Fostering an Idea: The Sign

Anyone who was a teenager in the 90s will be very familiar with this song – and it’s the first thing that popped into my head after what just happened.

But let me back-track for a moment so you can understand – once I get to the point (eventually) – why this moved me to write a second blog post today.

It may surprise you to learn that my husband and I were not the kind of people who talked about babies before we got married. Or as newlyweds even. I mention this only in passing because I recently read a story somewhere about someone who basically started her TTC journey either on her honeymoon or as soon as they got back – and I honestly couldn’t have imagined doing that, even in hindsight. In my family, we don’t marry early, and we don’t procreate early – everything is done in stages, none of which is even contemplated before you graduate from college. Alternative choices are not an option – and, quite frankly, it would never have occurred to me to choose a different path.

Of course I had no idea that, apparently, somewhere along the lines my connect-the-dots was missing some very crucial ink blots…

Ahem.

When people ask me how long we’ve been trying, I find myself laughing mirthlessly (confession: it’s out of a combination of panic and embarrassment because I don’t have a good answer) since I can’t really pinpoint when we really started – and we haven’t done so consistently. The reasons are many – peppered with family strife, death, moves, etc – so that if our “attempts to conceive” were mapped on a graph, they’d probably look a lot like someone who’s having some minor heart problems. Erratic may be a slight understatement.

But here’s what I can tell you: I’ve been ready to become a mother for almost 8 years now. I always assumed – stupidly, naively – that like for everyone else around me, things would just sort of “happen”. I mean, we did everything “right” – neither one of us is a raging alcoholic, we don’t smoke, gamble or use intravenous drugs; we’re upstanding, tax-paying people with a nice house. In other words? We’re parents without babies. SIGH.

If I had a dime for the many, many times that I’ve drive down a road and caught myself listening to music, thinking – what would it be like to have children in the backseat? Would they sing along? Would be laugh, would they fight like siblings do, would my heart swell each time I caught a glimpse in the rear view mirror? I’d be halfway to paying for a cycle of IVF.

I try to quell those thoughts because, well. You know – it’s painful. It feels like you keep picking at a scab, not letting it heal. And while we’ve still not made any progress with really making a decision in regards to IVF – partly because finding a new RE will involve going out of town, and the logistics of coordinating that are daunting to say the least – I’ve also told my husband that I wanted to make time to sit down and talk about alternative family building options. (Of course, finding the time to actually sit down and have an in-depth conversation with him is kind of hard when he works all the time – and I how can I give him a hard time about it when the truth is that I love him for being a diligent, hard-working man that I adore and respect?)

When I was younger, I always thought I’d want to adopt. Now, I feel bruised and battered – partly because, as someone dealing with DOR and facing the very real possibility that biological children may not even be an option for us (and I can’t even put into words the raw pain that this is causing me on a daily basis), it suddenly feels like it’s not a choice, not an option – but something you’re forced to consider because you may not be able to have a child any other way. Unsurprisingly, I have a hard time coming to terms with my conflicting emotions on this subject.

Worse, though, is I know now that adoption isn’t as straight-forward as I’d believed in the past. If, as I’d naively assumed long before we got to this point, it was just a matter of saying “yes, please!” and being open to adoption – I’d have no problems with it. As long as I can have a healthy baby, I could cope with one that’s not biologically ours – regardless of gender or race. But I was in for a rude awakening. Adoption can be far more expensive than IVF – which, in itself, boggles the mind – and seems poised as a sort of popularity contest of sorts, almost like a cattle auction. The other day I was reading a brief paragraph about how domestic infant adoptions usually run between $20-40K (yes, thousand – as in, five figures) – but can be even more expensive. I’ve seen numbers quoted that were closer to $50,000 – which is more than both of our cars, brand new fridge, washer & dryer etc. cost when we bought them. It’s years worth of mortgage payments – money that is then no longer available for college tuition or other more immediate family concerns.

(Did I mention that this is for domestic adoption? As in, right here in the good old US of A? We’re not even talking about international adoptions, at which point you obviously have to factor in travel and accommodation – so that, at least, I understand why the bottom line would be augmented by things that aren’t strictly related to the adoption itself.)

