No Room for Sorry

My new niece is just over a week old, and I've managed to go visit her 3 times already. She is absolutely precious. No one in my family can get enough of this beautiful, perfect, little girl.

On Saturday I had the perfect excuse to go see her. I had some gifts from my in-laws to bring to her. :-D My Mom was also in town to see her first grandchild, so I was able to spend time with my sister, my Mom, and the new baby girl in the family.

My Mom has a 1.5 hour drive to get to where we live, so on the way to my sister's, she had a phone conversation with my Grandma. My Grandma was asking my Mom was asking how I was at Thanksgiving. . . being around a new baby and all. My Mom was a bit confused by the question, and simply answered that I was fine, and so happy about my new niece. My Grandma then mentioned that she wished I could have a baby. My Mom answered that T and I are going to have a baby. . . an adopted baby. My Grandma then said, oh yes, I realize that. . . I just wish she was going to have her OWN baby.

This is not the first time I've heard comments like this. I actually hear them quite frequently. From all types of people in my life. . . from close family members to close friends. I realize that many people see adoption as second choice. But I don't.

People come to adoption in many different ways. For some couples, they decide to adopt after years of suffering from infertility, for some couples, it is a way to hand select a gender, for some, they are single, and don't want to wait to meet Mr. or Mrs. Right, for some, biological children were never an interest to them, and for others, it is a greater calling that they have. We all decide to adopt for different reasons. I hope to someday share T and I's very personal decision to adopt.

We all build families in different ways. Although T and I are building our family right now through adoption, I will still view this child as OURS. He may not have my skin complexion, or my smile, but he will be my son. And there is no sadness in that.

I am very blessed. Although life isn't always easy, and although life doesn't always go as planned, I wouldn't change a thing. I am grateful for the life I am living and the relationships in my life. And more than anything, I am so entirely grateful that I will be a Mom through adoption. I truly can't think of a better gift than that.

There are also other wonderful things happening to me and my family right now. . . things I hope to share in the coming weeks. Yes. . . I am truly blessed.

Thanksgiving Eve

There is so much to be thankful for, and I try to give thanks everyday, but the Thanksgiving Holiday really reminds me to stop and reflect on all I have to be thankful for.

A husband who is my best friend and #1 supporter
Family
A cat who greets me at the door every day when I get home from work, and sleeps with me every night.
Airplanes that take me to far away places.
Email that lets me communicate with some of my favorite people in the world on different continents.
A house with room to grow.
My health.
Adoption.
Friends.
My new and healthy niece.
A car to take me to work everyday.
A job that allows me to make money.
Indian and Thai Food.
Health Insurance. . . and someday I hope everyone has it.
Big cities.
Cabin on the lake.
Education.
The blog world.
Warm summer nights.
Thunderstorms.
Heat during the cold winter months.
My camera.
401K.
Music.
Laughter.
Tomato Soup.

And so much more.

Find my Family

Last night I was laying in bed, watching Dancing with the Stars. When it ended, I didn't turn the TV off fast enough, and quickly got sucked into a show called Find my Family that ABC was airing. I had no intention of watching it, as I thought bed sounded more appealing, but I quickly got sucked in, and spent the next 30 minutes with tears running down my face.

Find my Family is a show about adoption. It tells both sides of the story. . . The birth families who gave up the child for adoption, as well as the adoptive child's side. Last night's story was beautiful. A 16 year old girl got pregnant, and she and her partner realized that they couldn't provide for their child, so they gave their daughter up for adoption. This young couple ended up getting married and having 3 more children, so the daughter they gave up had 3 biological siblings.

What was amazing to me, is the adoptive child (now a 30 year old woman) had no animosity towards her birth parents. Instead, this woman was raised with love in her home, and she and her parents often prayed for her birth parents.

Before T and I looked into adoption, I didn't realize people had mixed feelings about it. I always assumed that everyone thought adoption was a good thing. I was wrong. There are many people out there who belittle birth mom's for giving up a child for adoption, and have nasty comments towards adoptive parents who are looking for alternate ways to start a family.

There are so many mixed opinions out there, but I still think adoption is a wonderful thing. I think birth parents who make the decision to give a child up for adoption are the most selfless people this world has to offer. They don't make the decision out of abandonment. They make the decision out of love.

I look forward to watching this show as I think it is a beautiful depiction of what adoption is truly about.

Catch Up On Our Story

It was January 2008, and T and I had just come back from an amazing 3 week vacation in Egypt. This is a trip we always wanted to take together, and completing it felt like we were crossing off something huge from our bucket list.

T and I always wanted children, but it was really important to us to be married for a while first. We wanted to travel, attend plays, go to museums, and live a fairly carefree life. But in January 2008, we felt ready. It was around T's 31st birthday, and we were standing in our kitchen, when we decided, we would actively try to start a family. It was a happy day. It's so funny to look back, and think about how naive I was. I was very very naive.

