Write, Baby, Repeat

Sick Day

2012-01-20T18:39:00.000-08:00

Bonsai has been sick all week. Luckily, Spruce was off on Monday, and my dad was here visiting and helping out till Tues (he is terrified of the baby, but fantastic with Bonsai, so it all works out), but for the past 3 days, it's been just me and the kiddos. Spruce only went back to work post-paternity leave on Jan. 3, and my dad was here for 10 days starting the 7th, so I'm still very much finding my rhythm as an outnumbered mom. I did not relish the idea of dealing with my poor sick kiddo and managing the baby. Two of these three days, Bonsai should have been at school, but stayed home sick instead. School days still involve getting up & ready, breakfast, packing lunch, dinner and bedtime, but they are easy anyway. They give me lots of time to just snuggle with baby--though they're meant to give me time for working, and next week, I need to start using them for exactly that.

As it turns out, having these extra days with Bonsai was no problem at all. Today, for instance: I woke at 7am to discover Baby Blossom had slept 8 hours! Bliss! (she's done this before, but most nights are more like 6 hours, which really isn't enough.) I fed her, put her down, and Bonsai woke up. I got him ready, fed him breakfast, played, fed us both lunch, and put him down for his nap. Blossom slept through all of this, waking only as I was putting him down. Awesome timing! So I fed her, snuggled, fed her again, while Bonsai fought naptime. But he fought it by playing happily in his room, which was not bad at all. I went in to check on him, changed his pull-up (we're potty-training but have no expectation of dryness at naps or nighttime yet), went through bedtime routine again (3 songs & 3 books!), and then he fell asleep. Which meant I still had time for a nap myself! Blossom and I napped together for almost an hour (well, she in her cosleeper--Spruce is ready to move her to the nursery and we need to soon, now that she's 3.5 months, but I don't want to...), then I fed her again. Breastfeeding, by the way, is going awesome. The first 3 weeks, she wouldn't latch so I pumped all the time and gave her all breastmilk via bottle. Then I saw lactation consultant who magically solved everything in a 1-hour session--seriously. Blossom has been a total champ ever since, and I love it! Only problem--now she refuses the bottle! I ordered a cool new one over the holidays that worked great when my parents watched her, but we haven't tried it ourselves yet. Hopefully it's solved that issue though...we'll see.

Anyway, I even got a shower in (yes, at 5pm, but whatever!), wrote this post, and now Bonsai has just woken up. I know he won't nap that long when he's well, but I'm glad he got the rest he needed today, and it certainly made the day easier on me! Definitely looking forward to him feeling better, though, poor guy.

On a larger note--so much time keeps going by between posts, and while I am reading, and think often of writing, the time just isn't presenting itself. I think what I want to do is change to a non-anonymous blog. Then I'll password-protect this one so I'll still have it, but it can't be stumbled upon by people IRL who I don't want to see it. If I do make the move, I'll give you all plenty of notice! Of course, if I can't manage to post here, why would it work there? Well, I could do photos, and shorter things about the kids--I had to delete all my pix here when I joined Goo.gle + because it linked them, making my anonymous blog all too findable! So we'll see...I miss this space and am trying to figure out how to integrate it more into my life. Thinking of you all!

Balancing

2011-12-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

I've been working on this post for weeks, but finally getting it finished now! So much busyness and sleep deprivation with two little ones!

When Blossom came home, my biggest worry was that Bonsai, no longer our one & only, was somehow being deprived by our decision to add to our family. Part of this fear is because, as an only child myself, I never had to go through the transition from only to oldest. (My husband did, but says he doesn't remember anything about it. He was 4 when his sister was born and remembers plenty from age 2 on, so--maybe he blocked it out?) Part of it, I suspect, is because we adopted him, while I gave birth to her. They are both equally my children, both equally miraculous, both equally in my heart. I genuinely feel no difference based on how they entered our family, but I'm terrified that he or others will suspect that it is there. Maybe not now, but eventually, won't someone say something to him about her being our "real" child? Of course, since she came from Laurel's magical eggs, Blossom is no more genetically mine than Bonsai is (though she is biologically mine, so that's confusing), but the average kid on the playground won't know that.

Anyway--I am a little obsessed with making sure Bonsai always knows how deeply we love him, how much he means to our family. And maybe all parents worry about how the oldest will feel when a new baby arrives (okay, all the parents I know definitely worry about this), but I feel like our unusual situation makes me extra-sensitive on this front.

Exhibit A: The day we came home from the hospital, we sent my mom and stepdad to pick up my pain meds (yay, c-section...sigh), and we were trying to get Blossom settled while also looking after Bonsai. Except, I was still in a lot of pain, and Blossom wasn't latching at all so I was pumping to feed her, but the breast pump we'd picked up was the wrong one and was super-painful, and I didn't have anything I could wear for breastfeeding (hadn't realized how convenient that hospital gown was!), and I was still bleeding a lot and was almost out of the industrial-grade pads from the hospital, and...well, you get it, I was feeling overwhelmed. And Bonsai needed something--I can't remember what, but it was something I couldn't do, involving picking him up, and I just lost it, feeling so bad that I couldn't do everything for him anymore, all because of this new baby I'd brought into his life. And I felt like Spruce wasn't being supportive, so I was sobbing and yelling at him, and Bonsai was crying too, and...yeah, it was bad. I wish I remembered more specifics but it was such a blur, what with the pain meds and the sleep deprivation and all. Then we heard my parents come in, and Spruce asked my mom to play with Bonsai so he could help me. He ended up running to a local breastfeeding store to get me the right pump and took Bonsai with him so my mom could help me (my stepdad was out of commission with a migraine). And then I was sobbing as I searched for nipples to use on the bottle of expressed milk I'd pumped at the hospital while my mom held Blossom and I ranted about not wanting Bonsai to feel left out. Not a good homecoming.

See, while I was in the hospital, Spruce mostly stayed with me, and my mom and stepdad stayed with Bonsai. They came to visit but I wasn't in charge of Bonsai while I was in the hospital bed. This was tough, especially one time when Bonsai tumbled off my hospital bed and I couldn't pick him up and he was crying and all he wanted was for me to hold him--he was fine, but it was heartbreaking (my stepdad picked him up and brought him to me to snuggle). But here I was, back to our normal lives but with two kids now, and while this is such a huge blessing, I just wasn't sure how I would manage it. I'm still figuring that out, 8 weeks in, but I think it'll get easier.

Anyway, Bonsai had fun at the store with Spruce (he got a toy train for his trouble), and my mom helped me get Blossom settled, and disaster was averted. But it took three adults to make that happen! And so I was terrified about how we would manage once my parents left. Which was tough, when Blossom was just over a week old and up all night and Spruce was taking the night shift with her and sleeping all day while I took care of both kids. At least Bonsai has school twice a week, because I was way too much of a zombie to be any fun for him those first few weeks. It's better now that Blossom is sleeping through the night, sort of--though 6 hours, 1am to 7am, is not actually enough sleep! Spruce is still on paternity leave and will be through the end of the year--and how does anyone manage without that?! That'll be another big adjustment, come January.

So much balancing is involved with two kids, but I'm starting to feel like I can do it. Bonsai will be in school three days a week in the new year, which he's super excited about, and will give me time to work while Blossom naps (hopefully I can manage that, rather than just napping while she naps!). He's loving having both Spruce and me home, and we've both enjoyed lots of playtime with him and, now that Blossom is allowed out of the house, fun outings around town (this week, we went to Disney.land!) And Bonsai is so sweet with his little sister, that I feel much more thrilled to have been able to give him a sibling, something I never had as a child, than guilty about no longer being able to give him absolutely all of my attention. He loves helping out--he's great at burping her and giving her her pacifier. He loves to hug and kiss her, and in the car he always holds her hand. When she cries, he tells her, "Don't cry, baby sister." It's the sweetest. He's the sweetest. The two of them together simply melt my heart.

She's Here!

2011-10-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

Blossom was born on Oct 6 at 7pm! 7 pounds, 20 inches long, perfect from head to toe. We are so in love.

Quick version of birth story (will write more later, assuming that someday I'll be less sleep-deprived...): I went to the hospital the evening of Wed., Oct 5 at 39 weeks to begin the induction process. They gave me Cerv.adil at 8pm and by 11 I was having painful contractions that built all thru the night: early labor. I sort of dozed in between them, but it was not exactly a restful night. Happily, Spruce was able to stay with me, which made the whole thing less scary, while my mom stayed with Bonsai. So glad she was in town!

By morning, contractions were more intense and frequent, but I was still only dilated to about 2cm (I'd been at 1 for weeks). They started both Pit.ocin and the epidural at 8am. At 11am, my OB came to check me and broke my water--wow, that was a big gush! No trickle like at that hospital visit a few weeks ago. That kicked off active labor, and soon my body took over on the contractions and no more Pit was needed! Really the Cerv.adil plus breaking my water took care of the induction process. I labored for 7 hours, and man am I glad I got the epidural! I felt no pain, though I could still move enough to turn on each side and feel pressure. I was actually able to doze off and on throughout the day, which was great given how exhausted I already was from months of insomnia! At one point, the epi wore off, and the pain was unbearable for the half hour till the anesthesiologist came back. I even puked, and I hardly ever throw up! So I'm very glad I only endured that briefly, rather than the whole time.

I'm especial glad because, when I was 9cm dilated, Blossom's heart rate started falling a lot with each contraction. It had been at 130 or 140 for months, and it was dropping to 80. My doctor was headed over anyway since I was close to fully dilated, and when she saw the heart rate, she was really concerned. Since I still had to push and that's the most stressful part for baby. For her sake, we were going to have to do a C-section. I was slightly disappointed since we'd gotten so close to a vaginal delivery, but the important part was protecting our sweet baby, and this was what she needed. Suddenly I was being rushed to the operating room. I was glad they moved fast, since I was worried about my girl. Spruce joined me, and held my hand the whole time. Although there was a curtain up so I wouldn't see anything, he watched the whole thing! He was fascinated! (he's kinda weird...). I actually thought, as they pulled her out, "This is so surreal." Here i was, finally having a baby--unbelievable. I got to see her, and she was adorable. Then Spruce went with her while they checked her over (9 & 9 Apgars, baby!), and then he headed to the nursery with her. I was glad he was with her when I couldn't be, but it was lonely in the OR without him. The surgery wasn't bad, though I did puke again (luckily while Spruce was still there to help me), and after, I got an uncontrollable case of the shivers that just wouldn't stop.

But soon I was back in my labor & delivery room, and Spruce appeared at my aide. Soon he went back to get Blossom, and I finally got to hold her. Amazing that we made this little person!

There's lots more to say but I need to feed our miracle girl, so...more later, hopefully soon!

Tomorrow

2011-10-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

I go into the hospital tomorrow to start the induction process and am expected to deliver on Thursday. I'll be 39 weeks tomorrow. I can't believe that after so many years of waiting, I'm finally about to give birth! I am still scared that something will go wrong (how could I not be?), but mostly I'm feeling confident in my baby and my body's ability to get through this successfully. Good thoughts in our general direction would be much appreciated!

Aside from the excruciating pelvic pain I've been having since Blossom dropped 3 weeks ago, and despite rather frequent hospital runs for contractions and other excitement in the previous couple weeks, this last week of my pregnancy has been relatively uneventful. Just waiting, trying to wrap up a few more things (finished decorating the nursery, finished my last couple of book projects that were under contract), getting more easily tired out, more uncomfortable, and even more eager to meet our baby girl! My dad was here for 10 days and was a great help with Bonsai, and my mom arrived on Sat. I'm so happy she'll be here with Bonsai while Spruce and I are at the hospital, and that she'll be the one to bring him to meet his baby sister there!

There was a bit of unpleasantness last week when my crazy aunt (seriously, she's been in and out of mental institutions for years) sent a voicemail after hearing I'd been having contractions but no progress saying that maybe I was having trouble because I'm too old and my muscles are too weak. See, last week, I had strong, regular contractions for about 7 hours (5 of them before going to the hospital since I wanted to monitor them for awhile first, not wanting to go in yet again if it wasn't labor, and then had to wait to hear what my doctor wanted me to do, and wait for Spruce to battle rush hour traffic to get home from work, etc.) They were about a minute long each, about 3 minutes apart for the first 5 hours, though they spaced out a bit by the last two (once I was being monitored at the hospital, of course). I had tried everything to alleviate them--downing lots of water, lying on different sides, walking around, showering--nothing changed them. The only thing that made me think it wasn't labor was that they weren't increasing in intensity, just staying pretty steady on the painful scale, and that they weren't actually as painful as the last ones I'd had that sent me to the hospital (those had to be stopped with a shot since I was still 36 weeks then)--they were painful, like stop what you're doing and breathe through it painful, but not as unbearable as the previous batch. Still, they went on for so long that it seemed this had to be it.

But it wasn't. At the hospital, the nurse (who by the way had made me cry at a previous visit, and sure enough, did again--why oh why did I get the one cranky nurse I've encountered there twice?! And how can I avoid her for actual delivery??) checked me and while my cervix was very soft, I was still only dilated to 1. Baby is low and ready to go, uterus is enthusiastically contracting, but that darn cervix was insisting on staying closed. Which, I mean, I hoped so hard for it to do for so long to keep our little girl from being premature, but I was hoping it would have gotten the memo that it was safe to loosen up now! So after 7 hours of contractions, I was sent home to wait for real labor to begin. My doctor's only advice was to look for something "different" next time, if I went into labor before my induction, since clearly the frequency and regularity and even painfulness of contractions aren't really an accurate indicator of labor for me. Apparently I have an irritable uterus, or something. It's certainly making me irritable that it did all that with no progress!

Anyway, while we were at the hospital and my dad was here with Bonsai, Dad got all excited and called both his sister and my mom to tell them I was apparently in labor. That aunt (my favorite one; not crazy) posted on Face.book that I was having the baby, so I had to print a retraction when we got home. My mom called her sister (crazy aunt) after we were home, and this is what prompted Crazy Aunt to believe there was something wrong with me, since she (being the expert that she is) had never heard of having contractions for that long without it actually being labor. But you know what, it happens, clearly! And every pregnancy is different. And she was pregnant once, 28 years ago, so maybe she doesn't remember or know absolutely everything about it. And just because her daughter, also crazy, has had three kids in three years starting at the age of 26, doesn't mean that 31 is an abnormal age to give birth for the first time--I'm still younger than most of our friends were when they had their first babies! It's just so hurtful for her to say I'm too old when yes, ideally, I would have given birth for the first time back when I was 27.

Over four years of infertility landed us on this alternate timeline, and I don't even mind anymore, because this path led us to both Bonsai and Blossom, who wouldn't have been ours if things had been easy, and I can't imagine any more perfect children than them (ok, yes, I'm assuming Blossom is perfect since I won't meet her till Thurs., but I think it's a fair assumption :) ). And infertility did make me feel old before my time, wiping away my mid-to-late twenties in a whirl of invasive treatments and failures and leaving me at 30 labeled with premature ovarian failure. Finally being pregnant, with so many of my friends who are my age or a few years older pregnant at the same time, has made me feel my age and no older for the first time in years. It's been so nice to feel normal, although of course our donor egg route to get here is not exactly the picture of normalcy (wonderful as it is). And then my crazy aunt's careless comment made me feel old again--even though I know she's wrong, even though I know she's crazy and not to be listened to.

And then there was the "not strong enough" comment--actually, my muscles are working great (hence, contractions)--like I said, it's just the cervix that's not cooperating! And I'm still a week before my due date (I was two weeks before when she made the comment), so it's not like it's weird that I hadn't/haven't delivered yet! Her daughter went past her due date with her last baby, and Crazy Aunt didn't act like there was anything wrong with her--nor was there. Another cousin had preeclampsia; my stepsis had gestational diabetes, low amniotic fluid & high blood pressure and had to be induced early for the health of the baby, who was then in the NICU for several weeks. Not that these are huge complications, but Crazy Aunt didn't harass them--just me, who has had no real pregnancy complications. I am in much better overall health than either of those relatives, but because I'm infertile, Crazy Aunt singled me out and assumed there was something wrong with this pregnancy. My problem was always with getting pregnant, though--it turns out I'm not bad at being pregnant, once we circumvented my crummy eggs. This is why I didn't want my mom telling the family about any of the hospital runs--because I knew they'd assume that there was yet another thing wrong with this broken infertile girl (alone in a family of hyper-fertiles), and I didn't want anyone thinking bad things about what has truly been an extremely smooth pregnancy.

My mom doesn't understand why I'm so worked up about this, but is it actually strange to be ultra-sensitive about all things pregnancy after everything we've been through to get here? Or to not want my private information shared with a relative I can't trust? (Crazy Aunt also left a message for my crazy cousin, Maple, the one who used to be like my sister but has barely spoken to me in 5 years, telling her about how she thinks there's something wrong with me--which I really didn't appreciate since Maple and I don't really have a relationship anymore and I don't want her judging me either.) My mom has long had an over-sharing problem, and I'm upset that it's caused me this stress at the final stage of my pregnancy. I am just holding onto the fact that things have gone so well so far, and even if my weird relatives don't know it, it is the truth and that's what really matters. And by Thursday I'll be holding our sweet baby girl, and what they assume or gossip about me won't matter at all--all that will matter is Blossom, and her big brother, and my husband and me: our little family of four. Oh how I hope everything goes well, that I get to prove my doubting relatives wrong in the next couple of days.

Support System

2011-09-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, Spruce and I were rushing to the hospital as I breathed through contractions--18 in two hours before I stopped obsessively tracking them, all about a minute long and 3-5 minutes apart, all painful and most so bad that I couldn't do anything but ride them out until they passed. We had lined up a babysitter for Bonsai as it was Back-to-School night at his new preschool, something I'd been very much looking forward to. But given the frequency of the contractions (I'd also had a 2-hour, 18-contraction bout the night before, but those had subsided at the 2-hour mark, while these didn't; the night before that, I had 12 contractions in an hour before they trailed off), my doctor's office recommended that we go into labor & delivery.

After checking in, I was ordered to take a wheelchair upstairs, something I've avoided on previous visits to L&D because it seems overdramatic. But, given how painful it's become for me to walk, it seemed like a reasonable idea this time. I was just there on Thursday as I was leaking amniotic fluid--they kept me overnight, pumped me full of antibiotics, and planned to induce me Friday morning to prevent infection to the baby. Then, when the leaking seemed to have stopped by morning, they monitored me for awhile--and by afternoon I was leaking again, and they were on the brink of inducing once more when they decided that maybe the tear had healed itself (I guess if it's small enough, that's possible? We picture Baby Blossom simply plugging the leak with her head, restarting it if she manages to move very far to either side), gave me more antibiotics to prevent infection, and sent me home. We had already sent Bonsai to an extra day of preschool on Friday (luckily, he adores his new school!) so Spruce could stay with me in case I was actually having the baby that day, and a good friend was on her way to pick him up from school when I was discharged. We still asked her to stay the weekend, just in case something else dramatic happened, which she was kind enough to do. Of course nothing happened until after she left Sunday night, but I was reluctant to return to the hospital then and held off till Tues., when the contractions were markedly worse.

Despite all of our IF struggles, this pregnancy has been remarkably drama-free (except for that awful first-tri bleeding episode)--at least, up until the past few weeks. Besides the two hospital visits outlined above, we went in once when my stomach had gone rock-hard for 4 hours straight without relief, then did the same thing for two hours the next day. The doc was concerned that if my uterus was contracting for that long, baby wouldn't be getting enough bloodflow, so we went in for a non-stress test--and she was fine. Just over a week ago, I was having contractions frequently enough (more than 5 in an hour at preterm--I'd had 8 the day before and again the next morning, combined with cramping & extreme pelvic pressure) that my doctor's office said I should head in for observation. After sparring with a skeptical nurse who kept asking, "So, you think you're in labor?" as I explained that no, I'd simply been told that that many preterm contractions weren't normal, she eventually determined that I was 1cm dilated and somewhat effaced (no details on how much), and that I was right to have come in, though labor wasn't imminent. I guess they get a lot of overanxious pregnant ladies in there, but believe me, I don't head into the hospital just for fun! But I also won't skip a trip when I'm having weird symptoms that the doc agrees are troubling, because I absolutely will not put this baby at the slightest risk if I can avoid it, even if that means annoying a few crochety nurses. Poor Bonsai had to tag along on both trips, but he's so chill and enjoyed playing with the remote for the hospital-room TVs and charmed all the nurses, so it wasn't so bad. Such a good boy!

But it's in regards to Bonsai that I'm really feeling anxious. Because when I actually do go into labor, I know I will need Spruce's full focus on me, rather than him busily parenting Bonsai while occasionally tending to my needs. I'm grateful that he's such a wonderful dad and fully capable of taking over with our boy when I can't (i.e., when I'm confined to a hospital bed and hooked to monitors!), but these recent hospital visits have shown me just how much I will need him, and how much he won't be able to help me if he's busy with Bonsai. Of course I also don't want Bonsai witnessing my labor & delivery--seems too traumatic for a 2-year-old! And this is where I see how nice it would be to have family nearby to help with him. It's important to me that Bonsai be home with someone he knows and loves while we are off delivering his baby sister, because I want everything to feel as normal and comfortable for him as possible. To that end, when my parents offered to come out to help, I asked that they come in advance of my due date, as I was concerned that she might come early (and the plan to induce at 39 or 40 weeks means we have a deadline for her arrival that Blossom won't be going past). Spruce gets 3 months of paternity leave (!), but can't start that for another week at the soonest--and besides, I'd rather have him home with baby, Bonsai, and me for longer after she arrives.

So I asked my dad to come from when I'd be 36 weeks (yesterday) and stay 2.5 weeks, with my mom & stepdad coming out the day he leaves and staying two weeks (leaving about 5 days past my due date, so even if we don't induce till that day, and I end up needing a C-section--unlikely in my opinion given how low baby girl dropped about 2 weeks ago!--Spruce, Blossom, and I should all be home by the time they leave). Instead, my dad called a couple weeks ago to tell me that he'll be dogsitting for some friends of a friend up until this coming Monday, and thus will be arriving a week later than I'd asked him to. For some reason, I really felt I needed to be covered from 36 weeks on, and had explained to him that that would make me feel most comfortable, and he'd agreed. But then that wasn't what he did. Instead he chose strangers over being there for me the one time I've really needed him, the one time I've really asked him for help (my parents divorced when I was 3, and although my dad was always involved, I was definitely raised by my mom, not him). I didn't call him on it because I knew he wouldn't break the commitment he'd already made to these strangers (though he had broken a commitment to me, but I'm sure he somehow thought the plans were more tentative than that), but would feel guilty about it, and then would be all hangdog and pathetic when he comes out here, which I didn't want to deal with. My dad has a lot of regrets in his life and he hangs onto them all, and brings them up frequently to me, forcing me to cheer him up/assure him that I wasn't scarred by all the things he missed when I was a kid. I don't have the energy right now to deal with that neediness, so I decided it was better to just let him do what he wanted and hope Blossom stayed put till 37 weeks.

After the rush to the hospital on Tuesday ended with me being given an injection and take-home meds to stop contractions so baby girl can bake at least a week longer (come on, 37 weeks!), I felt like I'd been right to think she might arrive before full-term. And if she does, since my dad flaked out, I don't know what we'll do for Bonsai. The friend who was here last weekend has agreed to come stay with us again this weekend just in case. A mom friend who lives nearby has offered to be on call during the day if I need a ride to the hospital and someone to watch Bonsai, but we don't have an overnight plan for him on weeknights until my dad arrives on Tuesday.

Because we called Spruce's brother, Crabapple, the only family we have in LA, and asked him to help out with that. And he's basically refused. Like, when we were on the way to the hospital a couple of days ago and we asked him to come stay with his nephew while we possibly delivered his niece, he texted "I'm working kinda late, won't be home till 7. You could drop him off at my place and maybe my girlfriend could watch him." Um, no! First, working till 7 is not impressively late (that's an early night for Spruce)! We already had the sitter till 8, so he could have come over after and taken over with Bonsai (who would've already been in bed by then), no problem. Second, his apartment is an hour from our house, and taking Bonsai there would defeat the whole having him in his own environment idea--and I didn't really want Spruce making a two-hour round-trip drive (actually longer, since the dropoff would have had to happen during LA rush hour traffic) when I was possibly in labor. And, I'm not so convinced of Crab's girlfriend's reliability--she's very young (8 years Crab's junior--she's 20 and he's 28), none too bright, and has never interacted much with Bonsai--and she might be able to watch our son?! Yeah, that's not really good enough. Clearly, Crab is not particularly interested in helping us out. He works in Spruce's old department (Spruce, of course, got him the job), and everyone there still loves Spruce, and if Crab said he needed to leave early to help out while Spruce & I have a baby, I know his boss would be happy to let him. But he doesn't want to.

It's frustrating, when he moved out here to be closer to Spruce, lived with us rent-free for a year (half of that time he was supposed to be paying a small amount but refused--and that was 2 years ago and he still refuses to pay us back) while he got on his feet, got a job with our help, and talks so much about how it was just our "family duty" to help him out and yet that same sense of duty doesn't apply at all when we're the ones who need something. It's disgusting. Now, Crab has never been particularly nice or reliable (see here and here for more on that), but I thought he'd gotten better lately. I thought he was finally starting to grow up, and I thought that for something this monumental at least, we could expect him to help out. But no. That's too much to ask. Instead, if Blossom comes tonight, or on Sun. or Mon. night (luckily, not too many more days to worry about that aren't covered by my friend on the weekend or my dad next week), I guess we'll be calling my good friend back and asking HER to drive across town to stay with our son, leaving her with a long morning commute to work (but at least Bonsai can always go to school for an extra day if needed). Which she's totally willing to do, and we've been friends for 16 years now so she's like family--but she's the one we can depend on, not our ACTUAL FAMILY. Which pisses me off.

I have a huge and close-knit extended family back in the Midwest, but here in California, we're largely on our own. Oh, we have lots of good friends who are happy to help, but in such a sprawling city, and given that many of them now have kids of their own, it's not so easy to coordinate with something as unpredictable as labor. I didn't realize how on our own Spruce and I are until we needed this very specific thing--someone to stay with our toddler while we have our second child. It's making me feel unmoored, and while I would never move back to the Midwest, I can see more than ever the appeal of having all that family nearby, eager to lend a hand.

For now, I'm just trying to temper my anxiety about plans for Bonsai and hope Blossom holds on until my dad arrives. I don't know how I'll ever forgive him if she shows up in the window when he should have been here (yesterday thru Tuesday), but isn't. I don't see how I'll ever forgive Crab for bailing on us the one time we've really needed him, after everything we've done to make the life he has now possible. I am grateful for the friends who have helped in a pinch, thankful for my mom & stepdad who are coming exactly when I asked them to (& yes, thankful that my dad can come at all, though I wish he'd handled things differently), and so very happy to have Spruce at my side, ready to leave work early or take a personal day or cancel a speaking engagement (all of which he's had to do in the past week) to be here for Bonsai and me. And of course I feel blessed to have to worry about childcare for my 2-year-old while preparing to give birth for the first time, instead of still simply hoping to become a mom now, at our 5-year mark of coping with infertility. But I don't want to have to be this stressed about childcare when I'm also freaking out about this whole childbirth thing! I wish I could actually depend on our families, who I feel more comfortable leaning on than I do with our friends. I guess this just proves once again that family is not all about blood--really, the friend who's helping with Bonsai on weekends right now is more a sister to me than Crab is a brother to Spruce. We have created a great support system for ourselves throughout the past 8 years in LA. I just need to be willing to tap into that when we need them, instead of expecting our actual relatives to be the ones we can depend on the most, disappointing as that is.

Oh, Facebook

2011-09-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

There's not a lot to say about the latest silly Face.book "breast cancer awareness" meme that hasn't already been said (here's one of my favorites; go here for a list of many more). I'd seen a few random high school friends participate, but I just ignored it. But when my 18-year-old cousin joined in, I decided it was time to speak up.

So I posted this:
I'm 35 weeks & craving sleep. After 4.5 years of infertility, that's true. You know what's not true? That posting fake pregnancy announcements raises breast cancer awareness. In fact, many cancer survivors, male & female, are left infertile by the treatments that saved their lives. Silly status updates don't help them. To actually help, donate to www.fertilehope.org to help cancer survivors build their families.

I hope it helps to open a few eyes amongst my friends and family. I'm hopeful that the reaction will be mostly positive. The cousin who posted is the daughter of a breast cancer survivor. I'm sure she posted in support of her mom--but thinking this sort of thing is actually supportive to anyone is just not right. And yeah, she already got a comment from her boyfriend's brother asking if she was really pregnant. So in addition to hurting those who are infertile, due to cancer or other randomness of fate (like me), and embarrassing those who are duped by these announcements, they are also causing senseless and potentially harmful teenage drama. For NO REASON. There are plenty of funny-yet-relevant things to be posted in support of breast cancer awareness--Save the Tatas, anyone? But this meme is not funny. At best, it's stupid. At worst, it's cruel to some of the very people it's supposedly trying to help. No upside, there.

UPDATE: I've already gotten 13 likes on my status from a wide range of friends, and 5 very supportive comments--4 from infertile friends, one of whom is facing infertility in the wake of her husband's cancer treatment (hi, friend!) & whose mother is a breast cancer survivor, and one from my aunt, who had 4 children with zero trouble but who has been very supportive since I started confiding in her about some of our struggles. Yay, people who get it!

Birthfather

2011-09-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

Becky, a fellow open adoption blogger, asked a great question about a rather glaring omission from our open adoption story--what about Bonsai's birthfather? This is something of a glaring omission in our lives, as well. Although we share a close and loving relationship with Bonsai's birthmother and her family, we have never met his birthfather. When the open adoption counselor met with him to get his waiver of rights, back when Bonsai was a month old, he said he would be happy to meet us. The counselor wanted to schedule this meeting for us, but although we kept following up with her--we were eager to meet him and learn more about him too!--it never happened.

At one point, his response was that he was going out of town for the weekend, and then would be starting college so he'd be too busy. Except his school is 25 minutes from our house, so it's not like we couldn't have gone over there! I imagine it was overwhelming for him, learning that his ex-girlfriend was pregnant just two weeks before the baby arrived. They did not have a good breakup (& I don't think they were together for very long to begin with), so they hadn't been in touch since. He was very supportive of the adoption, but perhaps meeting us and Bonsai would have made it all too real. He also told the counselor he would fill out the medical history form, but despite frequent followups from us on that count too, it never materialized. This is problematic, of course, since it would be useful to have medical information from both sides of Bonsai's biological family.

The good news is that we do have some contact info for his birthfather, so if we need to reach him for medical or other reasons, we can. Juniper's family really dislikes him, and our visits have always been all together (rather than one-on-one with her), so we haven't been able to get much information on him, though I'm sure she would tell us more if we asked. We just haven't wanted to make it awkward, but I know that as Bonsai gets older, he will want more information and probably contact with his birthfather, and we are committed to providing that for him. The adoption counselor said he was a nice boy, but a 17-year-old boy--I can understand it all being a bit much for him at that age. I hope as he gets older, he'll want contact as much as we do. I've seen photos of him on his FB page, and I know from his page that he likes basketball. I know he went to an all-boys school that did a lot of events with Juniper's all-girl's school, which is how they met. When he transferred to a public school, they broke up. He is African-American and the counselor says he's kind of short. And that's about all we know. I do tend to forget about him in a way because while Juniper and her family are such a big part of our lives, he just--isn't. His choice for now, but again, I hope for Bonsai's sake that that will change with time.

Openness

2011-09-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

I think it’s the impending arrival of our daughter that’s got me reminiscing about the birth of our son. Now that I’m pregnant, some things about it make less sense to me—how could Juniper not have realized she was pregnant until around 32 weeks??—and others I feel I understand more deeply, like the strength and love required to go through this scary labor and delivery thing, at the age of 16, purely for Bonsai (and to a lesser extent, us), without the shining beacon of a take-home baby at the end. I knew she was an amazing young woman, but going through pregnancy myself has made many of the specific ways she is amazing even clearer.

I am thinking a lot of that hospital experience, hoping Blossom won’t be in the NICU as Bonsai was but knowing, now that I am past 34 weeks (approximately the point when Bonsai was born), that it will be nothing too dire if she were to come now. Of course I am still terrified of the specter of stillbirth, and then there will be SIDS and other fears, and of course I’ll never stop worrying (what parent does?), but I am feeling pretty secure, these days. Despite contractions last night and this morning, 6-8 in an hour, 5-7 minutes apart, 30-60 seconds each, which sent us to the hospital this morning; despite the newly intense pelvic pain that makes it difficult to walk, stand, or turn over—everything is actually okay. Getting monitored today, listening to my baby’s heartbeat for 3 hours while the nurse told me everything looked great, was very reassuring. And I’m 2 days from 35 weeks, and baby girl’s already bigger than Bonsai was when he was born.

Which brings me back to the story of the early days of our open adoption. I do hope this story will help others understand how open adoption works, and why it’s so valuable. Ours is just one example, but it’s been so wonderful that I thought it worth sharing for those who might be considering different types of adoption, or just want to know more about what open adoption is.