At the risk of putting my foot in it, I think that’s preposterous. I don’t agree with it, and I think there’s absolutely no justification for it whatsoever when you’re dealing with domestic adoptions. I know some people are willing to do whatever it takes to get a baby, any baby, by any means necessary – but for me, that’s just not something I don’t think I’m even willing to consider, especially in this day and age when you see adoption agencies vying for prospective birth mothers by promising them free iPads and/or iPhones (unreal!) – unsurprising, really, when you think about how much money they (the agencies) are making off of the whole transaction.

But I don’t want to get into that too much because I’m so angry that, in dealing with IF, you’re constantly penalized for a medical condition (that isn’t even recognized as such – which is why only 12 out of the 50 states even have IVF coverage, and most insurance companies also don’t cover ARTs) for which you are not responsible. Suffice it to say that, unless we magically find someone who wants to give us their baby, this avenue is closed to us – because we definitely will NOT be going through an agency and mortgaging ourselves up to our eyeballs for this.

The alternative, then, is to adopt from foster care. Which, if you’ve ever watched anything on tv at all or read anything online, you’ll probably know two things (a) there are far too many kids in foster care, which is nothing short of tragic; (b) adopting from foster care can be extremely difficult and traumatic for both the child and the adoptive parents. Again, I don’t really want to get into details here – mostly because I’m not an expert and I don’t know much of anything about it – but it’s something that’s been on my mind lately. I thought about whether I could see myself adopting a child that wasn’t a baby, perhaps not even a toddler. Could I see myself “mothering” an 8 year-old? What about a 10-year old? Because the reality is, of course, that everyone who is forced to consider adoption wants a baby – so the sad reality is that the children who remain in foster care the longest are always the ones who are already older. It’s heartbreaking – but I struggle between what I think about the situation and asking myself what I can realistically take on. And, of course, what my husband is willing and able to deal with.

So two nights ago, I started doing a little bit of reading online – wondering whether maybe we should at least talk to someone about the whole process so we can find out exactly what’s involved and so on. I figured that since the likelihood of getting a match even by being amendable to adopt through foster care within less than a year (and most probably 2 years or more) is slim to none, we might as well “hedge our bets” even before we start IVF.

What prompted this whole blog post is a pamphlet that came in the mail yesterday – not 24 hours after all these issues weighed heavily on my mind. We’re not even supposed to get it – it’s a residual from the previous owners of our house from a local hospital that I assume they were patients at. Normally I just put it in the recycling bin because there’s nothing relevant for us – but I decided to flip through it…and on the second page, there was a story about foster care in relation, specifically, to teenagers. If I were religious, I might ascribe this to a whack on the head from a higher power – but even without ascribing to such a philosophy, I still thought…coincidence? Or a sign? Not a sign that I should open my home to a teenager – which I honestly don’t think either one of us would be prepared to do as first-time “parents” – but I thought, what a coincidence that this showed up in mailbox the very day after I was just looking into this subject.

I’d be lying if I said that this was something I can just gloss over and say – sure, no problem. I’ll do it! I know that part of the reason I’m reading up on these things is because, deep down, I’m steeling myself against the fact that I don’t actually know what’s going on with my body – and that, a year after my last AMH test, I’m not even sure if I’m still dealing with DOR or if it’s already much worse…I shudder to think of all the people who completely fail to grasp how the mere thought of not being able to have biological children is absolutely devastating; and how, consequently, the reality would – and is – so horrific that just contemplating it makes me feel like I’m going to throw up.

Sometimes I tell myself – this isn’t the end of our story. We’re not meant to be childless. We’re such loving people, we’re caring, we’re funny, we’re empathetic and compassionate. We have so much to offer. Sometimes I imagine having a conversation with someone who is giving up her child for adoption. I imagine what I would say to her – but part of me always wonders how difficult it would be to “sell” yourself while trying to remain calm and not freak out at the possibility that this person who has what you want most in life can just change her mind at a whim. But when I can disregard the scary bits, I imagine what I would say about us – to a birth mother or to a child we’d consider adopting. I would talk about our travels, our love of music, our pets and our belief in bringing out the best in each other. Would it be enough?

Sometimes I think I could – I want to – give a child what I’m good at. I’m the person who blends into other families as the aunt – the one who helps with homework, chimes in (when appropriate and obviously never overstepping the parents’ authority/boundaries), helps you navigate through the minefield of tween and teen conversations around emotionally charged but important issues. So I think to myself, if we can provide a safe, loving home for a child that hasn’t had one – a child who deserves to be loved, cherished, helped to grow into whoever they’re meant to become…how can I not consider that?

