Archive for the ‘Joy of Infertility’ Category

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I’ve been ordered

May 22, 2007

Okay, well, maybe not ordered but told by #5 during my appointment today to seriously think about taking myself out of the adoption-related internet world.

He also suggested backing away from visits with L and her family until Widget is older but I’m not so sure about that. Note: I still have not called her about this weekend.

In talking with #5 about the fact that I feel guilty for not having myself in order financially, emotionally and what not prior to adopting Widget and that moving into an apartment feels like this huge backstep in what we said we were in meeting her, out came the underlying issue: I am struggling with this idea in my head that I was wrong for wanting to adopt a baby. That this made adopting about me and my “baby itch” and not just about wanting to parent a child because I/we didn’t choose foster-adopt or adoption from an orphanage. And that I want to adopt an infant again.

All the reading I have done about loss for the first parents and the child, all the subtle coercion in adoption, the heated discussions where adoptive parents are called “baby snatchers”, the idea of returning custody when an adoption was unethical, even just the open unheated dialog that is going on about ethical adoption is feeding this idea.

Every time I read a post about a first parent’s grief, I’m consumed with this fear that L is hiding her grief from us and she regrets the adoption but doesn’t know how to tell us.

I can’t stop thinking about it. About how to change things. About how to know if an adoption is ethical. About what God would really want us to do in regards to adoption, particularly domestic infant adoption. About whether I’m just thinking about myself and not about what is right.

Anything that happens with Widget that is probably just age-related or temperament-related, I wonder if it has to do with adoption loss. If her tantrums have more to do with the loss of L than with whatever provoked them.

It is doing me in.

Posted in Adoption, Depression dealings, Joy of Infertility | 2 Comments »

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Hrm…

April 25, 2007

Our friends just called and they had their baby today. A boy. Obviously, they are very excited and happy. It is the husband’s dad’s birthday today, which is cool.

I just wish that these stupid little twinges of jealousy and sadness about my infertility wouldn’t butt in and mess up my happiness for them. I feel like smiling and crying at the same time.

Wishing it were me isn’t going to make my infertility reverse itself. All the desire in the world to be a mom through a pregnancy isn’t going to make it happen. As much faith as I have in God’s ability to create miracles, that is one miracle that won’t be happening. Ever.

Okay. Enough whining. Get over yourself, right? Your turn to be a mom again will come. Some day.

Posted in Joy of Infertility, This Life of Mine | 1 Comment »

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Green-eyed monster

February 15, 2007

Jealous.

At this very moment, I’m feeling very jealous.

Our friends who are having a baby, managed to get an offer on their house in 6 weeks, also just got the house they wanted to buy.

I want to sell my house.

I want to adopt again sooner rather than later.

I don’t want to live in an apartment again.

I don’t want my parents to get a divorce or separate or any of that.

I don’t want to be struggling with depression any more.

I am tired of feeling like this.

I’m tired of being crippled with heartache over situations where I ought to be happy for the people I care about.

I’m tired of being caught up in this endless cycle of thinking my life is the way it is because of my inherent failures.

Posted in Childhood cancer survivorship, Depression dealings, Joy of Infertility, This Life of Mine | No Comments »

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Bag of Rocks

February 14, 2007

Someone posted this on one of the adoption forums I check out in a post about healing and grief.

I don’t know who wrote it but I’ll try and find out where it came from.  It is just something that resonated with me.

A Bag of Rocks

When you carry a bag of rocks around, day in and day out, you will inevitably become tired. No matter how far you walk, how hard you work, how much you try, you are still tired. Even sleep is ineffective, because you are sleeping with your bag of rocks, and when you wake in the morning you continue throughout the day carrying the bag of rocks.

Some people would ask, “Why not just let go of the bag of rocks? Stop carrying it around with you, just put them down. Can’t you see that would make it easier?” But, you see, I am afraid that if I let go of the rocks there will be nothing left. The rocks are all that I have, all that I have carried with me throughout my life, all that I trust. Certainly, carrying these rocks around makes me tired. But being tired is familiar, and safe. Would you let go of all that you have in the world, if you were not certain that by doing so you would gain more?

And yet (the irony is) we cannot have the certainty of more, until we let go of what we have. As long as I am carrying this bag of rocks, my arms are much too full for me to accept anything else. Even when you offer me a bag of feathers I don’t dare to take it, for how can I trust that the load you are offering me is truly a load of feathers without opening the bag? Others have offered feathers, but given lead. How can I know that the bag you offer is not heavier than my current burden unless I let go of my bag of rocks, freeing my hands to open your bag? And I cannot let go of my bag, for if I put it down it might be taken from me. Or, even worse, I may find that my arms ache far too much for me to pick up the bag again, and then I would have nothing.

