The Audacity of Some People

Last night my husband and I heard disturbing news from people we though were in our corner on this adoption journey. It was really actually very hurtful, and very uninformed.

When we started this journey, we expected to find some negative feedback, but never the kind that we heard last night. We never in our wildest dreams imagined that my disability, my ability or lack thereof to work, or my medical history would be a source of discomfort for people. We never in any of the dark recesses of our imaginations thought we would hear the words "If you can't afford to pay for a child you don't deserve to be parents and shouldn't be allowed. If you [worked harder] you would be able to buy a baby."

Besides setting the not so obvious fallacies of that paragraph straight, first and foremost: ADOPTED CHILDREN ARE NOT BOUGHT CHILDREN!! You do not buy a child. Buying children - buying people - is human trafficking. It is morally and ethically unconscionable, and highly illegal.

That being said, yes. I am "disabled". Yes, I currently work part time and yes I do wish I could contribute more than I currently do to our adoption fund. Unfortunately, being considered a disabled worker not too many places are willing to hire me for a second job, or even for a primary full time job, because the nature of my injury has not yet been fully identified and I am considered a liability on all fronts. Adam has been amazing enough to realize how much pain it causes me to be in this situation and has picked up a second job to cover the slack, and has encouraged me to keep this blog updated and to keep getting our fundraising off the ground. He says that as the future mommy, this aspect of the adoption can be my "job".

When the rest of my medical history got dragged into the fray my husband just about went ballistic. He was told by someone who had no true knowledge, that I was faking my Endo, I was faking my PCOS. That my tendons don't really tear when placed under the strain of excess weight, and the implication was laid bare: I probably just didn't want to get pregnant. If I let go of all of the "excuses" we could keep on trying and it would happen.

I don't think I have ever seen Adam so upset. He watches me struggle on a daily basis. He has been there, on more than one scary occasion, when a tendon has torn and I lose control of a limb, or when the weak tendons in my chest tear and I begin to turn blue because I'm having difficulty breathing. He sees every time the Endo begins to spread and it causes so much pain just to button my pants. He watches me lie in pain every month when a cyst ruptures on an ovary. He stands still in fear when I turn fast and stop because a cyst has twisted around my ovary. He is there at every appointment, waiting in the Ob/Gyn's office praying that I don't come out again saying I am being admitted for emergency surgery in six hours, or my life will be at stake. Every surgery he and my dad sit in the waiting room together, waiting to hear from the doctor about how "close" this one was. That thankfully, I still have all my improperly functioning pieces. He waits and hears the news that had I waited like I wanted to, I would have been a dead woman. Yes, he has heard those words from the surgeon. My cysts swell to the size of large grapefruit and in the process begin to strangle organs, and my husband sits here holding my hand through all of this.

Yet, some people have the audacity to say if I let go of the farce of these diseases, we will have a baby.

On a happier note, it seems like our home study went rather well. The woman loved our home and thought our fur-babies were adorable. She said the necessary paperwork will be completed and filed on their end within the next few weeks. Pretty soon the paperwork will be behind us, and we will just need to start writing out checks for filing fees, agency fees, and attorney fees.

I can't wait to see our baby for the first time, or to hold them in my arms. Just thinking about it makes me cry, in a good way. That day will be the most amazing, it just feels like it will take an eternity to get here. Baby, wherever you are, please just hold on a little longer. Mommy and Daddy are working very hard to come find you.


The Lumineers : Ho Hey

I belong with you, you belong with me 
You're my sweetheart.
I belong with you, you belong with me
You're my sweet. 

Pass or Fail?

I can't decide if I'm more excited or nervous right now, I just know I feel like I'm going to throw up - our Home Study is tomorrow at two!!

I'm so exited that this is *finally* happening! We're one step closer to finding our child and I'm legit bouncing off the walls. My husband woke me up at five thirty this morning so I could go to the gym, and I passed on going (which, with all of this energy I now regret.). I've pretty much been up since then, only falling back asleep for a very brief section of time. I feel like I've slept for days!

