Exhuasted

Work was crazy CRAZY busy this week. Crazy busy. T has to work all weekend. Stress levels are high. I'm exhausted.

Going to watch the Daily Show and play on our Wii.

Filled out some of the facilitator application yesterday. We're slowly going forward with this new step.

So tired.

One email

I emailed the facilitator today.

She said don't bother to work on the Dear Birthmother booklet on my own. She'll guide us some more to make changes the way she wants and editing it further will just frustrate me. So we could just fill out her application, send her a check and then include a book with it.

She said we didn't have too many changes to make -- mostly a few picture changes and integrating the text with the images. Right now the text is completely separate.

So, when T comes home from work we'll talk about this some more. We were going to have a lawyer look a the contract first. I don't know whether we're still planning on it or not.

I was feeling resentful of all of this again this morning. Perusing facebook can be difficult because I see so many people talking about their kids and stuff. I hate feeling sorry for myself, but I do sometimes. I can't imagine this sadness ever ending.

Still just counting days til our vacation and my new job start.

Funny on the inside

I've been feeling kind of funny lately.

The inauguration was great. I still can't believe it's real. It hasn't sunk in yet.

But aside from that, I'm just feeling funny. Things have gotten better since I stopped driving what my friend S labeled as the "think tank."

But then I got hit by that other car. I'm working with insurance to clear this up.

I got a good, new job a while back. But it still doesn't start til March 1. Waiting for it to start is really difficult. I'm not doing as well as I had in my old job. But I do have this new job waiting and they're not going to take it away. And I do have assignments, but my current job is so busy that I can't really work on the new stuff.

And I haven't done any adoption anything lately. We're still thinking of going with that facilitator, but it doesn't make sense to sign up until I change around our Dear Birthmother book, and I just haven't been able to do it. I both don't want to do it and have other projects I'm working on that have very finite deadlines, so I work on those and not the book.

But with all of this going on, I still just sort of feel empty inside. I see people having babies, and I see the babies grow up, and I see the children looking like their parents and I just feel empty.

I drive to work and I feel empty.

I know I should go talk to someone again, but my job has absolutely no flexibility, and I'm just trying to hold out until I have my new job which does have flexibility.

I really, really need a vacation, and we just bought tickets to go to FL on the 21st of Feb.

I just hope I can make it through until then. When I come back my new job will start. Meanwhile, I'm just trying to be patient.

Hormones

It's amazing how much hormones affect me. Yesterday, the day before cd1, I was a mess. Yes, my car got rear-ended and thing generally sucked, but I was so ready to throw in the towel and just take off and go somewhere else and just leave everything behind. I felt like I couldn't take anything any more and I just needed the world to stop.

Today, now that my hormones aren't raging, I'm back to normal. I felt a little crappy this morning, but I took some ibu*prophen and I was fine. I'm not in a horrible mood. I feel like I can conquer my problems, even if they are a pain in the ass.

Sometimes I worry about what will happen when we do finally have a kid and I am in this type of funk. How will I function?

Not a great day

I got rear-ended this morning. I'm fine, but my car is smashed up. T had some work laptops stolen. And AF is about to show up.

Not a great day.

And as I've said, when we don't have properly timed sex, by b00bs don't hurt, but when we do, they do. No timed sex means no sore b00bs this month. What's up with that?

Research

I have now talked to 3 of the references for this facilitator we are thinking of using. I've been trying to come up with a reason not to use her. I didn't really find one.

What T and I are truly worried about is not that this facilitator is good or thorough or ethical. I am certain about all of these things. Our concern surrounds birth parents. I want to be completely 100% sure that the birth parents get all the support and counseling they will need when all of this happens. If you work with a full service agency, the birth parents work with the same people throughout the whole process and things are slightly more stable. There is a specific process that the agency has done time and again.

With a facilitator, the birth parents rely on the facilitator for support. At a certain point, after the match is made the facilitator drops back and transitions us to an agency (or attorney, I suppose). What scares me is this transition. It may take some extra effort on our end do make sure the birth parents have the support they need at this point. I talked to one family that hired a local social worker to work with their birth mom to ensure proper support. This social worker knew the are and knew the hospital, and it really helped things to go smoothly.

The people I spoke to all had multiple children - two had multiple children via adoption. Not all children had been found via this facilitator. And every child's story is so different. There were complications even when they used a full service agency.

I've determined from talking to these people that no matter what, adoption is a crap shoot. You just never know how the situation is going to play out. You cannot predict. If I have an idea of how I think this is going to go, I have to get that out of my mind. And if a facilitator makes the match happen slightly more quickly, but forces us to do a little more work, the first time is the time to do it.

So, the conclusion that we have come to is that we are probably going to use this facilitator. It is a big commitment of money, but we're not sure what else to do. It has been three years since my first pregnancy. People are starting to have their second child since we have been battling infertility. It is time for this to end for us. I do think using this facilitator is a bit of a risk. But I have not been convinced that this is a risk we should not take.

Does anyone want to try to convince me not to do it?

Ouch

My neck hurts.

I have a huge knot in my upper shoulder and my movements are restricted and I am in pain. I can't find the heating pad.

Tomorrow my department is having it's Xmas party. It's a casino night. I'm going without T.

T is going away on Sunday for work. He'll be gone until Wednesday. My friend S is going to stay with me. I'm hoping it's fun to have a few days with just girls, but I usually don't like it very much when T goes away. I like it when he's here.

I got an email from the facilitator. I totally haven't been thinking about any of it. I didn't feel like re-doing the booklet. That's what I told her. I also need to talk to people who've had a placement with her.

Oy.

All this thinking is making my neck hurt more.
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Just called a bunch of numbers on the reference page. Left one message. Talked to one person. They have 2 kids at this point, so we're going to have our real talk on Saturday.

That's something.

Bored.

I'm filled with ennui. I'm just bored of everything.

Yet, my motivation sucks.

Any suggestions?

Starting 2009

I didn't have to drive the crazies today. That part of my life is over, and it's sweet.

I'm starting to do some work for my new job, and I should be having a discussion to talk about the new job in more detail soon. It should start happening, which I am really looking forward to.

I'm trying to believe that 2009 is a new year and anything is possible. I'm trying to feel positive about it.

I guess I'm more ambivalent. I don't know how things will be. Things probably won't be worse and they could possibly better, but though I do still get sad, I think I'm mostly numb.

My mother asked about the facilitator the other day. I haven't done anything about it lately. I'm having second thoughts about her and think I may want to go with an out of state full service agency instead. But I'm not sure, and I need to talk about people who have completed adoptions using her. And I'm not sure my mother really understands how difficult all this stuff it. It made me sad that I haven't done anything else. I haven't felt motivated to change the book around, and I'm nervous about the way birth moms are given support when they have to leave the hospital without their baby. It made me really sad when she asked me about it. Now that we're waiting with our agency, I haven't felt motivated to do more. But if we do not want to wait two more years before bringing our baby home, so we need to do some additional searching.

Just like my desire to start exercising and losing weight (I am the heaviest I've been in years), I've been putting it off until after the holidays. And now it's after the holidays, but I can't seem to motivate.

Here's to motivation?