The day after Bonsai came home, we finally had our match meeting with his birthmother. Usually, this would occur prior to the baby’s birth, but since the doctors decided to induce early, there wasn’t time for the official match meeting before his birth. Although we weren’t supposed to take our preemie boy out of the house yet, the open adoption counselor insisted that we go to Juniper’s parents’ house for the meeting. I was stressed about taking him out, but luckily they only live about 20 minutes away, and I’m glad that we got to see their home—all their family portraits on the wall, the piano in the corner, the cushy blue sectional where we all gathered. I don’t think we’ve been to their house since, because as Bonsai’s gotten increasingly active, it’s easier to meet at our place, with the childproofing and the easy access to toys—and of course his birthday parties and naming ceremony reception, which his birthfamily attended, have been at our place. We’ve met at restaurants a couple of times too, and we’d be happy to go back to their house, but don’t want to invite ourselves! So I’m glad we got to see, early on, the house where Juniper grew up (and at that point, was still growing up).

The counselor, who was sweet but flighty, arrived about an hour late. We used the time to chat and sip lemonade, and I fed and changed Bonsai (a pretty much constant thing with a 9-day-old baby!) Juniper’s mom complimented me again on what a great job I was doing, which was nice to hear, though made me feel a tiny bit paranoid—was I being judged? If so, at least I was passing! But of course I can understand why she might have been rating my performance, and also, she’s such a warm person that I think more than that, she wanted to offer reassurance to a new mom (something my MIL never did, btw, though she was free with the criticism!)

When the counselor finally arrived, we breezed through the open adoption agreement. She seemed surprised at how easily we agreed on everything, from visits (once a month for the first three months, every three months for the rest of his first year, then at least every six months after that), to communication (Juniper told her we already texted all the time, and we were already FB friends, and happy to email and call as well), to sharing photos and videos (I’m a Shutter.fly addict, so I’d post pix pretty much constantly, and they were happy to check them out as I sent them thru that site). We had spent so much time getting to know each other in the two whirlwind weeks since we first met, and we already shared so much love and trust between us that we knew ongoing, frequent contact was a given. We all wanted to be in each others’ lives!

While open adoption agreements are not legally binding in the state of California, the counselor wrote everything down, and we all signed and got copies of the document. I know people wonder about how useful these are if they aren’t enforceable, but to us, these were the terms of our relationship, things we had all agreed to and wanted—so why wouldn’t we follow them? We are lucky in the loving relationship that we share, because I think it enabled some greater flexibility than if we’d all felt less comfortable with each other—for instance, I know there can be disappointment sometimes when photos aren’t sent frequently enough, but in our case, there was no “send photos every two weeks,” just the understanding that I would upload them as frequently as a I could. This removed the pressure, in those crazy sleep-deprived early weeks, that I HAD to get photos up by a certain date, though of course I was eager to show off how well he was doing!

The first visit at our house, on Juniper’s 17^th birthday a month after Bonsai came home, was the first (and so far, only) bit of awkwardness we’ve had. We were thrilled to welcome his birthfamily to our home, introduce them to our pets, show them Bonsai’s setup in our room and the nursery he would soon move into. We had gotten cupcakes from a bakery we told them about at our first meeting and a gift (a frame holding pictures from each week of Bonsai's life so far) for Juniper’s birthday, and were excited to see everyone again. But—Juniper and her parents and sister showed up on our doorstep with two friends, with no notice despite all our texts back and forth that they were coming. Because of his preemiehood, Bonsai was not supposed to be passed around, wasn’t supposed to be exposed to large groups, and while 8 people doesn’t sound like a lot now, it was more than he’d been around so far. We’d been carefully limiting visitors to protect his delicate immune system. Plus I don’t like strangers coming to my house without any notification (we had issues with this when my BILs lived with us, too). It just feels uncomfortable to me. Besides, we hadn’t seen Bonsai’s birthfamily in a month, and we’d been looking forward to family time with them—entertaining two extra teenagers changed the whole dynamic. And, the extra guests meant we didn’t have enough cupcakes! Of course I understand Juniper wanting her closest friends to meet Bonsai, and it’s not like she had a lot of opportunities to make that happen. And it was her birthday, but I just would’ve liked a “hey, I’m hanging out with two friends for my birthday, would it be ok if they came over too?” Of course I would have said yes.

It was also difficult for me because I didn’t feel I could say that the friends couldn’t hold Bonsai (they both did), even though we weren’t letting many people hold him yet (of course we wanted his birthfamily to get to, but that was really stretching the limits based on our doctor’s guidelines). See, at the hospital, when the counselor was getting Juniper’s family history, her dad mentioned that his grandmother was Sioux. Eventually, 16 Sioux tribes would confirm that this was not the case (I’m sure she was from a different tribe, and family lore got it wrong—my family had a similar situation with thinking we were part Cherokee, when in fact it’s a smaller tribe whose name I still forget), but the mere mention of Native American heritage requires tribal clearances, and since there was no way to guess which Sioux tribe was the right one, they all had to approve the adoption BEFORE Juniper could relinquish parental rights (I wrote at the time about the frustrations involved in this situation here, here, and especially here.) This was in no way Bonsai's birthfamily's fault, and I don't think they ever knew how stressful the clearance situation became, but it meant that Juniper was still legally Bonsai's mother, I was his foster mom, and I didn't feel I had the right to ask that her friends not hold him, even though it was purely in the interest of his health. I doubt she thought of it that way--after all, she had chosen me to be Bonsai's mom--but I felt weird about the whole situation. So I allowed Bonsai to be passed around by strangers in addition to his loving family, and felt awful about it because it wasn't in his best interest and I felt there was nothing I could do.

Despite this, it was great to catch up with Bonsai's birthfamily. For our next gathering, I suggested we meet at one of their favorite restaurants, so I wouldn't feel as awkward if they brought extra people. I also confirmed that it would be just the four of them and us, since I needed a headcount for the reservation. I think this was a good, non-confrontational way to make it clear that I like to know who-all will be joining us on visits, and we haven't had any surprise additions since--though I'd be happy to meet more of Juniper's close friends; I'd just like to know to expect them!

We always enjoy our visits and look forward to the next one. We got together 6 times after Bonsai's birth in the first year of his life, and four last year. At one of those visits, my mom and stepdad got to meet them, and it was wonderful seeing the families together (my mom is the same age as Juniper's parents, and she totally bonded with Juniper's mom). His birthfamily enjoyed hanging out with Spruce's youngest brother, Ash, at another visit after Ash moved in with us--he's extremely personable, plus he and Juniper's sis are the same age, so they all had a good time getting to know each other. At another visit, Juniper took part in the naming ceremony I'd finally felt I could hold for Bonsai following our finalization, and we got to introduce her and her family to our closest friends in LA, plus my BFF Laurel who was in town to be Bonsai's fairy godmother. That was also the first time they met my surly BIL, Crabapple, who I'd been nervous for them to meet because he's so generally unpleasant to be around--since he forgot to come to the ceremony and just showed up after to grab some cake, it turned out not to really matter. And they met more of our dear friends at Bonsai's first and second birthday parties.

When I first introduced them around, at the naming ceremony, I said, "This is Bonsai's birthmom, birthaunt, and birthgrandparents," but that felt off. At his birthday party this year, I just said, "This is Bonsai's family." I let people figure the rest out for themselves (some asked me about it later, privately, but that worked too). Really I'd like to say, "This is our family" (maybe next year it will evolve to that), but I think they were happy that I emphasized their tie to Bonsai. We celebrate our own little Christmas with Bonsai's birthfamily every year, so that will probably be the next time we see them (only our second visit this year). I wish we saw them more often, but Juniper started college last fall and has been so busy since that it's difficult to schedule. Still, we frequently remind them that if they ever want more visits, to let us know because we'd love to get together! My dad is coming out in two weeks (more on that in another post, as there's been some drama involved), so maybe we can finally have them meet him. They still haven't met my SIL, and I think it would be really great for her husband to meet them, since he is still very scarred from being placed in a closed adoption--I hope that seeing how wonderful Bonsai's birthmom is might be healing for him in a way. (For now, Holly and Pine are stationed in Japan, so that will have to wait.) Maybe someday I'll even be brave enough to subject them to my MIL (I'd like them to know our whole immediate family, but then again, I care about them too much to really want them to have to deal with her!) And I'd love for them to meet my stepsister and her husband and daughters if they ever come visit again--that BIL's mom placed a son in a closed adoption when she was 17, and they've since met and the whole family now shares a strong relationship, so I think that would be a cool get-together too. Bonsai's family IS our family, so of course I hope for them to know and like the rest of our family, though it's difficult since most of our relatives are back in the Midwest. But life is long, so there is time for all of these meetings whenever our family comes to visit.

So that, in a nutshell, is how our open adoption functions. I know I kind of rushed through some of the visits because this was getting awfully long again, but if you have any questions about any aspects of how our relationship works, please leave them in the comments and I'll answer anything I can! The main thing I want to communicate is how much we love Bonsai's birthfamily, how glad we are not only that they came into our lives, but that they'll be in our lives always. We are blessed to have found such a perfect match, and I know not all open adoptions work quite as smoothly, but I firmly believe that even the more difficult ones are worth it for the sake of the child (& the other members of the adoption triad, too). After all, Bonsai can never have too much family or too many people who love him!

Homecoming

2011-08-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

And our open adoption saga continues...

Of course we wanted Bonsai, desperately, to be our son, and wanted too the relationship we would have with his amazing birthfamily, who really were a dream come true. Still, in the days following his birth, we sought advice from pediatricians (and as always, Dr. Goo.gle) to find out what the long-term impact of being a small for gestational age (SGA) baby might be. Despite some scary online info, the docs were uniformly reassuring. Besides, the doctors at the hospital, who had guessed Bonsai was 37 weeks when they chose to induce, decided upon seeing him that he was more like 34. Oops. So maybe he wasn't SGA--maybe he was just early, and small. When we visited him the day after he was born, and I held him for the first time (the first newborn I've ever held!), and looked into his little face, I was completely in love. The head nurse in the NICU even commented on it--"That is the face of someone in love," she said, and I knew she was right. I was trying to be careful, since nothing was official yet, but how could I protect my heart from this precious baby boy?

By his second day, Bonsai was off the feeding tube, and was just there to get better at eating and prove he was gaining weight. We visited frequently, and the nurses instructed us on diaper changes, feedings, burping, and baths. I had never taken care of a baby before, so it was nice to have the extra guidance. Spruce, whose littlest brother is 12 years younger than him, actually had way more baby-care experience than I did, having helped out a lot when he brother was little (once Bonsai came home, Spruce often slipped and called him "Ash," since he looked like Ash as a baby, and Spruce's then-20-year-old brother was the last baby he'd taken care of!) It was reassuring to know that at least one of us knew what they were doing!

The night before they planned to discharge Bonsai, the NICU nurses wanted me to stay overnight so I could handle all the feedings--and they could make sure I was doing it right. I stayed in a room built for families with children in the hospital, a couple of floors and many winding hallways away from the NICU. I don't sleep well without Spruce, so he stayed with me for awhile, but eventually had to leave since he had work the next day. Throughout the night, as I lay on the twin bed that seemed to be made of cardboard in this strange little room, the nurses would call me every 2 or 3 hours when Bonsai awoke for a feeding. I would make my way through the spooky nighttime hospital hallways, trying to remember the way in my sleep-deprived state (I have a horrible sense of direction even at the best of times!) I would scrub in, ring the bell on the NICU, show the bracelet that allowed me entry, and head to Bonsai's isolette. I'd change his diaper and start his feeding. Our goal at that point was 20cc's from a tiny pre-made formula bottle--just 2/3 of an ounce. Such a tiny amount, and yet such a triumph when he managed it! He had started at 10cc's. I'd burp him a couple of times, then swaddle him as I'd been taught and put him back down. All of this had to be done while navigating the wires attached all over his little body to monitor him--although he wasn't on any sort of assistance, there were still so many wires keeping tabs on him! The night nurse was very happy with how I was doing, and even let me do a couple of the feedings without standing over my shoulder, watching my every move.

But then it was time for his first feeding of the morning, and the discharge nurse, who I hadn't met before, was on duty. She corrected my every move, though I was doing exactly what the night nurse had praised at the previous feedings. I wasn't holding him right, wasn't burping him right, he might need to stay another day while I learned to do better. At this point, I burst into tears. I hated the thought that my new-mom incompetence might force him to spend more time than necessary in the hospital. Then the discharge nurse relented, told me I was doing well, that I was the same age as her daughter (29) and she was perhaps treating me too much as she would her own daughter when she became a mother (she hadn't yet). And I explained that I was just exhausted, and didn't explain how extra-uncertain I felt as an adoptive mom, with no actual claim to this baby. What if I messed something up before he was even legally mine? By the next feeding, she assured me that I was doing well. I'm still not sure if this was out of pity given my meltdown, or if I had actually improved. When we finally got Bonsai's medical records 5 months later, I would note that on that day, the nurse wrote, "Adoptive mom getting more confident with feedings." Not, exactly, a vote of confidence.

Still, they would have released him that day, except that he had still not been circumcised. At first, he was too small to put him through surgery, and then we'd assumed we'd do it later, but the doctor making rounds explained that insurance covers it much more fully if it's done before you leave the hospital. Now, I know circumcision is controversial, and I honestly don't have a really strong opinion on it either way. But right after Bonsai was born, his birthgrandpa expressed the wish that he be circumcised, and the rest of the birthfamily agreed, so we did too. I would have had to do more research to make the decision on our own, but since we weren't strongly against it and it was important to his birthfamily, we readily agreed. Except, I wasn't allowed to authorize the surgery myself, since Juniper was still legally his mother. She was back at school already (having missed two weeks on bedrest prior to his birth, she was eager to return to her AP classes and get caught up in time for her impending finals), so I left her a message and she called back after school. Her mom brought her over to sign the papers--I signed them too, since it was a joint decision, but I think the nurses were just being nice. I had no legal authority yet.

The next morning, the doctor came to do the circumcision. Although I am fairly squeamish, I felt that if I was going to subject my tiny boy to surgery, it was my duty to stay with him. They strapped him down and gave him some sugar water to soothe him. I held his hand, and the cut was quick. He didn't even squawk--he had been more upset by his bath the night before! I was relieved that he did not, in fact, seem traumatized by this procedure. The discharge nurse was also impressed with me for not freaking out--she said a lot of parents can't handle being right by their son's side like that, and I was proud that I had. I wanted Bonsai to know that I would always be by his side when he went through anything hard, and this was my first opportunity to show him that. They needed to monitor him for a bit to ensure that he was recovering from the surgery, and I had to learn to care for his wound, but by that afternoon, he was ready to be discharged.

Spruce left work early to join us at the hospital, and Juniper and her mom came over for the big event. We dressed Bonsai in the itty-bitty preemie take-me-home outfit we had selected--cream-colored onesie, decorated with zoo animals, plus brown footed pants, a tan cardigan, and a brown striped hat. It was the first time he'd been out of the generic hospital clothes in his 8 days of life. Juniper and her mom watched as we changed and fed him, and Juniper's mom told me what a great job we were doing. The nurse took pictures of the four of us with Bonsai (this picture has been up in Bonsai's room since that day), and then of just Spruce and me with him--our first family photo! We secured Bonsai in his carseat, and the discharge nurse tucked a receiving blanket we'd brought over his legs and chest, and rolled another to place beside his head, since was was still so very small. And then it was time to go. Juniper and her mom said their goodbyes, and they left on their own.

Juniper had signed something saying he could be released to our care, though she wouldn't sign relinquishments for another 5 months. This was because, when the open adoption counselor asked her dad about Native American heritage, he said his grandmother had been Sioux. This meant we would need tribal clearances before Juniper would be allowed to relinquish parental rights. None of this seemed to matter much as we took our baby home, though it would become a major source of stress for me--and discord with our agency--as the months wore on, and he was increasingly ours and yet still, legally, not.

As we wheeled him out, carseat snapped into his stroller, we had that feeling that I hear that so many new parents express, of "I can't believe they're just letting us take a baby home!" I think this feeling is magnified after years of infertility (3, at that point, for us), when you wonder if you'll ever have a baby to take home. And it was magnified too by our situation as adoptive parents, especially given that, thanks to the tribal clearances, we were technically foster parents at that point. But it was a purely joyful ride home, as Bonsai with every passing mile went further away than he'd ever gone before. At home, we set him up in the bassinet attachment to the Pack N Play in our room, which we'd purchased along with other essentials like the stroller, carseat, diapers, wipes, formula, bottles, receiving blankets, preemie cloths, burpcloths, diaper bag and Bo.ppy on frantic BRU runs during his week in the NICU. I relied heavily on Baby Bargains, having never been able to handle researching baby gear with no baby in sight, and our choices were limited to whatever was in stock, but we had enough to start with. Because he was a preemie, we were told not to take him out for a couple months, and indeed we rarely left our room in those first few weeks. It was his whole world, and it became ours. With Spruce on paternity leave, it felt like plenty--just the two of us and our son, 24/7, bonding and nesting at last.

And with that, I need to take Bonsai to an appointment, so I'll have to leave you with another to be continued... Next post to include our match meeting the day after he came home, and our early visits.

Perfect Match

2011-08-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the cliffhanger! It was a crazy weekend, with lots of organizing around the house in preparation for baby, plus my baby shower! More on that in another post, but now, back to our regularly scheduled adoption story!

On the morning of May 6, 2009, I had just left a message for a prospective birthmother who was certain she wanted to match with us. We had been talking to her for awhile and were really excited about her too, but figured we should meet in person before officially matching. She lived out of state, and wasn't due till Nov., but Spruce and I were already discussing travel plans to go meet her and her family. Except that by that day, we hadn't heard from her in over a week, which was unusual given her prior frequent, enthusiastic communication. Although that's not that much time, as a prospective adoptive parent, you wait for that next email or phone call like a teenage girl waiting to hear from her crush. Every passing moment seems like forever.

So when my phone rang as soon as I'd hung up and I saw that it was our agency, I was sure they were calling about her. But they weren't. It was the the same birthmother counselor we'd already been talking to, but she was calling to tell me about another prospective birthmother who was 16, due later that month, and wanted to make an adoption plan. She had contacted the agency from a hospital 10 minutes from our house, where she was on bedrest. The counselor from our agency had taken over a stack of profiles based on her stated preferences, and she had chosen ours. "I knew she would pick you," the counselor confided. She knew all about us already, you see, from our contact about other expectant mothers. And based on what she knew about this young woman so far, she was convinced we were a perfect match. Of course that was great to hear!

She told me that the young woman, Juniper, would call me to set up a time to meet, but that she and her parents were hoping to meet us that evening. She also gave me a few facts about Juniper--that she was very involved in athletics at her private school, that she didn't use drugs or alcohol, that her heritage was African-American and Asian, that her family was very supportive of her adoption plan and the birthfather, her ex-boyfriend and also in high school, was on board as well. Just a short list of facts, which I still have saved on my computer from that first contact, but all of which sounded promising. A few minutes later, Juniper called and we made plans to come visit her at the hospital that evening. Our conversation was short--she seemed shy, and I felt awkward. (I know now that, like many of her generation, Juniper much prefers texts and FB to calls and emails.) But I was excited for our very first in-person meeting with a prospective birthmother, and I hoped we'd connect better in person. I called Spruce and told him he would need to leave work early so we could be at the hospital by 6.

I don't know how I got through the 8 hours between call and meeting. I know I had lunch with friends, and my calendar says I also showed our condo to a prospective tenant--can't imagine I was too coherent at that! But this day wasn't at all like the time, two months earlier, when we were offered a match for a baby who had been born the day before. That day, after the birthmother counselor called, I rushed around, packing and frantically cleaning the house (nursery especially!) in case we had a baby coming home that weekend. I called all our local family and friends to line up a dogsitter for our pup, since we were driving a couple of hours away and would probably stay the weekend, and I rescheduled things I'd had planned for that day. Spruce was heading home asap that day, so I only had a few hours to get everything ready before we headed to the desert and possibly our baby. But this contact didn't require the same frenzied preparations. I think Spruce came home early enough that we could grab dinner first, and then we drove the 10 minutes to the hospital where Juniper was being monitored.

When we arrived, Juniper was alone in her hospital bed, this slender teenage girl with a tiny baby bump. We exchanged pleasantries and then her parents joined us. They are both very outgoing, and soon we were all talking and laughing (so much more laughing that you'd expect in this situation, they having only found out a couple weeks before that their honors student daughter was pregnant). We were amazed at all the commonalities we shared, silly things like that both of Juniper's parents plus Spruce and I are all Capricorns, or that Juniper's dad is from outside St. Louis like me, so we share the same favorite sports teams. And bigger things too, like Juniper's dad being a musician (she & her sis are musical too) and Spruce working (at the time) at a record label, having been a music major himself in college (he & his siblings are all very musical--my family & I mostly just sing). Or Spruce & his siblings' love of playing basketball, which Juniper and her family all love too. And we covered huge issues, like religion (we are a different religion from them, but when I explained our beliefs, we all felt we were on the same page), and diversity. Specifically, Juniper's dad outright asked, "How do you feel about raising a Black-Asian baby?" I explained that given Spruce's ethnic background, we were always going to be a multicultural family, and we thought it would be awesome to add to the diversity of our family. We also learned that she was having a boy. It's funny, I was always certain that we would adopt a girl first, and when we were offered that match out in the desert and we learned that the baby was a boy, I deflated slightly, thinking even then it wasn't the "right" match (but maybe this was intuition into the real issues, such as drug addiction, that we would soon learn about?) But when Juniper said, "It's a boy," I lit up. This time, that sounded exactly right.

We talked for two hours straight, and it felt like no time had passed at all. Finally, we headed out to let Juniper rest, with plans to come by again that Friday to meet her older sister, too. Her sister was in college and hadn't been able to come back to meet us, but the girls are very close, so she was an important part of Juniper's decision-making process. We were excited at what a wonderful family they were. We felt such an instant connection with them. I have no idea how I got through the two days until we saw them again, but that Friday, we were at the hospital again, where we met Juniper's big sis--also a little shy, but also very sweet and easy to talk to. Again, we stayed for hours, just getting to know each other better. Shortly after we left, heading to see a friend's play, we got another call from the counselor at the agency: Juniper wanted to match with us! We'd figured as much, given how well our meetings had gone, but it was an unbelievable thrill to hear the words! Of course we said that we wanted to match too.

But as it turned out, there wouldn't be time for a match meeting before Bonsai was born. Juniper was on bedrest due to low amniotic fluid, and the doctors were concerned that Bonsai was measuring small for gestational age (I still don't get what made them so sure about this, given that his gestational age was a guess at best--Juniper had only figured out she was pregnant two weeks before he was born, so had had no prenatal monitoring before that point, and had no real idea when she had conceived). They planned to induce her the next morning. We cancelled all our plans for Sat. and returned to the hospital to visit again that day. We stayed for hours again, offering to get them food or anything they needed since her family was of course going to stay by her side. They politely declined, and eventually when she wasn't progressing, we figured we should go home, let our puppy out, and give them some time alone as a family. Juniper's mom promised to call with any news. Eventually she did, saying that they were stopping the Pit.ocin and would try again in the morning.

The next morning was Mother's Day. It was a strange feeling, not knowing if I was about to become a mother, or not. We checked in with Juniper's mom to see if they wanted us to come by, but she said there was no need to yet. It was a holiday, after all, and whatever the circumstances, it made sense that they wanted to celebrate together. Spruce took me out for a Mother's Day tea, where I was tense the whole time, cell phone on the table, waiting for another call. When the waitress brought out gifts for all the moms and asked if I was a mom, I defensively replied, "Yes." I was an expectant mother, after all--well, sort of. And anyway, I wasn't about to be publicly excluded on what had long been a very hard day. Later that day, we heard from Juniper's mom that the doctor's didn't think anything would happen till the next day. Again, she promised to keep us posted.

We were home watching an episode of Super.natural when we got another call. Juniper's water had just broken, and we should come over right away! They had invited us to be in the delivery room, so we rushed to the hospital and arrived 2 minutes after Bonsai was born. Much as I appreciate their willingness to include us, now that I'm about to give birth myself, I think it's lucky I haven't already seen it all from that angle! The nurses were still checking everything when we arrived. When I saw him, I felt an instant jolt of recognition, like oh, it's you! Best Mother's Day gift ever! I hadn't had any way to imagine what he would look like, having seen no baby pictures of Juniper or her ex (I now know that he looks a LOT like Juniper and her sister when they were little--so much so that I sort of feel like he sprung from her fully formed, with no input from the birthfather we still have not met), but he was absolutely perfect. Tiny, skinny even, but with such a sweet face already. The nurses rushed him off to the NICU because he was so small (just over 4 pounds), and we stayed with Juniper and her family while she recovered. We had brought gifts--a stuffed dog that matched one we had also gotten for Bonsai, and notecards that we thought maybe she could use to write to him. We took a few pictures together, and talked just as easily now as before the birth, feeling so comfortable with each other already. We also named him together, all six of us agreeing instantly on a first and middle name that had meaning for us all--amazing, given how often just two people in a couple struggle to find a name they both love! Another thing that simply seemed meant to be.

After a few hours--and it had to be around 1am by now--it was time for Juniper to move to a recovery room. They offered to put her somewhere besides the maternity ward, since she did not plan to parent her baby, and she agreed that that would be good. She had been on bedrest at the hospital for two weeks, so she had accumulated a lot of stuff there. We helped her family move everything to her new room, which was much smaller than the spacious delivery suite she had been given. Once she was settled in and had assured us all that she didn't need anything else, we helped her family take some of the excess items down to load into their car. After we said goodbye and they headed home, we decided that we wanted to go back and check on Bonsai in the NICU. It was hard to imagine leaving such a little guy all by himself at the hospital. Juniper and I had each been given a parents' bracelet so we could visit him whenever we wanted. We saw him in his little incubator, talked to the nurses for a bit (he was on a feeding tube because he was small, and was in the incubator to help him maintain body temp since he was skinny, but otherwise needed no interventions) and finally, around maybe 2am, we went home too.

But were we parents yet? Juniper and her family certainly seemed to think of us already as his parents--they had introduced us to all the doctors and nurses as his adoptive parents. But of course we knew nothing was certain just yet. All I knew was that I loved him already, and loved his birthfamily too. They were the sort of people we had dreamed of matching with, people who Spruce and I agree we would want in our lives no matter how we had met them.

And with that, I'll have to stop again--about to have people over for book club, so excited! I'll try to post tomorrow with his NICU stay through his homecoming.

The Paper Trail

2011-08-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

More of the story of our open adoption...

We started our autobiographies and parenting questionnaires for our homestudy in Sept. 2008, and let me tell you, these weren't easy. As a writer, I tend to be a little, shall we say, a overly thorough when writing of any sort is required. I spent forever on mine, and also on chasing down Spruce's (he was still traveling a lot, so it wasn't easy to pin him down on this)--and then editing everything. In Oct., we went to our agency's weekend intensive session, where we learned more about the adoption process and were also able to check some requirements off our adoption prep list. Following that session, we went into full-on paperwork mode. Or I did, anyway. I'll admit that my freelance work got a tad neglected as I made this project my highest priority--but really, what could be more important than our journey to our child?!

We got fingerprinted and obtained our DMV records and got friends to write recommendations and were home studied and filled out lots and lots of forms. By December, everything was complete and I was hard at work on our "birthmother letter," although it was really more of a 2-page profile and we did NOT use the dreaded phrase "dear birthmother" (this is not recommended because the women viewing the profiles are not yet birthmothers--they are expectant mothers who are considering making an adoption plan). If I thought I'd spent ages on our autobiography, which only the social worker would ever see, I really agonized over the right words and pictures to present ourselves to a prospective birthmother, to convince her in two pages that we were a couple worth considering to parent her child. A lot of time went into adjusting various text boxes just slightly to make just a little more info or one more picture fit (about a month after our profile started going out, our agency switched to a 4-page format--oh, the freedom of that much space! Still, I'm glad we didn't end up having to redo ours since I'm sure that would have been an odyssey too!)

By the time went went back to the Midwest for Christmas that year, our letter was in and just awaiting final approval from our agency. Since we were well into the process by then, we went ahead and announced our plans to adopt to all of our extended family and close friends while we were back home (our parents already knew, and my dad and soon-to-be stepdad even helped out with some of the expense, which was so wonderful of them!) Most people we told were unequivocally excited for us, but I remember sitting at brunch with my cousins and sharing our news, and the oldest of my boy cousins (who's about 5 years younger than me) getting very concerned when he heard the term "open adoption."

"So would it be a legal adoption?" he asked, apparently thinking the "open" part indicted some hippie commune shared-parenting setup--my Midwestern relatives tend to think we're all a little too free-spirited out here in California! I wonder how he actually imagined that would even work, but I quickly explained that "openness" meant that the birthmother would choose us, that we would have ongoing visits and share pictures and information, that our child would always be able to hear, directly from the source, how much his birthfamily loved him and that their choice to make an adoption plan came out of that love. I had, by then, become such a fervent advocate of open adoption and its benefits for everyone in the adoption triad that I got choked up as I explained why we had chosen openness (I still often tear up when I talk about this because it is so close to my heart and so important in our lives). I think my cousin was still worried, but I'm pretty sure everyone else at that table was convinced!

We were happy and excited that Christmas, finally having good news to share, feeling infinitely better than we had the year before, when I found out the day after Christmas that my HCG was very low and our first IVF had likely failed. (I'd taken a pregnancy test on Christmas morning, planning to surprise Spruce with the good news, but got a BFN instead. I tried to tell myself it was just too early, but my hope was already deflated. My eagerness, my certainty, ruined my Christmas, when I could have waited and enjoyed another day of being pregnant.) Christmas 2008 was infinitely better--still hard, at moments, because we didn't yet have the baby we longed for, but it felt like we were finally moving in a definitive way toward parenthood.

After the holidays, I turned my attention to our website, which along with our profile would be the way expectant mothers would find us (the hardcopy profile would be sent to women who contacted our agency and whose preferences we met, while our website would be linked to the agency's and could be perused by women interested in the agency and the prospective adoptive parents working with them). I poured over pictures, trying to sort our lives into categories and choose the photographs that would best illustrate each piece. Here I had the opposite problem from our all-too-short profile--since I could add as many pages as I wanted to our site, what if I left something important off? What if I failed to select a photo that would have spoken to a prospective birthmother? And so I agonized, and made our adoption coordinator's edits on our profile, and finally submitted the website for approval too. On Feb. 13, 2009, on our way to my skeptical boy cousin's wedding, we got the call notifying us that we were completely approved and ready to go live. Our profile could now be sent out and our website was linked. Now we were officially just "waiting."

Two weeks later, we got our first contact. A week after that, we were offered a match in which the baby had already been born--we drove two hours into the desert before learning that the birthmother had lied about her drug use and was in fact a meth addict. It wasn't the right situation for us, but happily another couple adopted her son. Two weeks after that, we were contacted by another expectant mother, and by another a couple of weeks later. We also learned about a possible adoption situation from a friend of a friend of a friend, thanks to the "networking" our agency had encouraged us to do (basically just emailing everyone we could think of, letting them know we were adopting and asking that they pass our info along to their contacts). This one didn't seem like the right fit for us, but we were in active contact (via email, IM, and/or phone) with three phenomenal expectant mothers, all women I'm so glad I got the opportunity to know, however briefly, when we got The Call--the one that would bring our son to us, add four more amazing people to our extended family, and change our lives forever. But this is long already, and that awesome son of mine is ready for dinner, so stay tuned for more on our match in the next post!

Our Path to Open Adoption

2011-08-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog two years ago (Saturday was my 2nd blogoversary, woot!), Bonsai had been home with us for three months. My posts at that point were mostly about being a new parent, with a few rants about some post-placement drama courtesy of our adoption agency and 16 Native American tribes. But what I haven't written much about is our journey to open adoption. So, in honor of my 2nd blogoversary and my first ICLW in a really long time, I wanted to write a little series about our adoption. However, this proved surprisingly difficult for me, so this is about the 5th version I've written since Sat., and I'm just finally posting it...hope I can write the next one quicker so this can actually BE a series!

I now that wish I could say we were one of those couples who had always planned to adopt, but I honestly don't think we would ever ended up even thinking of adoption if pregnancy had come easily for us. We simply wouldn't have had reason too. Adoption is very much a part of our family, as Spruce's cousin adopted two children from Russia, and Spruce's oldest friend (now married to Spruce's sister!) was adopted through a closed domestic adoption back in the day, but we didn't really think of it in relation to our own family-building options, thinking that those would consist of sex=pregnancy=baby. Besides, back in 2006 when we started TTC, we wanted 3 kids, who I thought I would have at ages 27 (you know, right about 9 months after our first try), 30, and 33. If we had been fertile, I suppose we would have done just that, and I would have continued to feel that three kids was plenty, and we never would have had any reason to pursue another path to parenthood.

I frigging hate infertility. It is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with (I know there are harder things, and that one day I may face them myself, but I kind of hope what we've been through is as bad as it gets because frankly it was awful). And yet--without it, I wouldn't have the absolutely perfect, darling, beloved little boy who is currently playing beside me. And I wouldn't have the equally wonderful (I'm sure) baby girl who is currently growing in my belly. I would never have found my way to open adoption, or to donor eggs (a journey I HAVE documented pretty thoroughly here), and we wouldn't have the amazing children and family we have, and that could never be okay. No theoretical child could be more wanted than our very real Baby Bonsai, who we kiss and snuggle and giggle with and read to and sing with throughout every day, and who we are endlessly blessed to have found through open adoption. I know I will feel the same way about Baby Blossom when she arrives in oh, about 7 weeks (!). So in a way, infertility has also given me the greatest gifts of my life. Bonsai and Blossom (and those 7 frozen DE embies waiting to hopefully be their siblings one day) are an incredible upside. Nice as it would have been to skip all the IF drama, if I had the choice now, I couldn't take it, because the fertile path doesn't lead to my babies, the exact ones we were meant to have, the ones we love so uncontrollably much.