But of course I know that I’m idealizing the situation. Even with as little as I know, I’m aware of how much emotional baggage children in foster care come with. As time goes by and I ask more questions, I find out things that make an already daunting prospect even scarier – conditions like RAD (reactive attachment disorder). I wonder if I can deal with trying my hardest to love a child…and accepting that, sometimes, no amount of effort and love is going to turn the tide. I think my biggest fear would be dealing with a “psychotic” child – and by that I mean seriously deranged to the point of being homicidal etc. – or a child that lies, steals or has serious aggression problems. Because dealing with a child that really, genuinely WANTS to be loved – a child that wants to have a home, a family, wants to learn, wants to have a good life? THAT is something I can give – even if I know, of course, that it would be a journey filled with many, many lessons and a need to learn how to deal with things I’ve never had to deal with before. But I know it’s just not that easy.

I’m still scared – of all of it. Mostly, I’m scared of the mere thought of being – or, rather, remaining – childless. I admire people who choose to be childless because I think it’s so much better to make that choice than to have children if you don’t really, really want them. But that’s just not for us – at least not at this point. I can’t imagine a life without children. So I have to continue to believe that somewhere, at some point, our child will find us – whether through assisted reproduction or adoption. All I can say is that, whenever he or she comes into our lives, our arms will be wide open…

Absence

So…It’s been two weeks. And before you sit there with bated breath, wondering if this is a happy or not so happy news post – it’s neither. At least not for me personally. I’m not pregnant, I still have never been – so I guess the silver lining is that I’ve also not had a miscarriage. At least not so far.

But that’s sort of what caused my absence: miscarriage. Not mine, obviously – but that of someone I don’t even really know. A woman I’m “friends” with on an infertility site – and I use the word loosely because I don’t want to overstate the relationship since, again, I obviously don’t really know her – had recently finally gotten a well-deserved BFP (for you newbies that means Big Fat Positive, aka PREGNANT. Yeah, I know – the lingo is overwhelming at first – but trust me when I tell you that you’ll be throwing it around like a well-roped lasso before your next-door neighbor can say “Yeehaw!”).

Of course I was kind of jealous. OF COURSE! I mean, we still haven’t made any real progress in finding a new RE – partly because we have other issues that we’re trying to deal with – so OF COURSE I’m frustrated, annoyed, anxious…wondering if DOR as already turned into POF and I’m just not aware of it, asking for a punch in the face the next time someone does lab work and I’ll be begging someone for a Costco size vat of Valium to bring me down from the meltdown that would ensue.

But I digress.

The truth is that while I’m not really a “community” type of person as such – and yes, I know, it’s not a pc thing to say but I’m just more comfortable one on one than I am with a ton of people – this has become very different in the face of infertilty. I think it’s because, when you get to my age, my situation, when you’ve been through what I’ve been through, you sit there feeling just slightly desperate. Pathetic, even. You want to slink away, your proverbial tail tucked between your legs because you feel like less of a (wo)man. You want to scream, cry, punch someone, punch the wall, race down the highway just because, you know what, if the universe isn’t going to give you a baby, then why should you care about anything else in the world?

It has been hard for me not to scream at people who procreate like bunnies and then do ridiculously stupid things like, oh, I don’t know – teeter totter around in mile-high heels because, oh that’s not stupid at all; or strap themselves into the maternity version of Spanx so that they can constrictor-boa the crap out their unborn child in the name of whatever ill-conceived notion of “fashion” they have (and I won’t even say anything about priorities because, hey, someone who’s concerned about looking fat because they’re pregnant is clearly a grade A moron). Or people who exclaim that pregnancy is sooooo boring (so please stop showing me pregnant teenagers on tv – because, really? I don’t need to convulse with projectile vomit). Or that their baby number ten thousand isn’t the right gender (no problemo – fork it on over!). I’ll spare you the apoplectic maelstrom of profanity that this creates in my head. Let’s just say that if and when I have a child – or, miracle of miracles, more than one healthy baby – I’ll be converting to a new religion: eternal gratitude. Shiny happy people indeed.

