanging, the passenger side door was dented, the tire had been scratched and it was a pretty sad sight. Luckily neither T nor I was hurt (aside from the airbag) and the people who lost a wheel were also fine. The ID state police came and we got all the insurance information we needed. The car seemed perfectly drivable. The roadside assistance guy wired up the bumper and we were on our way. We were a little shaken up, and we were trying to be thankful that no one was hurt and that though there was damage the car was still drivable. But it was difficult since the whole reason we were driving out there was to give the car to my MIL.

But we submitted a claim and insurance should take care of it MIL is beside herself with excitement over the car, which makes us feel good. She needed it and as it's a hybrid she will be getting just about twice the gas mileage she was getting before which will save her not an insignificant amount of money. Hopefully the increase in her car insurance won't be higher than the cost of the gas. But she was just giddy like a schoolgirl with the new car.

Our trip to the coast was nice. The wedding was tiny but nice. It was at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, OR which is a great aquarium and I recommend it to anyone who is in the area. It was good that MIL came along with us because it gave us more time together. MIL drives me a little nuts, but we don't see her that often and it was good that we had a bit of quality time.

So, we go to work tomorrow for a one day week. We will see fireworks on Friday night and spend the weekend recovering some more from our trip. Then it's back to life as usual.

Our homestudy social worker gave us a call and wants to set up our first meeting. I have a doctor's appointment today to get our medical forms completed. T's Dr is in the same office. We have all the official documents to submit now -- CORI check, Sex Offender list, and letters of reference -- that kind of stuff. That application was just the beginning of this process.

But it is good to be home with the cats and our bed and I appreciate what a luxury it was to be able to drive across this country and see so many beautiful things.

Application and gone

T finished his autobiography. He stayed up too late and it was difficult, but he did it. The application is in an envelope and we will send it as we leave.

Here goes an adventure!

Leaving

Tomorrow is my last day of work before leaving. I have so much crap to do and I don't know when I'm going to do it. I'm going to try to leave work early tomorrow so I can do things. Tonight we each have plans with friends and will not get anything done. Oy!

T still hasn't finished his autobiography and I am requiring we mail it in on Friday. I have no idea how he's going to finish it. I am very upset about it right now, but he still says he'll get it done. We cannot talk about it without him getting frustrated, and we can talk about anything. We never argue or even get that annoyed with each other, so it feels so weird to have this albatross around our necks. I want him to finish it so we can just mail the damn thing in and get that part over with. We still have a bunch more big hurdles before the waiting just starts.

I have decided to give up giving up stuff. I'm drinking caffeine. I'm drinking alcohol. I've stopped my prenatal. Yes, we have two more vials of donor sperm, but I'm just sick of doing things that indicate I have some sort of hope. I have no hope. I will never get pregnant and have a child. It's just not in the cards for us. If a miracle happened, I'll start taking precautions then. Worse things have happened. Fuck it.

I'm trying to not stress. Our vacation should hopefully be relaxing. But I'm not quite there yet.

I probably won't blog from the road, so I'll not be back until after July 1. I'm sure nobody cares, really, but I just wanted to put it out there.

Have a great couple of weeks.

Father's Day

Today's a tough day for T. He really wants nothing more than to be a father, and his own relationship with his father was a difficult one. He loved his father deeply, but T's childhood was difficult due to his father's drinking. T doesn't talk in depth about his father, but when he does speak of him I mostly hear the love. Having never been touched by alcoholism I find it difficult to understand how T and his mother process their rocky relationships with T's dad. My MIL never has a bad word to say about him even though I know there were times when he was anything but a good person.

With the passing of Tim Russert, a lot has been said this Father's Day weekend about being a proud father and a proud son as Tim was. This moves T deeply, and I know he has many ambivalent feelings about all of these things. I know he strives to be the type of father that his dad never was -- he has said so. He wants to embrace the positive qualities of his dad, and because he doesn't have problems with alcohol he can take those good qualities that his dad had, some of which he sees in himself, and be a wonderful father. T is an adoring husband and an adoring cat owner. I know he will be an adoring father, too.

His father died reasonably young (from a brain tumor not unlike the one Ted Kennedy has, though his father's was inoperable) and T's biggest fear is that he will never see his children as adults. Because we are getting older and will be close to 40 when becoming parents for the first time, this fear gets stronger and stronger as every anniversary passes. We have T's birthday, the anniversary of his father's death, his father's birthday and Father's Day all as reminders of time passing. I a expecting another round of these anniversaries to pass before we become parents.