Of course when people hear about your infertility struggles, they frequently suggest adoption as a solution, but during our first 2 years of TTC, we just weren't there yet. I mean, the first year you're just supposed to try and not worry if it hasn't happened yet (I did start worrying pretty early though, and it turns out I was right...), and the second year was eaten up with lots of treatments (2xClomid, 2xIUI, varicocele surgery for husband, high FSH diagnosis for me, IVF, IVF attempt downgraded to IUI, cancelled IVF). And suddenly we were at two years, a point I'd never suspected we would reach without a baby at least on the way, and my third & worst RE (not by choice--first one moved, second one was fired, & I was stuck with the third because I was locked into a 2-cycle IVF plan with our clinic and was determined to use that second cycle, darnit!) told me we had about a 10% chance of ever conceiving. I was 28 years old, and although my next two REs completely disagreed with his assessment, I guess he wasn't so wrong (but it was actually another 2 years before I officially entered POF, so I wasn't out of time just yet. Besides, he was pretty much pure evil, so let's just say he was wrong anyway). And then he told me we should "just adopt." And that's not an okay thing to say to an infertile, and the cruel way he chose to deliver this message made it worse, but it actually got me thinking. Why not start looking into adoption? I know lots of people don't feel adoption is right for them, but we'd never felt that way--we just kind of wanted to make use of our genes since we think we have some good things to pass along, so we tried making a him+me baby first.

After this disheartening call, I talked to my husband, and we were in immediate agreement that it was time to start looking into adoption. We really didn't know much about it at that point, so I started researching domestic vs. international and looking for local agencies. Although I had assumed that international was easier since I'd heard more often about people going that route, my research soon revealed that domestic adoption was quicker, less expensive, and would enable us to parent a newborn, an experience I very much wanted with our first child (though I would also like to adopt internationally down the road). I'm still not sure how I found my way to the agency that would become ours, but somehow my Goo.gling led me there, and three days after that heartrending phone call, we were sitting in an info session with other prospective adoptive parents. (As it turns out, that info session was a year to the day before our son was born!) The adoption coordinator who led the session was amazing, and had adopted twice through the agency himself (he would later become OUR adoption coordinator and prove not so amazing, but that's a different story). We learned a lot about open adoption, which I don't think I'd ever heard of before that day, and which I have to say, initially sounded a little scary. I mean, did we really want to invite strangers into our lives?

But what I came to realize, as I listened to the coordinator's story, and that of the two-time adoptive parents who spoke to us, and that of the really cool birthmother who spoke to us too, was that when they became part of our lives, they wouldn't BE strangers. Open adoption would give us the chance to build a relationship with our child's birthfamily based on mutual respect, trust, and love, like any good relationship. If we did not feel that connection, we wouldn't match. Although the prospective birthmother would choose us based on our profile, we would also choose her back once we'd had a chance to get to know her and determine if we were a right fit for each other (she would of course have the same veto power on us if she didn't feel we were "the ones"). There was also a lot of variation, in each of the stories we heard, in the level of openness (everyone sent photos and kept in touch via email &/or phone calls, but visits might be once a year or a couple of times a month)--this too would depend on the particular relationship. By the end of the session, Spruce and I were both convinced that this was the path for us. We were ready to sign up with the agency that day, but we knew we wouldn't be able to start the adoption process that summer (I was doing a study abroad program for my MFA, and Spruce was traveling internationally pretty much constantly for work), so it wasn't until a few months later that we officially signed on. And I guess I'll stop there for now, and continue the story tomorrow.

Up next...wading through paperwork and explain to our families that choosing open adoption didn't mean willingly turning ours lives into a Life.time movie-of-the-week. Oh and I should mention the book that truly & completely opened my heart and mind to the wonders of open adoption, The Open Adoption Experience. Our agency's director recommended it after the info session (as a writer, I need books to help me through pretty everything in my life), and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about open adoption!

In the Water

2011-08-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

Bonsai and I just finished his first swim class (he is going to be devastated when he notices that we are in fact finished with that class!), and it was a big hit. Though he loves baths and water tables, he had been nervous the last couple of times we took him in the pool or ocean, and I wanted to make sure we quickly overcame those fears. Baby swim class, which involved singing and splashing and various swim-related games, accomplished this almost within the first few minutes of the first class. Now he constantly declares, "I want pool!" or "I go pool!"--hence the devastation when we don't go to the pool this week (and I'm feeling so pregnant-huge these days that I think my pool-going days are on hold for now).

So the main purpose of the class: totally fulfilled. But there's this sub-purpose, in any mommy & child environment, and at this one I'm quite sure I failed. You are supposed to go make friends with the other moms. Now, this is supposed to be for the child's benefit, but in the pool, while the kids were aware of each other, they couldn't exactly play since they were all held afloat by parents. Or maybe it's for the moms' benefit, to help alleviate the isolation of being a mom, but I ran a mommy club for the past year, and frankly I have more local mom friends than I know what to do with. I'd say 10 close friends (& their close-to-Bonsai's-age kids) from that club alone--and then there are also the people I was friends with before they had kids who now happen to have kids. I mean, I guess you can never have too many friends, but can't you, sort of? Time is not unlimited and when I've tried to add in playdates on top of the frequent club/playgroup activities, it's kind of too much. Especially given that I am actually still trying to work (though that's fallen by the wayside somewhat lately with Bonsai not in preschool this summer and me all exhausted and huge)--I don't in fact want kid-based plans every single day. On days when we stay home, Bonsai and I play in the house or the yard (when it's not ungodly hot, which it being summer, mostly it is), and that's just fine.

Anyway. I did make one one friend in the class, and her daughter and Bonsai got chummy, but the poor little girl hated being in the pool so they dropped the class. Another lady who I would chat with was painfully shy, and I frankly was more interested in having fun mother-son time than persisting in drawing her out, so I kind of gave up there--though having seen both her and her husband, I'm pretty sure they adopted their daughter, and really wanted to talk about that but couldn't think of a non-rude way to ask! I should note that the two girls whose mothers I was most interested in befriending were children of color--the only two besides Bonsai who were. I find myself more drawn to other multiracial families than to the Whitey McWhitersons--which maybe is weird since I'm super-white myself, but my son isn't, and my husband isn't, and my daughter won't be, so my usual milieu is more diverse than not. It's certainly not purposeful--just an automatic tendency that cropped up since Bonsai's birth. I guess I tend to assume that I'll have more in common with these families. I honestly didn't notice some of the white kids & mamas in our class for the first few weeks (of a 4-week class!), so this tendency of mine probably contributed to my failure to connect with many of our classmates.

One other strange phenomena I've noticed in our local community is that the twin moms won't talk to non-twin moms like myself, although none of my friends with twins are like this, so maybe they ones in our 'hood are just in some hyper-militant mothers of multiples group? There were two sets of twins with their moms & dads in our class, which cut down further on the prospective pool of swim buddies since having mothered only one child at once, I was beneath their notice. But the main issue, I'm sure, is that I'm still not super-good at striking up conversations with random moms. This hasn't been a problem in my mommy club, largely because as the club president, I had a good reason to talk to the other moms. I'm able to be outgoing as long as I have a clear reason to interact, but get all awkward when I don't (and apparently, the fact that we both have kids is supposed to be sufficient, but I don't feel an automatic connection with every other mom in the world--nor do I think it would make sense if I did).

But I did talk to another couple of moms, because I mentioned that I was pregnant, and oh boy! One of them was pregnant too! And a couple of weeks later, her friend was also pregnant! And their firstborns are close in age and their secondborns will be too! And their husbands started attending class with them so these poor pregnant ladies wouldn't have to trouble themselves with swim class (though I am much further along than either of them, and I managed), and one of the husbands commented how there must be something in the water since everyone's pregnant! (I always hate this saying, but it was especially icky given that we were all literally in the water at the time.) And that was when I knew I wouldn't be talking to those two anymore. Because they agreed with him! This when looking out on a pool containing two sets of twins who I can only assume are the result of IF treatments (I know some twins aren't of course, and actually our closest friends with twins both had them totally by accident, but I assume anyway in these cases and it makes me extra-bummed that they wouldn't talk to me since we likely have this in common), and one or probably two families through adoption, so a good third of us probably dealt with IF and these two couples are babbling on about how it just happened for them, whee! Of course they should be happy and excited about their new babies, but I can't relate to people who assume pregnancy is easy for everyone. I just...can't.

So, to summarize: Bonsai loves swimming, and I don't love trying to bond with other random moms at the pool. But, I did love getting more bonding time with my little guy in what will probably be our last class before he's a big brother, and one-on-one time gets a lot harder to come by. And quality time with him is way more important to me than striving to connect with strangers, so I'm gonna go ahead and count this as a win.

Timing Is Everything

2011-08-10T01:16:00.000-07:00

When I joined my local mommy club a little over a year ago, Bonsai and the other kids in our playgroup were still under a year old and so, inevitably, the talk would often turn to birth stories and breastfeeding. I would sometimes throw in something about how fast Bonsai's birthmom's labor went, or the pros and cons of the hospital where she delivered, but I didn't exactly have first-hand info to contribute. Mostly, I pretended not to hear these conversations, absorbing myself instead in playing with Baby Bonsai. While I never felt left out of the general mommying community we shared, these topics made the difference of m experience from theirs all too clear.

But now? I am ravenous for birth stories. I demand them whenever we moms gather, soaking up the details that I could not bear to hear before. I've learned that in fact, they don't share the same experiences as each other, either. This one had a planned C-section due to a complication during her pregnancy (& following 3 months of bed rest, eek!) That one had an emergency C-section but had to schedule another for her second baby (due next month) because of scarring from the first. Another did all-natural childbirth; one was induced after her due date passed; a third was very pleased with use of the epidural. No two stories are the same--something I should have realized, but could not, last year, when I was newly immersed in this land of fertile mommies (one other in our playgroup did deal with IF, but an IUI fixed her right up). Now, though I openly admit to needing IVF to get pregnant, I feel like one of them--just another pregnant mama.

Because, oh my God, there are a lot of pregnant mamas in my playgroup. Of the 10 of us who are most active in the group, 6 are pregnant. If I weren't one of those, I think I would actually have had to quit the club. It would have been really sad, because Bonsai and I both have made great friends in the group, but I just don't think I could've handled that much proximity to that many baby bumps. Especially because, if I still weren't pregnant now, it would mean that even donor eggs couldn't help us. Ahh, I shudder to even think about how devastated I would be. But thankfully, I am pregnant just like most of my mommy friends. I men, not just like, given all we went through plus the donor gamete involved, but at least I appear to be just another of the pregnant crowd. We are already talking about an infant playgroup for the slew of babies slated to be born starting this month. My little girl already has friends lined up, though none of them are born yet. This is strange, but exciting.

One of my closest friends from the club said to her husband how random it was that we were all pregnant at once. He said that she shouldn't be surprised--with our firstborns all around 2 (our playgroups are divided by age, so our kids are all around the same age), he figured it was natural that everyone would be having a second. Of course, we didn't get to plan it that way, ourselves. It worked out with Laurel's schedule to do the DE cycle when Bonsai was about 20 months, and we were lucky enough to have it work the first time, so his sister will be born when he is 29 months. It seems like perfect spacing--he'll be almost two and a half--but we would have taken whatever we could get. I am so, so grateful that it worked out this way, that Bonsai is getting a younger sibling at the same time as many of his friends, but it was by no means a given as it was for my very fertile mom friends. Even though they are all older than me, some even technically just over the border into "advanced maternal age," they mostly seem to have gotten pregnant this time as soon as they started trying. One remarked (to me, who she knows to be infertile!), "We had no idea we were this fertile!" Awkward, but you know, I'm glad for her that they could have two kids close together like they wanted, that she will not suffer like so many of us have. And I'm glad that comments like that don't have to sting as they once would have, because I am just as pregnant as she is (more, actually, since I'm about 14 weeks further along). I'm extremely infertile, she's super-fertile, but within three months of each other, we'll both be holding our second child.

I am surrounded by pregnant women these days. Two more cropped up in Bonsai's swim class, and of course prenatal yoga features nothing but. I thought I would find it difficult, even pregnant, to fit in with the easily pregnant, and sometimes I do. But mostly, I have gotten to be one of then, and after so many years of wanting what they got so easily, I have to say it feels really, really good.

Triple Digits!

2011-08-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited to have 100 followers--yeah, triple digits! When I started this blog almost two years ago, I had no idea if anyone would ever even read the posts I was writing. It was hard, constructing these posts and sharing so much and not knowing if anyone could even find my little corner of the internet, much less if they would want to. But then I found the adoption/loss/infertility community, courtesy of Mel, and suddenly I had a slew of blogs to read that I could identify with--and people like me who could find their way to my blog, too. I actually have no idea how I stumbled upon the Stirrup Queen's blog and blogroll and LFCA and all the other cool projects that Mel runs for this community, but I'm pretty sure if I hadn't ever found my way there, I would have given up on blogging long ago. I remember when I started being so confused as to how I would ever find blogs I wanted to read, or help people find mine, especially since I blog anonymously. But now, thanks to Lost & Found, I find new blogs to visit every week, and sometimes, when I have news to share or need extra support, people find me that way too. Thanks to IComLeavWe, I have found TONS of new blogs over the past couple years, and I know others have found me that way, too. I haven't done IComLeavWe in months, and am very excited to do it again this month and "meet" more new-to-me bloggers that way! I also participated in Resolve's Bust-A-Myth Challenge this year, and found more to read that way. Anyway, these are the resources that have helped me find my way in the blogging world, and I am so grateful that, one way or another, you all found your way to me! Thank you so very much for reading!

Body Image

2011-08-03T19:13:00.000-07:00

I have spent a lot of time, these past four years, despising my body. Hating how it went from a perfectly nice, 130-pound 26-year-old body (yes, up from my 115-pound teenage self, but still respectable) to a much larger one thanks to years of treatments, weight-gain-inducing meds, and heartbreak-induced gorging on ice cream and cupcakes. Forty pounds plus of weight gain in four years, and a body clearly not capable of fulfilling its most basic function of reproduction, combined to make it very hard to feel good about my physical self. I felt broken, more broken with each passing cycle, with each new level of infertility hell--from just trying with no results, to timed trying with the fertility monitor, to Clo.mid, to IUIs, to IVF failure, to not even being able to do IVF because my FSH was so high and we were just hoping some Traditional Chinese Medicine might give us a shot at a decent cycle, to endometriosis pain & diagnosis & surgery, to IUIs with injectables since IVF was wasted on a high FSHer like me, to officially entering premature ovarian failure at age 30--there was not a lot to feel good about in there. Oh, there was a brief period when we thought Spruce was the issue, due to low sperm count, and he had surgery to correct a varicocele, and his count didn't improve, and then we started dealing with all these issues with me, and then two years after the surgery his count had improved, all the way up to the low end of normal, and then while his stats still weren't great, it was super clear that I was the main issue. Not that he ever made me feel that way--I did that all by myself.

In a way, I like that both of us have issues, so that neither of us is the reason the other had trouble. If his count had been higher when we started trying, I could perhaps have gotten pregnant naturally, or at least with an IUI. If my FSH had been lower, IVF with ICSI would have compensated for his low count and we could've just ("just," ha!) done a couple rounds of that till I got pregnant. We were an infertility mismatch, but at least we're perfectly matched on everything else! Of course, once the POF set in, there was nothing we could have done to achieve a pregnancy with his & my gametes. But then I set about finding us an egg donor, and found a fabulous one in my best friend, and here I am, 30 weeks pregnant! I am happy that our donor is someone I was able to bring into the mix, since that (along with, you know, carrying this baby!) makes me feel more involved in the whole process.

And now that I'm pregnant, I finally feel like my body is doing what it's supposed to do. That's part of why the bleeding scare back at almost 6 weeks was so terrifying, because I was certain that my broken body was failing me again--and this time it was failing my best friend's lovely eggs, too. It's been such a relief to discover that, despite some difficult pregnancy symptoms, my body is actually pretty good at being pregnant--it just wasn't any good at getting pregnant. Here I am, growing and nourishing a person, week after week, and besides that bleeding scare and the weird labor pains last week, it's been stunningly normal. Yes, I wish I'd been thinner when I got pregnant so I would have one of those adorable bumps that is so clearly not just me being weirdly fat, but while I am heavier than ever before in my life (though my pregnancy weight gain has also been normal), I love my pregnant body. I am uncomfortable and feel huge, but finally I have a good reason for it. I was disgusted by my stupid, useless body through 4 years of infertility battles, but now I am proud of it for knowing how to make the beautiful little baby we saw on our 3D ultrasound a couple of weeks ago. I love finally having that swollen belly I've dreamed of for so long--and I love that the weight gain is finally because I am nourishing a baby, rather than because I am longing for a baby I can't manage to have.

I told Spruce earlier in this pregnancy that I finally like my body again for the first time since we started TTC, and he thought that was sad. I guess he's right--it's unfortunate that I hated my body so much for what it couldn't give me these past 4 years--but I'm experiencing it more as a joyful reconciliation with my physical self, a realization that while it couldn't create a baby, it is able to sustain one, and I am so very grateful that it can. And I remain hopeful that it will also be good at breastfeeding, which I hear will help take off some of these excess pounds after baby arrives--hopefully even some of those waiting-for-baby pounds, too!

My Pregnancy on Facebook

2011-08-01T17:21:00.000-07:00

I never wanted to be one of those annoying women who post constantly about their pregnancy symptoms on Face.book. But I have to admit, I have been posting rather frequently on that subject lately. From my stress-fractured foot (yep, that's a pregnancy symptom) to my pesky insomnia, sometimes I can't think about anything but the symptoms. So I share. And I get lots of responses from mommy friends, eager to share their own experiences.

But I have adhered to some of my rules for what to share as a pregnant infertile. I have not and will not post a single ultrasound picture (also, the hard copies of these are tucked away in a book, not displayed on our refrigerator). I firmly believe that my uterus does not belong on the Internet, and besides, I found those spookily shadowy pictures among the most jarringly painful reminders of what I lacked during our long struggle to conceive. Especially when used as profile pictures. Just--no.

I also have not posted belly pictures. In fact, we have only taken two--one on Mother's Day and one on our wedding anniversary. I dreamed of weekly belly shots in all those years of longing for pregnancy, but now that it's finally here, I just can't bring myself to do it. I guess part of it is that I was never sure when it would be safe to start taking such photographs. Certainly not until we were past the first trimester, despite the reassuring heartbeat we saw at 6 weeks and heard at 9 weeks, or my discharge from my RE's office at 10 weeks. And by the time we reached 13 weeks, it was just something I didn't think to do every week. Another part was that, going into this pregnancy, I was already about 45 pounds heavier than I was back when we started trying. All of that weight came directly from our 4-year-long battle with infertility, whether as side effects from the medications or from seeking comfort in vats of ice cream and cupcakes when yet another cycle failed. So I was not (and still am not) entirely convinced that the photos would look like anything but me showing off my fat tummy.

Although I love the two belly shots we have taken, I am not rushing to take more. Although I am a big-time photo-sharer, I have not posted either to my Shut.terfly page--though it's password-protected and for invited friends and family only, I still feel that those are too personal to share. And I certainly won't be putting them on FB. Except...a few weeks ago, a couple of high school friends starting begging for me to post belly photos. And I decided this was a good opportunity to explain my stance on this. So I wrote "Not to get too real on y'all, but after 4 years of infertility (ages 26-30, sigh), I am pretty awkward about things like belly pix." I was proud of myself for putting it out there, rather than just feeling awkward but staying silent.

The friends were understanding, but when one explained that because I live far away, pictures are a good way to share in the excitement. And so I decided to post two photos in which you could see my pregnant belly--neither one featuring the belly, both pictures taken with other people at a baby shower I had hosted, but the belly was in evidence. That seemed to appease them while allowing me to avoid posting anything that was all about the belly--because those pictures, too, have been some of the hardest things for me to see throughout this IF journey. You know what I mean--side view, belly cradled in hands with shirt stretched tight to best display the bump. Those will not be appearing in public, not from me. (And we won't be doing a maternity shoot either--another thing I once dreamed of, but now feel too weird about. I'll wait for newborn pictures with our little Blossom and her big brother. But before the baby is born, I just can't see feeling safe enough. Also, I've seen too many creepy maternity portraits to feel like spending my money on them--though I've seen some lovely ones too, and do regret that we won't have those.)

To mitigate the pregnancy posts' possible impact on infertile FB friends, I am always careful to say how worth it whatever symptoms I have to endure are--and also to mention that we struggled long and hard to get here. Recently, I posted that I missed caffeine, and a friend replied that she hadn't had any in years, between getting pregnant, breastfeeding, immediately getting pregnant again, and then breastfeeding again. I responded that for the first three years of TTC, I had not a single drop of caffeine because it's not great for conception. Then Bonsai was born, and I needed a little help to get through the newborn stage--which then extended past his first birthday because really, toddlers are exhausting! Awesome, but exhausting. In prep for this IVF cycle, I once more ditched caffeine in advance, and did not allow myself even a taste, despite much of the research and my doctor saying 8 oz of caffeine a day is okay. But at some point in the second trimester, I started getting headaches, and since I can't take anything stronger than Ty.lenol, caffeine was recommended as a safe cure. Since then, I've had a grand total of two chai lattes and two Cherry Co.kes, when needed.

Then late Thursday night, I had a minor freak-out because I was hit with my very first Brax.ton-Hicks contractions. Except they did some things that the fake ones aren't supposed to--they were accompanied by cramping, lower back pain, and a feeling of pushing downward in the pelvic area. There were also about 5 of them in an hour, which is more than there should be. I was about to page my OB even though it was 1 am when it suddenly stopped. I had woken Spruce to tell him what was going on and get his advice, and he agreed that since it had subsided, I should wait and call the doctor in the morning. When I did, she agreed that those symptoms were concerning, and said if it happened again I should go into labor & delivery for monitoring. Thankfully, it hasn't. Then she asked if the baby was moving okay, and I said yes because she'd been kicking a lot the night before and usually doesn't move much in the morning. Then, of course, I quickly grew obsessed with kick counting. Yes, she was moving, but her movements felt fainter. Could something have happened to her during the weird labor pains the night before?

After much worrying, I called my doctor again, only to find her office closed early because it was Friday. So I paged the doctor on call, and he reassured me that as long as I'd felt her move at least 2 or 3 times that day (I'd counted at least 12 in an hour, and there were definitely others I hadn't tallied), I was fine. He also told me that kick counts were discredited 20 years ago, which really bugged me, but at least he's not my doctor (though it did really make me wonder why docs are reluctant to encourage such a useful, simple and potentially life-saving tool). He also said that if I was ever worried, I should drink some Co.ke and it should rev her right up. Of course that meant another Cherry Co.ke, parsed out throughout the weekend, so I could keep making sure she was moving enough. Thankfully, she is.

Not that any of that went on FB, but I'm not up for pretending that the past 4 years of heartache have been magically washed away by this pregnancy. I am beyond thrilled at our little miracle, but I will never forget what we suffered along the way, or the fact that I am truly and irretrievably infertile, and without the gift of Laurel's eggs, would never have any of these pregnancy experiences. And I have no qualms about sharing that perspective (well, not the DE part, but the immeasurably grateful, even for the unpleasant side-effects, part), in the hopes that it will remind my fertile friends how lucky they are--and give my infertile friends some comfort that even pregnant, I am still and will always be one of them.

Another Nurse Who Really Should Know Better

2011-07-25T17:51:00.001-07:00

It happened again. A nurse from the hospital where I'll be delivering (fingers crossed) in about 11 weeks called to confirm the courses I signed us up for there. We'll be doing tour of the hospital, a sibling class for Bonsai, and classes on breastfeeding and childbirth. "So already have a little one, but you're taking the childbirth class?" she asked, with what sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.

I went cold. "Yes. We adopted. This is my first time giving birth."

"Oh! How wonderful!" Suddenly her manner was much warmer than it had originally been. But I wasn't impressed. I quickly wrapped up the phone call, remaining polite, if somewhat curt.

I mean, surely I'm not the only person to ever be in this situation. Yes, despite what "they" would have us believe, it is rare to be pregnant after adopting (and that particular myth makes me wonder how many of the 5% who eventually do get pregnant after adoption have, like me, required extreme assistance like donor eggs--so very far from the surprise pregnancy this myth implies). But I have a friend who just gave birth to her second, 5 and a half years after her first, partly due to recurrent pregnancy loss in between. She retook the childbirth and breastfeeding classes because she wanted a refresher--and she figured some of the medical advice might have changed in the intervening years, as things seem to always be changing in the world of childrearing. Or I have friends who have given birth to their first, who also parent a stepchild or two--couldn't they want the siblings class for the stepchild, as well as needing a childbirth class themselves? Or what about women who have a C-section and then want to try a VBAC? Surely some of them would want to take a childbirth class to help them through what would be for them, like for me, a new experience.

And those are just a few examples off the top of my head. Why was it so hard for this nurse to imagine any of them? Has she really only ever dealt with stories like those of nearly all my mommy club friends--pregnant easily the first time and now, with their children at or nearing two years old, expecting their second, many of them without even really "trying?" I know that's the norm, and I get that I am not, but if I looked at a registration form like mine, I would assume that a woman wanting to take both a childbirth class and to bring her son to a class for siblings had a good reason for it. I wouldn't laugh at her for wanting to do both, and I would most likely assume it wasn't any of my business what her situation might be. As a writer, I am naturally curious about people's stories, and the basic facts of my situation do imply an interesting story. But that doesn't make me any happier about the inappropriate questions.

I know there will be many more instances like this--not only in the next 11ish weeks of pregnancy, but also when I attempt breastfeeding for the first time and am questioned on why my 2-year-old wasn't breastfed, or forever, when people see pasty-white me with my African-American/Asian son and Asian/Middle Eastern/Caucasian daughter and try to piece together how this family came to be. I'll have to get more practiced at fielding these questions with grace rather than irritation. If anyone has any tips--I could use 'em!

Getting Ready for Baby

2011-07-21T19:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Spruce and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. We got a real babysitter for the first time ever (that is, someone we aren't related to or friends with) so we could have a nice dinner and then catch the new Harry Po.tter movie. I was nervous about leaving Bonsai with someone we didn't know, but she was very sweet and all went well. Pretty easy gig, since we put our son to bed before we left and he slept the rest of the time, but it's good to have someone we can call now if we need to. Of course, needing a sitter makes a date night WAY more expensive, but it was worth it for a special occasion. Since Spruce was at work all day, I'd already celebrated with Bonsai :)

This, of course, was the first of all those anniversaries we've shared when I've been pregnant. Such a thrill! The day before, we went for an ultrasound at the perinatalogist--the first time I'd seen our baby in 8 weeks! I can't believe they made me wait that long, and I can't believe I didn't go nuts waiting. I did get to hear her heartbeat on the Dopp.ler twice in that time at my OB's office, and since she has been kicking so much stronger and more regularly, I felt confident that she was still in there and doing well, but it was such a thrill to see her face.

And I hadn't expected it, but we really, really saw her face! I didn't know this visit would include a 3D ultrasound, but it did, and it was amazing! We got such a cute picture of her--not all Skele.tor looking like some friends' I've seen, but with full-on chubby cheeks and what is clearly Spruce's nose (I really want to post it, but that's a clear violation of the "my uterus doesn't belong on the Internet" policy I've instated, so I'm trying to restrain myself). It also appears that she has my chin, which I realize doesn't make a lot of sense, except--this chin runs really strongly in my family, and Spruce has a huge chin, and Laurel has a small pointy chin, and, well, Blossom's chin didn't look like either of those. It looked like mine. Isn't it possible, that since my body is the one deciding which genes to activate, that it somehow selected for my chin? I know it's weird, but I like the thought.

Really though, I think she is going to look a LOT like Spruce. This is no surprise--we always figured his Asian/Middle Eastern background would trump Laurel's (or my) European genes. And it makes things easier since I will doubtless feel weird if people try to identify ways she looks like me (except for that chin!)--I can just say, "Oh, she looks like my husband." One really cool thing is that Bonsai also appears to have Spruce's nose (even his birthgrandpa insists he does) and my chin, even though that's clearly not where he got them, so he and his sister will have features in common, which I think will be helpful. I mean, they aren't going to look a lot alike, but maybe they'll get fewer "is that your REAL brother/sister?" questions if they do actually, randomly, have some similarities. Another cool thing was that Blossom had her little hand up to her cheek, and when we asked Bonsai (who went with us) if he could do that, he immediately struck the same pose! He also kept pointing to the screen and saying "baby," which I thought was pretty impressive since a lot of the ultrasound images were kind of hard to interpret as a baby. It was so cool to see him reacting to his little sister! Spruce was really excited about the whole thing--he couldn't get over such clear evidence that there's a real little person growing inside me.

So I'm now 28 weeks, firmly in the third trimester by any measure, and I'm so grateful to have made it this far. She's measuring right on track, which is comforting since Bonsai was so small. Oh, and the perinatalogist doesn't have any interest in seeing me again--apparently I am officially, completely normal. I even asked if there was anything at all we should be watching out for, and he gave me an emphatic, "No." It was nice to be told there's no reason to worry, though of course I will anyway. Still, I'm starting to feel like I'm in the home stretch.

Just 11 weeks to go (since the plan is to induce at 39 weeks)--and still so much to do before I feel like our house is ready. We ordered Bonsai's big-boy bed, and I can't wait for it to arrive so we can get him set up in his new room. Of course, there's a guest bed and elliptical machine and bookshelves in there that need to be moved out before he can move in, so it's a good thing we have some time before the new furniture arrives. My favorite brother-in-law, Ash, is supposed to be staying with us starting this weekend, so he can help Spruce move the furniture around. I wish I weren't so exhausted all the time so I could get more organizing done during the day, but I guess that would be challenging anyway with my toddler home with me full-time (did I mention I took him out of preschool till he starts at a new one in the fall?).

I'm feeling a little guilty that I'm not planning to do more in terms of nursery decorating. I'm really excited about Bonsai's sports-themed big-boy room (I'm ordering pennants from our favorite teams from my hometown, Spruce's, and Bonsai's here in LA, and sports-themed quilts for his bed and the spare one that came with his junior loft and will be for a little brother someday, and the room already has a baseball ceiling fan from before we moved in!), but I haven't planned much for Blossom. It's sad, because I dreamed of decorating a nursery before Bonsai came into our lives, but I didn't really get to for him since we only knew about him four days in advance (and I knew it would make me too sad to have a fully decorated nursery just sitting there when we had no idea how long our wait would be). I did order a neutral bedding set that I loved as soon as we signed up with the agency, but the thing is, most of the things in those sets aren't safe for newborns, like crib bumpers and quilts, or are simply unnecessary, like crib skirts and diaper stackers. So I really can't see spending money on a new, girlier one for Blossom now that I know it's not worth it. I was thinking of just getting her a cute blanket in a butterfly theme I like (she can use it for tummy time or when we go out until she's older) with matching wall decals, but we aren't planning to paint.

I feel like this is something else infertility cheated me out of, because if I'd had the chance the first time around, I totally would've wanted to paint and decorate in a full-out theme. But I couldn't handle it with no baby definitely on the way before Bonsai arrived, and then it all happened so quickly that I didn't have time. And now with Bonsai moving into his big-boy room, I'm all too aware of how short babyhood is, and realizing that focusing on decorating their rooms once they're older and I have a clearer idea of their interests and personalities (Bonsai LOVES sports, for instance) is a better bet. I mean, I'm glad for that practical perspective, but sad for the dreamy first-time mom decorating frenzy that I never had, and never will. I thought I might, with a whole pregnancy to prepare for this baby, but I'm just not feeling it. Who knows, maybe the frenzy will still hit in the impending "nesting" phase I keep hearing so much about.

Well that got rambly, but yeah, enjoyed a great anniversary, all is well with the pregnancy, and I'm starting to freak about how much is left to do. But 11 weeks is enough time--right? Right?? Oh little girl, just don't come early--I'm going to need those weeks to prep, and you need them to grow!

Maternity Support

2011-07-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

My husband's company has this really great maternity program, where you get access to your own RN to call with any questions, plus you get nice, free baby stuff for talking to her. There's a 24-hour nurse hotline, which would have been great to use instead of the emergency room when I had a bad cold a couple of months back but got scared it might be a kidney infection or the flu--yeah, it was just a nasty cold (though apparently when you're pregnant, freak-outs of this sort are considered normal, so no one acted like I was unreasonable for dragging husband and 2-year-old there in the middle of the night).

So I'm excited to have access to this program, and impressed with the company and our insurance for recognizing the importance of preventative care (they also have great programs for all sorts of things, like weight loss and stress management--I'm planning to do the stress one too!) But in talking to the nurse I've been assigned, a woman who specializes in pregnancy and postpartum care, I was struck by how little she knew about infertility. Apparently I'm the only infertile pregnant woman she's ever encountered!