No, I feel like I did in Sophomore year at college when a good friend of mine, Laurissa, and I stayed up for three days straight cramming for finals and making sure our sketchbooks were ready for all of our art finals. On that last day when my dad got to the school to get me, I hadn't slept in more than two hours and was starting to hallucinate big colorful circles spinning around my walls. I had drank so much coffee and double bagged cups of tea, eaten more chocolate covered espresso beans than I care to admit, and one giant (probably close to two pounds) hunk of Godiva chocolate that was swiped from a dessert table the day before at dinner in the dining hall. Man, was I wired!! He got me home and I crashed straight into my bed for the next sixteen hours. All I can remember is my two little sisters taking turns knocking on my door, their soft little voices asking "Chrissy? Are you awake yet? Are you ready to get up? We missed you!" and me telling them I would be up in a "few more minutes".

I feel like that, except the sleepy part. I'm just so freaking excited!

But then, I slow down and try to contain it. Then I get nervous. Is our home good enough? Are we good enough? We know the woman who is coming tomorrow, and she's very friendly and a super nice woman, but does she see flaws in us that she feels like we need to fix first before becoming parents? Will she think our dogs are too hyper active to have a child in our home? Will she like our neighborhood, or decide that the houses are too close together and that our yard is too tiny?

I'm so nervous. I'm so excited. Should I clean some more and get rid of this nervous energy? Maybe I could steam clean the carpet upstairs. I could go clean up the attic and the basement a bit more, I suppose. The dogs nose prints are all over the windows - they are constantly in the windows! Will she see them and think I don't clean? Or will she see them and see that we have good guard dogs who protect our home? Maybe the house is too clean. Maybe she'll think that we won't be able to deal with the messy lifestyle kids come with.

I know worrying will only get me so far, but at this point I just can't help it. It's so close! Just over twenty four hours away now. I know I probably won't sleep tonight, and I'm OK with that. There's enough that I can do to keep myself busy. I just need to keep those fears at bay until our home study falls into our hands like our report cards did back in school. That final note: Pass, or Fail?

Pennies from Heaven

My husband and I met a friend for Chinese food today, and as I think back about our conversation from earlier about our Seedling Drive, I find that my fortune cookie is rather appropriate...

"Pennies from Heaven find their way to your doorstep this year!"

This morning my husband and I were talking about how and where to have our Seedling Drive, and I told him that I would like to talk about this to our priest this week. I'm *hoping and praying* that we will be able to have it at the church, and possibly a spaghetti dinner as well. I'm planning to have bucket loads of garlic bulbs, onion bulbs, herbs, and veggies to offer. I've already got twenty four cloves of garlic that have sprouted straight through their little green house roof! Needless to say, my husband doesn't really care where the drive take place, so long as we don't get stuck with tons and tons of seedlings - our tiny little yard just wouldn't be able to handle it!

Now back to the fortune cookie thing - it seems pretty fitting that I would get this fortune, pennies from Heaven, because really, all we are asking for is for people to donate spare change. Maybe what they would have spent at Dunkin Doughnuts or Starbucks on a cup of coffee. If they're feeling super generous, maybe they'd be willing to share with us what they would have spent on pizza and wings for dinner some night. Every time I see a donation pop up on our GoFundMe account it's like a little gift from heaven, a little penny that found it's way into our life so that we're just one step closer to finding our baby. I'm hoping maybe our Church Family will be able to help out, even just by helping us stay organized and functioning at the Seedling Drive and the dinner.

On that note, while the time and location are still TBA, I really hope I can count on everyone to be there, even if it's just to look at my green thumb (or lack there of!). If anyone wants to help out with our drive or wants to pre-volunteer to help at our spaghetti dinner feel free to leave a comment, message me or my husband, email one of us, call us, etc.

Here's some of the garlic sprouting already!!

Funding and Expenses

We've been doing our research and some solid legwork these past few days, but through it all the lack of awareness still amazes me. I don't think, despite my efforts, people truly realize the expense related to adoption. I've heard a lot of comments since we started our journey that question why we're trying to adopt if we "can't afford" to pay the fees. Well, the same logic I guess could be applied to buying a house or a new car. Why bother buying it if you can't afford to pay for it outright? Hmm? Because it's stupid to even think that you could save up enough money to make such a large purchase and pay in cash. Why on earth do people think adoption is any different? A lot of people don't realize that adoption is so expensive that the majority of adoptive families can't do it without fundraisers, donations and grants. It's just possible.