Today, Father's Day, we are very close to finishing up our initial adoption application. It has been difficult to get him to write about his own childhood due to the difficult issues he has faced. Aside from a few snapshots, T's autobiography is the only part of our application that we need to complete. I know he thinks about it every day and he promises that it will be done before we leave on our trip Friday morning, but he keeps pushing it further and further away. He does not like to talk about his childhood or to face his feelings when it comes to his father. It is especially difficult for him to do this on Father's Day of all days.

As we were watching the tribute to Tim Russert, we saw Tim wish his viewers a happy father's day. He wished a happy father's day to his dad and told his son, Luke, that he was proud to be Luke's dad. This triggered something in T. I'm not sure if T's dad ever told him he was proud of him, even though T knows that he was. It was only as T took care of him while he was dying that he got to see the softer side of his father. Moments like these move T to tears.

I wish there were some way I could ease the pain of fatherhood in general for T. I know that when we finally have children of our own some of that pain will be reduced. I'm not sure if he will ever fully come to terms with his relationship with his dad, but I think by being a dad himself, and the kind of dad his dad never could be due to his alcoholism, I think he will be able to let some of that pain go. A day like today is so difficult for me because I know there is absolutely nothing I can do to help T. He is a sensitive man, which is one of the reasons I love him so much, but it really hurts to see him hurt.

I hope that one day he will be a father soon because I know that few men will appreciate fatherhood the way that T will one day when he gets to be a father, no matter how that happens.

A good way to end the week

Yesterday I retook the test that I had failed at work and I passed with flying colors. I also found out that I was the #1 tech support person out of the entire floor for the month of May. They do a lot of quality control stuff and map your productivity and rank the approximately 50ish tech support people. Then they give you a bonus depending on your overall ranking. I had the best combined score of anyone. Considering I've only been doing support for 3 months and have only been eligible for the bonus for 2 months, I think that's pretty good. And even though I'm completely over qualified for my job, I still feel pretty good about myself for doing this. I don't think what I do is difficult and I know I do it pretty well. But it still feels nice to have physical proof that I am doing a good job. And hopefully that means that I can get another new job in the company pretty quickly.

We went out to dinner last night and I had a blood orange martini. Yum!

One week

One week today will be the night before we leave to drive to Oregon. I'm very excited and somehow a little nervous. I'm afraid of ending up sleeping in the car or something. We really have no plans what-so-ever. I'm not a very spontaneous person so this is difficult for me, but I can't really plan for this so spontaneous I will be.

I did end up peeing on a stick because I had a dentist appointment today and I knew they would want x-rays and even though I knew I wasn't pregnant I wanted the test to really make it certain so that I could get the x-rays without worrying. So, I wasn't pregnant and I got the x-rays. Sometimes I think I'm so stupid to think this way, but I can't help it. So with the definitive one-line I got some goat cheese and am thinking about drinking and having real coffee in the morning. :)

Nothing much is going on. Work has been going well lately. I get to retake the test I failed last month. Cross your fingers for me. I think I'm more ready now. I really hope I pass as I don't think I have ever failed anything more than once. I barely remember ever failing anything. Except maybe a swim test. I'm a really poor swimmer.

Today is an incredibly beautiful day and I think I'm going to go change and work in the yard for a bit.

Update:
I just changed my clothes and I've gained so much weight from last summer that the shorts I bought last year because I had no shorts that fit me are now barely fitting me. I feel so incredibly fat. I have not been this heavy in a long, long time. I want to lose weight, but I just can't restrict my eating these days. I really don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to regulate my eating. I eat to comfort myself so much. I do exercise regularly, but it doesn't seem to be helping. I feel like crap about this.

pregnancy jokes

So at work there were some more jokes about me being pregnant. I spilled a cup of water all over the floor and was frustrated and said so, and my neighbor says, "Your water broke?" And then another (a woman with a 1-year-old) said, "Maybe Rachel *is* pregnant!" and I got really annoyed and said quite loudly, "That really isn't funny." I got a little upset and I let them know. The co-worker got a little pouty afterward and I said to him, "Sometimes there are upsetting things in this world and you just have to learn to deal with it."

So, I'm hoping that *this* time is really the end of it. I mean jeez. I'm not even giving subtle clues anymore. These are flat-out 'I don't want to talk about this please' comments. What more can I do? I'm just so annoyed.

As far as waiting goes, I'm waiting for AF. I'm not even going to pee on a stick, which as you know is something I pretty much do no matter what. Even I can't convince myself I might be pregnant. T and I will be on the road during the next ovulation time. Maybe driving across the country will give us some help. It's the whole, "Take a vacation and you'll get pregnant!" thing. I'm sure after two and a half years and four miscarriages that driving across country will do the trick!

