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.