It started when she asked if this was my first--I told you, that question comes up all the time now! I explained that this is my first pregnancy (other than an early loss that I'm not really sure I'm allowed to count, although in my own mind, I totally do), but my second child. "Our son joined our family through adoption," I said, proud of myself for using the phrasing I prefer instead of giving the simple answer. "What?" she asked. Okay...maybe there's something to be said for simple answers. So I tried again. "We adopted." That one worked.

"So had you been having trouble getting pregnant?" she asked. "Or did you want to adopt?" Um, why would we have chosen adoption if we didn't want to adopt?! "Both," I told her. "We did have trouble, and we also wanted to adopt." Then she asked if we had tried anything like IVF. I explained that we'd done IVF a few years ago, and that this was also an IVF pregnancy. (Throughout the call, I was trailing Bonsai around outside our local community center, waiting to sign him up for swim lessons after I got off the phone, so I didn't want to get into the DE aspect in such a public setting). "Oh, but you're only having one?" she asked (we had already established it was a singleton pregnancy). "Did they only implant one egg?"

So many things wrong with this statement! First, why do people think twins are an automatic result of IVF? Twins occur in about 25% of iVf pregnancies which is way higher than in non-IVF pregnancies, but certainly not a sure thing. Second, how exactly would one implant an egg? This is her specialty--surely she knows how babies are made?! I calmly corrected her terminology, explaining, "We transferred two embryos, but only one took, which is not uncommon with IVF." But of course, that's the other thing wrong with her question--I have not mourned the second embryo that didn't stay, the one whose loss I believe was marked by the bleeding scare back around 5.5 weeks, because I know how very blessed I am to be growing one healthy baby. But there was another potential baby that was lost forever, and saying "but there's only one?" isn't exactly being sensitive to that fact.

But I didn't get upset. I was bothered that yet another healthcare professional was so ill-informed about the disease that has consumed my life these past 4 years, but I was able to recognize that she meant well. When she learned of my laparoscopy, she told me that my endometriosis could have contributed to my infertility, as though this was news...sigh, I simply agreed that it probably had. I didn't even get into the premature ovarian failure that is the real issue (or the male factor that was our issue before POF set in and endo reared its ugly, painful head). But I did try to educate her a bit on the facts of infertility and IVF, and I hope that on subsequent calls (maybe in the privacy of my own home, instead of chasing a toddler through packs of teenagers, summer camp field trips, and old people in tennis gear), I can do more. I know these calls are supposed to be educating me, but if I can do the same for her, maybe that will help the next time she speaks to an infertile pregnant woman. We are out there, and we deserve better support than the mainstream medical community knows how to offer right now. I'm not sure how to fix that, desperately as I want to, but at least I can start by opening minds, one nurse at a time :)

Not My First

2011-07-07T18:06:00.000-07:00

In a restaurant bathroom on the 4th of July, an older woman asked me how far along I am. I'm still not used to that question, so I hesitated before telling her October. Then she asked if this was my first. And at that point, I basically told her my life story. Because, see, there's not an easy answer to that question, not for me. "My first pregnancy, but my second child. We adopted our first," I explained, as it seems I am now constantly explaining.

Even the nurses at my OB's office get confused by this one. When I take Bonsai along to appointments, and the nurse starts explaining something about symptoms, she always looks at him and says, "oh, but you've been through this already." When I reply that no, I haven't, she looks from Bonsai to me in puzzlement, and I'm forced to remind her that he's adopted (side note: I'm not actually clear on how I'm supposed to phrase this--he joined our family thru adoption? Any tips on terminology?). I then jokingly thank Bonsai for never inflicting morning sickness on me, and the nurse feels less awkward, and we move on. And then we repeat at the next visit.

I know I will be doing a lot of explaining over the years. I imagine people assuming that both Bonsai and Blossom are adopted, since neither of them will look like me, or each other. Alternatively, I worry they will assume that I have several baby daddies of various ethnicities. But I'm learning not to care what strangers think. Although our family's obvious diversity will require answering lots of questions, I wouldn't change a thing. Our family will be beautiful and multicultural and absolutely beautiful--and screw anyone who thinks it's anything short of perfect.

When I was a kid, after my parents' divorce, my mom dated a lot of weird guys. My complaint was always, "Mom, I just want to be normal!" I didn't want any of her oddball boyfriends to be my new stepdad, to have them embarrassing me in public--and luckily, none of them ever lasted. But I've learned that there's nothing so inherently great about appearing to be normal. One of my grandpas objected to Spruce being Asian/Middle Eastern and non-Christian when we were first going out, informing me from his very old-fashioned worldview that it would never work out. Spruce and I do come from very different backgrounds--I'm a white middle-class girl raised Lutheran in the Midwest, while he started out rich in Iran and came to the US as a poor refugee, his family persecuted because of their Baha'i faith. He had lived in five different countries and three different states by the time he was in middle school, while I lived in Missouri from birth till I left for college, and didn't leave the country for the first time till he took me to London when I was 21. And yet, we are a perfect match. Our values and beliefs couldn't be more aligned. We don't look alike, and any kids we had were never going to look like me, but that's not what matters in making us family. What matters is how much we share, our love most of all. That is what will matter with all of our children, too.

Oh and that woman in the restroom? She was delighted by my story, eagerly telling me about her friend who'd gotten pregnant right after adopting. You know, because that's what always happens. It's hard, when constantly faced with this sort of comment, not to blurt out how far from that narrative I am. This is not a pregnancy that "just happened" once I "just relaxed" after adopting. It is one that required a great deal of medical intervention and a key contribution from my best friend. But I just smiled and agreed with her that sometimes these things happen, because clearly, for her friend, it did. And yes, it happened for me too, though not in the surprise pregnancy sense people mean when they tell these stories. But that's okay too. The story of our family may not follow any norms, but I think that makes it a better story anyway.

Hey Look, It's a Blog Award!

2011-07-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

A big thank-you to Kelly for the Versatile Blogger Award, which she gave me back in May and I'm just now getting around to acknowledging! Kelly had been TTC for about 2.5 years when she got pregnant via IVF in Jan.--which means our pregnancies are very close together, so I've definitely been enjoying following along with hers!

So, here's how it works:

Winners grab the image and put it in your blog.
Link back to the person who gave you it.
Tell 10 things about yourself
Award 15 recently discovered bloggers.
Contact the bloggers you have awarded to let them know they have won.

Ok so here are 10 random things about myself.

I have two cats and a dog. The dog is a "we can't have a baby, let's get a dog" pet, which sadly means she's been a bit neglected since we adopted an actual baby!
I have written (& had published) over 30 books for young readers. I always wanted to be a writer, but want to write for grownups--the kid books just kind of happened, but it's been great!
I didn't consider colleges in CA because I was convinced it would fall into the ocean. Now, I have lived in CA for 8 years, and so far I'm pleased to say it's stayed put.
I'm an only child, though I did gain a stepsister and stepbrother at the age of 29 when my mom remarried--they are around my age and I've actually known them my whole life because our parents had been friends since college.
In high school, I was really involved with the drama program, but I haven't acted in anything since.
My first fight with my husband (when we'd been dating for about 6 months and I was all of 19) was about how many kids to have--he wanted 5 and I wanted 2. Thanks to infertility, we now both want 5 or 6 if possible (thru adoption and DE both)--though I guess that means he kinda won that argument :)
All three of my husband's younger siblings have lived with us for at least a year--and for a few months, all of them lived here at once! Now that was a full house!
My favorite color is burgandy, and my new giant kid-hauling car is, for the first time since my high school car, in my favorite color!
I love roses but not red roses--I think they're too boring. It's taken my husband awhile to grasp this nuance but he has been doing really great at picking out more interesting bouquets for Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, & our anniversary lately :)
I got engaged in Paris, on the Eiffel Tower. It was awesome.

Whew, sharing random facts is fun! Ok, now I'd like to give this award to the following (& I'm trying to obey the rules and pick ones I found recently, but who can remember these things really? :) ):

I think that'll about do it for now--I need to get to bed!

Maternity Clothes

2011-07-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

I have been into the same mega-maternity store exactly three times since I've been pregnant. The first time, when I was only about 12 weeks along, I was sure the whole time that they were going to send me away for clearly not being pregnant enough (if they believed it was pregnant at all, since it really wasn't obvious at that point). But my boo.bs were already overflowing my regular bras, so I was desperate for something of the maternity variety. Sure enough, when I got measured, I had already gone up 2 sizes. But I felt so out of place in this store I had thought I might never have reason to enter that I quickly got overwhelmed, grabbed four bras and some ugly maternity panties, and fled. That night, trying them on in the comfort of my own home (the undies over my own, don't worry!), I realized that I didn't need or want or even like most of what I had purchased. So I went back a week later, returned all but 2 bras, and then freaked out again, grabbed 2 maternity shirts that were on sale without trying them on, and fled once more. I kept these shirts, though I try to only wear them on days when no one else will see me, since they too were not a great choice. Both times, I insisted on dragging my husband and son along with me as protection against this terrifying temple to the fertile woman, with its baby-bump mannequins and smugly pregnant shoppers. Every time I see this store, I am reminded of the holiday T-shirt displayed in its windows last December, mere weeks before we began our DE cycle, which read, "'Tis the season to be pregnant!" As if there's a season for that sort of thing, and you could just decide that since pregnancy's in season, you might as well go ahead and be pregnant too! How I hated that shirt, which taunted me throughout my holiday shopping. And now I was giving this store my business, browsing their merchandise as though I were just another pregnant lady? Not okay with me.

So I did what any sensible person would do--I turned to the Internet. There, I could order Old Na.vy maternity wear from the safety of my own home without having to declare my due date to a single saleswoman. Besides, it was cute. And cheap. My entire maternity wardrobe now consists of capris and shirts from Old Na.vy--oh yeah, and two tops and bras from the megastore. Except lately, my thoughts have been turning to my baby shower. In just 7 weeks, a friend is throwing me an actual baby shower (instead of the welcoming showers I had in the months following Bonsai's arrival), and I'm determined to have an adorable dress to show off my hard-won pregnant belly. So I ventured once more into the megastore, forced myself to try on not one but four dresses--and still left without any of them, though I did pick up some stretch mark cream. I know, I know, that stuff doesn't really work, but man it feels nice on my dry skin! And can I just say, I never would have thought that so many random things like itchiness and insomnia and a stuffy nose would be pregnancy symptoms, but sure enough, these and so many others are. And I am grateful to have the chance to learn this, if a bit perplexed as to why so many weird things are just part of the pregnancy deal.

Over the weekend, I decided that Spruce and I needed a trip to our local outlet mall, to pick up clothes for Bonsai, maybe scope out some for our little Blossom, and hopefully find something for me too at the maternity outlet. And when we stepped into the cramped maternity outlet store, its racks overflowing with garments as its megastore parents' never did, I felt strangely comforted. Maybe because pregnancy simply wasn't such a showpiece here as it is in the vast and tastefully decorated main store, or maybe because its small size made doing a lap feel manageable instead of overwhelming. Whatever the reason, I actually managed to commit to buying a dress there. I didn't feel the urge to flee, though we did keep the visit short since Bonsai wanted out from the start. I am so pleased with this dress, long and black-and-white patterned and summery, but more than that, I am happy that at last I can count my maternity shopping complete. I shouldn't need more than one official maternity dress to get me through the next 14 weeks (yep, I'm 26 weeks tomorrow!).

I hadn't expected to write a whole post about shopping. But it's one of the things that has really startled me about being pregnant after so long--that instead of feeling gleeful at finally being qualified to shop in the maternity store, I simply feel out of place there. Even now, with my quite pronounced tummy, I feel like I will be questioned if I don't keep my hand cupped protectively over it at all times to make it clear that I am pregnant, not just weirdly shaped. Although this pregnancy gives me constant reminders of itself (more symptoms: food aversions, constant peeing, aching feet--though I guess I pretty much expected those), I still find it hard to believe that it has finally happened to me. I think that's why it's hard to imagine that others will believe I am pregnant. I am proud that as an infertile, I don't take any part of this longed-for experience for granted, and yet--it might be nice if just some of it, something as simple as picking out clothes that fit my new body, could feel normal. At least my girl has started up with emphatic kicks that make it all feel so very real, that make me keep my hand on my belly not as a sign of my pregnancy but in hopes of catching more of those amazing, breathtaking movements. Now that she is kicking regularly instead of just fluttering and flipping (feelings that I worried might have really been something else that I, in my eagerness to feel her, attributed to her), I am very much reassured. I haven't seen her on an ultrasound in almost two months, haven't even heard her on a Doppler in almost a month, because apparently regular pregnant ladies don't require such constant proof that their babies continue to thrive. Apparently, they take these things strictly on faith, because after all, why wouldn't everything be going perfectly in there? But I feel her reactions now--to her favorite foods, to the fireworks last night, to the sound of other babies crying when I visited a friend's newborn in the hospital today--and I know she is there, and doing well. I am trying to wait till 28 weeks to start kick counts, when they will be more regular and I'll be less likely to needlessly freak myself out if she doesn't move as much on a given day. In the meantime, I'll see my OB on Thurs., and at least hear my Blossom's heartbeat--maybe even get another peek at her too. And with each movement, each listen and look, it does start to seem a little more real.

Viable

2011-06-24T15:47:00.000-07:00

When I talked to my mom on Wed., I told her it was Viability Day. Of course she had no idea what that meant, so I explained that if our little Blossom were to be born right then, she'd still have a fighting chance at survival. Then, talk turned to my mom's plans to fly out here to stay with Bonsai while I deliver. I told her of my plans to ask my OB to schedule an induction at 39 weeks because of my concerns about post-40 weeks stillbirth. At that point, my mom started to think I was being a little dark. She got awfully quiet, which is not normal for my chatty mother. To be nice, I changed the subject.

But when you've been trying for this long, and a part of the IF community for this long (first a couple of years on IF chartrooms, now almost 2 years in the ALI blogosphere), you know a lot about what can go wrong. And just because things are going well, and you're over the moon excited, doesn't mean you forget all the things you know. Sometimes I wish I knew less, that I could be all sunshine and lollipops, because nothing does ever seem to go wrong for my blithely unaware cousins and stepsister. (Actually, that's not true--one cousin and stepsis suffered preemclampsia, and my newest niece was born 6 weeks early--but it doesn't seem to faze them, and everything worked out FiNE! And they both got pregnant no problem, and my cousin is already pregnant again. And planning to birth unlimited more, never mind her very difficult pregnancy, labor and delivery.) Ignorance might be, as it is for them, bliss. And honestly, it's not like I worry about these things, so much as I am simply, constantly, aware of them. And I am so grateful to have reached the viability milestone this week, and to have things moving right along toward a full-term birth.

But I think my mom is surprised that finally being pregnant hasn't cured me of all this infertile doom and gloom. She doesn't get it--she got pregnant with me while only sort-of trying, then spent the rest of her fertile years actively preventing another (you know, cuz she got it right the first time :) ). She is surrounded by all the hyperfertile members of my generation back in the Midwest. And now, finally, I am pregnant like them (though not like them, what with the four years of trying lots o' money and donor eggs required to make this happen--but she doesn't know that, or at least not all of it). All she wants to do is buy me maternity clothes and talk about my cravings. And it's cool, as i said in my last post, to finally feel like a regular ol' pregnant lady, but it's disconcerting, too. Isn't it unreasonable for me, really, to be registering for the baby and making a guest list for my shower and worrying about buying a big-boy bed for Bonsai before baby arrives? Can I really assume there's a baby showing up in Oct? Usually, yes--there's no denying my bulging belly and pendulous bo.obs, my massive appetite combined with strange urges and aversions (baby loves burritos and pizza; hates meat and any sort of Asian food), all these symptoms, small and large, that remind me daily that this is really, finally, happening to me. And my problem was always getting pregnant--there was never any reason to believe that I'd have problems staying that way, if only we could overcome my bum eggs.

My OB has been amazed at how calm I am at each appointment. I'm sure she expected the over-anxious mess who broke down in tears when, after 10 months of pain I finally had a diagnosis of endometriosis, and she still suggested that maybe we shouldn't bother with a laparoscopy. (Following the tears, we did, and she found a whole mess of nasty endo to laser off. I never said "I told you so." She's still by far the best and most understanding OB I've found in my extensive search for one who would listen.) I do feel calm, mostly. I think most of the IF patients she sees aren't, and I hadn't expected to be at all, but really, things have been progressing so smoothly (besides that one early bleeding scare, and oh yeah, I have Group B Strep, which freaks me out a little, and even though I have two cats, they aren't bothering to test for toxoplasmosis because they're indoor cats and I don't change litter so they think it's unnecessary--but I'm not letting it get to me. Much.) I guess it's just that sometimes, the fact that my body is finally doing exactly what it should seems so impossible to me, that I'm just waiting for something to go wrong. But I do think it all will be okay. Maybe I'll end up on bed rest, maybe I'll need a C-section--these things wouldn't surprise me at all. But I do think this is a take-home baby. I'm scared of overconfidence, but I have to believe. I'm sorry for the ramble--these are just the thoughts that swirl constantly in this infertile pregnant girl's mind.

Normal Pregnant Lady

2011-06-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

Goodness, it appears it's been a month since I last posted! I've been reading, but not writing. I'm not exactly sure why, except that things have gotten so very....normal around here. It's strange to me that after four years of trying, I am simply pregnant; that with every week, my baby keeps growing as she should and I keep moving closer to the day I will meet her. (Oh! I think I also may not have posted this, but it's a GIRL!)

When I wake up tomorrow, I will be 24 weeks along, and we infertiles all know what that means--viability. What a magical concept, that even if the worst happened and she came way too early, this baby would have a fighting chance. Of course I just Goo.gled the survival rates at various weeks of gestation, and it looks like I can't really relax until 26 or 27 weeks. And of course I hope she goes ahead and stays for the whole 40. Or 39--I've been reading that it's better not to go past full-term, especially in IVF pregnancies, so I'm going to ask at my next OB appointment to be induced no later than Oct. 10, my official due date, if I haven't already gone into labor. I only hope my OB readily agrees--and of course that we make it to that point in the first place.

But yes, we are moving steadily along toward that goal of delivering a healthy baby. So disconcerting, after four years of trying for that same goal, but making absolutely no progress. (With an awesome detour 3 years in to adopt our Baby Bonsai, which made us joyful parents--but still no closer to successfully delivering anything.) Now, things just keep moving along. Everything looks good, or at least it did last time they checked.

I am just slightly on edge now because I am, for the first time, going the full four weeks between OB appointments like a normal pregnant lady. I've been on that schedule for awhile, but thanks to the first and second trimester screenings with the perinatologist, I've usually managed to go only 2 weeks without seeing or at least hearing my little one. I'm starting to get the appeal of an at-home doppler, though I'm restraining myself--I'm convinced I'd be bad at finding the heartbeat and would thus continually freak myself out for no reason. But now it's been two weeks since I saw my OB, and it will be another 2 weeks until I see her again, and I am finding myself itching for reassurance.

I worry that I'm not feeling my baby move more, at nearly 24 weeks along. I do feel flutters and somersaults and there have been a couple of distinct kicks--oh and on Sunday, I tap-tap-tapped on my belly twice and both times she tap-tap-tapped back! But I can't help wondering if I should be feeling more. I assume I would feel more if I were thinner. My 45 pounds in 4 years of TTC weight gain gives me some extra padding for her to make herself felt through. Which is frustrating, since I gained all that from all the hormones and treatments and disappointments of trying to get to her, and now that I have her, it's making it harder for her to make herself known. I am eager to be able to start doing kick counts (hopefully at 26 weeks), as they'll provide me reassurance or if not, a reason to demand an immediate trip to the doctor.

I am so thrilled to have made it this far, but I feel like there are still so many hurdles to clear. I know way too much about what can go wrong, and even though things have been perfect so far (except for that bleeding scare at 5.5 weeks--which I'm now convinced was a vanishing twin), I guess after everything we've been through, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Mostly, I feel confident that everything will be fine. But I was also confident that we would have no trouble getting pregnant in the first place, so I kind of have to question my instincts on these matters.

But overall, I am proceeding as though I were a normal pregnant lady. I'm almost exclusively wearing maternity clothes (purchased mostly online at Old Na.vy, following two awkward trips to the mall maternity store). I'm really showing now, though I still feel like it looks kind of questionable whether I'm pregnant or just fat (Spruce assures me that that protruding belly is clearly a baby bump). I chatter with the three other pregnant ladies in Bonsai's playgroup about our due dates and how to handle toddler plus baby in a few months (and oh, thank God I'm pregnant too--with so many pregnant women filling our playgroup these days, I'd have to quit if I weren't). I even threw a baby "sprinkle" for a friend on Saturday--the first baby shower I've thrown since we've been TTC, which is kind of funny since the only other one I've thrown was for this same friend, five years ago, shortly before we started trying. It was wonderful to be able to do this for her, especially after the multiple miscarriages and secondary infertility she's suffered trying to get to baby #2, but if I weren't pregnant, I don't think I could have done it. Especially since another of her friends was pregnant and the three of us spent most of the party talking about delivery and baby gear and breastfeeding. Yeah, I couldn't have handled that if I still weren't pregnant.

But, miraculously, I am. I get to talk about those things now. I need to sign up for classes at the hospital where I will be delivering, and maybe a full-on childbirth class too. I should really be doing prenatal yoga as well--I found a class that looks great but haven't gotten it together to actually attend. I have to shop for a big-boy bed for Bonsai and transition him to his big-boy room so his baby sister can have the nursery. Which means I need to clear out pretty much every closet in our house now that we'll be moving all our rooms around, and I'm still pretty darn exhausted and getting increasingly uncomfortable with this big belly--not complaining; I'm thrilled that prepping for baby while chasing my toddler and coping with pregnancy symptoms is a "problem" I get to have. I need to potty train Bonsai (he's so eager to get started!), and finish transitioning him off of the bottle (he's used sippies for ages, but mostly for water and recently juice--he will drink milk from them but really feels he's entitled to the bottle--but at least now we're down to one bottle a day, so we're getting there). And I need to somehow figure out a way to get work done when Bonsai needs so much from me right now, and this pregnancy is taking so much out of me, and there's so much to do around the house, because if I can't manage to write at least sometimes now, how will I ever manage it with a newborn and a two-and-a-half-year-old? But again, overjoyed that this is what I have to worry about, overwhelming as it can sometimes feel. It's so much better than the paralyzing fear of never becoming parents, which wasn't exactly conducive to creative writing either.

I'm sorry this turned into such a pregnancy post--I don't want to lose any of my infertile readers out there because I am and always will be one of you. I am struggling with the fact that I am unequivocally infertile (as in, literally unable to reproduce without a third-party contribution), and yet appear to be fertile by the simple fact of being pregnant. As I told my therapist today, it feels very weird to feel normal. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that, after four years of betraying me, my body is doing exactly what it should. It truly is a miracle, and I marvel at it pretty much every constantly. I only hope the normalcy continues, though I don't think I'll ever completely get used to it.

Counting Our Blessings

2011-05-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I was perusing the list of waiting families at our old adoption agency, checking to see whether some friends who are starting up the process for adoption #2 had gone live yet (they haven't). I clicked through all the pages, scanning the names, until I came to a photo that stopped me cold. I was sure it was this fabulous couple we had met at our agency's weekend intensive, two and a half years ago. I felt disconnected from most of the couples at that event--I was only 28, and they seemed so much older than me, many of them on their second marriages. When one woman said, "Who would have thought 5 years ago that we would be here?" I thought, who indeed? Five years before that day I was 23, certainly not ready for kids (though already married a year), certainly never suspecting that we would have problems once I was. But this one couple was only a couple of years older than Spruce (who is himself 3 years older than me). They seemed much more like our peers. The woman was funny, and reminded me of one of our closest friends in LA. They were both actors, like so many of our friends. She was bubbly, making friends with everyone in the group, even as I held back. I wanted us to become friends. Another couple, around our age, adopting in LA at the same time--it seemed perfect. But I lost her email address. And it wasn't until months later, after we were both active with the agency, that I looked up their info through their adoption website and reached out. I never heard back. No reason she should have been as taken with me as I was with her, given how shell-shocked I was at that session. I was thrilled to be moving forward with adoption, and yet, seeing the other couples in the same boat as us made me feel so strongly the unfairness that I should be, already, so very infertile.

This woman and her husband went live with our adoption agency before we did (basically, they finished their paperwork, birthmother letter, and website before we did). I was jealous, anxious that we were falling behind by not completing ours more quickly. It took us about 5 months to get everything done, and I very much wished we had been faster. I frequently checked out our "competition" amongst the other waiting families, guessing at who a prospective birthmother might choose over us. I was convinced that this couple we'd met was amongst our primary competition.

But then, three months after going active (which was when our letter could start being submitted to birthmothers who inquired, or they could find our website thru our agency's), we got the call from Bonsai's birthmom. Four days later, he was born, and eight days after that, after a brief stay in the NICU, he was home. Our wait was shorter than I had dared to hope it could be. I was active on our agency's adoption forums for awhile after that, and we went to monthly support groups required by our agency as post-placement visits, and so I checked regularly on the status of other waiting parents we knew. This couple was still waiting, months after Bonsai came home. I couldn't believe it--they were such a catch! Still, I knew it had happened awfully fast for us, and they were still within the average 6-18 month wait time our agency quoted. After we finalized our adoption in March 2010, I stopped checking the forums or agency website, stopped attending the support group or agency events. Overjoyed as we always will be that they helped us find our son, a falling-out with our adoption counselor made me want to avoid anything having to do with the agency.

So when I clicked through to this couple's website this past weekend and confirmed that yes, they were the ones we had met two and a half years earlier, I was shaken. Bonsai just turned two, and they are still waiting. They are this amazing couple, and they are still waiting. And it hit me, how easily that could have been us. Bonsai's birthmom didn't have to pick us (though I do believe we were destined to be family, so in a way I guess she did). Although I never believed we would have a long wait, it could have happened. It happened to them. Tears sprung to my eyes and I called Spruce to tell him about it, though predictably, he wasn't terribly distraught by the situation of this couple we'd met only once. But oh, it reminded me of how very lucky we are. To have had these past two years as Bonsai's mom and dad, instead of two more years of waiting to become parents. To have another baby on the way via egg donation--to be able to give Bonsai a sibling, which can so often be out of reach for those of us who struggle.

We have lost a lot in our infertility journey, we have struggled a lot, we have been so much unluckier than most of our friends and family. And yet, look what we have gained--our wonderful Bonsai, this baby growing inside me now, neither of whom would have been part of our family if not for our troubles, neither of whom I can imagine our life without. And how lucky are we, to have had a quick and successful adoption, and then a BFP on our first DE cycle? It scares me a little, after three years of bad baby luck, like maybe it means I should be more cautious about this pregnancy--but here I am, at 19w5d, almost halfway through and with everything looking great, and mostly, I am not worried. Sometimes I think I should be more concerned, with all I know, but I just don't feel it, and I'm grateful that I've mostly been able to revel in finally being the pregnant girl.

And as for this other couple--I won't be able to stop thinking about them, checking up on their journey. I will be hoping that their baby finds them soon. I only met them once, but they were the kind of people who you instantly know will make fantastic parents. Just like so many of you who I've never met, but have only read, who are still waiting too. Sure, things could have been easier for us too, but they could also have been so much harder. Here's me, remembering to feel very, very blessed.

All of My Cousins Are Pregnant (Again)

2011-05-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

A year and a half ago, I wrote this post. And now, both of the cousins who were pregnant then are pregnant again. (Oh and this cousin had her baby, and immediately got her tubes tied to avoid any more. Now she is trying to figure out how to leave the deadbeat father of all three of her kids.) One of my pregnant cousins (let's call her Maple) is due with her third in three years in August. The other texted today to announce that she is due with her second in December (when her first will be 18 months). Oh, and she's about 8 weeks along now, and she went ahead and announced to the entire extended family--which shows remarkable restraint I guess, given that she was all of 5 weeks when she told everyone the news last time. I waited to tell the family until 13 weeks, end of the first trimester, partly in hopes that my example would help my cousins learn the appropriate time to share such news (ok, I knew there was no hope of that. But I wanted to do things right anyway). Instead, it must look to the family like there was reason to worry those first 13 weeks, since the norm in our family is to announce instantly. Everyone keeps asking if things are okay now, if my past issues will impact this pregnancy. But my problem was always getting pregnant--I never really got an opportunity to try to stay pregnant. There's no reason I shouldn't have been able to. I just needed someone else's eggs to get that chance.

Oh, and while texting with my cousin today, I mentioned that we have 7 fro-yos, and thus prospects for lots more babies (though of course there are no guarantees). She then asked if they were with my own eggs. Because you see, this cousin is Violet, who I asked a year ago to donate her eggs to me in a last-ditch effort to have some genetic tie to at least one of my children. She said no, as did her sister Poppy, which actually turned out to be for the best--going through this experience with Laurel was so wonderful, and I know it would have been much more stressful and much less joyous with either of my cousins. Plus I am pregnant with an amazing baby who would not be growing in my ute right now if things had gone differently. And the bonds of sisterhood that I originally thought might be formed with my cousins through the donation process were forged instead with Laurel, who like me is an only child, who needed a sister as much as I did. We have been best friends for over half our lives, but this has bound us together forever in such a tangible way, and I love it.

Anyway, I ignored that part of my cousin's text. I understand why she would ask, given how much I shared in the hopes of getting her help. But since she chose not to be involved, I feel like it's no longer her business. Our plan is still to always be open within our immediate family but let the child(ren) decide for him/her/themselves who to tell when they're older. And yet, my thought has been that if someone was bold enough to ask me directly, I would tell--I am not ashamed that we use donor eggs; I am extremely proud of Laurel's part in making this baby possible, but I don't want the judgement that we are likely to get from some of my hyper-religious relatives. But because Violet asked via text, I could just avoid the issue for now. I guess I'll need to do some more thinking about how I want to handle the question, should it come up again.

I am just so stunned at the extreme fertility of my cousins. Violet tried for her first for just three months, and the second is a surprise. Maple has never prevented, due to her husband's opposition to birth control, but wasn't going for any of her three, either. And the third (who we'll call Myrtle) got pregnant all three times completely by accident. How is it that my whole family is so very fertile and I am so very not? (My mom is one of 6 kids, so I always assumed I'd get some of those fertile genes too.) I guess the odds were that out of the 10 of us cousins, at least one of us would be infertile. The jury is still out on the six who haven't tried yet, but I am definitely the designated infertile so far. At least this time, I am due right in between my super-fertile cousins. I can't imagine how devastated I would be right now if I weren't (wait, yes I can, since this exact situation happened a year & a half ago--geez, how are they both pregnant again?!). It does make it much easier to deal with, but still, Violet's news hurt. As I suspected, finally being pregnant cannot remove the sting of hearing about easy pregnancies, not after everything we went through to get here.

So yes, I am extremely grateful to be one of the pregnant cousins this time, but really? Couldn't they have taken just a little break from all the breeding? At Christmas this year, instead of just my new baby to celebrate, there will be three. Now I'm just waiting for a pregnancy announcement from my cousin Poppy, who got married two weeks ago. You know it can't be far off, not in the world of ultra-fertileness that my cousins all seem to inhabit. And she's about to turn 27, so you know, she really ought to get moving. Which is another thing that terrifies me--they all have so very many years of fertility left. My reproductive years were over before they ever really began--troubled at 26 when we started trying, fully kaput by the time I was 30. But Violet will have two kids at 30, Maple will have 3 at 28, Myrtle had 3 at 28 too but then chose to terminate her own fertility. But the other two, and the six who are still question marks--they could be ambushing me with pregnancy announcements for another decade or more. And with neither Violet nor Maple ever planning to prevent, there will likely be many, many more pregnancies for them to announce.

At least I will have two at 31, my fantastic Bonsai and the precious baby I'm carrying now (who, since just before our Valentine's weekend scare, I've been privately calling Valentine). At least I have 7 fro-yos waiting in the wings to help us have more babies. At least we know, thanks to Bonsai, the wonderful gift of adoption, and long to add to our family that way again. Things could certainly be so much worse. We will have a big brood just like my fertile cousins, though perhaps not QUITE as large (we're aiming for 6, while their upper limits are apparently nonexistent, the cost of raising kids on a single salary from Star.bucks or a graduate assistantship be damned). And of course, not just like theirs, either. Ours will be nontraditional, multicultural, the beautiful fruits of much struggle and heartache. Quite simply, it will be perfect. Despite all I have lost, I believe that. I am in love with the babies we have been blessed with, Bonsai and Valentine and the fro-yos that are waiting for us, and another baby I believe we are meant to adopt one day, too. I love our babies, present and future, too much to want anything besides what we have. Nice as getting pregnant easily would have been, it was not in the cards. What was are the most amazing blessings--Bonsai and Valentine and all the others yet to be. It isn't fair that it was this hard, or that for my cousins, it's so very easy. The struggles will always hurt, the scars will never fully heal. But they've brought us to the babies we were meant to have, and for that, ultimately, I can feel only joy.

