Joannie Rochette: A Testament to the Love Between a Mother and Child

I am in awe of Joannie Rochette.  Her mother died suddenly of a heart attack on Sunday, and she was able to complete in the Olympics just days later.  I remember when something similar happened a few years ago, when Brett Favre played in a football game the same day his father died.  Back then, I was at a loss as to how someone could have the presence to focus on a sport when he or she had just suffered a loss.  But I understand now that what Joannie (and Brett) did is a testament to how much they loved their parents.  How much they appreciate the sacrifices their parents made that allowed them to reach such an elite level of a sport.  And also, you never, ever stop wanting to make your mom or dad proud of you.  I think Joannie did a wonderful job of keeping her emotions together, to honor the sacrifices her mother made by competing.  She won a bronze medal for her efforts.  Here's an interview with Joannie Rochette, in which she explains how she was able to do what she did:

Link to Joannie Rochette interview

Another Step Forward...

I've just returned from the post office, where I mailed all those home study forms to the Holt California branch office.  Included in the envelope were:

• The Live Scan fingerprint forms
• The criminal background statement
• Financial statement
• 19-page personal data information form
• Copies of our marriage certificate and birth certificates
• Medical forms (proof that Alex and I are HIV and TB free)
• Verification of Alex's employment

Next up, the home study itself.  I've been in contact with the social worker, and it sounds like she's out on medical leave until April.  I think that's OK, because it will probably take that long for the branch office to process our forms.  The social worker sounds very kind and understanding.  She even gave me the email addresses of a few families who have already successfully adopted from Ethiopia.  Yea!

Ethiopian Coffee

     I know I'm probably going to sound like one of those "Cadillac liberals" as my Republican father used to say (I'm a Democrat), someone who takes a holier-than-thou attitude because she brings reusable bags to the grocery store, or uses public transportation, or doesn't watch television, and makes sure everyone else knows about it.  I don't want to come across like that.
     But planning to adopt a child from another part of the globe has made me more aware of, well, another part of the globe.  What happens in Ethiopia matters to me because my child lives there.  His/her birth parents are trying to survive there.
     I started buying Ethiopian coffee because it made me feel closer to my child.  Goofy, I know, but I take what I can get in these early days of the process.  While doing a little research, I learned how very important coffee is to the Ethiopian economy.  Here are some stats from a great website called www.ethiopianrestaurant.com :

Coffee Ethiopia's Number 1 Export

Ethiopia's economy is based on agriculture, which accounts for half of GDP, 60% of exports, and 80% of total employment. Coffee is critical to the Ethiopian economy with exports of some $156 million in 2002. (adapted from CIA - Fact book).
At present Japan stands second in purchasing Ethiopia's coffee after Germany.
Today, there are over 100 Ethiopian coffee exporters, compared to just 17 during the Derg. The largest is Nejat International PLC, with 11% of total exports, followed by government-owned Ethiopian Coffee Export Enterprise (8% of the total) and Moplace Trading Co. Ltd. (5%).

Coffee Farms:	331,130 peasant farms 19,000 state farm coffee areas
Coffee Workers:	about 12 million
Shade-Grown:	55% light shade 33% medium 17% heavy
Major Coffee Growing Regions:	Harrar, Sidamo, Yirgacheffe (in Sidamo), Limmu, Djimmah, Lekempti, Bebeka
Botanical Cultivars:	Native arabica (arabica coffee is indigenous to Ethiopia)
Harvest Times:	Washed: August-December Dry: October to March Exports all year
Certified Organic:	None certified: all coffee grown organic by tradition
Rank in Production::	1st in Africa 7th in World

 

Say You'll Be There

     Last night I had an extremely vivid dream about my mother.  It wasn't really about her, actually.  But there was a whole portion devoted just to her.  It was now, the present, and she knew she was dead.  We were in a temple, and there was a small box containing her ashes, and she just looked at it mystified.  She kept saying, "How did this happen so fast?"  I asked her if she was pleased with the arrangements we made after her death, and she said she was.  She was just so surprised to be dead.  Not sad, not scared - just surprised.
     I realized the opportunity I had, to talk to my mother again.  I held her hands tightly and I said, "Will you be there, when we meet our child?"  She said with certainty, "Yes, I'll be there." And I knew then without any doubt that she would be there, in the form she's in now.  I knew that she's always with me.  I still can have a relationship with her.  I cried, and told her how much I missed her.  She seemed touched, and said, "Thank you."
     Before she died, my mom told me she would be in the delivery room with me (in spirit) when I had my baby.  I guess this is my way of making sure that even though our plans changed, she still will be with us when we meet our child for the first time.  I feel completely at peace.