The first month passed, and it didn't work. I guess I wouldn't be one of those women who got pregnant the first try. No big deal. We'd keep trying. Pretty soon the second month, then the third, then the fourth. I finally decided to get serious about this trying stuff, and I went out and bought Ovulation Predictor Kits. (OPK) I also joined a couple trying to conceive (TTC) communities online, and started taking my basil body temperature. In hindsight, I wish I would have been more relaxed, but I had the tendency to control everything, and I felt a great need to control when I would get pregnant.

More months passed, and I started becoming even more worried. It wasn't so much my desire to have children now, it was more like I felt I was failing at something. I needed to succeed. It was now the fall of 2008, and T and I were quickly approaching the year point of TTC. The basic definition of infertility, is TTC for a year with no success. T and I were dangerously close to becoming official infertiles.

I decided to set up an appointment with a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) in my area. This was all foreign ground to me, but I thought it would be a good idea to get the ball rolling. T and I went to the Dr. together and gave him our history. He said our age will really work in our favor. (At this point, I had just turned 29, and T was 31) We had some of the basic tests done. I had an HSG, an blood work done to test my FSH levels, and both of these came back normal. T then went and had a semen analysis done, and that was normal as well. (There was a question about the morphology, but the RE assured us it was fine)

After these first basic tests, the RE gave us some options. . . we could continue trying naturally, we could take some medications and then try naturally, or we could take medications and then do an insemination. Unfortunately, patience is something I struggle with, and I wasn't willing to just wait and see. At this point, I felt like we had a long road ahead of us, so T and I decided that we would take medication and do an insemination.

I was still so naive. I figured I'd take a pill a day, create a bunch of eggs, go get an insemination, I'd be pregnant, and all of this would be behind me. Yes, very naive. I did take the pills, and I created a nice looking egg, we had the insemination, and then we waited two weeks to find the results. It was a couple of days before Christmas, and I woke up early on test day and went to the bathroom to find out my fate. One stark pink line. Not pregnant. T was so supportive and held me as I cried. It was a very difficult Christmas, and for the first time since our journey began, I was really realizing just how long of a road this could be.

T and I went back to the RE, and he suggested we try the same protocol one more time. So we did, and again, I didn't get pregnant. Our RE then suggested that I take some injectable medications that will help me create even more eggs, and then do an insemination. He was nervous to take that route, because of the high risk of multiple pregnancies. I was also a little nervous about the possibility of multiples. Oh. . . naive me.

It was about March or April at this time, and we were in the process of our third insemination. Every day, I gave myself a shot in the tummy, and then I went and got monitored to see how my eggs were growing. I ended up growing 3 nice eggs. We did the insemination, and again, waited the two weeks. Two weeks later, I took another pregnancy test, and saw another negative result. At this point, I was pretty sure I would never see a positive test. Ever. I had already taken about 10 tests at this point, and all were very negative.

T and I then took a little time to regroup and decide what to do next. Our future was looking bleak. We met with our RE again to discuss next steps. According to him, if someone doesn't get pregnant after 3 inseminations, their chance is really low that it will ever work. He also stated that because it had already taken us so long to get pregnant, that our chances were about 1% each cycle. Not good odds.

I then asked him directly, if he was in our situation, what would he do? He told both T and I that he would go directly to IVF. It is a lot more expensive, but it yields the best results and it would be our best (and perhaps) only hope, in having biological children.

IVF was a scary option to me. Not because of the medical aspect of it, but because of the scary price tag, and because it was a last resort. Because of the cost, we would only be able to try once, maybe twice. If it didn't work, that would be it. Our dream of having a biological child would be gone.

T and I aren't the wait and see kind of people. We had a long discussion, and decided that we both wanted to move forward with IVF. So, the spring of 2009, we did our first IVF cycle. Because of my age at the time, 29, the Dr. put me on a fairly low dose of medication. He was sure if my dose was too high, I would overstimulate, which is extremely dangerous. So every morning I gave myself 3 shots. And then every evening, I gave myself 2 more shots, one of which T had to administer to me in my muscle. Every two days or so, I would go to the Dr. and have an ultrasound to monitor my eggs. Unfortunately, my eggs weren't growing hardly at all. Many women create 10-20 eggs. I had 4-5. I had my eggs retrieved, and out of all of those eggs, only 1 fertilized properly.

T and I showed up the day of the transfer, and the embryologist informed us that the egg that did fertilize isn't growing well at all, and is extremely poor quality. The RE then came in and said if he were us, he would save his money and not even do the transfer. So, our first IVF was officially over, and we didn't even finish it.