How We Got Here

2011-04-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

When I called my grandpa to tell him I was pregnant, the first thing he said was, "How'd that happen?" You see, although I have never discussed our struggles to conceive with my grandpa (except once, when I asked him to help fund our adoption, which he declined so he could fund worthy projects like his wife's liposuction, but whatever), my mom has told him plenty about what we've been through. When I've asked her to stop, she explains that she always tells him everything. And even though this is my private information, not hers, and I don't feel super comfortable with my grandpa knowing lots of details about my uterus and ovaries, she can't stop herself from sharing. Which is a big part of the reason I haven't actually shared a lot of details with her.

So I wasn't offended by my grandpa's comment. He wasn't wrong. It was virtually impossible. Without Laurel's generous gift of her eggs, our odds of ever conceiving would be hovering right around zero. So I told him, "It wasn't easy," and "It took a lot of medical treatments." So I WAS surprised at what he said next.

"Well, they say that after you adopt, you get pregnant." As if I hadn't just told him that we'd required advanced reproductive intervention to get to this point. I didn't just "get pregnant!" That isn't within the realm of possibility for me. After 4.5 years of infertility, 3.5 of those under an RE's care, and two of those after Bonsai came home, I am, miraculously, pregnant. But it has nothing to do with our adoption. It has everything to do with Laurel's phenomenal eggs, a gifted RE, and even with those factors, the mystery & miracle of fertilization despite Spruce's borderline sperm, and then implantation, and an embryo that managed to stick around.

And yet, the "just adopt and you'll get pregnant" myth persists. True, my family doesn't know about the donor eggs, but they do know about the 4.5 years of struggle, and the loss three years ago. And I'm open about needing IVF to get here (while our children will know Laurel contributed her eggs, because of a strong hyper-religious judgey strain in my family, I want them to have the choice of whether to share that information with our relatives once they are older). But when we were back in the Midwest for a family wedding last week, people just kept repeating versions of my grandpa's words. "That's what always happens! People adopt, and then they get pregnant!" Which isn't true, not at all. Only about 5% of couples who adopt after infertility will go on to have a successful pregnancy, and I have to wonder, given my situation, how many of those pregnancies are due to donor gametes or embryos.

And let me say, much as I wanted to experience pregnancy, we didn't go the donor route because adoption wasn't enough for us. I hope so much that another adoption will be part of our family's story. But my RE recommended pregnancy and breastfeeding as the best treatment for my endometriosis and the hormonal imbalance of premature ovarian failure. Ironic, since the POF in particular made it unlikely that I could ever get pregnant. Hence, donor eggs. If not for the medical reasons, we would be in the process of adopting #2 instead of me gestating a baby right now. And that would have been wonderful too. Adoption is no second chocie. It is a path that we considered carefully and felt was the right choice for our family. We were proved right when our son arrived--he was our family, the child we were meant to have, and only open adoption could have brought him into our lives. We did hope even then that I would get pregnant--POF wasn't officially declared until just before Bonsai's first birthday--but we wanted parenthood most. Domestic open adoption was the route we chose to becoming parents. It wasn't a means to an end, as this myth would suggest. Bonsai was and is our dream come true.

Because I now appear to be proof of the "adopt and you'll get pregnant myth," I felt compelled to bust this one, in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, and of all the other moms though adoption out there who constantly hear their adoption journeys reduced to a misguided infertility cure. Adoption is a blessing, no less a miracle than any other way of becoming parents. And part of acknowledging that truth is laying myths like this to rest.

To learn more about infertility, visit http://www.resolve.org/infertility101. For more information on National Infertility Awareness Week, please visit http://www.resolve.org/takecharge.

Mythbusting

2011-04-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

When I first joined (and very shortly thereafter, became president of) my local mommy club, I was constantly sharing our adoption story. Most of the moms were very receptive and supportive, and I've only stopped talking about it QUITE so much in this group because I realized that many of my new mom friends have heard the details quite a few times now and maybe don't need to re-hear it every time someone new joins up. Also, maybe because we are now two years into parenting, over a year past finalization, instead of a month past finally finalizing as we were when I joined, the fact of our adoption isn't as front and center in my mind these days. Not that I ever go a day without thinking of Bonsai's wonderful birthfamily, not that I ever forget about the miraculous way he came into our lives, but parenting is often so all-consuming that I find myself, these days, more focused on being his mom than on our cherished story of how that came to be.

But in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, I wanted to bust a myth about adoption. It's one that I knew was out there, but was shocked by once more when sharing our story with a prospective member. We'd been really clicking--our boys were the same age, she was fun to talk to--and so although we'd just met, I found myself opening up. I said something about how people worry about attachment and bonding with adoption, but that since becoming Bonsai's mama, I know I couldn't love any child more than I love my darling boy, no matter how that child came to me.

And she replied, "Well, but you don't know, do you?" Because I don't have biological children, I apparently can't accurately measure how much I love my son, can't claim to love him every bit as much as she loves hers. I didn't know what to say, so I let myself get swept into a conversation with another mom instead. When the prospective member joined a different chapter rather than ours, I wasn't too sad.

I don't think it's reasonable for anyone to try to measure how much they love their child versus how much someone else loves theirs. I would never have thought to question the depth and genuineness of that mom's love for her boy. But because my son joined our family through adoption, I didn't get the same assumption of closeness from her. Mine needed to be proved. And that's the myth I want to bust: that adopted children aren't really our "own" children.

This has come up many times since we announced our decision to adopt. There was my mother-in-law, who asked if I was sure about adopting, if I wouldn't rather have one of my own and why didn't we just try IVF? As if we hadn't carefully considered our choice, as if we hadn't undergone two and a half years of infertility treatments at that points, including one loss after IVF (which she still doesn't know about, though the rest of our families do, so I guess we do get some of the blame since we've chosen to keep her in the dark). I explained to her how difficult IVF is and how there are still no guarantees (she was surprised--apparently she believed the "just do IVF and you'll get a baby" myth), and that while we were still pursuing treatment, what we most wanted was to be parents, and we felt that adoption was the right path for our family. I don't think we would have ended up adopting if we'd been fertile. It just wouldn't have come up. But I'm glad we chose to adopt while we still had treatment options. I never wanted adoption to be our last resort (though with as draining as it is to pursue either IF treatments or adoption, I totally get why lots of people choose to do only one at a time!) As awful as the three years of IF were before Bonsai came home, I wouldn't change them for anything. I couldn't. Because without them, every awful step of the way, we wouldn't have ended up at exactly the right place and time to become Bonsai's parents. He is our son, and any path that didn't lead to him wasn't the one we were meant to be on.

Then there was my great-aunt, an adoptive mom herself, who upon meeting Bonsai, asked if he was ours, or adopted (I explained that he was both). People ask all the time how old he was when we got him, and seem unable to hear or understand when I say "Two minutes after he was born." We fell in love with him with the ferocity of any happy new parents, we devoted ourselves completely to his care. I did not carry him in my body, but not a day has passed in the past two years that I haven't carried him in my arms; not a moment has passed when I haven't carried him in my heart. Every night, after Bonsai is in bed, Spruce and I lie in our bed talking about the sweet and funny things our boy did that day and exclaiming over how much we love him. Every day, Bonsai periodically shouts out, "Mommy! Daddy!" taking inventory of his favorite people, and grinning at us when we point out that we're right there (though the saddest thing is on weekdays when I say, "No, Daddy's at work," and Bonsai responds, "Daddy no." Heartbreaking!). He is ours, and we are his. The formation of our family may have been a little different from others', but the fact of our family, and of the love that binds us together, is exactly the same.

Now that I am pregnant, and our family and most of our friends don't know that this miracle is thanks to donor eggs, I am constantly evaluating their enthusiasm about this baby, anxious that our relatives especially will be more excited about a biological child than they were about Bonsai. I think mostly they are just excited that this time, they have some advance notice (since we found out about Bonsai just 4 days before he was born, and 3 months after we became waiting adoptive parents, no one had much time to prepare). And I am constantly emphasizing that Bonsai will be a wonderful big brother to remind anyone who might think otherwise of his extremely important place in our family. He will always be our first child, the one who made us parents.

The myth of your child not being your "own" also applies to the use of donor gametes, and I guess part of the reason I want to keep that part of our journey quiet is that I don't want people saying that the baby I'm carrying isn't really mine, or is more Spruce's than mine since it has his DNA. But let me be really clear: however our children come to us, they are our own. Love is not about genetics--I love my husband more than any other person in the world (except Bonsai--I think it's a tie), but luckily, we have no genetic ties to each other. My favorite grandparent was technically a stepgrandma (who passed away last year), and though we weren't related, she helped raise me, and I loved her more than most people with whom I share genes. And my best friend and egg donor Laurel is not a relative either, but there's no one in my life more like a sister to only-child me than she is. We are family by choice--each of these three, some of the most important people who have ever been in my life--chose to bind themselves to me, and I to them. Genetic relatives have no choice but to be part of your family, but mere DNA doesn't guarantee closeness.

I will love all of my children immeasurably much simply because I am their mom. As their parents, Spruce and I are the ones in their lives who will always love them unconditionally and completely, the ones entrusted with their care and upbringing, with the sacred task of helping them become the people they are meant to be. I will have a biological but not a genetic tie to the child I carry now; Spruce shares genes with him or her; neither of us shares genes or biology with Bonsai. But we share everything else. As Laurel pointed out, all us humans are about 99% genetically identical, so what's the big deal about genes, anyway? We are people, we are family, we are parents and children bound together by love. And that's no myth.

To learn more about infertility, visit: http://www.resolve.org/infertility101
For more information on National Infertility Awareness Week® (NIAW): http://www.resolve.org/takecharge

This is Open Adoption

2011-04-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

Bonsai has become quite the bookaholic lately, and as a lifelong avid reader, and an author of children's books myself, I couldn't be happier. He is constantly carrying books over to me and exclaiming, "boo! Peas!" (translation: "book, please"). We read each one and then he goes off to pull more from his shelf and bring them to me.

The other day, we were playing in his room, and he brought me a recordable storybook. I explained that this one would "read" itself, and he delighted in turning the pages and hearing a voice come out. Although he usually flips the pages too fast to give the whole recording time to play, he caught the highlights. He snuggled into my lap and we listened, together, to the words his birthmother had recorded for him.

It was precious. I love that he will always be able to hear her voice, even in the middle of the night when it would be inappropriate to call. It's funny hearing her voice over the baby monitor early in the morning when he has woken up but not yet demanded our attention, and pulls the book from his shelf to listen to it on his own. She gave him this book for Christmas, and I was so glad she did--I'd just read about this tyype of book as an idea for a gift from birthmother to child, and was delighted that she'd had the same idea. I know it will always mean a lot to him to have this keepsake. And I love that he can cuddle up with me as we both listen to his birthmother's voice. I love that i could snap a picture of him turning the pages and text it to her. To me, this was a moment that so perfectly encapsulated what is wonderful about open adoption, the love and sharing that go into the relationship and make it great. I'm so grateful for Bonsai and his birthfamily, so grateful that we all get to be family to each other.

My Story

2011-04-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

For the first few years of my struggle with infertility, I didn't identify myself as an infertile. It's only since finding this wonderful online ALI community that I've claimed it quite so openly. But recently, I got some criticism for acting like everything boils down to fertile vs. infertile. Even though it can often feel that way, it's not like I don't have fertile friends. As is the case for most of us I'm sure, most of my friends are fertile, and I'm happy for them that they are. I would never, ever wish what I've suffered, what so many of us have suffered, on anyone. It's not that I begrudge them their fertility, but it's hard, the extent to which people who have not traveled this path cannot understand how painful seemingly normal things can be--why it's hard to be faced with a pregnant belly, to hear about an accidental pregnancy, to attend a baby shower. It's not because we're not happy for the other person, but rather because it confronts us so sharply with what we don't have, what we may never have. I will never make a baby by having sex with my husband. I will never make a baby with my own eggs at all. And while I am so grateful for the incredible gift that my best friend gave me by donating these eggs, and for the pregnancy that this has made possible, I will always mourn the loss of the children I dreamed that Spruce and I would make together. Just as I am overjoyed with the beautiful open adoption that brought Bonsai into our lives, but will always bear the scars of the 4.5 years of endless, painful, and always unsuccessful infertility treatments.

It was mentioned to me recently that I should have gotten over it once we adopted. But adoption is not a cure for infertility. It's a cure for childlessness, and as such, it instantly made our lives infinitely better, because what we longed for most of all was to be parents, and we're so blessed to be parents to such an amazing little boy. But unlike friends and family who were able to conceive and give birth to their children, I had to deal with 5 months of legal complications (not from his birthfamily, but still stressful), and another five months of waiting until he was completely, legally ours, though he was in our hearts and in our home from birth. That's a lot different from birthing a child and bringing them home, and hard to deal with as a first-time parent, sleep-deprived and stressed anyway like any other new parent. Just as having to go through an involved medical, psychological, and legal screening process with my best friend so she could give me her eggs, and then both of us going through uncomfortable medical procedures and injections to get me pregnant, is a lot different from a fun night with the husband.

I've been told that I act like my struggles are worse than everyone else's and I sincerely hope I haven't given that impression, because I know we are extremely fortunate to have had a relatively quick adoption and a fantastic relationship with our son's birthfamily, and to have a friend willing to donate her eggs which luckily got me pregnant on our first try. Not to mention my awesome husband, our comfy home, and our careers, which we love. We are blessed in many ways, but like everyone, we have our burdens too. I know many have it much worse than us, and certainly not just in terms of infertility. Everyone has their own struggles, and to each person of course what they're coping with looms larger in their lives than what others face. I do think we also have it harder than some. The loss of the ability to reproduce is so fundamental to who we are as humans. Sure, many choose not to have kids, and I think that is absolutely the right choice if you don't absolutely want to be a parent, because raising kids ain't easy--but to have it not be a choice, to have it forced upon you due to a disease--that just plain sucks.

You know, I never actually intended for this to be an infertility blog. I started it as a new parent to Bonsai, and at first it was mostly about that, and our adoption post-placement process. But then I started treatment again, and I wanted to write about that because it was such a big part of what was going on in our family. And then, shortly after my 30th birthday, my eggs were declared defunct. It's terrifying to be told that you're essentially entering menopause at age 30, before ever getting to experience pregnancy as I'd so longed to do, and so I wrote about that because I needed to work through it. Writing is my profession, and it's how I work through things. That's one of the many reasons I prefer email to phone calls in many cases--I'm just better with the written word than the spoken. Laurel's eggs have enabled me to experience pregnancy at last, but nothing will ever revive my shriveled eggs or my long-lost fertility. That will always be a huge loss in my life. And no, I don't think I'll ever get over it. Not completely.

All I have wanted to do here is to share my story in hopes that it might help others--whether they are coping with infertility, pursuing adoption, or navigating parenthood--as others' stories have helped me i the long years of this journey. I have endeavored to offer support to others, and have been so grateful for the support I have received. I feel terrible thinking that anything I've ever written, out of my own pain and struggles, might have caused pain to others. I hope that it hasn't, and if it has, I hope you, dear readers, have understood that sometimes when I write from a place of abject suffering, I am perhaps not as delicate as I would wish to be. I try to always be sensitive, but this is also a space I use to vent and work through issues, and sometimes those efforts may be at cross-purposes. And if my writing here is me-centric--well, it is my story, my online journal, and I don't know how else to tell it. I am sad tonight because I recently lost a friend because something I wrote here months ago upset her. She never told me, and now it's too late to fix it. I hope not to hurt anyone else with my writing, but I guess that's the trouble with putting something out there--you can't control how it is received. All I can do is hope to be given the benefit of the doubt.

Normal

2011-04-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

Three days ago, I stopped taking baby aspirin. With the progesterone and estrogen already eliminated a few weeks ago, this leaves me taking only folic acid and prenatals--just like any normal pregnant lady. No elaborate protocols, no rows of pill bottles and vials and needles--just vitamins. It feels weird. I mean, it's good, but it's scary. Having made it through the past few weeks without hormones supplements, I guess I can believe my body is now handling thing on its own. But what if the baby aspirin was still staving off miscarriage? Since I'm not in my RE's care anymore, and my OB doesn't really understand why I was taking baby aspirin in the first place (my RE uses it for all IVF cycles), I'm not totally convinced that this latest change was duly medically sanctioned. I think I'm past the point where I need to worry so much (12 weeks, 2 days today!), but I don't think I'll ever completely stop. How could I?

Yesterday, I went for my first trimester screening. The NT scan was normal, and while we won't have the blood test results for a week, I'm not actually concerned about that. The ultrasound was pretty amazing. First of all, I was all ready to yank off my pants, but instead they just had me lie down, hike up my shirt a little, and smeared goo on my belly. My first abdominal ultrasound--another normal pregnant lady moment! I was all prepared for the three people who did it (the specialist OB, the sonographer, and her trainee)to be added to the long list of medical professionals who have seen my junk, but how cool that I didn't have to! The baby was facedown during the first scan, but by the time the OB came in, it had flipped completely over. I had no idea they moved around that much--I figured at this point, it would just be floating in place, waving its hands like last time we saw it (side note: can't wait till we find out the gender so I can stop calling the baby "it"). No wonder I'm still feeling queasy if it's doing flips in there! These ultrasounds were extra-thorough, featuring closeups of the profile and stomach and other real-person parts. I also got to hear the heartbeat for the first time--we'd only seen it before. It was awesome! I'm so sad that Spruce missed it, but he'll be at my regular OB appointment next week. I got him to stay home with Bonsai because our poor boy has an ear infection and pinkeye (thanks, preschool), and I didn't want him infecting any of the other pregnant ladies.

So yeah--while I'll always be a little cautious, I am feeling more and more like a legit pregnant lady. I thought I would always feel a little like a fake because I needed Laurel's eggs, but ever since those embryos were transferred, I've just felt like they're my babies. Which is as it should be. And between the nausea and exhaustion and insomnia, it's abundantly clear that it's me experiencing this pregnancy. And yet, Laurel is very involved--I update her and text her ultrasound pix after each appointment. It's fun getting to share my pregnancy with my best friend. And while we've told the parents, Spruce's siblings, and a fee friends that we're expecting, I think after our 13 week appointment on Thursday, we'll be ready to go wide with the news. Which is scary too, because what if something goes wrong after that? But my OB has assured my it should be smooth sailing from here, and while I know that's no guarantee, I have to believe, as she does, that things will be okay. And I'm also beyond excited to share our news with everyone, especially since most people know we've been trying for four years, so they'll be extra excited. And especially since, when we adopted Bonsai, we didn't get to share our news right away, since all the tribal clearance craziness delayed relinquishments by 5 months (I mean, we ended up announcing it before then anyway, but at first it was so awkward, having a baby at home but not being sure we could share the news). It's nice to be able to announce with more certainty this time--although I know it will never feel like a completely foregone conclusion. Yep, I'm starting to feel normal. And for me, that feels weird. But also, really, really good.

Needles

2011-03-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

When we moved from our condo to our house 3 1/2 years ago, I packed up the needles and leftover meds from my first IVF, and the next one that wasn't (it was downgraded to an IUI), and the third one that wasn't, either (we cancelled because the RE, my third at that clinic in less than a year thru no choice of my own, was frankly pure evil. Not even exaggerating.) I kept the Foll.istim in the bottom drawer of our refrigerator, certain I'd be cycling again soon. But I didn't. My FSH was higher than ever, so we focused on acupuncture and Chinese herbs and waited for things to improve. I gradually threw out the meds as they expired (there wasn't much left, so it's not so bad that I didn't think to donate them!). We moved on to pursuing adoption, and although we never gave up on trying, it would be a year and a half, a third fertility clinic, and a successful adoption before we did any fertility treatments again.

We then passed another year and a half on successful treatments before my ovaries were officially declared defunct. And still, I held onto my prodigious stash of needles. After all, they don't expire. And then, the online pharmacy didn't send enough needles, so I took inventory just in case they didn't ship more in time. The night of my donor/BFF Laurel's trigger shot, her boyfriend came to get me--brave soul (who had previously, and successfully, done IVF with his ex-wife) had volunteered to administer the big HCG shot. But Laurel was worried--the needle they'd given her didn't look big enough. How awesome is she that she sees a needle meant for her butt and worries it isn't big enough? Well, she was right. The pharmacy had sent two sets of the smaller needles intended for my HCG shot, which just went in the thigh. This was a potential catastrophe. The shot had to happen in the next 5 minutes. There was no way to get more needles. But my junky-esque collection saved the day. I briskly pawed through it and handed over the two needles needed for her shot, which I'd found the week before when I sorted my needle hoard. The shot proceeded as planned. Thanks to icing, she said it didn't even hurt.

And then, when my PIO shots got upped to twice a day, I turned to my old needles once more. I was short on the needles I needed, but sure my collection wouldn't help this time, since I didn't remember ever doing PIO before. But I had. There was a bag of needles, neatly labeled as being for that purpose. I had a lot of them left, since those embryos didn't make it very long. Plenty to get me through the rest of my PIO shots this time, saving me again from a frantic needle hunt (not as much fun as an Easter egg hunt, I can tell you from experience). But now, of course, I can never toss any of them. Who knows when I'll need them again. They saved this cycle twice, despite being leftover from a long-ago, doomed cycle. What if I need them again someday during a frozen embryo cycle? So there they sit, in our hall closet, all too ready to be discovered by one of our many houseguests. But I don't care. They are my security needles, so until I've finished every last treatment, that's where they'll stay.

What I'm Reading

2011-03-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

I am accidentally reading a novel about baby loss. It's Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and it's lovely, but devastating. The description said it was about a woman dealing with her difficult stepson, but from almost page one, it became clear that it was really about her coping with the death of her infant. I feel ambushed. I have only had one very early loss, but what that means is for me, the hurdle is getting pregnant and then staying pregnant for a reasonable period of time, until I get the all-clear. Which I now have. It is incomprehensible to me that I should still have to fear loss, either before or after the baby's birth, though of course I have read too many heartbreaking stories to truly believe it can't happen to me, still, I have to believe exactly that. I can't bear to live in constant fear, so I tell myself that having survived nearly five years of infertility and the loss of my own eggs, I am finally being cut a break. But if I really believe that, why did reading about a fictional memorial walk for fictional lost babies send me into a panic attack, gasping for breath and wracked by sobs?

For me, for many of us, the fear will always be there. The best I (we) can do is try to keep it at bay, to keep hope alive, all while maintaining some caution to protect us if it all goes wrong once more. And then there are people who don't even begin to appreciate what they've got. I've written before about this woman from my cousins' church who now has 12 children (the 11th was adopted and the rest are bio). Yesterday, I was making myself crazy by reading her blog, which one of my cousins called "the best read of the year.". It features such charming tidbits as her hope that adopting a little black baby would help her white family fit in better in their predominantly African-American neighborhood, or how disappointed she was when she learned that her 12th child might NOT have Down's Syndrome as the doctor had feared, because if he didn't (and he didn't), it would mean God didn't think she was a good enough mother to handle it, and she wanted to get to prove that she was. She actually wished that her child would have a severe disability so she could feel better about herself. I'm not even exaggerating--I visited her blog yesterday because I was sure I had made up the worst aspects in the month since I last read her blog. But no. And then I read a post where she railed against the "back to sleep" campaign, ranting that there was no proof that it helped prevent SIDS and that, in fact, there was nothing anyone could do to prevent SIDS because it really just meant they didn't know why a baby died. She persists in putting her children to sleep on their stomachs, insisting it will make them stronger, and luckily for her, she has never had to deal with the pain of losing any of them. But seriously--putting babies to sleep on their backs is safer. It is proven to save lives. And she senselessly puts her babies at risk, every night (she currently has 3 under 2, all singletons), because she disagrees with the oodles of scientific evidence. I thought of this today, because SIDS is what killed the baby in the book I'm reading.

And how is that fair? We infertiles (& many other moms too, of course) do absolutely everything we can to protect our babies, born and unborn and even purely hypothetical--I swore off caffeine and took prenatals daily for the first three years of TTC on the off chance that I might get pregnant. And women like this one (who I have met only once, and am so particularly bothered by for reasons that are mysterious even to me), never worries that she's doing something wrong and refers to herself as "supermom" simply because she has birthed an egregious number of babies. It makes me furious that I should lie here shaking, tears streaming down my face, as I hope desperately that all continues to go well with this pregnancy, now in its 11th week, with this baby we love so much already. And that people like her get to have 12 children with no trouble whatsoever (even their adoption was easy & quick!). I used to believe so strongly in fairness. Infertility has shown me how silly that is. But still I can't help railing against unfairness as glaring as this.

Ticker Tape

2011-03-22T12:06:00.000-07:00

After graduating, at long last, from my RE's office, I got excited and went a little nuts creating pregnancy tickers. (I did add them to this blog, but toward the bottom so you don't have to see them if you don't want to). Then of course I needed a birthday ticker for our son, who is, somehow, almost 2 years old. And then I found a TTC ticker. And I wanted one of those, too. I don't know if you've noticed, dear readers, but I mention a lot how long we've been trying--because it's been over 4 long years, because I started this blog after we adopted and so I want to be really clear on my IF street cred. So a ticker documenting all those years seemed perfect. Except--when faced with the words "we've been TTC for 4 years, 8 months," etc., I didn't know what to do. Because we aren't, for the first time in so long, TTC.

I'm pregnant, thanks to my best friend's eggs, and that's going quite well. But we will always be infertile. I've had high FSH since we first tested it when I was 27. Husband's had low sperm count since we first checked that when he was 30. And that first year of test-free trying, when I was a mere girl of 26? Yeah, well, no luck on the pregnancy front then either, so I think it's safe to assume our numbers were no bueno then too. Shortly after I turned 30 last year, I was officially declared to be in premature ovarian failure. My eggos have quit before they ever did me a bit of good. They aren't, unfortunately, going to magically regenerate. Subsequent pregnancies will be courtesy of our froyos, made with Laurel's eggs and Spruce's sperm. I will be blessed to carry them, as I am blessed to carry this little one right now, but I will never be fertile.

And then it struck me that I could have my ticker and be accurate, too. I changed it to read "we've been living with infertility for 4 years, 8 months," etc. Accurate, sure, but then it started to kind of freak me out. Do I keep counting, then, from the date we started trying and onward foe the rest of our lives? Can I stop counting once our family is finally complete, though that will likely be 5 or more years hence? Or once I'm done with pregnancy, at least? We plan to try with all of our 7 froyos over the next several years and then, assuming our kid total at that point is 5 or fewer, we'll finish having kids the way we started--with an adoption (if fewer froyos work out, that just means we get to adopt more kiddos!) So yeah, we're looking at having 6 kids, just like my Catholic grandparents. Except, you know, not at all like them, what with the interracial adoptions and egg donor and all. If all continues to go well, we'll have the first two by Oct.

I guess the question is, while I'll always be infertile, will I ever get to stop feeling like one? I hope the answer is yes, once the treatments are all complete, once I'm no longer caught in the cycle of waiting and wishing and wondering and suffering, though I know I will always feel a pang at easy or accidental pregnancies, will never feel at home at baby showers or other roomfuls of fertiles. But even in these two years of being Bonsai's mom, the pain of infertility has lessened. Even as I faced the loss, forever & completely, of my fertility, of any genetic connection to any of my children, I wasn't heartbroken in the way I suspect I would have been pre-Bonsai. Because raising a toddler is pretty all-consuming, and fills so much of the space I used to devote to obsessing over and lamenting my infertility. I can only imagine that one day, with a houseful of kids, all of whom came to us through nontraditional routes and every one of whom will be utterly treasured, I won't feel infertile so much as I'll just feel like a mom. By then, I hope most of my friends and same-generation relatives will be finished with their family-building, and the pregnancy announcement ambushes will be minimal. There will always be reminders, there will always be pain. But, thanks the dual miracles in my life of open adoption and donor eggs, there will be plenty of babies, too.

Graduation Day

2011-03-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

Today was my very last appointment at my RE (well, my last until, you know, our FET in about 19 months)/ It was surprisingly emotional. First, I had a blood draw with my favorite nurse--the only one who doesn't brutalize my poor tiny, hard-to-find veins. Next was the ultrasound, and OMG, there was the baby waving its little hands! It's crazy--I had an ultrasound on Fri. at my OB's (even though I hadn't been released from my RE yet, he wanted me to go ahead and see her), and you couldn't really make out head or limbs yet. By today, they were so clear--it was amazing! Spruce and I both teared up a little at that. My RE was so happy, he declared this my graduation day. I'll be tapering off the progesterone and estrogen over the next few days. I am now officially not a fertility patient--I'm just another pregnant lady. I can't believe I'm finally here.

Once I had my pants back on, I met my RE at the front desk, where he gave me a hug and congratulated us again. I told him I'll miss him. I will, though I'm also extremely glad not to need him anymore, for this pregnancy at least. Next my favorite nurse came up and said she'd heard I was leaving. She hugged me and congratulated my too, and she was a little choked up--I was, too. Finally, the receptionist, the woman who made my very first appointment at this office a year and a half ago, gave me a parting gift--a nicely packaged box that held a baby blanket, bib, and spoon. Yes, they were all emblazoned with an "HRC Loves Me" slogan, and yes, we've given them so much money that I'd hope we deserve some presents, but it was still so sweet that this, too, got me misty-eyed. Of course a lot of the emotion was overflow from the thrill of seeing our baby moving around just moments before, but also, these are people I've seen at least once a month (& much more these past couple months) for a year and a half. I know they're truly happy for us that we've finally gotten our miracle. They all urged us to send pictures and birth announcements and Christmas cards once the baby arrives. And wow, it was exciting to know that these infertility experts were all confident that the baby we saw waving today will be out in the world in 7 months. I mean, I've been feeling pretty good since we saw the heartbeat for the first time 3 weeks ago, and since the OB said it all looked great and we could go ahead and tell whoever we wanted last week, but this felt official. This is really happening. In 7 months, Bonsai will be a big brother.

In other news, we told the parents and my littlest brother-in-law on Fri. that we're pregnant, and they're all, of course, ecstatic. Actually haven't gotten ahold of my dad yet, and I'm feeling bad that my mom got the news days ahead of him. Divorced parents, or at least my divorced parents, get very competitive over that sort of thing. Hopefully he'll call me back soon! Now all the siblings know, although I haven't told my stepsibs yet. Of course, they've only been my stepsiblings for 2 years now. Also, my stepbrother has lots of mental issues and I don't really have any contact info for him, except FB, which is not how I want to share this news at this point. He's also freaking me out right now because he keeps calling his new girlfriend's son his son and saying he's adopted the kid--yeah, just saying it isn't the same thing as going thru the whole legal process. I should know. And they've only been together for 4 months. I just think it's really dangerous for them to be encouraging that poor kid to call him "dad" when it's a completely unstable situation. As for my stepsis, I just figured out that she told me they were expecting #2 when she was exactly 4 weeks along, because you know, that's when it's appropriate to announce it. So I kind of want to wait till the end of the first trimester to tell her, just to demonstrate the right way to do it. Not that it matters since they're finished having kids, and maybe I'll tell her sooner just so my mom can talk to her about it and hopefully not leak the news to the rest of the family. It's fun to start telling people, and the great reactions make me want to keep telling, but I'm still trying to be sensible and cautious. I know better than to let my excitement get the better of me at only 9w5d. Even though it really does seem like everything will actually be okay.

Progesterone

2011-03-07T16:33:00.000-08:00

I've been enduring daily progesterone shots in the butt for almost a month now, but I've just gotten a reprieve. I've developed some unsightly (and uncomfortable!) welts on my rear, and the doc says I can do Cri.none twice a day for the next week instead (I'd been doing a shot in the morning and a Cri.none at night). Now,those are no great thrill either, but they're a he'll of a lot better than starting my day with a shot in the ass. Spruce literally wakes me up in the morning to give me the shot before he leaves for work (he either has to leave before Bonsai wakes up, or does the kiddo's breakfast himself so I can rest more, sweet man!). It doesn't really set the right tone for the day.

But then, of course, I'm freaked out that I'll have less progesterone in my system. We had to add the PIO because my progesterone levels were too low with the Cri.none alone. Yes, now I'm almost 9 weeks in instead of just over 5 as I was when that issue reared its scary head. My progesterone levels have been good at the last few appointments. But of course, despite my current difficulty in sitting or lying down, I'm reluctant to change anything, since things are actually going well. But I do trust my RE, and he seemed to think it was no problem to, as he put it, "give your butt a rest." He's a funny guy.

In other news, I have my first OB appointment this Fri! I still have at least one more appointment with my RE (at 9w5d) but he said I should go ahead and see the OB before the official handoff. I'm excited because I feel like I can ask her more about managing morning sickness and fatigue and resuming exercise and sex than I can with my RE. He's great, but his focus, understandably, is on getting me pregnant, not so much my lifestyle now that I am (I have some guidelines from him that I've been following, but am eager as usual to ask more questions). I was actually supposed to go to the OB last Friday but completely forgot--and they totally didn't mind, attributing it to pregnancy brain! I find that excuse deeply irritating in general, but was kind of excited to finally get to use it myself (I probably still wouldn't choose to use it on my own, though).

I have been feeling really scattered, mostly because I'm too fatigued to manage much beyond the basic tasks of feeding, changing, playing with, and running naptime/bedtime for Bonsai. Oh yeah, and finding something to eat myself, even though I still find almost everything unappealing, if not actively repulsive. It makes me nuts, feeling like I can't take care of anything, but I figure taking care of this growing baby, my toddler, and myself is enough for now. I have high hopes for the second trimester, but for now, my writing and reorganizing the house can wait.