T hasn't made much more progress on his bio yet, so I keep nudging. I have to finish the financial part of the application, too. Ugh.

It's hot. Really, really hot. The thermometer on my car read 126 degrees this evening. No, it's not really 126, but it is really hot. I'm going into the air conditioning now.

The waiting

My b00bs have been hurting for about a week now. I keep waiting for it to go away. I think that has started finally today. I believe they are hurting a little bit less. This feels somewhat backwards as my b00bs usually begin to hurt right about now -- somewhere between 7 and 10 dpo. I'm not exactly sure when I ovulated so I don't exactly know where I am now. If I ovulated later, as I suspect, my chances of actually being pregnant are pretty low. I am on the progesterone which may be making my b00bs sore, but I continue to take it so why would it stop now?

Again, I spend so much of my time analyzing and wishing I could just forget about it. But I can't.

Yesterday at work on of my cube neighbors asked me when there were going to be some T juniors walking around. I shrugged. He pushed a bit more. I said some more non-committal things. A third co-worker was nearby and said something to the effect of, 'It looks like she doesn't want to talk about it.' I was pleasantly surprised by this comment. I wonder if his life has been touched in some way by infertility. He is getting married this weekend, so maybe he has just endured similar questions in a way he didn't enjoy. I finally said, 'Can we talk about something else?' Part of me wanted to blurt something, but I really, really want people at work to know as little as possible about my infertility. I just feel really private about it there. I don't want work to know anything.

Then on the way home it was raining and I mentioned an open window in a guest bedroom. Carpoolie managed to say, "Oh, I remember having a guest bedroom. Not anymore!' All this woman talks about is her children as she reads Parents magazine in my front seat every day. I try to be understanding, but I wanted to smack her after she said that.

Sigh. Maybe today will be a better day.

Never a dull moment

Last night the woman I carpool with walked down the street to show her kids my house. They were just standing there, looking at the house. I got nervous that they were going to knock on the door, but they didn't. A man with a dog walked down the sidewalk as they were standing there and the dog next door that is never leashed ran out and the two dogs got in a small tussle. The man who was walking his dog started to freak out a little. Carpool woman was there shielding her two kids from an impending dog fight. The 7th grader next door pulled the unleashed dog off the leashed dog.

Later, a fire engine with sirens parked outside our house. The fire SUV came and another fire engine came. I had no idea what was going on. They go to the house next door with the unleashed dog. They look in the back yard. Our neighbors have a chiminea in which they feed huge logs that are too large for it. They burn stuff in there constantly and in fact leave the house with things still burning in it. I guess that fire got out of control because they unrolled the hose and sprayed the neighbors back yard.

Those people are insane. They always have been. One of her kids has been in and out of jail and was dealing drugs out of the house. I can't believe they burned their back yard. That house is for sale and I'm sure the owner is not going to be happy. These people just floor me. It's unbelievable. I just don't understand people.

I'm guess I'm just glad the fire didn't get out of control?

And these people are able to reproduce while T and I cannot. How can it be a better idea to propagate those genes?

Dream

Last night I dreamed of a positive pregnancy test that had about 4 lines. One pink line and three blue ones, I think. I knew the pink one was for HCG, but I didn't know what the other ones were for. I knew it was weird that they were there, though. I didn't know what to do. I kept panicking and taking more tests, but the extra lines were still there. I went to the doctor and they did a bunch of tests, and the extra lines were because of all the chromosomal defects the baby had. I was going to miscarry again. I was so mad at myself for letting myself get pregnant and to hope that maybe it would be okay even though those extra lines were there. I'm not sure if I dreamed of miscarrying or that was implied. But it was a crappy dream and it's left me unsettled this morning.

The Surprise

The surprise was my parents old dining room chairs. Years ago they gave me their dining room table. They've been promising the chairs ever since. It's been about 5 years, but they've finally dropped off the chairs. T never thought they'd give them to us. But here they are.

Not super exciting, but the chairs we had in the dining room previously did not go at all, so it's nice to have normal chairs for a change.

Started the progesterone last night. B00bs have been hurting since around ovulation. That seems weird. Not sure what to make of it. Anybody have sore b00bs for their entire luteal phase?

Here comes Monday. Another week. Another day. Another dollar.

I've finished the first draft of my part of the biography and the part of the biography for the two of us. Now T needs to finish his part. We need a few pictures, to fill in a few blanks in the application, and then we will be ready to hand it in.

Not sure if we'll send it before we leave for or trip or not. Just not sure.