Home Study Stuff

It might seem like I'm mentioning the home study a lot, but it's pretty much all I think about these days.  Luckily, the brilliant ladies on the Inspire bulletin board had a post about the home study that eased my mind quite a bit.  Namely, what does it take to fail a home study?  The dozen or so women who responded to that question spelled it out this way - there are four reasons you fail a home study:

1. Your health.  You have a terminal disease or an illness that would seriously impact your ability to parent a child.
2. You have a violent criminal background.
3. You don't have the financial resources to raise a child.
4. You are dishonest with the social worker about your background.

There is a history of abuse in my family (my sisters and I were the victims) and as tough as it is to talk about, I know I have to be completely honest with the social worker.  It might feel like I'm being judged, and that the assumption is I can't be as good of a parent as a woman who wasn't abused.  But I've been told that the social workers are generally an open-minded group.  One helpful woman described the home study as a job interview where the person interviewing you really wants you to get the job.

More on this later...

Yuck

Two steps forward, one step back.  I guess this isn't a huge deal, but a bump in the road I wasn't anticipating.  Our tenants won't be moving out at the end of this month.  They need some wiggle room as they move into their new place.  I was looking forward to moving back to our house, taking all of our furniture and clothes and books out of storage (where they've been for six months) and starting to prepare our home for the social worker's visit, and eventually, our child's arrival.  It's going to be about a month before that can happen.  My mother-in-law has graciously allowed us to live in her condo, but I'm ready to move home. I want to start creating a wonderful space for our child. I want to be able to walk in his room and imagine the crib, the changing table, the baby clothes. I'm displeased with anything that could postpone the social worker's visit and, therefore, the home study. And the referral.  Yuck.

A Moving Target

     It sneaks up on me when I least expect it.  It usually takes me a little while to figure out what it is.  I had a series of anxiety-filled dreams last night, and woke up often, drenched in sweat and with a racing heart.  The dreams weren't exactly nightmares, but just images and feelings that made me anxious.  As I cleared my head, I tried to figure out what I was so nervous about.  I don't have any looming appointments, or meetings that would make me jumpy.  I tried to think of different things that could be bothering me, to see if one of them triggered that same anxious feeling.
     When I thought about our house, the one we will be moving back into next month - boom.  That was it. But why?  I thought of each room.  When I got to the room that was our office - the room that will be the baby's room - the anxiety hit.  That was the room my mother would sleep in when she would visit.  Even though we had a spare bedroom with a very comfortable bed, she preferred to sleep on the couch in the office.  She was a tiny person, barely five feet tall, and she felt "safer" as she put it, sleeping on the couch.
     That house is filled with memories of my mom.  I haven't dealt with any of those memories yet, because I haven't had to.  It scares me.
     Grief is a moving target.  People write about grief like it's a tunnel of muck you have to struggle through, but once you get to the other side, you're done.  But for me (and my older sister, it turns out) I never know what I'm going to feel one day to the next.  Just when I think I've crawled out of the tunnel, I am faced with a memory, or the realization of all I won't experience in the future with my mom, and it knocks me down for the day.  I consider myself to be pretty healthy emotionally, but I think the five stages of grief are pure crap.  How can I ever truly "accept" (the final stage) that I will never see my mother again?
    