Can you understand why I would despair? You ask me to give up all that I believe that I have, all that I believe that I am, and yet I cannot. The fear of having nothing–of being nothing–is far too great. You want me to give up my hatred, my anger, and my pain (but most of all my pain, for the hatred and anger are mere masks for the grief and fear I hold inside). It will make me better, you say. And yet, how can I trust you, without first giving up all that I am holding on to? And how can I give up all that I am holding, if I do not trust you? Can you not see the confusion I am living with, the overwhelming fear that controls my actions? Can you not see why I push you away? Why I cause harm to myself, and to you? Can you not see why I am afraid?

Please understand, I don’t want it to be this way. I do want more, I really do. Perhaps you may have noticied how hard I try, before the despair seems too much to bear, before I give in. If only I could give up these rocks, I would have peace. I would be happy. I want to belive it, but I can’t. So I continue walking, dragging my bag of rocks, and wishing for something I can never have.

I wrote this just over a year ago, as an attempt to explain to my therapist why I was holding on to so many of my destructive behaviors so stubbornly. I finally found the courage to let go of the bag and try something new–and yet at times I still go back to that bag of rocks, because it is so familiar and safe, and the new ways are still uncomfortable and scary. I am considering adding more to this piece–as I no longer feel the hopelessness I ended on a year ago.

Posted in Childhood cancer survivorship, Depression dealings, Joy of Infertility, This Life of Mine | No Comments »

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Believing in Grief

February 5, 2007

Nicole shared this essay from the NPR series on All Things Considered “This I Believe….” essays spoken by listeners.

A Way to Honor Life

Cortney Davis- nurse practitioner, All Things Considered, February 5, 2007 

I believe in grief. Almost every day, when I walk into the hospital where I work as a nurse practitioner, I hear crying, moaning or wailing: A young woman has miscarried. An elderly widower is holding his wife’s belongings. A mother stands guard over her badly burned child.

Once, I would have rushed to comfort these people. Uncomfortable myself with their grief, I’d want to ease their sadness with my cheer and consolation. I’d hug a patient and tell her to “try to get pregnant next month.” I would reassure the widower, telling him, “Your wife had a long life.” I’d enter the burned child’s room in intensive care with a smile, rather than encouraging the mother to weep in my arms.

When my own mother died, I was terrified, confused about how I was expected to act. Was I allowed to be the grieving daughter, or should I be the competent, grief-denying professional? I held my mother’s wrist, counting her pulse as it slowed. After her last breath, I rang for the nurse. Heart pounding, I waved goodbye to my mother, her gray hair bright against the sheets, and said, “Bye, mom,” in the cheery voice I’d practiced all my life. I didn’t know then that I could have climbed into bed and held her, that I should have wailed when she was gone.

It wasn’t until I had stayed with many dying patients and, finally, with my dying father, that I allowed myself to grieve — for my parents, for those lost patients, for all their loved ones who, as I once did, held back their tears. At my father’s death I cried like a child, not caring that I made the gulping noises of unrestrained mourning. Now, years later, I know that it is both necessary and human for us to wallow, each in our own way, in grief.

I no longer comfort others with false cheer. In the hospital, where my encounters with patients are ever more distanced by sterile gloves, computer protocols and the pressures of time, one way I can still be present is during their moments of grief. I don’t encourage anyone to move on, to replace, to remarry or put the photos or the memories away. Grief must be given its time.

I believe that both the caregivers and the cared-for should be free to scream and cry and fall to the floor — if not actually, then at least in the heart. I believe that grief, fully expressed, will change over time into something less overpowering, even granting us a new understanding, a kind of double vision that comprehends both the beauty and fragility of life at the same time.

When I grieve, when I stand by others as they grieve, even in the midst of seemingly unbearable sorrow, grief becomes a way to honor life — a way to cling to every fleeting, precious moment of joy.

Posted in Adoption, Childhood cancer survivorship, Depression dealings, Joy of Infertility, Seeking God, This Life of Mine | No Comments »

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Protected: #2

January 14, 2007

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Protected: 2006 Year in Review