Who has between $1,000 and $5,000 for a home-study to be completed? Or $15,000 for agency fees? Or another $5,000 -10,000 for attorneys fees? Let's not even discuss the thousands of dollars international adoptions require for visas, airfare, lodging and other untold expenses. Who has access to that kind of money?? We sure don't, and I've never heard of a non-celebrity adoptive family being able to do it.

On that note, Adam and I have discussed going through Catholic Charities for our adoption. Information has been requested from them and should arrive in the mail sometime next week. A close friend's brother was adopted, and their parents worked with Catholic Charities years and years ago to find their son. They have told us over and over that they had a wonderful experience and are such big advocates of Catholic Charities, because they help families who don't have access to those thousands of thousands of dollars. They do, or at least did a long time ago, work on a sliding scale to make it more accessible to the average American family.

I found out that they do things a little bit different than most agencies too. Instead of immediately placing a child with the adoptive family, they retain custody of the child for thirty days and then turn over the rights, because in NY, birth parents have a thirty day window to reclaim their rights and Catholic Charities has found that by holding onto the child for this window saves the families a lot of unneeded anxiety. 

Personally, I think this is amazing, and I am completely willing to give up those first few weeks to know that when we find our baby, no one and nothing can ever separate us.

Supports

When you've finally come face to face with a friend or family members decision to adopt, it may be shocking to know, that if we haven't already told you we're infertile we probably don't want to talk about it. Sure, we know you're just trying to help and all, but would YOU want to talk about a bad oven, or maybe that your husband doesn't have Olympic swimmers? No. Of course you don't. No one does. It's one of those things that while it needs to be talked about, unless someone is incredibly open or has a really deep relationship with the person who's asking, it's uncomfortable at best. Painful at worst. It hurts to talk about it.

I can't even describe the pain I feel when someone asks "Why adoption? Have your own." How do I tell someone who is a casual acquaintance or a former co-worker  or whatever, that I can't, because the words most likely to follow are going to be a suggestion to see a specialist. This only leads to more pain, because, well, my infertility isn't something that can be fixed (at least with todays medicine) in a specialists office. Sure, there are gads and gads of medications they could give to me to try and fix the issue, but with my PCOS we run the crazy high risk of my ovaries blowing up like balloons at your kids last birthday party and strangulating. Now what good, I ask, could possibly come from that? A big, fat, nothing. You could say, hey, maybe it's your husband, not you. Sure, hypothetically that could be the issue. But again, suppose it is the case. Doctors STILL need to give me crazy medication to pop out a solid egg that they can surgically retrieve and manipulate his swimmers into. So, gonzo's to that one.

Another thing infertile couples run into more often than you would think, are the seemingly harmless statements of "God, my kids are driving me nuts," "If I knew what I know now, I wouldn't have kids," and the ever loving "Here, take my kid for a while. You'll change your mind." No, no and NO! Stop saying these things people!! Be grateful you can and did have children. You have amazing little miracles that love you to no end. Stop trying to pawn them off on people under the guise of "helping" with their need to care for a child. Stop saying you would undo it if you could. Stop telling us your kids make you crazy. You're complaining to the wrong people! These comments hurt us too, believe it or not. You're reminding us every time you say something like this that you don't want to deal with something we want more than anything and can't have.

I choose to be so open about everything my husband and I are going through, not for the sympathy, but for the awareness that it brings. When we created our GoFundMe account, we realized how much we were asking of people, and knew in our hearts that we would need to be open books when it came to our struggle. I keep writing, and probably upsetting a lot of people along the way, because if I don't, I find nasty comments from people who don't know us, like the comments a very close friend of mine received after he shared our link on a social networking site. Someone informed him that he shouldn't be sharing it because we were probably "scamming" people, and just trying to get "free money" from people. Things like this add so much fuel to fires that infertile couples and adoptive families try daily to extinguish. Adoption is so expensive if you choose not to deal with the constant headaches that foster-adopting offers. We aren't Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt. We can't afford to just write out a check and tell someone to get everything in order. We have to slog through things, doing things on our own, finding creative ways along the road to raise money for the processing fees associated with adopting. It's hard. It's a full time job. Without the generosity of family and friends, most people would never be able to afford adoption. I know we certainly wouldn't be able to any time in the near future, and probably not anytime within the next decade.