The Flow

     I've always believed that when you're going in the right direction in life, things flow.  Doors open without effort.  There is positive energy surrounding your every move. Conversely, if you're going in the wrong direction, it's stifling.  You keep hitting your head against the wall and wonder why everything is so difficult.  I've found this principle to be true throughout my life.  With relationships, with career fields, with places I've lived.  And now, with having a child.  Trying to get pregnant was an absolute exercise in futility.  The signs were always there: go in a different direction.  So we did, and now things are flowing.
     We will be able to send in our home study paperwork this week.  Alex printed out his 19-page Personal Data Form, and I'm almost finished with mine.  We filled out the financial stuff.  Our references have all filled out their forms and sent them in. Alex's appointment with his doctor is this week.  I was very anxious about the home study, because we've been living in my mother-in-law's condo since September due to the fact our home has renters living in it.  The renters were supposed to be there until June. However, they've decided to move out early.  We'll be moving back in a few weeks, and so the social worker will be able to visit in the actual home where we will raise our child.  Flow!
    

Western Mental Health Problems in Ethiopia?

You know how when you learn a new word, you seem to hear the word used EVERYWHERE?  That's how it is now with me and stories about Ethiopia.  I'm sure they've always been there, but I feel a chill down my spine whenever the country makes the news.  Today on the great public radio program "Here and Now" the focus is on mental illness in Ethiopia.  The program's website describes the feature this way:

Mental Health Providers In Ethiopia Looks West

Listen

This week we spoke with author Ethan Watters who claims that Americans are exporting mental health problems- like anorexia and depression- around the world. Dr. Suzan Song explains what she has seen in Ethiopia; she says mental health professionals there are focused on western textbooks and methods when it come to mental health. We speak with Dr. Song, a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at Stanford’s Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital.

Experience

"Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you."
-Aldous Huxley

I've never been the kind of person who wanted to go back in time.  Each year of my life seems to improve over the last, so that I never want to go backward.  The only time I came close to this was right after my mother died.  I wanted to be able to relive the last year of her life, to intervene, to make sure she visited the doctor when she was supposed to. 

As of late, I've been dealing with some guilt.  I am not as sad as I used to be over my mother's death.  I still miss her terribly, but I've found a way of dealing with her loss that keeps me from crying every day.  I feel bad about that, as if she's somewhere watching me, hurt that I don't cry for her as much.  I spoke with a woman who lost her mother almost twenty years ago, when she was still in her twenties.  She said, "If I really let myself think about my mother, I wouldn't be able to stop crying.  I couldn't get out of bed.  So I don't think about her."  It's the tactic I've taken. 

I hope this is a phase I'm going through.  The first six months after she died, all I did was think about her, replaying our last weeks together, how she smelled like Ensure, the way her cheek felt when I kissed it, the way her eyebrows got smushed when she slept, and she woke up looking perplexed.  I don't let myself think about those things anymore.  I hope at some point, I am able to think of her again without it being painful.

Deadline

     My husband and I were both journalists for a good chunk of our lives (and I guess I still am) and so we respond well to deadlines.  There really is no firm deadline for when we need to return our paperwork to the adoption agency.  We have plodded through most of it, getting our fingerprints, visiting the doctor.  We've both finished most of our respective Personal Data Forms.  The last part we need to tackle is giving a detailed outline of our finances.  That requires both of us to sit down together, and do some serious calculations.
     We had tentatively planned on going out-of-town this weekend.  Not to celebrate Valentine's Day, because we really don't do that.  Every Valentine's Day, we get chili-cheese dogs for dinner.  It's a nice tradition that I patterned after (very ironically) John and Elizabeth Edwards' tradition of celebrating their anniversary at Wendy's.  I realize now how silly this sounds.  Hopefully our marriage won't follow the path of the Edwards'.
     Anyhoo, instead of heading out-of-town, we're going to stick around and finish our financial forms.  We've set a hard deadline to finish by Monday.  Chili-cheese dogs and all.

Baby Clothes

     Finding out one of my best girlfriends is pregnant has turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  I have not allowed myself to get truly excited about the little things surrounding adoption: buying a crib, baby clothes, decorating the room.  Until now.

     I talked on the phone today with my pregnant friend, and we started chatting about baby clothes.  We should be bringing our baby home from Addis around the same time she delivers her baby.  I remembered that I had a cache of baby clothes I had put away, one of those things I couldn't bare to look at after my miscarriage.  I took them out and started sorting through them while talking to my friend.  I have three never-used onesies my sister-in-law gave me a few years ago when her son outgrew them.  There also is an adorable little preppie outfit - khaki pants and a polo shirt.  I thought the clothes would be too small for my child, and thought I might send them to my friend.  But the adoption agency warned us our child might be smaller than average because of malnutrition, so he might fit into the clothes after all.
     The last time I went though the bag of baby clothes was with my mother.  I was debating whether or not to do IVF, and I pulled out the clothes so she could look at them.  It was a few weeks before she died, but it was a lovely moment between us.  It feels good knowing she touched the clothes my baby could one day wear.