January 1, 2007

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Random bits

November 26, 2006
  • Tomorrow I see Psychiatrist Guy for a med check. I can’t decide if I want to talk about going off Zoloft and trying something else or just keep on keeping on. I’ve just been so tired and sort of “foggy” for the last six weeks since we upped the dose.
  • I got into an argument with MK (well, we sniped at each other) at my parents over the fact that I said a mutual friend between M and myself who just adopted a baby from Guatemala might feel more of a connection with me at the moment since we have both been through infertility and adoption process, even though she was initially M’s friend. M is upset that J didn’t get in touch with her but did reply to an e-mail I sent her and apparently told MK so and that I hurt her by saying that as if they couldn’t understand since they didn’t adopt. After MK left, I ended up crying over it while talking about it with my mom.
  • T finally applied for another job with one of the public school systems in the area, the same one we went to and where his mom taught for 30 years. I really hope he gets an interview as they have two positions open in the IT area. One he thinks might not be enough money, the other might be a little more senior than he has background for, but at least he took the step to send his resume in. His boss is really ticking both of us off over his inability to confirm whether T has the time he requested off until the last minute, even when T asks well in advance. Plus he has denied T time twice this year for no real good reason. Supposedly their vacation is use it or lose it, but T said that if he doesn’t get the days off at the end of this upcoming week to go with my parents to TN to see K, he is going to push to get compensated for not being allowed to use it. Yes, I know we were just in TN but my parents were going down, offered to drive their van, and we really want to see K since it has been over a year, so we took them up on the offer. I may regret it later but right now I’m looking forward to it.
  • I have made no decision about whether I want to switch to full-time. My conversation with #5 about it was, well, I pretty much cried the entire session until the end when I pretty much stopped interacting, enough so he asked me “where I went”. First, he said he would strongly caution me not to do it but then upon discussing our debt situation, he said if I did decide to do it, I should look at it as a short-term thing like 6 months to a year. I’ve had a headache for the last two days because I’m feeling so stressed about it.
  • We had a visit with L and her dad, stepmom, stepsister and her stepsister’s 3 month old son on Saturday. It was nice to see them and once she warmed up, Widget really had a good time playing with L. I want her to always feel comfortable with them and I feel badly that 6 months will go by between visits, but I still feel a lot of stress surrounding a visit. Mostly because when they are here, I really struggle with why L chose to place and if L regrets it. I feel like I’m somehow denying them something that is rightfully theirs. Not that I don’t feel like I’m Widget’s mom, I do. Trust me on that one, particularly when dealing with tantrums in Target or being exhausted from her constant activity. It is such a mixed up set of emotions when we see them.
  • I’ve been thinking about asking T again about joining our church or, at least, how he has been feeling about Christianity and God. November 6 was my “one year anniversary” of actually making the commitment to God, so I’ve been thinking about it more lately, plus with Christmas coming up and all of its reminders about Jesus’ arrival, I just feel ready but I know I want T to be ready too.

Posted in Adoption, Depression dealings, Joy of Infertility, Life with Widget, Seeking God, This Life of Mine | 1 Comment »

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Protected: Appointments

October 2, 2006

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Mixed

September 30, 2006

So last night I spent most of the evening with the 4 other women in our group of friends. We talked about how most of us will be 30 next year (plus one of the husbands) and decided we needed to have a “We’re 30″ party rather than having 5 separate parties. We also talked a bit about the joys of having 2 year-olds since three of us have them.

I didn’t tell them about my recent “retreat”. There were a couple of times I felt like I should. These women have been my friends for years and we are pretty close. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to deal with the looks, the stigma that comes with making that statement.

And of course, we talked about the pregnancy as she was there. Full of mixed feelings about it. Some of it surrounding seeing her. Truthfully, despite everything that has happened, I miss her and the awkwardness that has developed because we aren’t talking to each other very much sucks. It is funny because I don’t see the other women in the group very much either, maybe once every 6-8 weeks, sometimes longer between but I don’t miss them in the same way and there is no awkwardness, we just launch into conversations as if we saw each other yesterday.

Most of it, though, had to do with my intense emotions surrounding her pregnancy. I bought her a baby gift, just an inexpensive cute wooden baby toy (it’s the little caterpillar in the bottom left corner) from the toystore where I used to work. I have no idea why I did it. It was like this compulsion that I had to acknowledge it. There’s this part of me that thinks “how could she do this to me?” which I know is absolutely ridiculous as it is their decision about when to expand their family, my feelings don’t come into play. And this was conscious decision on their part as they had some medical assistance to achieve this. I do wonder if they are as stable as they think they are in their relationship based on some past history. Last time around, they clearly weren’t. But again, what I think doesn’t matter and I don’t know why I’m even wondering about it.

I thought I would be okay, now that we have Widget, who is so very much my child even without the biological connection. That it wouldn’t be as hard as last time. But it hurts. God, it hurts. Never will I hear my child’s heartbeat. Never will I feel my baby move inside. Never will I shop for maternity clothes to wear. Never.

Posted in Depression dealings, Joy of Infertility, This Life of Mine | No Comments »

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