Anyway. The exception to my poorly veiled disdain – bordering on hate at times – for people who have ZERO concept for how blessed they are by never having to experience the raw, excruciating pain of primary IF sometimes falls away in the most unexpected ways – and this was the case when R. got pregnant. Even though we’ve never met, I was incredibly happy for her – I wanted to give her a hug and say, YOU DID IT! She deserved a slice of cake, her feet put up on cushy pillows while we – including the rest of her IF sisters – took in a chick flick marathon during which she smiled calmly and refused a glass of wine for the first time. (Yes, I have an active imagination – and yes, in another life I probably would’ve been a screenwriter for chick flicks. But that’s neither here nor there.)

I periodically checked in, not wanting to be to pushy because – again, we’re not friends in real life and I thought, maybe it’s a little lame to be living vicariously this way. But it was kind of like a beacon of hope for me. You see – R. and I are pretty much in the same boat. We’re more or less the same age, have the same problems with infertility. So her success? It made me think that I, too, had a chance to be successful. It made me feel less frustrated with our current situation because I thought, ok – it can still happen for me. It happened for R.! THERE IS HOPE! And let me tell you something: for a woman dealing with primary infertility in her mid to late 30s, hope is like Pringles – once you get a taste of it, you can’t get enough. (I was going to say it’s like crack but – well, I don’t know anything about drugs and it seems somewhat inappropriate to reference crack in the presence of baby dreams. Ahem.)

So when I saw her post that the second ultrasound had been silent – no heartbeat – I felt my own heart almost stop. I choked up as I read her post. I tried not to cry. I was angry. I was FURIOUS. As I read, I felt my heart breaking for her – through the words, it was as though she was telling me what had happened to my face…and somehow, I almost felt like it was me, like I was the one. I know. I know it sounds stupid, crazy – maybe even selfish or self-absorbed. I wouldn’t blame you at all for shaking your head or thinking I’m an idiot for feeling this way. But I was absolutely devastated for R. – not just because of what she was going to lose, what she was going to have to go through (which is absolutely unimaginable to me) – but also because it was like, in that moment, the tiny little flicker of hope was extinguished. The success story that I was pinning my own hopes on…gone.

And then, of course, I felt like a horrible person. I was angry at myself because I thought, why am I making this about myself? I wrote her a heartfelt message, telling her how sorry I was – and my words felt so hollow. Not because I didn’t mean them, which I did of course. They felt hollow because I thought – it doesn’t mean anything; it doesn’t help. It doesn’t change the situation. It doesn’t make her wake up the next day with this nightmare behind her any sooner; or, better yet, having woken up and this actually having been just a nightmare – her being able to shake it off with a shudder and think, thank God it was just a dream. It made me realize that, as much as I’ve always relied on words to express myself – and I do, believe me – there are times when no words can be enough.

After that, I just felt so empty and deflated. I was sad, tired – I’ve been having a hard time sleeping for a month or so anyway, and nothing seems to be getting me back to a normal pattern. I tried reading. I tried getting some fresh air. I tried re-organizing things. I did 4 loads of laundry one day. I spent two days virtually attached to the couch, watching tv. Constantly having this dull ache in my heart and a tug of war in my head: the paralyzing fear of never having been pregnant and what my already-low AMH from a year ago might mean for me pitted against the guilt I felt for taking someone else’s tragedy so personally.

Eventually, these past few days, I’ve been feeling a little better. I thought about how I’ve spent so much of my life feeling bad about myself. Always questioning how other people perceived me thanks to certain somebodies I won’t mention; never feeling good enough, pretty enough, smart enough. And in dealing with infertility, it seems like just another way that life is telling me that I’m a failure. But I thought to myself: I’m an adult. It’s MY job to rephrase the crap in my head. Who gives a fig about what someone else said? What someone else thinks? I’m not a bad person. I’m considerate. I go out of my way to try to be nice to others, to be empathetic, kind and polite. I’m not perfect, I’m HUMAN. At what point did I accept that external values should define me?

So you know what – here’s the truth. I HATE that I have to deal with infertility. It feels like it’s just another way that I suck at life. But I also know that there are tons of women who deal with this – women who are young and healthy, women who are in worse shape than I am, women who are single, divorced etc. In the grand scheme of things, I have to believe that I’m going to get through this and that infertility is not meant to define me. I’m not going to be one of those people who call themselves an “infertile” – to me that doesn’t even make sense. It’s something I struggle with, not something that’s part of my character!

Anyways. That’s it for today’s offering. I know it’s not especially original or poetic – but it’s from the heart. Thank you for believing in me when I didn’t.