8 weeks

2011-03-03T12:40:00.000-08:00

Actually, 8w1d now. Somehow that sounds so much more official than previous week marks. We had another ultrasound Monday and the heartbeat was still strong. Monday I was 7w5d, and the baby was measuring exactly that--I appreciate its precision and attention to detail! My RE is really excited and talking about moving me over to the OB. I have one more RE appointment in 2 weeks and then I guess I'll be released. So crazy to think I'll be going to normal OB appointments just like any other pregnant lady.

Meanwhile, I feel like I'm locked in a battle with food. I feel nauseous all the time (no puking though--just constantly on the edge), but I'm hungry, too. It's just that nothing sounds good, and the effort of trying to figure out something that won't make me even sicker is completely overwhelming. It's ridiculous. Last night, Spruce was working late, so I laid on the couch, trying to work up the energy to make something for dinner. But when I faced down the refrigerator, the most I could handle was an apple and a piece of cheese. So pitiful! I never wanted to complain about my pregnancy symptoms if I was ever lucky enough to experience them (and I do feel incredibly lucky to be experiencing them!) but between the exhaustion and the nausea, I'm feeling completely useless. I can barely get out of bed (problematic, with a toddler to chase!), and I certainly can't muster the creative energy needed to work on my writing projects. Sure, I've done some work these past few weeks, but I seriously cant imagine how anyone works full-time while pregnant. So far, it's been awfully all-consuming. I have high hopes for the second trimester, though!

I am truly so thrilled to be at this point. I just hope everything continues on track. I'm even happy to be suffering with morning/all-day sickness, because it's a constant reminder that the baby is in there. I do miss having energy, but it has to come back sometime, right? Meanwhile, we're finally feeling ready to share the news with our parents. Bonsai has been patting my belly and saying "baby," which is so incredibly sweet! We're planning to make a video of it this weekend and send it to the parents with a note to call us as soon as they watch it. Can't wait to hear their reactions! Now if only we could figure out a way to stop my mom from instantly announcing it to the entire family...really want to wait till the end of the first trimester before going totally public. My mom is terrible with secrets, so I'm not holding my breath on that one. But hey, as long as everything keeps going well, it won't matter if the whole family knows. So here's hoping, again!

Raging Hormones

2011-02-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

I've spent the past week feeling overwhelmingly nauseous and exhausted, all while hosting my sister-in-law on her last visit before she's stationed in Japan for three years with her husband. Despite feeling like crap, I single-handedly put together her all-day 30th birthday celebration, culminating with a surprise party (not to toot my own horn or anything!). When she spent two days of her week here hanging out with friends and former colleagues instead of her nephew and me, I didn't complain--much as I'd been looking forward to her help with Bonsai since I feel so icky, and much as I wanted them to spend more time together since she is his godmother and is about to be so far away.

We ended up telling them I'm pregnant since my symptoms were pretty hard to conceal while they were staying at our house and I was freaking out at the smell of Spruce's dinner, napping in the middle of the day, and unable to eat anything but challah and oyster crackers. Since Pine is a Navy doc, I decided it would be cute to list my symptoms and ask for a diagnosis. He just looked worried, and then Holly said, "Wait, and you're NOT pregnant?" I replied, "Actually, yes, I am," and they were so excited, leaping up and hugging us both. It was the perfect reaction, and I'm glad we got to share the news before they left.

But tonight, I'm feeling particularly hormonal. I might not see my sister-in-law and brother-in-law (Spruce's oldest friend--so I've known him for 12 years, too) for three years. Of course we'd love to visit them in Japan, but with a toddler and another baby on the way, I just don't know if it will work out. So I was eager to spend as much time as possible with them before they left. But they decided last-minute to hit the road tonight instead of tomorrow (they're driving back to the Midwest and flying out from there), despite LA's torrential rains, so hangout time was cut short. Also due to the rain, Spruce and brother-in-law Crabapple couldn't meet for dinner till late, which meant Bonsai needed to go to bed before we could have met them. So the choices were for me to stay home with Bonsai while they all went out, or for us to all eat here.

Holly and Pine helped us rearrange some furniture today, which was awesome, but meant that everything was in disarray, so I was worried about having Crab and his random girlfriend over when the house was a wreck (not that he could say anything about our mess, but I don't like virtual strangers like that girl seeing my house at less than its best). But when I learned that Holly and Pine were leaving tonight, I rushed to straighten up (despite feeling faint and the fact that I'm not actually supposed to be moving stuff) so that we could have everyone over and spend a couple more hours together. Except then Pine said he really wanted to go to the restaurant they'd picked (even though it's Japanese food, and they're moving to Japan!) And Holly said she didn't care either way. So I said goodbye and once they left, called Spruce sobbing because they'd chosen a restaurant over me.

Now I'm just feeling desperately sad that this is the last memory I'll have of them, possibly for years--them not caring enough to want every bit of time with me they could get before they're gone, while I cleared the whole week to spend as much time with them as possible (not that I could've done much anyway with how sick I've been feeling, but I didn't know that when I made my plans!) Not to mention that I helped raise Holly, have been a big sister to her for 12 years, and helped make her relationship with Pine happen. I know this dinner is just a couple of hours. But it's the last few hours with them for a long time. I'll miss them both so much. And yes, maybe we can chalk up some of my angst tonight to these raging hormones. But I do wish I felt like they cared as much as I do about how far and how long they're about to be away.

Heartbeat

2011-02-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

We have a heartbeat! I had expected it to be just a little flicker today, at 6w1d, but it was an actual pulsing thing, just like any other heart. I'm growing a heart! (along with myriad other body parts). Now, my RE is excited. I go back in a week and a half instead of a week this time. He congratulated us, and Spruce finally allowed himself to get really excited too. He's been happy at each of the milestones so far, but I know that Valentine's Day bleeding really scared him. But the doc said everything looks good now. The bleeding may have been caused by some irritation to the placenta, but we shouldn't have any further issues with that. Man I hope he's right! He kept the ultrasound short to avoid any more irritation. Then he started talking about getting in touch with my OB since I'll be released to her in a few weeks! In the hall, the nurse asked if everything was okay. She sounded concerned. When I told her that we'd heard the heartbeat and showed her the picture of our perfectly growing little one, she lit up. It was suddenly a celebratory atmosphere, the most excitement I've encountered in my year and a half there. I guess it's really viable now. I'm so excited and relieved! Also, my endocrinologist says my thyroid looks good. So evetything's on track. Spruce and I couldn't be happier. Just wishin' and hopin' that all continues to look goos. And if Monday's scare is the only one this pregnancy, I'd be a big fan of that. Here's to an uneventful next 34 weeks!

Holding On

2011-02-16T11:42:00.000-08:00

I've wondered when I'll ever feel secure in this pregnancy, and the answer (for now, and possibly overall) is--not yet. I was feeling pretty great about it, perhaps more confident than I should have, when my body took the opportunity to knock me down a peg. First, there was the call on Thurs., notifying me that my progesterone was low, and the progesterone in oil shots in the butt would commence. Instead of 3 Cri.none a day, I'd start my day with a dose of PIO and end it with the progesterone gel. Ok, this made me nervous, because if my progesterone was too low, wouldn't that tell my ute to go ahead and shed its lining, and my baby with it? I could only hope we'd caught it in time.

Then Saturday night, two spots of blood appeared. Just two, but that was enough to freak me out. My levels were surely still too low, then. This couldn't be a good sign. Spruce paged my RE, who told us to do a higher does of PIO that night and continue that higher dose every morning. I was put back on bedrest, which meant our Valentine's Day plans were canceled. Instead of going out, Spruce picked up Italian food and we watched DVDs from Re.dbox. Not too bad, actually. And his gifts of flowers, Valentine's tea, and aquamarine necklace and earrings (because he read that the stone has protective properties for mom and baby--so cute!) were pretty awesome too. Sunday passed uneventfully, but Monday (Valentine's Day itself) started out looking awful.

I woke up with stomach cramps--I assumed from how backed up I'd been (sorry, TMI!)--a normal
pregnancy symptom from what I hear. I went to the bathroom and found on the toilet paper what seemed to me to be a lot of blood. I was terrified. I was certain it was over. Spruce was downstairs feeding Bonsai, and when he came back up I was still in the bathroom. He asked if I was okay, and I burst into tears. "No," I sobbed. "I'm bleeding, a lot. It's over." When I came out, he just held me, saying how sorry he was. We were already supposed to go in for an ultrasound that afternoon based on Saturday's scare, but I had him call back to see if we could come in earlier. He canceled all of his meetings so he could stay with me. I was miserable, certain that my body was so messed up it couldn't even carry a baby, the one thing it was required to do. It wasn't easy giving up on my eggs, but we did it, and I was so sure that would solve the problem. Suddenly, that no longer seemed certain at all.

At 1:30, we went to my RE's office for the ultrasound. I was already coming to terms
with it being over, even though the bleeding had stopped, and was never enough to fill even one pad. I'd already brought up starting the adoption process again, and Spruce said he'd look into the financials. And meanwhile, we had those 7 fro-yos. Next time, I figured, we'd go with higher progesterone supplements from the start. Surely that was the issue. But then--my doctor said the sac and yolk were still there. It had grown a lot since our Thurs. scan, too--at least four times the size. I was amazed--I'd been so prepared to see nothing. He said it still looked good. He said he was concerned by the bleeding, but not worried--whatever that distinction means. We're still going back tomorrow to hear the heartbeat. How I hope we get to hear it. How I hope that what looked like disaster will turn out to have been just a scare, just some first trimester bleeding like that in one-third of all pregnancies (thanks, Dr. Goo.gle!). The bleeding hasn't come back. All my pregnancy symptoms have continued. So I think I have reason to hope.

I felt hopeful after the appointment, but poor Spruce said he didn't want to get his hopes up yet. But yesterday, he talked to a coworker who has struggled with IF for years, and is due in 2 weeks. She told him she had bleeding twice in the first trimester--and her baby's fine. That made him realize that maybe it could be okay. I have to keep believing in us, in this baby. But we'll just have to see what tomorrow brings.

One

2011-02-10T13:35:00.000-08:00

We had our first pregnant ultrasound this morning, and we have one good-looking baby growing in there--well, one yolk sack, at this point. I always assumed we would have twins from IVF, but I've figured it was a singleton since we got our HCG numbers. And that's okay. I know it will be an easier pregnancy with a singleton, and of course I'm more than overjoyed to have even one baby growing inside me! Besides, with our 7 fro-yos, I figure we'll have twins on one of those FET rounds, when we go back to make some siblings. We have another ultrasound in a week to try to hear the heartbeat. So many more milestones to make it past before we are allowed to just feel good about this pregnancy. I keep wondering what it would be like to be a normal person, who peed on a stick, got the two lines, announced it to the world and blithely bounced through the first trimester with nary a checkup along the way. I can't really imagine what it would be like to be that unfettered, that naive. Still, I AM feeling good about this pregnancy. I just hope I'm right!

I went to my endocrinologist yesterday and had bloodwork done--going back next week to make sure the Hashimoto's thyroiditis is under control. I'm a little anxious about that since our coordinator had me stop the Syn.throid for the 8 days between transfer and first beta--no idea why she thought that was a good plan, but as soon as we had the positive I checked with the physician's assistant and she said I should get back on it. I'm just hoping that was soon enough. But I have to believe it will be okay.

I was thinking of telling my parents only after today's ultrasound confirmed things still looked good. But now I'm thinking I'll wait till after we hear the heartbeat, or maybe longer. I don't know when the right time to share the news will be. On the one hand, I'm so thrilled to finally have good news and can't wait to tell everyone, but on the other hand, I have such an urge to be cautious, to protect myself and them from possible bad news. It would suck, though, to never get to share our good news if something did go wrong. And I would want my parents at least to know if I suffered another loss. Then again, my mom hasn't been able to be particularly supportive of me in this struggle. She just doesn't understand. I don't know that I'm ready to share with her.

Yesterday, for instance, I complained to her about something my stepsister did. Last week, my stepsis (let's call her Hazel) gave birth to her second daughter, 6 weeks early just like Bonsai. My newest niece is in the NICU but doing well. I've been eagerly sharing stories of Bonsai's time in the NICU and how he went from a 4-pound preemie just like there's to the thriving boy they see today. But then Hazel emailed out photos of the new little one, and one was captioned, "Grandpa holds his second grandchild while calling Grandma." Except--Bonsai is that Grandpa (her dad's) second grandchild. New baby is his third. And I'd think that she was just forgetting about our newly blended family (our parents only got married a year and a half ago), except that the Grandma in question was my mom. I mentioned it to Hazel and she apologized profusely--but her explanation was, "I just forgot that Bonsai is also his grandchild!" Yeah, great, no problem--you just forgot my son existed, that he was part of your family. She forgot about her only nephew, all the while claiming my mom for herself and her daughters.

When I brought it up with my mom, she said I was overreacting (funny since my mom is the queen of overreaction), that it was just a mistake (yep, whoops, forgot about a relative! hey, it happens!). Of course I don't think Hazel did it on purpose. But the fact that Bonsai and I could just slip her mind is troubling when I've made such an effort to be welcoming, to treat her as family from day one. Of course I want to cut her slack because she just had a C-section and has a baby in the NICU. I know how stressful that is (well, the latter thing, anyway). I told her I completely understand But I'm still sad that we aren't important enough to remember in a moment like that. And it made me feel like Bonsai was being dismissed as not a "real" grandchild because he is adopted--although my kids would never have been biologically related to my stepdad, just as Hazel's daughters have no genetic tie to my mom. (Which my mom actually fed into--she said, "Well, I think Hazel was just counting biological grandchildren." Oh thanks, that helps!) And my stepsis is used to being the center of my stepdad's universe, and I think this is symptomatic of that (again, I recognize that she and her daughter deserve lots of attention right now, but that doesn't mean cutting other people out of your family tree!).

I also recognize that all these pregnancy hormones are making me a little over-sensitive. But then my mom made things even worse. She asked how I was handling all this baby news, and I said I was fine, why wouldn't I be? She said, "Because you want a second baby and you don't have one yet." Okay, but Hazel's kids are 3 1/2 years apart, and Bonsai's only 21 months (ours will be almost 2 1/2 years apart!). I am extremely competitive so I do tend to think that way (at least Hazel's 2 years older than me so I can feel on-track on that front!), but I don't think it's helpful for someone to feed into that! It also harks back to how my mom got the news of my first loss out of me--she was complaining that I hadn't helped out more over Christmas that year, and I told her she had no idea what I was going through right then. She said, "Yes I do--you're just upset that you're not pregnant yet." And then I burst out with the news that actually, I'd been suffering a miscarriage--something I wasn't ready to share with her when she forced it out of me. And she wonders why I don't share more with her about this journey!

In a way, I wanted to burst out with the pregnancy news yesterday so she would know that we do have a second on the way, just like we wanted (she thinks we are in the adoption process since we were talking about it before we started down the donor path, so she probably thinks we're just waiting when in fact we're holding off on that for now). But that's not how I always dreamed of finally telling her I'm pregnant. And besides, I didn't feel comfortable sharing any news with her, good or bad, when she was taking such an unsupportive stance. All I wanted her to say was, "Yeah, it wasn't cool of Hazel to do that. That was really weird and it bothered me too." But she couldn't give me that. I still don't know when I'll feel secure in sharing our good news with her or with anyone else in the family. I wish I could just announce it willy-nilly like my stepsister and cousins (btw, cousin #1 is pregnant with #3 with a 2yo daughter and 10-month-old son already), as though nothing could possibly go wrong. But I'll never be that innocent. I know better than that. So for now we'll keep it to ourselves (except for you, dear readers, and my old IF chatroom group who also knows). We'll clear a few more hurdles before we start making the announcement. But it isn't easy, when I want to shout it from the rooftops--after 4 1/2 years of trying, we are FINALLY PREGNANT!

Still Pregnant!

2011-02-03T16:59:00.000-08:00

Second beta at 9 this morning, followed by lots of anxious waiting until the call came in at 4pm. But, the good news continues--my HCG more than doubled, to 150, so they are happy and I am happy! Our first ultrasound is in one week, and then we'll find out how many bebes are in there!

In the meantime, I am officially cleared to start reading pregnancy books. I have this copy of What to Expect that I bought over four years ago, right before we started trying, because silly 26-year-old me thought I'd be pregnant in no time. Oops! They've come out with a 4th edition in the intervening years, but I've heard from lots of people lately that they don't love the book, so I think I'll just start with this one and pick up something else soon. Any recommendations?

It's fun, finally getting to use all these baby things I'd stashed away. On Tuesday, I greeted Spruce with a small green gift bag, in which, 3 years ago, I placed two onesies. One is pink and reads "I Was Worth the Wait." The other is blue and says "Daddy's Little Star." I retrieved the blue one for Bonsai's first Father's Day (when he was just 1 month old--it was way too big on my preemie boy!), but the pink one has just been waiting. But as it says, it was worth the wait. Three years ago, I packed that gift bag with all our other Christmas gifts and flew cross-country to my hometown, planning to give it to Spruce the day after Christmas when we got our positive beta. But the number was so low then, they told me it was likely over. So I waited for my second, hoping things would dramatically improve. When they didn't, I hid that bag in the bottom of our suitcase, flew back with it, and stuffed it in the closet in my office, where it has waited ever since. Spruce never even knew it was there. The bag, by now, was crumpled and split at the side, but I wanted him to finally get to open the bag I had prepared for him so long ago. For fun, I added the home pregnancy test I took once I had the beta results, just like I was a normal lady sharing the news. Of course I'd already told him, but it was exciting to get to finally make it official in the ways I had always planned. He was happy and touched, but I don't think he'll ever understand how much it meant to me to finally give him that gift.

I know there are so many things that can still go wrong, but to have come this far for the first time in 4 and a half years of trying is such a joy. I think we'll tell our parents after the ultrasound next week, and then start sharing the news from there, waiting of course for a FB announcement till the end of the first trimester. I had thought of telling my parents today once I got the second beta results, but this morning my stepsister had her second daughter, 6 weeks early (just like Bonsai!), so I think I'll leave this day to them. I'll feel more secure after the ultrasound, anyway. Thank you all for the good wishes! I feel so blessed to finally be here, and can only hope and pray that the good news train goes on for another 36 weeks.

BFP!

2011-02-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

I just got the call and I am officially PREGNANT!!! I was so hopeful and felt so sure, but I've felt that way before and was so terrified that it was just wishful thinking. But nope, this cycle's good news has continued! Of course as we all know, nothing's guaranteed yet, but I am so excited to have made it this far after all this time! I texted and called Spruce and Laurel but haven't gotten to talk to them yet. I was shaking and crying and couldn't stop smiling when I got off the phone with the doctor. My favorite part of that phone call is how she told me--"We did it," she said. That's right, we did. Spruce, Laurel, my RE and his medical staff (including the sweet lady who called me), and me--we make a great team. WE DID IT! Ok, back to stalker calling Spruce :)

PS: beta was 69 at 8dp5dt, which the doc was really happy with. Betting it's not multiples though :). Oh and I POAS this afternoon after I got the results--I'd resisted till then but just wanted to finally see hat second pink line!

Also just a reminder--if you know me IRL, I obviously won't be announcing this for awhile, so please don't mention it out in the world yet--though good wishes are obviously more than welcome here and in more private settings :). Thanks all!!

Tomorrow

2011-01-31T10:44:00.000-08:00

It's been a week since my embryo transfer, and I've hardly even felt tempted to test. My first beta is tomorrow morning, so all my hopes are pinned on that. And I want so much to keep that hope alive. I feel pregnant, but who knows? I still haven't really resumed normal activities because I've been so tired, uncomfortable (yeah, swollen ute!), and even got super light-headed the one time I tried walking around a little bit. I'm not allowed to lift Bonsai, which is problematic, so he's in preschool all week and Spruce is leaving work early to pick him up (and a friend is helping out a couple of days too). Last night I couldn't sleep till 2am. I've been naseuous in the mornings and can only handle blandish foods. I almost hurled at the smell of my husband's fish tacos the other night. Boo.bies are huge, belly feels all tight and full. I think these are all good signs, but of course I'm desperately looking for good signs. I keep trying to remember exactly what it felt like three years ago when I last had embies in me, but I'm just not sure. And since that didn't work out, I'd be happy for this time not to match that too closely! I can hardly formulate a coherent thought, so apologies for this less-than well-constructed post. I just wanted to share what's swirling through my head today, the last day before I know anything for sure. I am eager for today to be over, and yet, if tomorrow's going to be bad news, I'd rather just stick with today, when I'm hopeful, when I believe I'm pregnant, and no one can tell me different yet.

Fro-yos

2011-01-26T10:17:00.000-08:00

We called yesterday to find out how many snowbabies we'd have on reserve. I got nervous when we didn't hear back right away. Our doc had prepared us for as few as 1, 5 at the most. But today we heard back, and there are 7! Those embies are determined, and I feel so relieved to have a good number still waiting...just in case. I've never had embryos to freeze before! Laurel has been referring to them as fro-yos (pretty clever, right? Frozen embryos...plus we ate a lot of fro-yo of the frozen yogurt variety while she was here, so that seems appropriate too), which I like a lot. I've got babies in my belly and fro-yos waiting in the wings--not a bad place to be! And now, back to my regularly scheduled bedrest...the lil' ones don't like this sitting up thing!

Transfer Day

2011-01-25T14:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, two fabulous embryos (well, by then, blastocysts) were transferred into my uterus. We'll have at least 1 more to freeze, maybe as many as 5--we'll find out today. I'm on bedrest and Spruce is at home to take care of Bonsai and me. I feel like I'm growing some babies. Typing over my swollen belly is hard though, so must cut this post short. Officially PUPO--and hoping desperately not to be proven otherwise at my beta Feb 1. Good wishes, as always, are much appreciated!

18

2011-01-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

We have 18 embryos! Oh my goodness, so many beautiful little ones growing 11 miles from my house. On Monday, the top 2 (I think 2?) will be put inside. I can't wait to start incubating those embies! Hopefully we'll have plenty more to freeze. I am so nervous and excited and just waiting, waiting, all my hopes aimed at the first beta on Feb 1, second on Feb 3. I just have to believe that our streak of good news with Laurel's amazing eggs will continue, that those embryos will grow big and strong and that the doctor's picks will stick around for 9 months and make me a pregnant lady at last, and make my little boy the best big brother in the world! I'd be so grateful if you'd take a moment to sit and believe with me.

Retrieval Day

2011-01-19T12:10:00.000-08:00

It's been a whirlwind month, and today marked one of the climaxes: it was retrieval day. Laurel arrived just under two weeks ago and she's been doing injections and ultrasound appointments ever since (I, on the other hand, had just one injection, one ultrasound, and a bunch of pills). I helped her through most of the injections, feeling bad about subjecting her to this pain just to help me, but she's been such a trooper. Her boyfriend came out for a few days and helped her with the rest of the shots--such a sweet guy! He went through IVF with his ex-wife (they have twins now), so he knows the drill, but still, had to be weird for him to be sort of going through it again. When we dropped him off at the airport yesterday, he gave me a long hug and wished me luck with everything. I so appreciated that.

Everything has gone perfectly on schedule this cycle. The only time we got through an entire IVF cycle (the second time was downgraded to IUI and the third I canceled because I hated my replacement doc so much), it was just one devastating update after another. "Your follicles aren't where we want them to be, so we'll need to do the medication for a little longer," my RE told us. I was at the highest possible dose of Foll.istim (Laurel has been at the lowest). I sang a little song, "Grow! Grow follies, grow, grow! Grow, follies, grow, grow, grow! Follies be good!" to the tune of "Johnny B. Goode," and got my online IF group to join in. They did grow, but there were only 4. Not good news, but we sang the same for eggies, and at retrieval, I had 4 eggs, 3 mature. That was bad news too, but all 3 of them fertilized, and we sang the song again, now for the embies. They all grew into perfect 8-celled embryos, and on day 3 we transferred them all. It seemed like despite all the setbacks, we had eked our way through to success. But it didn't last.

But with Laurel, it's all been good news. It's a great feeling, not having to dread the phone calls from my doctor's office. Her levels were all perfect, she had 15 follicles all growing as they should, and today they retrieved 21 eggs! "Blackjack," my new RE said, and Laurel and I both laughed. And my lining is looking great, so for once, my body has a task in this process that it's actually capable of fulfilling.

It was strange this morning though, not really having a role. I took Laurel to the surgical center and waited till they called her back (the nurse was surprised that we already knew each other--I explained that we were best friends and have known each other for 16 years! I guess this known donor thing isn't super-common since we keep getting reactions like that). Then I went upstairs to my RE's office to take Bonsai while Spruce made his contribution. Bonsai and I were ushered into our own private waiting room, secretly stocked with toys and coloring books, to keep us from bothering anyone else--which actually was perfect. When Bonsai shouted, "Dada?" as he often does while Spruce is at work, I told him, "No, Dada's a little busy right now," which made the nurse giggle. But then, while Laurel prepped for surgery and Spruce did his thing, I sat coloring with Bonsai. That was the only task I had, and I was relieved to have that to do instead of absolutely nothing. After Spruce took Bonsai home, I walked across the street for a chai and bagel to help with the headache I woke up with, then returned and waited for Laurel to come out of surgery. I got to sit with her while she recovered, and we just chatted and laughed. Then we came home, and I got her water and Ty.lenol and Spr.ite and a heating pad, and now she's resting while I play with my son.

It's weird not to be recovering from anything myself, but that will come soon enough, after embryo transfer in 5 days. I'm just so glad to have a known donor. I can't imagine knowing that my donor was going through this today but not being at her side through it all. I am so lucky to have Laurel as my friend and donor, though I also feel so guilty to have put her through surgery today. She is a truly amazing woman, the best friend a girl could have. I'll post again when we know how things are moving along...please send those little embies your good wishes. A round of "Embies Be Good," anyone?

This House Belongs to Baby

2010-12-24T10:55:00.000-08:00

There are sippy cups in the dishwasher and bottles drying on the countertop. Drawers have been cleared for small bowls and brightly colored spoons, and large baskets above them overflow with every imaginable organic toddler snack. Playmats cover our hardwood floors and toys are arrayed along their length. Baby gates guard the bottom of the stairs and divide our first floor into halves, allowing clear sightlines from wherever we are, and latches and locks protect cabinets, doors, stove, and more--though Bonsai is constantly finding ways around each of them. The front room looks like a tiny Mont.essori with its low, open cubbies stocked with books and playthings, child-size table and chairs in front of them, and a sand and water table stands in the backyard. The pack 'n' play still serves as a temporary holding area, whether for baby while I grab a shower, or for yet more of his toys, in our bedroom. The guest bathroom features a mesh frog stuffed with bath toys and a brand-new potty seat, and our former extra guest room, long referred to as the future nursery, overflows with clothes and toys and bedding, especially now that Bonsai has taken to rearranging things himself. Every wall is covered with portraits of Bonsai, and us with Bonsai, and our families with Bonsai. Photo cards decorate the refrigerator (Bonsai's first birthday, blessing & naming ceremonies, last year's Christmas card and the new one for 2010), and his preschool art projects are tacked to the spare fridge in the garage, greeting us every time we come home. There are strollers and carseats at the ready in each car, and yesterday we started looking at 7-seater vehicles which, given our imminent family-building plans, may still not be big enough.

In the last 19 months, Bonsai has slowly taken over every corner of our house and our lives, and I still delight in that fact every time I arrange those blue sippies in a dishwasher that, 20 months ago, had only ever held grown-up dishes; or survey the toddler wonderland that our front room has become, stocked with all the toys I never had and more; or push Bonsai through the mall in his bright-green stroller, entertaining him and doling out snacks and generally feeling thrilled by his company. Sometimes, now, I don't even think about how desperately I wanted to be a mom when I am caught up in daily tasks of motherhood--I just am a mom. But even in the dailyness of diaper changes and temper tantrums, bedtimes and mealtimes, songs and laughter and storybooks and tears, I am frequently hit by these moments of bliss, of seeing how this tiny person has transformed our lives into the lives we longed for through all those years of infertility--the lives of parents. A pregnant friend asked me recently if it was a shock to the system when the baby arrived, and I said not really, because we had been so ready to be parents for so very long. Though we hadn't allowed ourselves to buy equipment or even read parenting books in advance, for fear they would be at best outdated and at worst painful reminders while we waited for baby to finally arrive, we spent 3 years mentally and emotionally preparing ourselves for parenthood. We even bought this house with space for the kids and a good school district in mind. Of course late-night feedings and planning our days around the baby's schedule and never going anywhere alone again were an adjustment for us, as they are for all new parents, but they were also a joy. Bonsai fit perfectly into our lives, and our lives expanded because of him.

This Christmas, we are staying in LA for the first time. Before, I have always insisted on having my large extended family around us for the holidays, and last year, we had to do the same for baby's first Christmas. But this year, it feels perfect to have just our little family for Christmas morning, though tonight a cousin and some friends will join us for Christmas Eve dinner, and tomorrow my mom and stepdad arrive for further festivities. Bonsai has way too may presents to open, thanks to overzealous grandparents, and I don't mind a bit. His stocking hangs above the fireplace with ours, the dog's and the cats', and the spare one for guests that this year goes to mom & stepdad, but his is the biggest by far, and that's as it should be, too. I realized as I finished wrapping yesterday that, one way or another (successful egg donor IVF or another adoption), this is going to be Bonsai's last Christmas as an only child. I want him to revel in it, just as, by this time next year, he will adore being a big brother. This year, if you are waiting for your miracle, please know that the possibility of complete and instant transformation does exist. One day in May 2009, we were waiting adoptive parents, and four days later, we were Bonsai's parents. And if that's not magic and destiny and all those fabulous things, then I don't know what is. Here's to a 2011 filled with dreams come true, for all of us. Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays, where appropriate), and Happy New Year to all!

Disclosure

2010-12-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

When we did IVF three years ago, only my two best friends, plus my online IF chatroom buddies, knew about it. Tons of people knew we were TTC, since I, overconfident in my 26-year-old fertility, had announced to friends and family alike that we were trying. I wanted people to think, when we finally did get pregnant, that it had just happened. I thought fertile friends would pity us if they knew, that hyper-religious family members would judge us. Three years further down this road, IVF seems like a much smaller deal. At a recent moms' night out, I announced to a tableful of fertile that we'll be doing IVF next month. But what I didn't mention was donor eggs.

I've been thinking a lot about how much to share about how we finally got pregnant (assuming we do--which is indeed my assumption), and with whom. I've talked a lot with Laurel and Spruce about how to handle it, and I've been doing as much reading as I can find. IRL friends who read this blog, take note: my feeling at this point is that while our child(ren) will always know that Auntie Laurel gave them some DNA, it should be up to them who they share their story with once they are old enough to tell it. I don't want them encountering weirdness from our families about something over which they have no control. While Laurel's parents know, I'm not sure when or if I'll tell mine. So if you know me, please don't bring this up in front of other people, at least for now.

I fully recognize, though, that my feelings on this may well change, just as my feelings on sharing the IVF portion of our journey, or our IF struggles overall for that matter, have evolved throughout our years of trying. Because we have such a wonderful open adoption, I do crave openness in this situation as well. And the kid(s) will always share a loving relationship with Laurel and know what an amazing gift she gave to our family. But right now, I don't want to deal with my mother-in-law's judgments toward me for not being woman enough to make her son's baby myself, or my mom's overwhelming enthusiasm toward Laurel, or my dad's sadness that his family's genetic line will end with me. I know I will be better able to make this decision once the baby (or babies) arrives. Then it will become clearer to me in what situations our story should be shared--just as I learned to navigate telling our adoption story to new friends but not, for instance, to random women at Bab.ies R Us who assume I shared their experience of pregnancy. When they are a reality and not a theoretical, all that really matters will be them, my beautiful babies. Until then, here I am, still trying to plan things that can't, actually, be planned.

Two Paths

2010-12-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

When we first started looking into adoption in May 2008, and officially signed on with our agency in Oct. 2008, and worked through all the paperwork and birthmother letter writing and website creation that allowed us to start being presented to potential birthmothers in Feb. 2009, we always said that we were pursuing both IVF and adoption. I liked the idea of having two paths to parenthood open to us at once. We also had chosen to pursue adoption while it was still a choice, before (despite 2 years of struggle and one loss prior to considering adoption) anyone had told us we couldn't have a biological baby.

But the truth is, I don't think anymore that you (or I, at least) can realistically pursue both of these paths at once. I went to my Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner throughout for acupuncture and foul-tasting herbs, I went to my then-new RE every couple of months (in between travels) for baseline ultrasounds and day 3 tests, I usually remembered to pee on my fertility monitor's requisite sticks and had sex at the appropriate time, but I didn't undergo a single actual fertility treatment in the year between our thoughts turning to adoption and the arrival of our son.