Moral and point of my rant? When you find a couple who has chosen the path of adoption, please, think twice before you open your mouths and try to be helpful and concerned. Just be the supportive friend who asks "What can I do for you?"

Sprouting Buds

Since finding creative ways to come up with enough money for our adoption has become my new baby, it seems only fitting that I spend the morning on my blog with my coffee. What could be better than spending your morning with fresh coffee and your baby? Oh yeah, you could be spending the morning with fresh coffee and your real, cooing baby.

While I was reading comments from adoptive families the other day, I read about a family who came up with all sorts of ways to help fund their adoption. I mean, they pulled out all the stops here. It was incredibly inspiring to me. I've never read a story where a family wanted to adopt and let the cost change their minds. I've determined that I will not be the first.

On this note, my husband and I wanted to start a seedling sale of sorts. All monies would be donations to our adoption fund, and not technically a sale. Since we're asking for people to help us out, we want peoples opinions on what seedlings they would be interested in raising. Flowers? Zinnias? Daisys? Do you want to see bulbs? Or do you want vegetables? Herbs?

Anyone have other fundraising ideas for us? Help me out here! I've got a baby to find!!

Squishing of Bugs

From the moment we decide that we're ready to become parents, a nagging fear of inadequacy begins to bloom somewhere deep in the hidden recesses of our hearts and minds. The fear that we won't be good enough, won't be strong enough, won't be able to provide enough. As if that weren't bad enough, when we start to analyze this fear in an attempt to squash it like the creepy bug it is, we find this other fear. This new fear. A fear that somewhere along the lines we will mess our kids up. That we will somehow damage them beyond repair.

Sometimes I think that people who are able to carry their own children for those first nine months have it a little easier than those of us who struggle for years with infertility treatments or for those who plod slowly down the road to adoption. The people who are fortunate enough to carry their own children only have to wait nine months to figure out a way to squash that creepy little bug called Fear. The rest of us? Well, it's like a longer pregnancy than that of an elephant. Some of us have to wait years to kill that little monster. We wait years, year spent worrying that we won't be good parents. That we won't be enough for the children we want to raise, shape, mold. 

How do you deal with those fears when they have an indeterminate amount of time to fester, when there is no end in sight? Sometimes, the pregnant people have it easier. Sure, they get all of those pains from ligaments stretching, they get the stretch marks, and they get to see the scale continue to rise. But they get a definite date when they can stomp on that little monster and banish the fear of inadequacy from their homes for good. The people we keep company with, the "infertile ones", we don't get that. What do we get? the worlds longest pregnancies. The ones with no due dates. We get months that have a tendency to bleed into years worth of more than just one fear.

I look forward to the day when I can kill that bug, but in the meantime, this sucks.

Thank You

The support we have been shown so far since announcing our plans to adopt has been immediate, unconditional, and profound. It moves me more than I can say.

Nothing in this life is promised, or owed, to us. Nothing is certain. The only thing we can count on in this world, is that someday we will leave it just as we entered it. Vulnerable. Hopefully, we get to leave after spending many years here, surrounded by family and friends. But we will always leave this world vulnerable. When Adam and I announced our plans to adopt and began to ask for help with it, that was how we felt - vulnerable and defenseless. We opened ourselves up to a world of scrutiny with no promises that the criticisms we could look forward to receiving would be positive. I can say with all honesty, we are two incredibly lucky people.

So far, countless people have gone out of their way to share our Crowd-funding account across the board of social media. We've found our way onto Pintrest, Tumblr and Facebook. I'm sure Twitter is there somewhere too. Friends are speaking to coworkers, and others are getting in touch with foundations designed to help couples looking to adopt. Two of my closest friends from college even found room in their grad-school budgeting to be our first two donors.