T and I headed to the cabin (It was Memorial Weekend) and hung out with my family, including my newly pregnant sister. The pain was so present. It was always so present.

We decided to get a second opinion at this point. We went to the clinic in our state that has the best record of successful IVF's. We had all of our charts sent to this clinic, and met with a Dr. She went through our charts, and suggested the reason we weren't getting pregnant was my poor quality eggs. Up until this point, I hadn't heard anyone mention my eggs were bad. Yes, this was new to me. We really liked this clinic, and felt like this is the place that could help us. Unfortunately, it was also the most expensive reproductive clinic in the state, and we couldn't afford it. I left feeling sad that finances could possibly control whether or not we have biological children.

So, we headed to our original clinic, and started IVF #2. This time, the RE increased my meds, and he thought that would make all the difference. He also increased the amount of times I administered the drugs, so at this point, I was taking 6 shots a day. Things seemed to be going better however, My eggs were growing, and the nurse thought I could potentially have 15 eggs this cycle. 15! I was so happy and relieved.

The day of retrieval was July 11th, 2009. I woke up from anesthesia to ask T how many eggs were retrieved. He looked sad. I was groggy. I wasn't thinking straight. He said 6 eggs, but only 1 was mature. 1. At the last minute the Dr. had changed my dose, so my body was unfortunately full of immature eggs. I remember laying in the recover room, trying to rip the IV out of my hand. I was crying hysterically. I should have been embarrassed, but I was too drugged to be embarrassed. Finally, they released me, and T and I walked out of the clinic with me sobbing.

Miraculously, 2 of those eggs fertilized, and 3 days later, I came back for a transfer. I was able to see two embryos (our babies!) under the microscope. They were put in me, and then we waited the two weeks to find out if I was pregnant or not.

Two weeks later, I had my blood drawn to see if I was pregnant. That afternoon, the nurse gave me a call at work. Not pregnant. I wasn't surprised, just sad.

After spending a few days mourning this, T and I sat down, and decided we were both ready to move on. Infertility is a rollercoaster. It is extremely up and down, and it was taking a toll on us emotionally. We were ready to be happy again. We hadn't been happy in so long.

It was at this point, that we realized, more than anything, we wanted to be parents. Sure, we'd always be sad not knowing what a little T and Leah looks like, but more importantly, we wanted a family. We wanted to parent together. We decided to be done with infertility treatments the rest of our lives and to put 100% of ourselves into adopting a child.

We quickly decided that international adoption was best for our family, and on June 25th, 2009 (which was actually before we were done with our final IVF) we submitted our application to adopt. The next few months were busy having home studies done, filling out a ton of paperwork regarding our health and finances, and things of that nature.

On October 26th, we mailed our Dossier to Ethiopia, which meant we had completed all of our paperwork, and now just had to wait until we got placed with a child.

Life was feeling really good and settled. T and I were on our way to becoming parents, and we felt happy about our path. I knew it would always be my biggest disappointment in life not being able to conceive, but I was trying to come to peace with that. . . as much as that is possible.

On October 30th, a Friday, I woke up for work at 6am. . . Just like I do every day. Ever since my last treatment in July, my cycles had been really off, and it occurred to me that I hadn't gotten a period in a while. I had a pregnancy test leftover, and decided to take it. I wish I could articulate why I took a test, but I really don't know. I wasn't having any symptoms. I wasn't sick. And although I may have been late, I didn't really know because I had quit keeping track. A part of me just felt like taking a test, so I took it.

Up until this moment, I had taken many tests. MANY. And all yield the same results. Imagine my shock and surprise when I saw a positive pregnancy test. I couldn't believe it. One would think that my initial reaction was joy, but it was more completely horror. What the heck? I just spent almost 2 years trying to have a baby. I had inseminations, IVFs, and nothing worked. And now I was pregnant?

T was still sleeping, so I woke him up, with the test in my hand, and told him I needed to talk to him. I told him that I thought I was pregnant. He sat up and asked if this was a sick joke. I showed him the test, and then he and I said OH MY GOD, no short of 100 times. We preceded to get ready for work, and neither of us allowed ourselves to get happy. False positives happen. Maybe I wasn't really pregnant?

On my way to work, I stopped at the local grocery store to buy another test to confirm it, but unfortunately the tests were under lock and key until the pharmacy opened in two hours. So, I went to work, and couldn't concentrate at all waiting for 9am. At sharply 9am, I headed to the store and bought two more tests, one digital, and one with the pink lines. I headed back to work, and went to a rarely used bathroom in my building, and took both tests. Immediately, two lines popped up on one test, and on the other test, the word Pregnant immediately popped up. This wasn't a dream. This was real.

