A Well Deserved Break

These last few weeks have been really hectic.  We have made a lot of progress on the bathroom, but we still aren't done.  There is this whole huge saga dealing with the grout in the shower, but I don't feel like going into it right now.  Instead, I am going to just say that I hope we will be done in a couple more weekends.  And when it is ALL done, I will post some pictures of all of our hard work.

But we won't be working on it THIS weekend.  This weekend, my lovely husband and I are going to be heading up to Asheville NC for a weekend away.  We will be staying at an absolutely amazing hotel, we will be treating ourselves to a "spa day" on Sunday, and we will just be enjoying each other's company.  I can't wait to get on the road tomorrow morning!

I also wanted to say a few words about my activities today.  My friend Jill had a baby 2 weeks ago.  The first time I talked to her after her little boy was born, she was telling me about how she felt those first few minutes after her son came into this world.  I know that she meant no malice with her words, but they stung so deeply.  After I hung up the phone with her, I cried.  I don't have to explain it to you all - you all know it is because I am worried that I will never know that feeling - those first few moments when you see your baby.  When I made plans to go see them today, I was worried I would break down.

But I didn't.  I actually held that sweet little bundle of joy for an hour or so, and I never shed a tear.  I didn't even feel that black hole that normally swallows my heart.  I took in deep breaths of sweet baby smell and kissed his tiny little baby feet and gently stroked his soft downy hair.  And for the first time in a LONG time, I was truely happy holding someone else's baby.

Does this mean I am cured?  (Rhetorical question - I know the answer is probably not...but give a girl a chance to dream!)

I really do hope that one day in the near future I will be holding our little bundle of joy...

Oh - I know I didin't give you all an update on the possible baby - this was not the child meant for us as the situation has gotten stickier and the baby probably won't be given up for adoption.  But at least it was a possibility.  And maybe that will mean that another situation will come along later.

A Baby - Maybe?

That got your attention, didn't it???  Before I explain the title of this post, I have to make another couple of random statements.

I know - it has been a while and I apologize.  But the truth is that since we have been on "hold" on the adoption front, there hasn't really been much to blog about.  My mom always said "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."  Hence my silence.  I haven't really had a lot of positive thoughts about us becoming parents.  Between 2 showers for my very pregnant friend and watching my staff member's belly swell with her sweet bundle of joy and hearing about my co-workers 16 year old giving birth, I have just been in the pits myself.  So I am sorry if my absence and lack of commenting has offended or hurt anyone.  I do love you all dearly and I apologize.  I have been reading all of your posts.

The only positive things I have to say are that our A/C broke during a time with 85 degree spring weather.  The master bath STILL isn't done and I am afraid it will never be done.  I hate my job.  And I barely survived ran a 5K last week.  What, those weren't positive statements?  Yeah, I am in a funk.

Now - on to the topic at hand - A BABY - MAYBE?

Another co-worker of mine approached me about a baby that was born into her family last week (he is absolutely adorable, BTW!).  He was born to a set of parents who don't have custody of their first child.  The night the baby came home from the hospital, the father OD'd and DFCS stepped in again.  The baby is with a family member right now.  The point is that she asked if Derek and I would be willing to consider adopting this little boy.  She isn't 100% sure that the mother and father are willing to give the baby up for adoption, but she feels fairly certain that they would definitely be interested, especially if there were some financial compensation in it for them. 

I explained to her the types of adoption we would be interested in, told her that we would only pay the compensation legally allowable by the state of GA, and that we were not interested in foster care.  I told her that if all of this were agreeable to the birth parents, we would be willing to see if we could make this work.

My co-worker is finding out what the situation is.  There was a hearing with DFCS today and apparently the mother indicated that she was considering adoption.  The mother also showed up to the hearing under the influence of some sort of drug.  There is supposed to be a second court hearing in a couple of weeks to re-evaluate the situation.

I am trying to have the attitude that if it was meant to be, everything will work out and the baby will come to us.  I am also trying to keep myself from seeing any glimmer of hope in this situation until things become clearer.  If she does, indeed, want to allow the baby to be adopted, and she does want to consider us as the parents of her child, then we will go from there.  We will contact a lawyer to find out what the next steps are.