All of this has left me speechless, and for everyone who knows me well, lack of the right words has never been a problem for me. The gratitude that I feel is immense, and no words are the right words for everything that I feel. If I said a single "thank you" to everyone who is taking the time to help us, every day for the rest of my life, it still would not be enough. I cannot wait for the day that we find our child and I can tell him or her every night about the amazing people who helped to bring them home to their mommy and daddy.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Helping Hands

I have been told, on more than one occasion, that I am a very opinionated woman and I am OK with that. I was raised to speak my mind as tactfully as I can, and to speak the truth, again, with tact. It has come to my attention that some people feel my blog is very "in your face", and while I don't want to offend anyone, I believe I have the right to be as open and forward about infertility as I feel comfortable with. Not every has to agree with it, not everyone has to be alright with it. You don't even need to like the things I write, but they are my truths. Things I feel, and I feel that I have the right to throw it all out there if I so choose.

In the words of a truly amazing woman, one who has overcome infertility once and will again, when we discussed my "in your face" attitude on this matter, "Why not? That's how pregnant women are."

Reflection on her statement over the past few hours, some thoughts have become further cemented into my mind, or at least, the way they seem has become cemented. First, it's perfectly OK and even expected, for pregnant women to throw everything out there, every minute of every day, about their pregnancy. Maybe it's because pregnancy and growing a life is such an amazing and special thing, something special to be celebrated. The next thought that crossed my mind, is that no matter how much a pregnant woman complains or whines about how uncomfortable she is, no one in their right mind would dare to tell her to quit her bitching. Maybe we just fear her hormonal wrath or we're too afraid to make her more upset. I don't know. What I do know, is that these things do not apply to the infertile crowd.

We don't get to talk openly about our struggles to become pregnant, without fearing that someone is going to tell us to can it, because no one really cares. No one really wants to understand something as depressing as infertility, its something we hide away and take out to examine in the dark when no one else can see it. We don't get to complain about how uncomfortable we are with all of the testing we go through, all of the awkward questions about the things we do. No one wants to hear about our mood swings from the added hormones we take, or about all the excessive vomiting from the medications that happen to have the added side effects of helping the annovulatory to ovulate. (Glucophage anyone? Anyone? Vom.) When we do open up on those especially crappy days, we're more likely to hear something along the lines of "Buck up soldier. You knew what you were getting into." than something like "Aw, you know, that really sucks. Can I go get you some of that soup you like from that take out place down the street?"

No one likes a Debbie-downer, but really folks, is it too much to ask that when we want to puke our guts out you show us the same consideration you show the pregnant chick next to us? Even just a little bit of it? Don't we deserve some of that kindness, or is infertility just that scary to everyone?

We're scared, you know. Let's bring infertility out of the dark, and into the light. Help us through this. Don't leave us in the dark alone with our fears of never being mommy's.

First Steps

You get to a point in your experiences with infertility when enough just feels like enough. Well, more than enough really. You feel like ripping your hair out until you look like a lunatic and screaming at the top of your lungs because nothing you've done has worked. You've charted your temperature and other things too gross to mention. You've stuck your feet up in the air for what seemed like hours, and tangoed until sitting seemed like a fate worse than death. Still, nothing works. Most people decide that it's time to go see and RE at this point, but, that's not really an option for us.

Yeah, sure, it would be nice. Go make an appointment, see the doctor, maybe s/he's got some magical advice, a magic drug, a magic procedure, and POOF! The Stork is at your door. Storks... who figured storks delivered babies anyways?

I digress.

Going to see an RE is not an option for us because of my defective oven. Nothing they do behind those closed doors is even in the ballpark of safe for my burners. Maybe it's my all too solid Catholic education coming back to haunt me, but I'm not sure that I would want to venture down that path even IF it were a viable option for us. I realize that it's right for some people, but we decided it just wasn't right for us. After a lot of soul searching and praying, we decided it was time to look at adoption options.

So this is where we stand now. Starting to fill out mounds of paperwork, having our lives dissected at every turn, inviting strangers into our home to pull apart every knick knack to make sure everything is baby safe. Oh, and don't forget smoke detectors. They have to make sure every floor and bedroom has smoke detectors. Even if you only have a one floor home with two bedrooms, you need three smoke detectors. The crazy things we do to become parents.