I called T immediately and said I am definitely pregnant. We were both overjoyed. We both left work early, because we couldn't imagine being at work while all this was going on.

The next week, I went to the Dr. for bloodwork, and my HCG results showed I was definitely pregnant. A couple days after that, I went for my first ultrasound to look at the baby and date the pregnancy, as I had no idea how pregnant I was. It turns out, I was 5 weeks and 6 days pregnant that day. And I saw the little flicker of my baby's heartbeat. I cried immediately at the miracle I was experiencing. A true miracle.

So, this is the story of how T and I are expecting two little ones. We are so excited for both of them, and everyday, we remember how blessed we are by our two miracles.

Maternity Leave

I remember when I first started in the working world, pregnant women would have their babies, and then be out of the office for the next 3 months on average. I always assumed that was the company's policy. Have a baby. . . 3 months off to spend time with the baby.

I WAS WRONG!

This past week, I've been looking into maternity benefits at my company. I'm lucky in that adoption time off is handled similarily to maternity leave. It is basically the same policy. Let's just say the information I found was extremely disturbing. Here are some highlights.

1. The majority of companies in the U.S. do not offer maternity leave. Instead, they offer something that is called short-term disability. Most people can have up to 26 weeks a year of disability. However, these corporations have said that giving birth to a baby only requires 6 weeks of healing, so you will only get 6 weeks of disability.
2. The first week of disability is actually unpaid. . . so technically, a woman only received 5 weeks of disability.
3. Depending on the company you work for, only a percentage of your salary will be paid during disability. Some companies only pay 50%, and if you're lucky, your company will pay 100%.
4. If you're not ready to go back to work after 6 weeks, you can then take 6 weeks of FMLA. FMLA is the Family Medical Leave Act. Not all companies offer this. But if yours does, it allows you to take time off of work and guarantees you a job when you return. However, it is COMPLETELY unpaid.
5. Some companies don't offer anything AT ALL. No short-term disability. No FMLA. If you want time off after having a baby. . . take it unpaid or use up your vacation time. (If you have any)

Finding out this information was upsetting and disappointing to say the least. Why does a country that claims to be the best at so many things, do so little for work/family balance. My friends in Norway that have babies, get a year off. There are 3rd world countries in the world that have better maternity benefits than the U.S. does. The U.S. is in the very bottom of the pack on the benefits offered.

In my opinion, this is completely pathetic, and it must change. I'm going to bringing a child into my life, and I want this child to have a decent adjustment period. I don't want to bring this baby boy home, and just when he's getting used to T and I, ship him off to daycare. Staying home is not an option for me right now though. I wish it was, but we are a family that requires two incomes for the time being.

Something needs to change. We need to have laws in this country that allow women time to spend home with their new baby. . . whether it is via birth or adoption.

Sometimes it is so obvious to me that our country is run by men.

Life

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

How many of us actually look at our circumstances as blessings? I always try to find the deeper meaning in my circumstances, but sometimes I get so stuck on the "why me" of my circumstances, that I can't find the good in it. I fail to find the deeper meaning in why something happened to me.

I love that quote above. I have an aunt who is ailing right now, and she is the most spiritual person I know. Have you ever met someone that when they talk to you, and look at you, they actually SEE you? Because that is my aunt. She looks into your soul when she looks at you.

I have a very favorite memory of my aunt. . . It's a memory I think of often. I was a college student, and babysitting her daughters for the day. When my aunt and uncle came back after their afternoon out, my aunt and I were left alone in the kitchen. I was in a sad place because of some circumstances in my life. I thought I was disguising my feelings, but my aunt sees things. She sees people. She asked me what was wrong, and I broke down and told her what was on my mind.

My aunt left the room, and came back with two rocks.

The pink rock represents calmness, and the purple rock represents tranquility. My aunt told me to rub these rocks anytime I needed those things in my life. (I still have these rocks today) My aunt helped me to get to a place of meditation, and when I "woke" up, I had renewed strength.

I will always remember this memory with my aunt.

We are all on our own life journeys, and it is inevitable that we will all come face to face with our mortality eventually. Knowing this somehow doesn't make loss any easier. But knowing it will help us all to prepare for our own journeys, and will help us live a more authentic life.

Thankful Tuesday

I am thankful for today.

Today, right now, is all I'm ever guaranteed.

Sometimes something so sad and tragic happens in our midst,

that it wakes us up momentarily to what is important.

It gives us perspective.

The sad thing is that our appreciation for life dwindles with time.

Something sad happens, and with time, we forget how precious

our time together is.

In time, we let arguments linger, we reduce the frequency that we say

I love you.

But today, I am thankful for the perspective that I have.

I hope that it lasts forever.

I hope that I always realize what and who is important in life.

I hope that it won't take another tragedy for me to remember.

I am so thankful for today.