Regardless of the outcome for Derek and I, I will be praying that this little baby be in a home where he can be loved and can be given the best chance to survive and thrive.  I sincerely believe the biological parents aren't going to provide that home.  Please help me pray for this little one to be safe and happy.

And now...Well, we wait.

Our Progress (or Lack Thereof) Towards Adoption

You, my faithful readers, may have noticed that in the last few weeks, this blog has included no posts related to our progress on adoption.  That is because there has been None.  Zip.  Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.  And I feel that I owe you all an explanation.

I have not blogged about this - I don't know why I have been so hesitant.  Perhaps because I am afraid someone at the job that I hate will stumble across my blog and they will learn of my plan?  Perhaps because I am afraid that my mother (who I gave the address of my blog to but I don't think she has ever pulled it up to read it - but that probably deserves a post all of it's own - but I digress) will read this post and freak out.  Perhaps it is because I just don't know how to say it.

For the past year or so, Derek and I have been feeling trapped.  Trapped by the jobs we hate.  Trapped by the house that was meant to be an "investment".  Trapped by the town in which we live.  Trapped by our infertility.  Trapped.  Trapped.  Trapped.  We have discussed, at length, how we would love to pack up and move somewhere else.  Somewhere new.  Somewhere that offers the lifestyle that we want to live and where we could just start over.  I know, moving somewhere new won't change my fertility status and it won't make a baby magically appear.  But at least it will give us a fresh start.  By selling this house and moving away from here, we have the opportunity that perhaps Derek can take a much less stressful job and that, as a couple, we can be better parents to our future children that we can't produce on our own.
Well, here lies the conundrum.  The adoption process can take a long time.  For some people, it can take a couple of years.  When you are dreaming of moving somewhere else, you have to ask yourself "Do I really want to get started in this process that can take years and tie us to this place we dislike for even longer?"  We have been trying to figure out how we could start the process here and finish it in a different state and that was our plan.

But then, the misery with certain parts of our lives here grew larger and some incertainty about Derek's job came into the picture.  I began to worry about the extra stress on Derek to try to stick it out here and start the process.  I started to worry about what moving mid-stream would do to the time line.  Did I really want to go through all of the work to get started in Georgia just to have to repeat all of the work in the new state?  And what if we were matched with a BM who got freaked out by our move in the middle?  All of the what if's started to worry me.  BIG TIME.

So I sat DH down and we discussed an "exit strategy".  I told him that if we were serious about making this change, that I thought we should start planning for it now and move towards reaching that - set ourselves some goals and a timeline.  And we agreed to put the adoption on hold for a couple of months.  I am still looking at agencies and if we happened to find a BM that we could adopt independently from, we would still go for it if the situation was right.  But I am not tying us to this place any longer.

We were wanting to finish up a couple of items in the house so that we can maximize our profit when we sell this place.  So we are now one room away from having the main level of the house finished.  We thought we might make some touch ups to the garage.  We are going to replace the flooring in the basement and give it a paint job.  And then we are going to list the house and hope for a quick sale.

We also wanted to stick it out until a set date in the future because it was more beneficial with Derek's job to reach that date.  That date is quickly approaching.

Our thoughts are that if the house sales, we will have some cash to fall back on and we can move to our new location and find a place to rent.  We can find ourselves some jobs and look for a house to buy.  And once we get settled, we can sign up with the agency of choice.

So there you have it.  The truth about why we haven't really made any progress...Recently, I have been thinking (more times that I care to admit) that living our lives would be so much easier if we didn't have to plan it around how to procure a child.  Why can't we just have a baby the old fashioned way???

Another 3,001 Factors in the Great Debate

Well, after a friend of mine announced her pregnancy today (UGH - I am not going to go into how I feel about THAT one), I determined that it was time to make the phone call to the Donor Embryo place to get answers to some of our questions.

The good news is that I did find out some answers.  The bad news is that I am not entirely happy with what I found out.

Firstly, the 6 months to a year time frame quoted in my first call to them months ago was a little off.  The actual time frame is at least 10 months.  Possibly longer.  Yup.  Great news.  And there is nothing that I could be working on right now.  It is all on THEIR time frame.  That is so WONDERFUL since I am known for my patience.  Umm, right.

