Cats in the Cradle
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
A Preemptive Move?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
A Preemptive Move?
Well, I don't quite know where to begin this post. It's one of those 'do you want the good news first or the bad news first' kinds of posts? I'm usually inclined to get my bad news first so I'll go with that.
This cycle is a bust. Again. I took an HPT yesterday and today so I was not shocked by the call that came on my lunch break, just hours ago, to say that the pregnancy test was negative. Yet again. I was not shocked but that does not lessen the pain much. I have a feeling a big cry is ahead and I already had one Sunday.
I am sad, of course I am. I am not as crushed as I have been other cycles, but that may not be a good sign altogether. It may just indicate how tired I am. How little hope I had for this cycle to begin with, etc. I was more sad on Sunday when I had the big cry. I cried and cried like the world was ending. Because it was. My idea of my world was ending. My world does not, and will not, look the way I wanted or expected it to. I never imagined this for myself, for my husband, or for our life together. Of all my worries (and I tned to have many) infertility wasn't even on the list. It was such a shock, and still is in some ways, rather surreal. All this pain and disappointment has been our marriage. (I mean this in terms of time, we have been enduring fertility treatments for most of our four year marriage, nice honeymoon, eh?) I really need the pain to stop. I am depressed and sad more than is healthy. It is understandable given our circumstances but that doesn't make it OK. I need to take my life back at least on some level.
There comes a time when banging your head against the wall just hurts too much, and starts to feel a bit silly, to be honest. So, we are truly at that crossroads now. We need to choose a path even though the one we wanted isn't even on the map we've been issued.
So I have mentioned the options before: Continue treatment, pursue adoption, choose child free. The last is still not imaginable for me. C. can imagine it, says he would be OK being just us, just a couple but he supports and understands that I cannot let go of the motherhood dream I had for myself and the family dream I had for us. It may be able to accept child fee at some point in the future, but right now I till need to try to build a family. It's just that I need to try in a way that may actually work for us. We will do no more than two medicated IUI's. We will submit our application to the adoption agency that we have researched and chosen. We will pursue domestic adoption. As far as adoption options go, the Caucasian newborn programs are about the longest shot of all, but it is what we are going to try for. I have to have faith that a birth mother out there will find us to be a good fit to parent her baby. It may take a while. I will probably take longer than if we chose an international program (hard to say really) but C. feels very strongly about this path and I just want to get to motherhood, so I don't want to quibble about which road anymore. I would have skipped IVF altogether if C. and I could have agreed on an adoption path way back then. I was too scared of domestic but I've educated myself and opened my heart and I think this is something I can do. One thing infertility has taught me is that I am a hell of a lot stronger than I could have imagined and I can do a hell of a lot of things I would have found impossible if you had asked me four years ago!
So here we go! Buckle up!
Oh, and since I ought to explain a number of things, including the title of this post: We met with the adoption agency staff yesterday. It was a real on the fly kind of thing. I tested yesterday morning and all hope was lost yet again for a pregnancy. C.'s shift got cancelled. I got to work and my boss sent me home when he found out my hubby was off (C. having a day off is pretty rare and my boss is also my dad.) So, I called C. to say I was coming home and how did he feel about going to meet the social worker if I could arrange a meeting? He said yes, I called, she said see you at three. So, off we went. We explained our scenario, asked our questions the last of which being how firm were they on the rule about stopping treatment before even submitting an application. And after a bit of back and forth which involved her figuring out just how done I really was and that I had no intention whatsoever to be in "the profile book" as an available couple while still trying it was just that we wanted to get the home study underway so that we could be "book ready" and hit the ground running as soon as I got my BFN from the last IUI no later than May. She said she would normally discourage this overlap but she gets the clear sense that we are ready and if we are willing to take the financial risk of losing our application monies, etc. then she's fine with that. I said well, after losing close to fifty thousand dollars on failed treatments what's another $1600 on a home study and an application if we should not need it in the utterly unlikely event I find myself pregnant in the next two attempts after something like 16 have failed (I've lost count.) So, that long winded scandalously long run on bit is to say I think I am finally ready to embrace the adoption option.
I am both scared and excited. On Sunday I had a huge cry about it all (again). It was rather cathartic and it made me look at what I really want here. We want to be parents. Biology is not a priority for us. We'd like a newborn so domestic was the way to go and we've made our peace with our respective birth mother fears. The state I live in and where the agency is based has a 30 day revocation. So once we jump all the hoops, once we are chosen, once a baby is placed with us, we will have to make it through an entire month of loving and bonding with a child we may not get to keep. But as devastating as a "disruption" would be (can you believe that's what they call it??) the risk is relatively low. And somewhere along the way here, C. and I are bound to fall on the right side of the statistics, right??
And lastly: If I am so ready, why do the two more cycles at all? Well I don't have a really great answer for that other than I just need to. I may change my mind along the way but I am quite sure it will be in favor of doing less cycles, not more.
2 Comments:
At January 31, 2007 12:09 PM, Starfish
As I have said to you before, I have been exactly in your shoes. What struck me was when you said "My world does not, and will not, look the way I wanted or expected it to". I think that is the hardest part to swallow. But I can attest to the fact that evenutally you see that the world you end up with can be so much more wonderful than you ever dreamed. Hang in there Beagle, and do what you have to do. If you have to continue treatment, then do it. I am glad you are starting the adoption process though, that helped me mentally. In any case, you are moving forward and that's a good thing.
Thanks for inviting me to your blog. Good luck with getting it all setup. And good luck moving forward!!
Sorry about the bfn.
Take care