Now, now is the time to start squeezing every penny and to find funding for the crazy fees we'll need to pay to find our baby. Adopting here, in New York State, is insane. Between homestudy fees, lawyers fees, agency fees, you are looking at potentially upwards of forty thousand dollars. In NY, the birth parents also have the legal right to change their minds up to thirty days after your baby comes home to you, and nothing you do can stop them from taking your baby back. You are left with nothing. Nothing but a big, gaping, black hole and the knowledge that you now need to start all over if you can find the strength to do it all again. You find youself right back at square one, looking for thousands more dollars to find your second child, and praying that this one will stay home where they belong.

While discussing all of these things, my husband and I came across a crowdfunding website called GoFundMe, and several friends and family members told us they thought we should see if we could make it work for us and our journey through adoption. So if you are reading this, check it out. Copy the link and send it around to your friends and family for us. Take this trip with us, help us find our child.

http://www.gofundme.com/20lmjg

Sensitive ... Swipes?

Sure, everyone loves to hear your good news and to see your "bump" pictures, even when the "bump" is really just bad gas from that burrito you just had to have last night, and then share with the whole world that you threw back up. Don't get me wrong, we're happy for you. We really are. However, just because you are happy (and you should be) does not mean in anyway - shape or form - that we want to hear about your cravings, farts that gassed your husband out of bed at three in the morning, or that your pants don't fit anymore ... ALL the time. Because, lets face it. It hurts us. It hurts a lot. No matter what we say, do or how many happy smiles and thumbs up we give you, it still hurts because in our world this is you rubbing your success in our faces and reminding us daily that we don't function properly. You may not mean for it to come across like that, but that's how the message is being received.

Not only are our ovens broken or damaged in some way, but the radio tower that keeps us in tune to the world of baking around us is jacked up too. When it's supposed to receive the message that, oh say, you want to go shopping and need a pal to tell you if blue makes you look like you should go see Omar the Tent Maker for clothes from now on, that tower is really getting "Hey look at me! I'm too big to wear my size two's from Gap anymore, so come with me while I rub my belly button and get dreamy eyed over maternity pants that probably won't fit for another couple of months." Hear me out - it's not just broken one way. When we say things like "Sorry, I can't today" we are saying more than just "I can't go shopping today". We're really just at a loss on how to say that we really mean "Sorry, but I can't take the emotional drain of looking at everything I want and will probably never have, today". This is an honest case of "Its not you, it's me."

Sometimes our radio tower is really screwed up, and it gets that way, especially when too many buns start baking at once and all the messages come in together. It gets hard to keep things straight, like really hard. Crazy hard. Sometimes we say things that come across as really harsh sounding, or just cry for no apparent reason. Just know that there is a reason, and we just have a hard time verbalizing it. We're dealing with a huge loss here and every time we see what we're missing, it's like we re-experience that loss all over again. We're like Alzheimer's patients. It's a brand new pain all over again.

If we come across as catty, or bitchy, just take a careful swipe when you go all crazy-momma-bear on us - chances are good that you got a messed up radio signal from our jacked up towers. We're just hurting.

Be careful what you wish for

When I was a teenager I was told having my own kids someday would be difficult at best because I was struggling with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), Endometriosis and Hemorrhaging Ovarian Cysts. All I cared about when I was fifteen was making the pain and discomfort go away, so my reply to this was to tell my doctor to "take the sucker out", referring to the whole reproductive mess we discovered. Both my Gyn and my parents said they wouldn't do it because someday I would be an adult, and someday I would want little versions of me running around.

I fumed the whole way home and argued that my parent's knew nothing, I didn't want kids and I would never EVER want kids. They screamed. They pooped and puked. They ruined your life. My mom laughed and said to give it ten years and I would change my mind. A week later when another cyst began to hemorrhage, I told my dad it was his fault I was in so much pain, and to bugger off with his idea that I needed all my organs in their respective places.

It took a good six years before hormonal control methods stopped working to control the three diseases and I eventually needed surgery. Six months later, I needed another surgery. And one more two years after that, just because, you know, cysts the size of oranges on an organ the size of a pea aren't really a good thing to keep around. After my last surgery, my husband and I were hopeful that we would be able to have a family of our own, because true to moms word, after you grow up, kids don't seem quite so yucky anymore. Things change. People change. Ideas about our futures change.

Organs ravaged by hormonally caused diseases do not.