Partly, it was because we were traveling so much that year, internationally, no less, and at that point I was so worn out by all our previous treatments and failures that I just couldn't be bothered to lug my fertility monitor and a massive stash of peesticks on every trip as I had obsessively done for the previous two years, to calculate the time difference and remember to log some pee in the middle of the night if necessary to get the results. I just wanted to enjoy our travels, including the only study abroad program I ever got to do, for my master's in July/Aug 2008, and not think so much about my infertility for the first time in years. I started drinking caffeine again (especially lots of tea whilst studying writing in England!), which I hadn't touched in two years. When we weren't traveling together that year, my husband was usually away on business, and I mostly didn't let it bother me that we were missing cycles. It just seemed hard to believe, by then, that any one cycle would actually work for us, especially a good old-fashioned have-sex and see cycle. One friend at the program I did at Cambridge said that she thought all of us were there trying to escape something. I agreed, but didn't tell her that what I was fleeing was fertility treatments. I spent that summer doing my best impression of a normal 28-year-old girl, instead of the seasoned infertile I had become.

Of course, when I did go in for testing, things never looked perfect, but because I was already focused on adoption, I didn't push for a treatment plan. We were taking a sort of wait and see approach on the fertility front, which I know I would never have been comfortable with without knowing we were already on the path to adoption. While I told myself we were going down both paths at once, all my time, energy, and hope was trained on our adoption, especially once we started on the paperwork that Oct., and even moreso when we went live in Feb. '09. I thought I could do both at once, but looking back, I don't think I ever really did.

But I told myself that same story again this year. I wanted to start the adoption process again when Bonsai turned one, but his birthday came a month after I learned that my eggs were officially out of time. In the two days after his birthday, I learned that neither of my cousins was willing to be my egg donor. I decided to give my body one last chance to make some decent eggs, but when the June cycle was a bust, I approached my BFF Laurel in July and she agreed to be my egg donor. A few days later, we met with the adoption attorney we plan to use for adoption #2. But Spruce was planning to switch jobs, so we decided we'd wait till he started the new one before officially starting the adoption process. In the meantime, I started revamping our autobiographies and birthmother letter to include Bonsai. Except, by the time Spruce started the new job in Sept., I was already deeply enmeshed in sorting through all the necessary steps to make the donor cycle happen, including drawn-out battles with our insurance company and trying to extract information from my RE's extraordinarily unhelpful donor cycle coordinator, and so we didn't start the adoption process then, either. And though the donor cycle is covered by insurance, there are still plenty of costs associated with it, and we realized we couldn't realistically pay for both simultaneously. Because I need to get pregnant sooner rather than later (according to my RE) in order to help with the endo, we decided to do this first. Even though I worry that assuming it does work, we'll have a much harder time getting picked again by a birthmom if we already have a couple of kids, it was the choice we had to make.

Except--we have these friends who matched with a birthmom last year without having ever done a homestudy--a friend referred them to her. They weren't even sure they wanted to adopt at that point, but when the opportunity arose, they jumped on it. This was shortly after we went active with our agency, and shortly before Bonsai was born. I was upset that they had beat us to it, especially given that they were so ambivalent toward adoption at that point, but then Bonsai was born a month before their prospective birthmother was due, and we already had him home when we learned that their PBM had decided to parent. Two months later, she changed her mind again, and they brought their daughter home. So it did work out for them, which is great, but I have to say I was pleased to have brought Bonsai home first, and gotten to parent him from birth. Now, they have announced that they're matched again (I knew that they, too, planned to start the process again at their child's first birthday), with another birthmother who's due in June.

When I saw that, it hit me--we have made a choice to pursue the utter uncertainty of fertility treatment once more, instead of the sure (though also potentially long) road to parenthood that is adoption. If we were not doing a donor cycle, we would have gotten started on adoption #2 in September, and if things went this time as they did last time, we might well have been matched or even have our second child by now. I felt a wave of envy at the realization that they will in all likelihood have a second baby before we do. I'm competitive like that--I can't help it. I'd been telling myself that we were pursuing both, but their announcement made me realize that that's simply not true. I couldn't be more excited about our cycle next month, and I do believe it will work and I'll be giving birth to a baby or two in the fall, but I couldn't help questioning whether riding the infertility rollercoaster one more time was such a great decision. I hadn't let myself realize before that at the moment, we can adopt or do a donor cycle, but not both. Now I just have to hope & believe that the path we've chosen is the right one.

Ready, Set, GO!

2010-12-15T13:40:00.000-08:00

On Monday, Laurel had her medical screening and psychological screening to be an egg donor. And we are now good to go! As one of my doctors put it, "She's a good one!" She is quite fertile (25 antral follicles just hanging out on this perfectly normal, non-stimmed cycle! more than I ever got with IVF), which is great news for everyone. She's flying back here on Jan. 6 to start the cycle. You guys, I'm slated for an embryo transfer before the end of next month. Now that my own crappy eggs are out of the picture, I could seriously, reasonably be pregnant by the end of next month!!

My visit with Laurel was just wonderful. We mostly just chilled, took walks with Bonsai and my pup, got massages (yay), tried to get Bonsai's pic with Santa Claus (failed), and talked a lot. Her perspective on all of this is so great, and I just feel so lucky to have her as my best friend. She told me that when talking with the therapist, she said she thought the way to tell the kids about her role in this would be, "You know Auntie Laurel gave you some DNA, right?" And the therapist told her that was just perfect. And I agree. Laurel is a scientist, and so she kept saying how similar all humans' DNA is, and how whether it came from her or me or whoever, it's all basically the same. That's kind of a comforting perspective, given that my DNA is now out of the equation. She also said that her dad and her boyfriend both asked if she would feel weird having someone wandering around out there with her genes, and she told them both no, she really wouldn't (they, and her mom, are really supportive of this, btw--and her boyfriend & his first wife had their twins thru IVF, so I think he gets what we're going thru). She said I was doing all the hard work, carrying and delivering and raising the baby. She said she's just chipping in some DNA, and she thinks of it as less of a big deal than if she gave me a kidney (in a way she's right--she has plenty of eggs but only the 2 kidneys). She even told me that she had considered being an egg donor thru an agency before because she had a friend who had done it, but decided it wasn't worth it for the money--but was worth it to help me. She is absolutely amazing.

Now we are going thru the contract process (legally required, even though she's a friend), and I'm waiting to hear back from my prescription insurance so we can get the meds ordered--looks like they'll mostly be covered, even the ones for Laurel! Oh, and a friend from my old TTC chat group is donating her HCG and Men.opur to us, so that'll help too! (and they're lucky meds--they got her pregnant on her first IVF!) My medical insurance keeps trying to change their story on covering egg donation, but every time they eventually admit that yes, it's covered. I think they've finally admitted it for the last time so we can move forward with an IVF cycle with egg donation that is actually covered by insurance! Very lucky there, I know. This is all still expensive (the screening process probably won't be covered; the legal and donor coordination fees definitely aren't), but way less than it could have been, which is a relief.

Overall, everything looks great and I just can't believe it's all finally happening! Funny how it seems like I've been waiting so long (since we started TTC back in 2006, or at least since I was told my eggs were kaput in April, or since I asked Laurel to be our donor in July), but it also seems like it's all happening so very fast. It was that way with Bonsai, too--we'd been trying since June '06, started thinking adoption & went to an info session in May '08, signed on with our agency that Oct., finished the paperwork and went live in Feb. '09, and brought Bonsai home in May 2009 (and he was born just 4 days after we learned about his existence!). So lots of waiting, some pondering and paperwork and then, boom! There he was, and it was wonderful and amazing and changed our lives for the better forever. I hope--I believe--that this will be like that too. So far, it feels very much the same. Please God, let us be as good at IVF with donor eggs as we were at open adoption, since we've crashed and burned on all previous paths to parenthood. Please, let's start the New Year off right with that long-awaited, dreamed-of, longed-for, BFP!

The Doctor Will See You Now

2010-12-09T16:14:00.000-08:00

I'm sick today--one of the downsides, I suppose, to having a toddler who feels free to lick playground equipment and my face with equal zeal. Bonsai, of course, is perfectly fine and ready to play. And I am grateful that today is one of his preschool days so he can do that and I can lie pathetically in bed without feeling negligent. Because I didn't have my little guy in tow, I was able to sneak in an appointment at my primary care physician's office. My doc wasn't in today, so I met her partner for the first time. He was funny, helpful, and best of all, he gave me drugs to knock out this nasty cold!

But our visit was not without its own intensely awkward moments. You see, when I mentioned that I blame my toddler (in the most loving way possible) for my cold, the doctor asked me if I planned to pop out another one soon. That was seriously his phrasing. Now obviously, that's inappropriate no matter the scenario, but in my case, truly cringeworthy. But I calmly replied, "Actually he's adopted, so no, I won't be popping any out." (This is hopefully untrue, given our imminent donor egg cycle, but it was the principle of the thing.) And this response got the perfect response out of him--he was immediately just as embarrassed and apologetic as I could have hoped for, so that I ended up telling him, "No, it's okay, you had no reason to assume he was adopted." He then proceeded to ask me the usual question about whether Bonsai's birthmom was a teenager (this is a common assumption, and while she is in fact a teen, she's the only one of the 6 birthmoms we spoke to in our 3 months of waiting who was--the others were in their 20s or 30s). So I countered with, "But now she's at (great university) studying medicine," which people always find surprising, but really, isn't that one of the points of adoption, that the birthmother can go on to make a better life for herself rather than having to be a teen mom?

He asked if we still saw her, and wasn't that hard, and I said yes, we see her and her family, and they're wonderful, and they love Bonsai, and while they weren't in a position to raise a baby, without the option of open adoption, I don't know that they would have felt able to make an adoption plan. I just don't think they could ever have been okay with the idea of never seeing him again. As it is, we just got together for our own little Christmas celebration, and they gave Bonsai presents (including a very thoughtful recordable storybook featuring his birthmom's voice) and watched him play and marveled at his skills at drumming and climbing and sloppy kiss-giving. We gave them photo albums and framed pictures of him, which they adored. I know it has to be hard for them, only seeing him every few months, knowing that at this stage, he doesn't recognize them from one visit to the next. But they will always be in his life, and he will always know how much they love him, just as he will always know how much we do. People think that open adoption is hard but I think the alternative would be so much harder, in terms of the unknowns and secrets and losses for the child and his birthfamily.

I don't think I necessarily opened this doctor's mind to the wonders of open adoption, but it felt good to try. And honestly, I wasn't offended by his comments. I think there was a time when I would have been, but he was just so genial that I could see he didn't mean any harm. Maybe I'm not as intensely sensitive about all this fertility stuff as I once was...or maybe I was just so excited that he was writing me a prescription that might actually make me feel better that I would have smiled & nodded at just about anything. Either way, I'm just hoping the meds knock out this cold by Saturday when Laurel (BFF and egg donor extraordinaire) comes to town!

My Pregnant Stepsister

2010-12-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

My family came from out of town to spend Thanksgiving with us in LA. Five of them stayed at our house for a week as we played tour guide all over Southern California. It was great. Except...my stepsister is pregnant with her second daughter (if Spruce and I had gotten pregnant right away, our oldest would be exactly the age of her 3 1/2-year-old firstborn). The first pregnancy was accidental; the second happened on the first try. Oh, to have that kind of luck! The problem was not so much the fact of her pregnancy as the way it served as an excuse for whatever she felt like doing (or not doing).

While I led my husband, stepdad, and brother-in-law in preparation of an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner, stepsis sat on the couch, ignoring her daughter (who was watching a DVD in the other room) and occasionally barking orders to her husband on the dish she had insisted we add to the menu. The next day, when we were heading out for some sightseeing, she refused to eat leftovers for lunch, then moaned about how she was starving once we were out and about, forcing us to find her food stat since she is eating for two. She pulled the same thing again the next day. Look, I know pregnant ladies gotta eat, but shouldn't she know that too? So, eat with everyone else, and maybe pack a granola bar (I kept offering them; she kept declining) in case hunger hits at an inopportune time. As I drove us literally all over Southern California, she felt free to snipe about my driving--which admittedly is perhaps a little more aggressive than she's used to in the Midwest, but that's how we do in LA! And it's not like she ever offered to drive. But her bad mood was to be excused too, because she's pregnant. Not that it was all bad. I'm thrilled that the family got to spend the holiday with us. Stepsis and her family had never been to LA before, so it was exciting to get to show them our city and host them in our home. I especially loved seeing Bonsai bonding with his cousin.

But it's hard, for an infertile lady like me, to hear my stepsis alternately announce that she frequently "forgets she's pregnant" and that she feels "way too pregnant." It's hard listening to her talk about her sister-in-law, who is also infertile and has recently decided to live childfree. Instead of having her own, she'll help raise Stepsis' daughters. Stepsis thinks this is a wonderful solution, but all I can think of is the incredible pain for a fellow infertile of being that close to a child, taking care of her every day, being "like a mom" to her, but never actually her mom. It's hard hearing Stepsis say how she dreaded telling her SIL about both pregnancies, knowing how long she'd been trying, with not a word of worry about telling me her news. I found that very strange until it hit me that some fertiles like her actually do think that adoption cures infertility. I have a baby so of course her pregnancy news wouldn't be painful to me. Except, of course, it was. But she'll never get it. She has a troubled marriage, financial woes, career setbacks--any of those issues, she can talk about. But she's really, really good at making babies, and despite having two very close relatives who have both struggled with this, she just can't imagine what's it's like to have that particular problem. And I guess that's human nature. I know I can't properly imagine the pain of having a husband who cheated on you right after your first child's birth, as hers did to her. I guess the best we can do is try to find common ground where it exists, and be kind to one another even when we haven't shared the same burdens.

At least we are both moms. We got a lot of mileage out of simply parenting side-by-side. And the kids were utterly adorable together. It's just further proof that while I'm good with other moms, pregnant ladies still (and probably always will) put me on edge. But by the time I see her next, she'll have my second niece in her arms, and I'll be able to focus on the baby, instead of the tummy. Besides, maybe by then I'll have a growing belly to show off too. The difference is, I won't have come by it easily. And I will always, even if I'm pregnant, be infertile.

100

2010-11-18T13:59:00.000-08:00

100 posts ago, Bonsai was 3 months old. I was still a sleep-deprived new mom with a series of hurdles left to clear before I would legally even be Bonsai's mother. Tribal clearances, signing of birthmother relinquishments, termination of birthfather's rights, post-placement visits, finalization hearing. Back then, I had not the slightest idea how long all of that would take. It would take another 7 months, but we would clear them all.

100 posts ago, I was about to go see a new RE at what would be my third clinic. Despite everything we had been through, I was still hopeful. He was so upbeat andconfidentin me that i thought finally i might get my long-awaited pregnancy. A couple of IUIs later, my period would stop. The premature ovarian failure that had been hanging over my head for years would be complete by spring.

100 posts ago, I had thought about who I would ask to be my egg donor if I needed one, but honestly, I didn't think I would need one. I was 29 years old and not ready to believe my reproductive years were over before I ever got a chance to successfully reproduce. But they were. And now I am well on my way to an egg donor cycle with my amazing best friend. And sure, I wish my eggs hadn't crappped out, but I'm also really, really excited about going down this path with her.

100 posts ago, I started this blog to help me navigate the worlds of parenting after infertility, parenting through adoption, and continuing with trying to conceive. I had no idea how to blog, or if anyone would ever read it if I did. But then I found this wonderful ALI community. I found all of you. Thank you so much for following along through my first 100 posts. Here's to many more...though if they happened to include more good news than the first 100, I can't say I would complain :)

This is Why I Don't Watch Ads

2010-11-16T10:37:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Ti.vo, I almost never have to see commercials. Which is awesome, because almost every time I catch one, I am horrified (Don Dr.aper would be ashamed of our modern-day ad men!). But while typing away last night, I was unfortunate enough to catch the new Ka.y Jewel.ers Christmas ad. It was disgustingly offensive. Here's why:

First, we see a woman holding a sleeping baby in the living room. Her husband enters, and she asks, "Why are you up? It's 2am." Now, my question is, why wouldn't he be up? She's up, and why should she have to sneak off to another room to soothe the baby back to sleep? Is she that desperate to keep him from realizing that a newborn is a lot of work, to avoid disturbing his precious slumber? Why couldn't he take the 2am shift, anyway? Yuck. From a feminist standpoint, I'm already pissed.

Then he whispers (creepily, I might add), "It's our first Christmas as a family." I hate this phrase. A married couple (or a committed cohabiting couple, for that matter, depending on their arrangement with each other) is a family. What should I call what Spruce and I were to each other for the 6 years we shared the same last name, lived under the same roof, bought property together, traveled the world together, shared holiday traditions and family gatherings, comforted each other and cheered each other on? We were more family to each other in all that time than anyone else in the world was to either of us. As a married couple, we have known each other better and spent more time together than either of us ever has with siblings or parents, at least in our adult lives. Sometimes, his baby brother Ash adorably asks me questions about Spruce like "Does he like rollercoasters?" (yes) that he knows I would know the answers to, but that he, having not lived with Spruce since he was 6 until his recent stint at our house, simply didn't know. Not that knowing trivia makes a family, but that knowing the person, thoroughly, loving them, completely; being their emergency contact and also the first one they call with good news, the one who is waiting for them at home every night and the one with whom you share all the ups and downs of your day--that closeness, that bond, that has made us a family in the 8 years of our marriage. Besides which, if we weren't family all that time, then why the hell did I have to deal with my mother-in-law, or help raise my sister-in-law and two brothers-in-law into adulthood? Oh, right, because that's what families do.

Bonsai made us parents, adoption allowed us to expand our family, but Spruce and I, just the two of us, were a family already. It never occurred to me that we weren't until we starting trying and failing to have a baby. It was only then that I started keying in to the messaging that declared that without one, we were incomplete--something that, during month after month of failure, was all too clear to me. Yes, our family was incomplete, in fact still is incomplete as I feel our future babies still tugging at my heartstrings, but it was a family from the day we said "I do."

But back to the commercial. "You think she'll remember this Christmas?" the man asks stupidly over his sleeping newborn's head. Um, clearly the answer is no. But the woman sappily replies, "I know I will." Well, yeah. Your baby's first Christmas (or whichever holiday you might celebrate) certainly is a memorable time, and not because of the chintzy-looking watch your husband gave you at 2am. It's because it's amazing to share that experience for the first time with a new, cherished member of your family--just as the first Christmas Spruce and I spent together as a couple (12 Christmases ago) was memorable, or our first one as a married couple (8 Christmases ago). Okay, so this part wasn't offensive so much as simply lame.

It's just so weird to me that in a culture so obsessed with coupledom, romance, and fairytale weddings that we also get these "couples aren't enough" messages. Not that I think it's okay to make single people feel like crap if they haven't found their special someone either (or don't want to get married, or legally aren't allowed to get married even if they find the right person), but that's a rant for another day. So just let me say, to anyone waiting for their baby: you are a family already. No matter what your situation, whether your family is your spouse or your parents or your closest friends, you have a family. And don't let any poorly written retailer commercials tell you different.

Like a Deer in Headlights

2010-11-15T15:34:00.000-08:00

Much as I wanted to pursue adoption and a donor egg cycle semi-simultaneously, I am finally admitting to myself that that's just not going to happen. From a practical standpoint, of course it would be a little problematic if everything worked out at once--like, what if I got pregnant in January, adopted in February, and had two or three babies plus a two-year-old by next fall? I don't have nearly enough time to work now, so how, exactly, would that work? Of course I would be grateful for any and all babies who came my way, but I know I have to try to be realistic. And yet...it's so hard to be realistic. I want another baby so bad, and it's just occurred to me that maybe we will spend all this money on a donor cycle (I am still scared that our insurance will find some way to weasel out of covering it) and still not have a baby to show for it (which is of course what happened with our IVF). And if we do have to pay out of pocket for the cycle, that means we'll probably have to save up before we can start the adoption process again. I'm starting to really get the appeal of stopping all this IF nonsense and just focusing our resources on adoption. It's the only thing that's ever worked for us, the one path to parenthood we've been good at. Much as I believe donor eggs will be the key for us, it's hard to put adoption on hold in favor of something completely unproven.

Then there's the fact that I need to be working on my writing projects so I can make more money so I can help fund all of these baby-related enterprises. But instead, I spend all my time fighting with insurance companies and planning January cycle logistics and of course, taking care of Bonsai--which I love, but man is it time-consuming! I wish I could have used all those years of pre-baby infertility to make lots of money from my writing--but back then, all I could do was research possible treatments and cry a lot every time I got bad news. I still get bad news, but it doesn't hurt now like it did in the pre-Bonsai era. Still, I am feeling overwhelmed and just wishing everything could be easier--writing, babymaking, babycare, it's all tough stuff! Things I care deeply about, but still, exhausting. I feel like I don't know what to prepare for right now. Should I keep working on our adoption paperwork in case we figure out a way to go forward sooner rather than later? Keep making my always-frustrating calls to the insurance company to get everything squared away for our donor cycle? Try, for now, to just focus on my writing (at least during Bonsai's naps) and worry about the rest later? But the problem is, I can't do that--all this IF stuff whizzing through my head provides way too much interference to really get the creative juices flowing. And I hate that. I've written over 30 children's and young adult books under contract (mostly based on other people's characters), but I can't seem to finish my own projects. I'm freaking out, and I feel as frozen as a deer in headlights. I want to move forward, but I'm not sure how to do it. I make endless lists, trying to break things down into manageable pieces, but maybe the list-making is just another avoidance technique. I don't know how to whip myself, my life, into shape.

I Survived a Baby Shower

2010-11-11T16:51:00.000-08:00

I've spent years dreading baby showers, wondering if I would ever be able to go to one again. Prior to this past Saturday, the last shower I attended that was not in Bonsai's honor was four and a half years ago, and I was the hostess. I actually haven't been to very many baby showers at all, because all of my friends and most of Spruce's started having kids when we were in the darkest depths of trying to conceive. We started trying about 4 months after that last shower, inspired by our LA friends who had just had their first, as well as one couple from college who'd had their first a few months before--the first of our friends to have kids by far. We vowed that we would be the next. I was 26, Spruce was 29, and it never occurred to me that there could be any delays in this plan.

Flash forward to a deluge of baby announcements. High school friends, college friends, Spruce's MBA friends, my MFA friends, our shared LA friends. Each announcement hurt, even more so because I wished I could be purely happy for our friends and family members, and hated that I couldn't. Each time a shower invitation arrived, there was a good reason I couldn't attend--or at least, a good enough reason that I felt pretty okay about the excuse. I thought once we adopted Bonsai and family and friends threw us a total of three showers that the spell was broken. But my dread of other people's showers didn't abate.

So I was nervous as we headed to our friends' baby shower on Saturday. But as it turned out, it wasn't painful--mostly, it was just boring. The setup was weird, making it hard to mingle. There weren't any games or gift opening--and I know these are much-maligned shower activities, but I think they're a good way to bridge the gaps between older relatives, younger friends, and a random assortment of coworkers. We didn't know anyone except the parents-to-be, so mostly we just chased Bonsai around the yard where the shower was held. A very good thing having husband and baby to occupy me, indeed.

The only really awkward moment was when the hostess' dad announced that all of her friends were at the stage now where they're having kids. I just ignored it, but he kept saying it, like it was this huge revelation. As outlined above, it is certainly true that people reach a certain age and the baby boom begins. But I couldn't stop thinking how I would have felt if I'd heard him make this same pronouncement before Bonsai was in our arms; how, perhaps, other childless couples at the event might feel hearing him say those words. Because there weren't, in fact, all that many kids at the party. I know he was just marveling at how his little girl and her friends were all grown up, but I bristled, knowing how easily I could have ended up at that shower still babyless and absolutely devastated by his careless words. I guess that is the drawback of events like that--that people feel free to say things like "Doesn't this make you want one?" and "When are you guys starting your family?"--things I think are never appropriate to say, but seem to be generally accepted as relevant at a baby shower.

But really, this was much less trauma than I had expected at such an event. We beat an early retreat from the chilly and drab backyard gathering, and it was fine. I'm excited to meet our friends' twins when they arrive next month. And with this shower successfully under my belt, I think I'm ready to face the next one. As long as, of course, I can have Spruce and Bonsai at my side.

The Runaround

2010-11-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

Next stop on my figuring-out-what-all's-covered parade: our prescription insurance provider, subcontracted by our medical insurance but still a separate entity I have to fight with. So I called them on Monday and got a customer service guy who kept telling me I needed to talk to one of their people who specializes in infertility coverage. That sounds perfect, I kept saying. Except for how he wouldn't/couldn't transfer me unless I gave him the name of a specific medication to check. I explained that really my question was about overall coverage of meds for an egg donor (which our benefits website says we have), rather than for a single medication. But he stuck to his guns. Finally, I suggested we check Folli.stim, and that was the magic password that enabled me to talk to someone else. The next person gave me the name of the in-network pharmacy that provides IF meds and said I should call them for a letter confirming that they would dispense meds to egg donors. So I called the pharmacy, and the lady there pointed out that that letter has to come from the insurance since it's not up to the pharmacy whether the insurance will pay them! Although I didn't think it would help, I called the main number again and got an even less-helpful customer service rep. I don't think he ever had the slightest idea of what I was asking. But he transferred me to the pharmacy help line, but they weren't really allowed to talk to me since I'm not in fact a pharmacist. But, at least the next transfer kicked me to a higher-level service rep (a manager, lucky me!) who also didn't know the answer but was actually willing to try to figure it out. She called in her supervisor, who didn't know either. She said the system suggested contacting our HR person, but I pointed out that since it wasn't up to my husband's company's HR whether or not insurance would pay for these drugs. So now the insurance is verifying benefits with HR and I can call back Thursday for the verdict. Which I'm not convinced will actually happen, but at least, 5 people deep, I found someone who would actually try to help. Oh, the endless frustrations of dealing with insurance!

In other donor cycle news, I spoke to the woman who's supposed to do our psych screening, and she seemed very uncomfortable with the idea of using a known donor. She said it concerned her that I refer to Laurel as my best friend. But, she is! And really, no one less than a really close friend would agree to do this. So I'm wondering if maybe I should look for someone else to do the psychological eval? Because if this chick dislikes the whole concept without even meeting us, she's probably less likely to give us the all-clear, right? Figuring all of this out is like a full-time job. Unfortunately, I already have these other jobs (mom and writer) that take up more than full-time already. Currently, dealing with all these details is completely hijacking my life. I know it'll all be worth it, but again I ask--isn't this someone else's job?!

More Fun with Insurance

2010-11-08T11:53:00.000-08:00

And, now for an upswing on everybody's favorite rollercoaster ride! I found out on Friday that we DO have donor coverage after all! Apparently, the insurance company's process is as follows:

1) Tell awesome giant company where Spruce works that you offer donor coverage. This convinces awesome company to contract with you. They list your amazing coverage on their benefits website to get employees excited.
2) When doctor or employee calls to verify that donors are in fact covered, deny it. When employee's wife calls back and reads you the explanation of benefits from the internal website making it extremely clear that donor cycles are covered, act surprised. Request that this information be faxed to you (you don't accept emails). Inform member that you will call them once you have any information.
3) Whenever member calls to follow up, tell them you just received the fax that day (it doesn't matter that it was faxed a week before and fax machines don't work that way). Then say you'll need at least two more weeks to go through the verification process.
4) However, if the member has persevered through this step, you are then free to call her back that afternoon and tell her donor cycles ARE covered! Excitement & joy all around (it can't be fun to be denying people treatment all the time as an insurance service rep, so this is a fun call to make!)
5) But, member needs to get this procedure pre-certified. When she calls to do so, the pre-certification person can then inform her that no pre-cert is needed for any infertility procedures. Transfer her back to customer service.
6) Customer service may then inform member that her doctor needs to call for a pre-determination letter that will verify these benefits for them. Assure member you're putting all this in the notes so when the doctor's office calls in, there will be no more bumps in the road. Yeah, right...

Seriously, I think in order to avoid actually paying the expensive benefit they advertised to get the contract with megacompany, their policy is to say it's not covered unless you pester them long enough that they admit it is. How is that okay?! I mean, I'm glad I kept looking into it (though it's not quite resolved yet), but wow, this system is BROKEN.

In other news, I spoke to the donor cycle coordinator on Friday as well, and I feel much more comfortable with her now. Apparently, she wasn't taking me seriously or giving me necessary information because we don't officially have the cycle scheduled for Jan. yet. We can't schedule it till Laurel comes out for her medical screening next month. After she does, that would normally trigger the coordinator to start doing her job. But because of the compressed timeline, I needed her to get going prior to that box being checked off, and that was just too confusing for our friend the coordinator. Now that she "gets it," she's willing to work with me now rather than at some unnamed later date. So, that's an improvement. To be continued...

Uncoordinated

2010-11-05T10:15:00.000-07:00

Of course I knew, when I posted that happy and excited update yesterday, that it wouldn't last. It never does, at least in the world of infertility, but maybe in life in general? I can't remember anymore how to separate the two.

So what happened was, the idiot donor cycle coordinator at my RE's sent me a note saying that because genetic testing can take up to three weeks, if Laurel doesn't come out till mid-December, we can't cycle till Feb. I was told genetic testing might not even be necessary, and even if it was, doesn't a three-week lead time seem like something worth mentioning in advance as I try to plan the timing of everything? Then she says Laurel needs to get genetic counseling too, which is fine and all but has NEVER been mentioned to me before. And I've been talking to this woman since August! So that was yet another person to get in touch with, and made me anxious about what other vital steps I might not know about.

The coordinator has already screwed up on a couple of fronts--she didn't tell me Laurel needed to be off BCPs before getting her day 3 tests for at least a month (I know I should have put this together, but I've done those tests while on BCP--I just forget that they have given up on me already and different rules might apply to normal people). So that lost us a month, and the frustrating part is that the only reason we knew about it is because Laurel thought to ask! The coordinator would never have communicated that basic guideline to us if I hadn't specifically asked. Not very good coordination, if you ask me.

Also, the coordinator informed me that Laurel's psych consult would be done over the phone. Not true. Luckily, I went ahead and called the agency that handles the contract and psych screening even though the coordinator told me not to even contact them till after the medical screening. So I learned that psych part has to be done in person and is usually done when the donor comes out for the medical screen. Oh, and Spruce and I have to be in there too (also something I was not told), so Spruce needs to take a day off work--kind of important to know in advance! So if Laurel had come for Halloween as originally planned, we wouldn't have known this yet and would have needed to somehow fly her all the way across the country an extra time before the cycle because the coordinator told me the exact wrong thing.

I was upset too at the idea of delaying the cycle, not just because I want it to happen asap, but also because Laurel has her own life that I can't just take her away from at random times. She's starting a post-master's job search in January, so she can do the cycle then, but if we push it back, she'll hopefully have a job already and won't be able to take time off a job she just started. Once I explained that it had to be Jan., the coordinator agreed to start drawing up a calendar and said Jan. could work. So why didn't she think that through in the first place, BEFORE declaring for no reason that it would have to be Feb.?!

Now I am really freaked out that this moron is going to spring something else on me at the last minute and make it impossible to do the cycle on time. My doc, who I adore, doesn't know anything about the steps involved (except for the medical parts he does himself, of course) and said again at our appointment Monday that this woman would take care of all of that. But she isn't. And I'm not even sure who to complain to. But I'm worried that if I don't get someone else on the case, something vital will be left out and then everything I'm trying to pull together will fall apart.

Yesterday, while Bonsai took a nice long nap for once, instead of getting work done like I needed to, I was forced to try to coordinate my own cycle. I called lawyers to line up one for Laurel and one for Spruce & me for the contract process. I called the geneticist and set up genetic counseling for Laurel. I contacted the psychologist I'd chosen to set a time for the psych screening. I worked with Spruce and Laurel to figure out the earliest possible date in Dec. that we can bring her out here. I worked on scheduling the medical screening since we can't really book the flight without knowing that we can get an appointment. Then I did online research to try to find out if there were any other steps the coordinator had left out (I think I found one). And I kept pushing her for basic information--like, she asked if Laurel was on BCPs yet. No, no one said she should start them. When should she start, and which pill? Still no answer.

We just set up a call for this afternoon. Meanwhile, I called my doc's office to try again to set Laurel's appointment, since the person who's supposed to be handling it isn't getting back to me. And I turned into a crazy person on the phone, bursting into tears because they won't schedule it without checking with the useless coordinator, which as I may have mentioned, seems like a doomed enterprise. But apparently no one else in the entire practice knows the first thing about donor cycles. So that's awesome. Seriously, why can't this woman just do her damn job so I don't have to do it for her? There are just so many moving pieces here, and I am trying to piece it all together, and I'm terrified that something's going to get lost, and this really shouldn't all be up to me.

Moving forward

2010-11-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

The results are in: Laurel's FSH and estradiol are perfectly normal! I had an SSG and mock embryo transfer on Mon., and I'm all good. Spruce and I had bloodwork and his SA already and we're all set on that front. Now we just need to reschedule Laurel's trip out here for Dec (for medical & psych screenings, plus a fun visit!), and get Spruce's SCSA test. I feel like we are really moving forward now! I can't believe it but we really are looking at cycling in Jan.! In two months, I could be baking up a little brother or sister (or two) for Bonsai! An awfully short post I know, but I just had to share :)

Pregnancy vs. Motherhood

2010-11-02T16:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, in line at the pharmacy, a woman who was admiring Bonsai told me she had just sent her son off to college. She said the last 18 years had flown by, that I should treasure every moment with my boy (I assured her I do). Then she said something that really struck me: "Sometimes I can't remember ever being pregnant." I laughed nervously since pregnancy thus far bears absolutely no relationship to my experience of motherhood, something I really didn't feel like explaining to this woman. "Seriously," she insisted, "I don't."