Life is the School, Love is the Lesson

I saw this beautiful phrase on a bumper sticker today as I was driving to pick up my adoption health forms from the doctor's office.  It was so lovely that I decided to share it with everyone who reads my blog.  For those battling infertility, it may feel like we are being constantly tested.  Perhaps we are.  But if we pass this test, and our families are stronger for it, then maybe it is worth it.  Thoughts?

Pregnant in a Different Way

     One of my oldest and dearest friends announced yesterday that she is pregnant.  I know hearing about a close friend or relative's pregnancy can be difficult for IFers.  Perhaps if my husband and I were still trying, I would feel like I was failing at something (getting pregnant) that is so very easy for so many women, my friend included.
     But the ladies at the message boards on RESOLVE.org have reminded me that I am pregnant, too.  Just in a different way.  There is a pregnancy taking place right now somewhere on this planet, and the child born will be ours.  I won't have the growing belly, but I feel terribly excited knowing each day is a day closer to becoming a mother.
     When I was pregnant in August, I bought a book on Amazon called Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy.  By the time it arrived, I had already miscarried.  I couldn't even open the package, knowing what was inside.  I never returned it.  But last night, after learning of my friend's wonderful news, I knew what I had to do.  I contacted her and offered her the book.  It feels good giving the book a purpose, and yet another way of growing and moving on from this summer's tragedies.

Doctor, Doctor

          Among the various and sundry forms we must fill out are the medical forms.  I need my doctor to verify that I am physically and mentally capable of parenting a child.  There are two forms: one for the home study, and one for the dossier.
          I went to visit my doctor yesterday morning.  I made the appointment as a follow-up for when I was hospitalized at the end of December for swine flu and pneumonia.  After making sure I didn't have any lingering problems from the flu, he ordered a HIV/AIDS test and a test for tuberculosis.
          Who would've thought trying to become a parent would involve so many needles without even being pregnant?  First IVF, and then the medical tests for the adoption.  I'm not really complaining, though, especially with just two needles to deal with yesterday.  I got a bit desensitized from my needle phobia during IVF.  But it turns out IVF did a number on the blood vessels in my arms, because the nurses and paramedics had a heck of a time finding good veins for the IVs and blood draws when I was in the hospital.  My arms got so bruised I looked like a junkie.  So yesterday I felt a bit panicky around all those needles again.
          Still, it feels good to take action, to have a list of things to cross off that allow us to get closer and closer to becoming parents.

"Those" Parents

     My husband and I watched the Grammys last night, something we've never done before.  I realized I don't know who most of the performers nominated were.  It makes me feel old.  When I was growing up, my parents despised our music.  They listened to Barry Manilow (no joke) and Neil Diamond.  We liked Wham! and Duran Duran.  I felt that my parents were hopelessly dorky and had terrible taste in tunes.

      So, I told Alex as we were watching Lady Gaga (?????) and Pink that I wanted to stay current on music, so our kid views us as a bit cooler than I viewed my parents.  He groaned.   

      "We don't want to be those parents," he said.  

      "What do you mean?" I asked.

      "The parents that try to be cool and fail miserably and their kids make fun of them."

      That gave me nerd chills.  He was right.  I don't want to be the mom who tries to be best friends with her kid.  I fought constantly with my mom when I was a teenager, but I respected her.  As the French writer Andre Gide said: "It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not."

To Work or Not to Work???