The even BETTER news?  They have added a new fee to their plethera of existing fees.  The original stated cost was somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000.  There were additional possible costs of about 2,000 for STD testing and fees passed on from the donor couple to the recipient couple.  And that doesn't include the medications or the visits to a local RE for monitoring during the cycle.  The new fee is 3,000 for councelling for both the donor and the receipient couples.  3,000 worth of counselling?  I mean, how many f-ing sessions is THAT???  Like 15 per couple???

But back to my original train of thought here.  That gets us up to 8,000 to 10,000 just at the base cost.  Possibly 10,000 to 12,000.  And then add in the meds and the additional clinic costs for the cycle monitoring.  PER ATTEMPT.

I know that the financial implications shouldn't be the sole deciding factor in how we grow our family.  I KNOW THIS.  But, in making this decision, we also have to evaluate how this will effect us financially if it doesn't work and we needed to move on to Plan Z (aka Adoption).

And, really, if the donor embryo route will be possibly 12,000 - and comparitively, adoption would be 15,000 or more, wouldn't it make more sense (financially) to spend the extra 3,000 or so and actually take home a baby?

Crap.  Does anyone have a paper bag I can borrow?  I think I need to breathe into it...

The Great Debate - Donor Embryos Vs. Adoption

Sigh.  So many things to consider in the Donor Embryos Vs. Adoption debate.

So we sat down last weekend and had a heart to heart.  I haven't posted about it up until now (over a week later) because I have been taking time to process it all.

After much discussion, Derek's take on the subject was that he would prefer to try donor embryos first but would support me if I wanted to skip forward to adoption.

He left it in my hands.

So, for those of you who don't "know" me, making decisions is NOT my strong suit.  I am terrible at it.  I can go round and round in circles for hours days weeks and still not have a definitive decision.  This creates much strife for me because I also do much better when I have a plan.  So you can see the dillema here, can't you???

If you could have been inside my head over the last couple of weeks, you would have heard something similar to the following:

Hmmm.  Maybe we should just adopt.   It is pretty much a sure thing.  Fill out some papers - I can do that. Bide our time - OK, so I am not the most patient person in the world, but we are already 4 1/2 years into this now and still no baby - I think I can stick it out for a few months.  Throw some cash at it - we have some money in savings.  Take home a baby.  Sounds like a PLAN.  But wait - I know that Derek says that he will go with what I want to do, but if he isn't 100% ready for adoption, would he resent ME for making this decision?  Or even worse, would he resent this baby because of a decision I made??? 

And really, even though I would prefer for someone to just hand me the prize, am I ready to give up on carrying a child, even if it isn't genetically related to me?  I mean - I have always wanted to have that experience of the first ultrasound where you see the sac, hear the heartbeat for the first time, watch my baby grow, rub my swollen belly, feel my baby move inside me for the first time, watch Derek rub my stomach and see his excitement when he feels our child moving inside me for the first time.  Granted, labor is something I wouldn't mind missing - but that moment where they lie that newborn all nasty on your chest...I don't know if I want to give that up!!!

So donor embryos then.  After all, in our original "what if IVF doesn't work" plan, that was THE PLAN.  Donor embryos was the next step. I should call and ask some more questions, fill out the application, and send in our money.  I can call and schedule our home visit and get that taken care of.  And when we had a transfer of a blastocyst I did get slightly pregnant, so maybe our chances are good.

But what if it doesn't work? What if we go through the everything required and put in the time and money and hormones and shots and effort of this process and then end up with a (still) emtpy uterus?  The wait is between 6 months to a year!  So a year from now, we could be right back where we are now!  Maybe I should just save us the time, money and the heartache and decide adoption...

So as you can see, a decision has been eluding me and I am pretty much dizzy from turning in circles...and I have had a couple of panic attacks.

My current stance is that if I am still holding on so tightly to my desire to carry a child AND since that is Derek's preference, that I should just make the decision of donor embryos.  I think I am to a point now that I can say that is our next step in my head and I don't feel an overwhelming sense of panic.  Most of the time, anyway.

I think I will call the Donor Embryo place to ask some questions and fill out the application.  Hopefully between those two actions, I will know if this is the right choice...