I have sought the holy grail of pregnancy for so long that it's hard to imagine it ever receding into the background, so when this woman first said hers had, I bristled momentarily at the revelation that she hadn't properly enjoyed what I so long for. But then I realized that what I actually felt, under the reflexive defensiveness, was relief. It hit me that even for moms who gave birth to their children, pregnancy perhaps bears little relationship to their experience of motherhood.

Even if I never give birth to a child, I will be here cherishing every moment with my children, and that, the eighteen years of raising each of them before they go off to college, the many years of shared traditions and memories after that, is what I will remember when I am looking back on my life. Not the pregnancy I did or didn't experience. Just that I am a mom, and love it, that I am so proud of my son (and other, future children), and miss him (them) when they are away.

There I was getting antibiotics to make sure yesterday's uncomfortable hydrosonogram didn't do more harm than good (I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know my uterus still looks great!), one step closer to my donor egg cycle, and for the first time ever, I felt that I would survive if I never experienced pregnancy. I've always thought I wouldn't be, have wanted it so desperately, and I still believe that thanks to Laurel, I will get to experience that miracle. But if it doesn't work out, I know now that I will not feel broken forever.

The moment we decided to adopt was when Spruce and I realized that the one thing we couldn't live without was getting to be parents. Passing on our genes would be nice, but it was never the most important part of that dream. I've already given up on my genes anyway, but getting to grow life inside me, has still loomed so large to me. Much as I still want it, it feels good to know that if I have to, I will be able to let it go. It would be another loss, but it doesn't feel like a loss right now--more like an attitude adjustment, a paradigm shift. It's good to know that whatever happens, I will be okay.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

2010-10-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

I have a cousin who met her boyfriend in a mental institution. He already had two kids with two other women, and he managed to knock her up too when she was 19--he was in his late 30s. She dropped out of college and moved in with him in his dad's basement (he's never had a job, and why would he? everything he made would just get taken for child support anyway). Less than two years ago, they had their second child. They now live in government housing. She is only sporadically employed. She can't even leave the kids with him while she's at work because he's that irresponsible. So recently she was thinking of leaving him, trying to get her life back on track. She decided her first step should be going to the doctor to get her tubes tied (she was done with motherhood, even though she's only 27). But the doctor couldn't do it, because it turned out she was already pregnant. Her third unplanned pregnancy with a man she can't stand. So she's staying with him, because she thinks she doesn't have any other choice.

I mean, seriously?! My husband can't get me pregnant, but that loser can impregnate three women with a total of 5 kids, none of whom he takes care of? Awesome. I've struggled for 4 years to get pregnant, but my cousin who's desperate to rid herself of her fertility gets pregnant 3 times (twice in the time we've been trying)? That's great. I know, I know, life's not fair, I get it. When I complained about this to my mom, she pointed out that I surely wouldn't want to trade places with my unhappy cousin. And no, of course I wouldn't. But wouldn't it be nice if a woman for whom motherhood is a miserable burden were the one who didn't get pregnant, and a woman who longs for motherhood and is ready to be a great mom could get pregnant easily? Of course having our wonderful Bonsai takes some of the bite out of this unfairness. But really, turning up pregnant when you go to get your tubes tied?? That's just rubbing it in.

Random

2010-10-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

I have a friend whose Face.book status update is always a "random question of the day." I find this annoying because it's never actually an update on what's going on with her. But yesterday what really got to me was one of the responses.

Her question: What's surprisingly easy to make?
An answer: A baby :)

The responder wasn't anyone I know, but I clicked on her profile and sure enough, she has three kids, all close in age. Clearly for her, they are easy to make. She almost immediately posted a pseudo-retraction, saying she realized many might "disagree" with her.

I don't "disagree." I know, from four years of devastatingly painful experience, that babies are not easy to make. Not for me, not for so many wonderful people I know. She's lucky that her experience of getting pregnant was one of ease, but for 1 in 6 of us, that's not the case. So I think it's unreasonable to categorize this as something that's "surprisingly" easy. For me, it's been shockingly hard.

Of course, I used to assume it was easy. At 26, I was sure I'd be pregnant the minute we started trying. But here I am at 30, with my closest brush with pregnancy an early loss after IVF and my own eggs dried up. Nothing easy about it.

I wrote a response to this stranger who had unknowingly smacked me in the face with her easy fertility. I wanted to speak out for all of us infertiles, to educate the ignorant, or at least to make her feel bad about her careless cruelty.

But I chickened out.

Because the friend who posted the random question had a thing for Spruce in college, told him several times after we got together that she "loved" him, and though we somehow still stayed friends of sorts, I don't want to give her the ammunition of knowing more than she already suspects about our infertility. I don't want her thinking that she could have given him the biological children I can't (one thing I'm really excited about with donor eggs is that I will still get to carry his baby and make it possible for his genes to be passed on). Besides, the commenter isn't anyone I know, nor were most of the people who replied. I don't know if I would be educating them or just needlessly freaking them out. I mean, this was all posted in fun anyway, right? The one person I did know in the comment list was another college friend--one, in fact, who I had a crush on before I fell for Spruce. I felt awkward about him knowing too much detail about our struggles too.

So I decided to let it go. I want to be upfront about our infertility, but I don't know if being in-your-face with random strangers is the way to do it. But maybe that's the only way to truly raise awareness--to tell everyone who makes a hurtful or thoughtless comment what's wrong with it and why. I don't know...but I do know I'm not that brave, not yet at least.

There's been a lot posted this week (much of it related to this article) about the pain of seeing ultrasounds and pregnancy announcements and baby bumps on Face.book. But what about these random comments, from random people only tangentially connected to you, that can pop up out of nowhere? They are less obvious, harder to avoid, but this one shook me more than most of the ultrasound and pregnancy pix. Because it displayed a worldview so utterly contrary to mine, that this woman so blithely holds as an absolute truth.

And that could have been me. If I'd gotten pregnant at 26 as I expected to, I too would have viewed pregnancy as easy to achieve. I should have had the luxury of viewing it that way. But I didn't, and I never will, and I am overwhelmed with jealousy toward anyone who gets to see it that way. But I also kind of think that woman is just plain dumb. Because the biology of it all is surprisingly complicated. One, maybe two days a month, we have a shot at sperm meeting egg. Given that, I'm amazed that anyone ever gets pregnant, ever gets born. But they do all the time, all around me. Just not me, not to me.

UPDATE: I just posted the paragraph that begins "I don't disagree" in response to this random woman's comment. I decided this wasn't one that I should just let go. I'm a little freaked out right now that I posted it, but I think it was the right thing to do.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The unknown fertile apologized! "I guess I've proven it is suprisingly easy to make insensitive comments. Sorry, Willow :)" Not what I expected. I thanked her for her reply. I feel like I educated a fertile, and I'm glad I overcame by reservations and went for it. Have you educated a fertile today? :)

Baby Showering

2010-10-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

I did it. For the first time since we started having trouble making a baby, I replied "yes" to a baby shower invite, and meant it. Of course I happily attended all three showers that friends and family threw to celebrate Bonsai's arrival, but I haven't been to a baby shower for someone else in four years. I've been invited to plenty as our friends have rapidly ramped up their reproduction in recent years, but scheduling conflicts have usually made it a non-issue. Spruce and I planned to go to one last year, but my in-laws flew in for a last-minute visit so we were busy entertaining them instead. Of course, usually I would have jumped at the chance for a brief respite from my mother-in-law, but in this case, I was glad to have another excuse to avoid a baby shower, albeit at the last minute. I felt terrible texting our dear friend to tell her we couldn't make it, but at least I had my MIL (and a genuine MIL-induced migraine) to blame. Funny story--Bonsai arrived a month after that shower, just one day after the baby-to-be the shower celebrated arrived. If I'd known then how close we were to becoming parents, maybe I would have ditched the in-laws and gone to the shower. But then again, maybe not.

See, I thought that after Bonsai made us parents, my terror of baby showers would be broken. Since many of our fertile friends are out of town, I only recently had a chance to test this theory. A good friend (and reader of this blog--hi!) was having her second baby. Her first came after years of infertility and miscarriages, but #2 was something of a happy surprise. She never had a shower the first time around, largely because the previous miscarriages made it difficult for her to completely enjoy her pregnancy, and partly because her struggles had created distance between her and many of her friends (we discovered only after her first was born that we had been suffering separately and silently for the first couple years of our acquaintance). So I was overjoyed that she could truly celebrate this new baby-to-be, and was eager to help her do so.

Except...when the E.vite arrived, I just couldn't handle it. "This little boy heralds the arrival of the next group of babies!" it crowed, as though they come in waves, just that easily. "Join us for drinks suitable for both pregnant ladies and not-pregnant ladies!" it squealed, and while I was ready to gush over my friend, I balked at the thought of a roomful of pregnant bellies. But it was the last decree: "All guests 21 and over" that really put the nail in the coffin. Since joining my local mommy club, I've found many times that I can easily distract myself from fertile talk by focusing on Bonsai. Without him there as a shield and distraction, I didn't think I could handle the unbridled torrent of fertile enthusiasm. To be fair, I did already have plans that day, but I could, possibly, have squeezed in both if I hadn't been so freaked out by the invite itself (sorry, friend). Though really, leaving my baby and husband on a Saturday isn't actually something I ever feel like doing, since weekends are the only time we all get to spend together. This friend is in my writing group so I tried to set up an alternashower for our little group to make up for missing the real one, but wasn't able to rally our fellow writers in a timely fashion. I've since met the baby and he's darling. Our toddlers love tearing up the house together. My friend and I have wonderful conversations about parenting and infertility and writing and life. And I feel guilty that I just couldn't manage to attend that shower.

But for this other one--well, I think I'll actually make it. It's in a week, for one thing, so less time to work myself up over it and change my mind. Also, it's coed and baby-friendly, so Spruce and Bonsai will be at my side, which I think is important for my mental and emotional well-being on my first foray back into baby showering. Also because it's coed, it's likely to be more of a chill gathering, less of a traditional babyganza. And while the friends in question got pregnant quickly, with twins no less, I know this is pretty much their one shot at parenthood. The mom-to-be is older, and the twinning is clearly that thing the body does when it wants you to get knocked up while you still have a chance. I know how she's longed for a baby--have seen it every time she's held or looked at Bonsai--and I am happy for her that she's getting her chance. Yes, it sucks that I'm less fertile than someone almost a decade older than me, that my reproductive bits are old before their time, but that's how the chips have fallen, and I'm genuinely glad that they got to avoid the suffering that so many of us have endured. So I think I can actually do it this time, the first time I'll have both Spruce and Bonsai as buffers. If I can manage it, I think it will be a real breakthrough. If it goes well, maybe I can handle showers without Spruce after all--maybe even someday adults-one ones sans Bonsai. It's a good first step anyway, and I'm so glad I'll have my boys there to help me through it.

Postponement

2010-10-27T17:58:00.000-07:00

My best friend & prospective egg donor Laurel isn't coming to visit this weekend after all. She is completely overwhelmed with finishing up her thesis, so I told her to wait and come out in December instead, once the thesis is done. Luckily, since we used miles we can change the reservation without any problems. In a way this is better--not just in terms of her stress levels, but also because her period still hasn't arrived (but no, she's not pregnant--though wouldn't that be ironic?), so we don't have the results of her day 3 tests yet. It would be nice to have those prior to paying for the pricey medical screening. I'm sad that we won't get to celebrate Halloween with her, especially since we had all planned on matching costumes, but I think this makes a lot more sense. So I'm trying not to freak out at the thought that instead of moving forward on our donor cycle this week, we won't be able to until mid-December. I think it will still all work out. Laurel would like to do the actual cycle in January, when she won't yet have started a post-grad school job. I'm just hoping if we get the medical screening in Dec., we can then get the psych screening and contract done in time to still start the cycle in Jan. I have no idea how long those are supposed to take, though it sounds like the contract is a pretty standard template, and I'm not anticipating any long drawn-out negotiations. In a way, I guess we have more of a plan now, even though this portion of it has been pushed back.

More than anything, I am just amazed by Laurel's kindness and generosity. Even though she hasn't slept in days because she has so much work to do, she still wanted to come out here so as not to disappoint me. She kept saying how much she hopes this works, that she will be able to do this for me. Of course I hope that too, desperately, but it's so sweet that she is just as eager for this to be successful. She said she has told a couple of close friends about it and when they asked if she would feel weird contributing her eggs but then not being the mom, she said absolutely not. She said she's not using those eggs anyway, and I'll be doing all the hard work of bearing and raising the kid, so I would clearly be the mom. She said she's always totally believed in nurture over nature anyway (as evidenced in our raising of Bonsai--I mean, I think both play a role, but we are completely his parents and he our son, despite lack of a biological tie). I loved hearing how confidently she was able to answer her friends' concerns. I've known her for over half our lives and know she is extremely smart and thoughtful, so I wasn't surprised--just happy to hear it. She will be an absolutely perfect egg donor, just as she has been an ideal best friend to me all these years. I am so grateful to her and just hope that all the steps go smoothly from here on out.

Thankful

2010-10-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for my mommy club, for my message as the club president for our November newsletter, and I wanted to share it here too--with some modifications. Can you guess which parts aren't going in the mommy newsletter? ;)

This year, as Thanksgiving approaches, I'm thinking early of the many things I'm thankful for.

Our son, almost 18 months old already, who delights us daily with his new discoveries and sweetness. We are especially happy that in March of this year, we were able to complete all the legal formalities of declaring him our son, as he was in our hearts since the moment of his birth. We are so thankful too for his amazing birthfamily, who we are blessed to count as part of our extended family now.

My husband, my soulmate and biggest fan. I am so blessed to have a partner like him at my side through everything life can throw at us. We've been together for 12 years now, married for 8, and I can't imagine my life without him.

My writing career, which allows me to be home with my son and while also creating books for other young readers. It's a constant balancing act, chasing a toddler and writing, but I feel very lucky that I have the opportunity to do both.

Our home, which has become essentially one big playground for Bonsai, and feels more like a home than ever that way.

Our families, especially my always loving and supportive parents, and my newfound sisters. I grew up as an only child, but have been blessed in adulthood to gain two sisters. The first is my sister-in-law, who was my bridesmaid 8 years ago and whose wedding, in March, I was honored to be a bridesmaid in as well. The second is my stepsister--last year we planned our parents' wedding shower together, and this Thanksgiving we'll all celebrate our family together here in LA. They are both truly sisters to me, and I'm thrilled to have those sibling bonds in my life.

Our friends, some scattered across the country and some serving as our families here in LA, but all always there to listen and laugh, comfort and celebrate. Most of all, for my best friend Laurel, who is giving me the greatest gift anyone could ever give--the gift of my future children, by giving me some of her eggs. She is an amazing woman, more than sister, more than friend, who has been at my side through so much in the past 16 years.

This ALI community, which offers so much support and comfort throughout the rollercoaster that is infertility. I'm so glad to know you're out there, sharing the ups and downs (though I wish for all of us, in the months ahead, many fewer downs!)

Even amidst all the hardship, there is so very much to be thankful for. As Thanksgiving rapidly approaches and checklists and recipes zip through my head, it's refreshing to pause and reflect on just how many blessings we have in our lives. If you find a moment, tell me, what are you most grateful for this year?

Social Contract

2010-10-22T15:35:00.000-07:00

I just spoke to our new insurance company, and apparently donor eggs aren't covered after all. I don't know where Spruce saw that but I knew it sounded too good to be true. At least we get 3 IVF attempts, so anything done to me (ultrasounds, embryo transfer, etc) will be covered. Unfortunately, ultrasounds and egg retrieval and all that fun stuff for my BFF won't be. Meds, even injectibles, are covered, but those will mostly be for her--wonder if there's any way to order them under my name and get them covered? I know, probably im contemplating insurance fraud. So I still have no clue what this is going to cost us. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. Just another in a long line of insurance letdowns.

But what I keep thinking about is the woman on the other end of the line, the woman whose name I don't even have who knows I am battling infertility and losing, that I am 30 and looking beyond my own eggs for help. I wonder if she wondered what had brought me to this point, or if she didn't let herself think about it. It must be strange to answer these phone calls and have to remain perfectly professional when hearing about strangers' troubles and heartaches. I know it's hard for me to sound chipper and put together when getting yet another upsetting piece of news. But I guess that's the social contract we adhere to in our daily lives. We pretend everything's okay because it wouldn't do to show our oozing wounds and bleeding hearts to every random person we encounter.

That's why I don't plan to tell my fellow shoppers at Bab.ies R Us that my baby was conceived with donor eggs--assuming of course that we are successful. It's not because I'm ashamed of this path, because actually, I'm pretty darn proud that I'm the kind of person who has a close enough friend who would do this for me--and I'm unspeakably impressed by Laurel's generosity and the depth of a friendship that has now spanned over half our lives. It's that it would tell them waaayy too much about what we've been through, things they don't need to know about my broken-down ovaries and all the other painful diagnoses and losses along this cracked and buckling road.

So I pretend to be a normal mother when I'm out with Bonsai, not someone who suffered through 3 years of intense longing for motherhood before he arrived. And I'll pretend, at least to strangers and acquaintances, to be a normal happy pregnant lady when I eventually get there (hopefully very soon with Laurel's eggs!), not someone who has forever relinquished her dream of having a biological child but is blissful anyway because she has learned to cherish other dreams, dreams of being a mother to more wonderful children like Bonsai, of experiencing pregnancy and delivery, of healing my body through this experience, of carrying Spruce's genes on to the next generation, of cementing a unique and beautiful bond with Laurel through this process, of continuing to build our family through the miracle of adoption. But that is truly too much information for the fertiles who surround me at baby stores. So I will pretend to be just like them, let their carefree comments slide off of me, and save us both the trouble of revealing to them what I know--that pregnancy is a gift, harder to attain than they realize and more precious than they can imagine. But in that moment, a few months hence, when I face a roomful of fertiles at birthing classes and prenatal yoga and hospital tours, it will truly be a gift that we share. I really will be just another glowing pregnant lady, whatever the twists and turns and agonies that finally led me there.

A Quiverfull

2010-10-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

So there's this family from my cousins' church that has 10 biological children. And now, they're adopting #11. Now first, of course, I am extremely jealous that they can just up and conceive apparently unlimited numbers of children. But also, why on earth are they adopting when they already have so many kids to support? Now, yes, it's very nice to give a baby a home--except that there are plenty of people, like me for instance, who don't have 10 kids and would love to adopt to bring their child grand total to one, two, maybe three--not 11! It's not like they're saving an unwanted baby. There are so many families waiting to adopt a newborn.

It's seems to be some sort of a movement at this particular church--adopting babies into already large families to save their souls or something. My cousin's new husband is one of 8 children, 6 biologically related and the youngest two adopted. And I really don't want to disparage anyone else's family-building choices, but this is really making me crazy. I can't stop Face.book-stalking this mom, who I don't even know firsthand. Because, like, what is the deal here? Why is it to that baby's benefit to be adopted into a family whose resources are already stretched so thin? Yes, I want to adopt and bear as many children as possible--anywhere between four and six sounds good--and I know that will put us in the "larger family" category ourselves. But 11?! It just boggles the mind. The main issue remains that that I'm insanely envious of this woman's fertility, when I'm at 4 years and counting of trying to give birth to one, just ONE baby! Just another entry in the "life's not fair" files, I guess.

Deep Breaths

2010-10-20T22:10:00.000-07:00

My best friend Laurel's period is late. I feel creepy even knowing that, but I guess TMI goes with the donor cycle territory. She is supposed to come visit in just over a week for her medical screening with my RE. The problem is, she hasn't had her day 3 tests done yet. I'm annoyed because the donor cycle coordinator at my RE's office neglected to tell us that she shouldn't be on BCPs when she took her day 3 tests, which I guess I should have figured out, but I've done day 3 tests while using BCPs as hormone replacement therapy so I thought it was okay. What I didn't realize was that my hormones are so messed up that no one really cares what I am or am not taking at this point--they aren't expecting normal results anyway. Though that does beg the question of why I should still be bothering with bloodwork. So now this coordinator's lack of coordinating abilities have gotten us into this time crunch instead of Laurel being able to test in Aug. or Sept. instead. That's why we're eagerly awaiting this AF. We need to know her levels aren't out of whack like mine are before we proceed. I mean, I'm sure they're not--what are the odds that two best friends would have the same problem? I just can't imagine running up against bad news on this front too, though I have been reminded again and again throughout this journey that life is indeed not fair. But still, I am confident in her reproductive health. It's just, even if insurance does cover the donor portion of the cycle (which now it's looking like they won't--see, I knew I shouldn't get too excited!), apparently it won't cover this screening. And it's really not cheap. And it would be nice not to drop $1500 if we're only going to find out she's not a good candidate on the most basic level, though I'm sure she will be.

But if she doesn't come out now, she can't come out till Dec., after her thesis is finished, which means we can't start the psych screen and contract process till then, which makes a Jan. cycle seem awfully unlikely,since those could both take some time. Which isn't the end of the world, but I was really excited at the possibility of getting pregnant, finally, at the start of the New Year. Besides, Laurel, Spruce, Bonsai and I all already have coordinating Halloween costumes for her visit. She's excited to spend Halloween with her godson Bonsai (and us, of course). I don't want to disappoint her by changing plans at the last minute, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her. But we're using the last of our airline miles to fly her across the country (which at least means we can change the flight up till the last minute without penalties), and we'll be flying her out again once we're actually cycling, so from a cost perspective we need this trip to serve its medically mandated purpose. I'm really not sure what to do here. So...let's just hope her period shows in the next few days. I'll just be here worrying in the meantime. Because I SO needed something else to worry about.

Stripped Down

2010-10-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

For my mommy club's monthly moms' night out last night, six of us moms went pole-dancing. I mean, it was basically a fun exercise class, but there was a pole that we wrapped ourselves around while practicing our newly learned stripper moves. The instructor, a mom herself (and also a former stripper), told us that we needed to engage core muscles thtat had been wrecked by our pregnancies. And this, of course, wrecked me. Because while I suppose it is reasonable to assume that in a roomful of moms, everyone shares the experience of pregnancy and childbirth. Except that there were six of us, which made me, as usual, the representative one in six suffering from infertility. Given this stat, I feel like anyone facing a group of six or more moms should be careful about what they assume about our paths to motherhood. Luckily, the room was darkened to better facilitate sexy dancing, which also covered the tears that welled repeatedly at her repeated mentions of "our pregnancies." I felt embarrassed to be one of the bigger ladies there when all the other moms knew I wasn't trying to get back to my pre-pregnancy body. What they don't know is that they had nine months of pregnancy followed by the weight-loss properties of nursing their babies, I've had over four years of preparing my body for pregnancy, plumping it up with hormones and comfort food, with no baby to show for it (Baby Bonsai, of course, having required nothing from my body in his creation). I wondered if my friends exchanged looks at the pregnancy comments, maybe feeling bad for me that I wasn't part of that particular club. Some of them know a little bit about my struggles with IF, and all of them assume some struggle since they know Bonsai is adopted, but none of them have any idea of how much we've been through. Then I had to strut up to the pole and attempt to spin around it and look hot while feeling just terrible about myself. Maybe not so different from being an actual stripper, huh?

Needless to say, I am not a good pole dancer. But I managed to laugh it off, buoyed by the support and cheers of my new mom friends. By the end, I managed a serviceably sultry routine. A generally good time was had by all, though I still felt resentful of what our teacher and most of my new friends took for granted--their bodies' abilities to perform what seems like it should be he most basic of womanly functions, that of creating and sustaining new life. But then the instructor started talking about how hard it is to feel sexy in our daily lives, how we are disconnected from and often disappointed with our bodies, and I thought, lady, now you're speaking my language. I have rarely felt sexy these past four years, as my body failed me repeatedly, as I packed on the pounds through medical treatments and depression. I've felt so old since this struggle began back when I was 26. I feel more broken than ever now that my eggs are apparently dried up at the ripe old age of 30. But it's not useless, this body. It will carry and nourish a baby, even if it cannot produce one. It is strong from lifting and chasing and snuggling Baby Bonsai, who gets faster and more daring every day. It is the same body that my husband fell for twelve years ago, changed somewhat but still attractive to him. This body has hugged many a friend and relative. And it carries my mind, my self, from which springs all my creativity and compassion, which allow my writing and my relationships to flourish, even if my eggs don't. I hadn't exactly thought of it in these terms before, but I have hated my body for years now, possibly since that first IF diagnosis, certainly since it lost my babies almost 3 years ago. Maybe that is why I have denied it exercise and stuffed it with cupcakes--well, most of that's from the pain and exhaustion from all the treatments, but certainly I haven't treated my physical being with a high degree of care or respect in years. Realizing how much energy I've put into blaming my body for its infertility was a breakthrough I hadn't expected from a fun night out. And it made me want to change that, to celebrate what my body is good for, to feel good about my physical self again. So thank you, pole dancing, for the life lesson...but sorry, don't think I'll be pole dancing again.

Remembrance

2010-10-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

Although I knew that Oct 15 was Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day, I didn't actually know that today was Oct 15 until I hopped online just now. As a a freelance writer and a mom, dates don't have a lot of significance in my daily life. But it's funny (in a sad, not funny at all sort of way)--I was doing some organizing around the house today and happened on the prayer book where I stashed the two ultrasound pictures of my three lost embryos. I try to never open the book because I can't bear to look at those photos, probably the only I will ever have of any biological children. But because of that significance, I certainly can't throw them away, either. Of course this has meant I have also very rarely said a prayer from that prayer book in almost three years, but that's a whole different issue. Anyway, today I went ahead and looked. I saw the corner of one of the photos peeking out and I thought, why not? How much could it still hurt, almost three years later and with the 17-month-old son we were so blessed to adopt napping in the next room?

Let me tell you, it hurt a lot. Here were the only ultrasound pictures I've ever held, so like and yet so different from the ones friends post on Face.book, the ones that stab me in the gut every time. There they were, those three precious embryos I hoped and believed would live to be my babies. Even after the time that's passed, even after finding our way to Bonsai, who was so clearly meant to be our son and wouldn't have been, had those babies lived, the sight of those three tiny 8-celled beings made me gasp, brought tears to my eyes. It's been so long since their brief time with me that it is easy to think of them as purely theoretical babies. But however briefly, they were real, they were there, and they were desperately wanted. I have the proof. And I don't know what to do with it.

So to all of you remembering your own losses today, my heart goes out to you. Today, I am remembering you. Whenever they were taken from us, it was always far too soon.

Brother-In-Law

2010-10-14T13:41:00.000-07:00

I have spent a lot of time, over the years, worrying about my in-laws--whether they like me, what's going on with them, when they would move out of our house. Since nearly all of them have lived with us for a year or two, I've had plenty of opportunities to deal with their myriad issues. And believe me, they all have issues. But the worst by far is my brother-in-law Crabapple. It's been 5 months since our last big fight. In its wake, he stopped speaking to us, skipped Bonsai's first birthday party, and spent Ash's 21st birthday trip to Vegas blowing off Spruce, Bonsai, and me. It's been four months since we saw him on that trip, which is extra sad since he's the only family we have in LA. He's texted Spruce a couple of times recently, but that's all we've heard from him in all that time. There were times when my sister-in-law Holly stopped talking to us for up to two months, but this is a new record. It makes me wonder how we'll ever reestablish meaningful contact.

And in a lot of ways, it's been great. The vast majority of the time, being around Crab is a nightmare. When he's not ignoring me, he's being outright rude. He makes zero effort to find out what's going on in our lives. He is unsupportive and unreliable. So then, why do I care so much about whether or not he's in our lives? Part of it is that he is Spruce's brother, and I want them to have a good relationship. Honestly, Spruce would be perfectly happy to play basketball or text with Crab every once in awhile and never have to have an actual conversation or worry about what his brother's problem is. But then there's me, insisting that Crab treat us with basic kindness and respect or just stay away. And so for five months, he's stayed away.

But now Thanksgiving is approaching. My mom, stepdad, stepsis & her husband and daughter are all coming to town, and I can't wait. But I can't stop worrying about what to do about Crab. We haven't mentioned Thanksgiving to him of course, since he hasn't been speaking to us. Spruce and I agreed that if he asks us about Thanksgiving by the end of this month, we will invite him. If not, he'll have missed the window since we need time to plan. But I know Spruce won't be able to stick to that. He's soft-hearted, and while I love that about him, it can sometimes go too far with his siblings. I don't think it helps them to have no consequences whatsoever for their actions. If I'm being honest, I really don't want Crab here. He's bound to upset me one way or another (likely candidates, from past occasions: showing up really late & forcing us to hold everyone's dinner, bringing his girlfriend without telling us, or getting into a shouting match with me after dinner), and I'd really like to be able to enjoy this gathering with MY family. Since I was an only child until my mom's remarriage last year, it is all too easy for me to get subsumed by my in-laws. But now, I have a stepsister and stepbrother and best of all, a little niece. Maybe it is best to focus on them this Thanksgiving and let Crab spend the day with his girlfriend's family.

The problem is that whichever way this goes, I'll likely feel bad about it. It will be unpleasant if Crab joins us as, after 12 years of dealing with his obnoxiousness, I will doubtless be on edge, waiting for him to make trouble again. But I'll be upset if he doesn't come, because he is our family, and I want Bonsai to know his uncle, and it would be good to have a relative we can count on in town (especially since Crab only moved to LA to be closer to Spruce! who also happens to have gotten Crab his current job!) But I don't know if Crab can ever be that person. I know it would be better to just let go of any expectations of him, and then if he ever does come around, it will be a nice surprise. I try to do that, and sometimes it even works, but with the holidays looming, I'm getting so worked up about this again.

Because say he doesn't come to Thanksgiving--then I have to worry about what to do about Christmas, especially since we're staying in LA over the holidays for the first time ever. My mom and stepdad are coming in again to celebrate, but I'm used to huge extended family gatherings back in the Midwest, so it would be nice to count Spruce's brother in on that. Except that it probably wouldn't, not in reality--just in my made-up image of what our relationship with him COULD be. I so wish I could just turn off the part of my brain that wants more from him than he is capable of giving. But I just keep thinking "he's family," and to me, that is everything--though to him, it's apparently nothing.

Photographic Evidence

2010-10-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

I've written before about my obsession with photos, and how while I never stopped taking them in abundance, I did stop framing or putting them in albums for over a year at a particularly dark time in our infertility journey, shortly after our pregnancy loss and while absolutely everything was falling apart at our RE's (beloved RE moved away to form own practice, his replacement was fired, and HIS replacement was frankly pure evil). We had an IVF downgraded to an IUI (thanks to Fired RE's insane for a high-FSH chick like me protocol), and then had to cancel our next attempt because Evil RE made me sob every time he so much as spoke to me--kind of hard to deal with him, ahem, examining me, when I hated him so violently. At least we got a partial refund on our 2-cycle guarantee on that one. So yeah, March-May 2008 was not a time when I really felt like looking at happy pictures.

Although the framing resumed with Bonsai's arrival (and we now have several rather intimidating, though adorable, Walls o' Baby Pix in our house), the photo albuming did not. Part of it was that I was so busy between newborn care and my writing work that I lacked the time or energy. Part of it was that by then I was so behind that catching up posed a truly daunting task. But now that I am actually, finally catching up on this, it occurs to me that there was some active avoidance involved. For every event documented, I can't help but calculate the corresponding point in our infertility journey. Oh look, there's my master's program study abroad, which I was sure I wouldn't get to do when I first heard about it since I would definitely be pregnant or have a baby by then. But hey, since I wasn't and didn't, not a bad consolation prize! Ooh, there's my 10-year high school reunion! In my Midwestern hometown, girls have babies early and often--cue awkward conversations with old friends who can only talk about their kids, while I have none to talk about. And check out the pumpkin festival where we paraded our puppy around in a pumpkin costume because we didn't have a baby to dress up as a pumpkin yet and having a dog along made us feel a little more like a family. I'm struck with melancholy at each one, each seemingly happy moment tinged with the silent pain of what we lacked.

But then the mood changes. There's the family holiday gathering in Dec. 2008, when we told my cousins we were adopting (we were working on our paperwork with the agency at the time), and were engulfed in their enthusiasm. There's the trip to New York where I exchanged lengthy emails with a prospective birthmother, and although she turned out not to be our match, the excitement of possibility infused the whole trip. And there--oh, there, 17 months ago, only a year after things looked their worst--there is the day Bonsai arrived. He was tiny and miraculous and precious and he changed the whole story. I can't wait to catch up to him in our albums. He is the happy ending we were waiting for for so long. And yes, the drama of the sequels is still very much unfolding, but at least we know the first book ended with a dream come true. As a writer of books series myself, I know that the first book very much sets the tone for the rest. Now that the happy ending model has been established, it's so much more possible to imagine that the next installment will turn out well, too.

So it may never be easy, looking back at our pre-Bonsai pictures, but it's bearable now. Because while I can't help calculating how long we'd been trying for a baby in each, I also love counting how close we were getting to him, without even knowing it. That makes the study abroad program look like a wonderful last adventure before motherhood made a trip like that impossible. He was only nine months away. The high school reunion was actually way more fun than I'd expected, thanks largely to a group of 10 non-parent (largely single) friends who we hung out with all night. He was 7 months in the future. And the pumpkin festival? By the next Halloween, we had our wished-for baby all dressed up in his own pumpkin costume. Oh, how I love that boy.