          I'm still so torn about the whole working mother thing.  I am a finalist for a full-time job that would include an hour commute each way.  When I applied for the job, I thought our adoption timeline was about 18 months.  But when I learned adoption was possible within eight months, possible in as little as six months, everything changed.  Although it's illegal (I think) for an employer to take my impending adoption into account in deciding whether or not to hire me, I told one of the women I would be working with anyway.  I didn't want to blind side her by taking a major maternity leave just a few months after I started the job.  Also, I've waited SO long to become a mother, that I want the option of permanently extending my maternity leave if that's what's working best for our family.  The thought of dropping off my child at daycare at seven in the morning and not seeing him until seven at night just kills me.
          However, my husband feels it's unconscionable to turn down a full-time job with benefits in this economy.  With so many people looking for work, how could I possibly reject this offer (if it happens)?  He's even talked of postponing the adoption for a year for this job.  That breaks my heart.
          I have a part-time job now blogging for social networking site.  The pay is not much, but it's something.  I also get a few hundred dollars a month from the rental of my late mother's condo.  I'm constantly searching for other freelance writing jobs, with the hopes of creating a family-friendly working schedule for myself.
          So now I'm just waiting to hear from my possible future employer, to see if they still want me to come in to the final interview, knowing my family situation.
          What to do?

Chris Matthews on Obama: "I forgot he was black."

          As the future parent of a black child, I must view things differently than I did before.  Would something like this statement hurt my son or daughter's feelings?  How would I explain a statement like this?  How was it meant, versus how it was taken?  I am a fan of Chris Matthews, and find him to be a very bright and witty man.  I believe he was trying to say that President Obama's speech was so powerful, that we might finally view him as our president, instead of "The Black President."  We tend to view people as "that Chinese guy" or "that Mexican girl" or "the Jewish lady," describing someone first and foremost by their ethnicity.  We don't call George W. Bush "that white president," although I could think of a few other names for him.
          But is that how my child would view things?  If Chris Matthews had said about a Jewish president, "I forgot he was Jewish tonight" or an Irish president "I forgot he was Irish tonight," it would sting, because it somehow assumes those qualities are negative.  I would be offended.  I supposed that's hypocritical of me.
          I'm torn.  Here's the video...what do you think?

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_v_IOCSsQM

Little Ethiopia

          One of the many questions in the Personal Data Form I must fill out is:
"How do you plan to include the culture and traditions of the country you have chosen in your family life?"
          I know there is an Ethiopian restaurant in San Diego, because I used to drive by it all the time.  But a visit to a restaurant isn't exactly a thorough way to make sure our child has a sense of his own heritage.  So I was delighted to discover that just two hours north of us is a Los Angeles neighborhood called "Little Ethiopia."  Every year there is a street fair, with all sorts of coffees, spices, and foods available, with locals performing traditional music and lots of dancing.
          My mother was Russian-Jewish, and my father is Irish-Catholic, and my sisters and I were raised without a sense of either culture.  One of my dearest friends is Indian, and I envy how much comfort she gets from the food, music, religion, and traditions of her culture.  I want that for my child.
          What's interesting is Little Ethiopia is located in the Fairfax district of L.A., which is a Jewish neighborhood.  How very fitting for our Jewish-Ethiopian child, as we hopefully will give him a strong sense of both cultures.

OK, maybe not so much...

     I'd like to thank all the women who responded on the Resolve.org message boards about yesterday's blog post.  Many of you set me straight--that adoption does not necessarily even out the workload between the genders.  Some women even experienced the inequality before the adoption, with the push to get the paperwork completed mainly the woman's responsibility.

     I'd love to hear from women about their experiences with the division of labor in the household.  I'd love to hear from stay-at-home moms, women with full-time jobs outside the home, and anything in between.  Does their workload differ from what their mothers experienced?  Do they believe their daughters will have more equality with chores, or less?  

Adoption as Feminism

          The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines feminism as "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes."  As mothers or mothers-to-be, don't we want our daughters to have as many economic and political opportunities as our sons?  
          And yet the University of Wisconsin's National Survey of Families and Households finds that among dual-earning couples, women do about two-thirds of the housework.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women make roughly 75 cents for every dollar earned by a man.
          So many of my friends with children complain that their husbands simply do not do their fair share of the work.  I would imagine it all begins when the woman becomes pregnant.  Nature dictates that she alone must deal with all the physical changes and discomforts a pregnancy brings.  She alone must give birth to the baby.  And in many cases, she alone must nurse the baby.  From the very beginning, the woman takes on the lion's share of responsibility in bringing a child into the world.
          I felt this burden during my one round of IVF.  I had to put up with injections three times a day, the weight-gain, the mood swings, the nausea.  My husband could empathize.  And he surely had to deal with my mood swings.  But I had to carry a much bigger burden of bringing our child into the world than he did.
          But it is so different with our adoption journey.  We both have an equal number of forms to fill out, an equal number of personal questions to answer.  We both had to get fingerprinted last week.  We both have to go to the doctor and get him to sign a form saying we are healthy enough (physically and mentally) to adopt a child.  There is just as much stress on him as there is on me.  We both have to participate in the home study.  We will both fly to Ethiopia to meet our child, and we both will fly home with our new baby, caring for him or her on extremely long plane flights.
          I wonder if this gender equality in the adoption process will translate to a better sharing of chores as we raise our child.  It seems we're already starting out on the right foot.

Crazy Heart

     I've only been to the movies a handful of times since my mother died.  It's a whole new experience without her.
     I'd learned to watch a movie with my mother's tastes in mind.  Is this something she'd like?  Is it too violent?  Is the humor too risque?  Too much full-frontal nudity? (More on that later.)
     One of the questions my mom would always ask when she called would be, "Have you seen a good movie lately?"  I saw one tonight she would've really liked.  It's called Crazy Heart, and it's just the kind of story she would have loved.  She would have said, "My heart feels sad" when it was over, but she would have loved it.  I had to remind myself several times during the movie that I wouldn't be calling her after to tell her to see it.
     OK, so a funny story about my mom and the full frontal nudity.  We saw The Piano together when I was in college.  I had seen a man naked by that time in my life, and she knew it.  However, at the point in the movie when Harvey Keitel's naked bottom is facing the screen, my mother began to whisper loudly, "Don't turn around!  Don't turn around!"  When he did, showing us his manly glory, my mother put her hand over my eyes.  Tightly.  I was unable to remove her hand until the love scene was over.  Miss you, Mom.

Mom Application

A short post today, as I'm knee-deep in a 16-page "personal data form" I must fill out and send to the adoption agency.  Right now I'm working on this question:

What do you think is important in raising children and what do you think being a good parent means?

I could turn this into a ten-page essay, but I'm pretty sure the folks at Holt want me to keep it to a paragraph.  Here's another good one:

What are your expectations of parenting?

Again, that answer could go in book form, but I must keep it short, sweet, and good.  Another question asks what I like about my spouse.  I asked Alex and he answered, "Your juicy booty."  Just a little levity amongst the adoption stress.

Working Mother

What mother doesn't work?  Even a woman who isn't employed outside the home basically provides unpaid labor to society by taking care of her children.  If she didn't, someone else would be making a salary doing it.  Now, I realize that the job of caring for children is viewed so lowly that we pay people (usually women) a wage barely above minimum to do it.  That doesn't mean the work isn't important.  The phrase "the most important job in the world" is bandied about when discussing motherhood, but it's not important enough to view with respect when a woman gives up paid employment to devote herself to raising her children.
Since my days babysitting in college, I have NEVER wanted to be one of those mothers who must work full-time outside the home.  In fact, I put off the idea of even having children, because unless I could be the one to raise them, I didn't want to do it at all.  It may sound spoiled to some.  But I spent too many hours with other people's children, watching them say and do amazing things, things that their parents missed out on.
I also treasure the memories of my very early childhood, on the days when my mom wasn't at work as a substitute teacher, taking walks together and looking at the pansies, eating cream of wheat with brown sugar for breakfast, and watching Sesame Street together.
I read The Feminine Mystique in college.  I strongly believe that women who find their happiness and sense of self-worth working outside the home should do so, with pride.  It is in the best interest of their children to have a mother who feels fulfilled and is happy.
But I have too many friends who are overwhelmed by being a full-time worker and a full-time mom.  The extra stuff: when the kid is sick, or has a dentist appointment, or soccer practice, always falls on the mom to do.  And so many of my friends are plagued with guilt because they feel they don't have enough time to do both jobs to the best of their abilities.
I've been trying to establish a freelance writing/reporter career for myself since moving back to San Diego in September.  Granted, I spent several months out-of-the-loop and dealing with grief.  But I'm moving forward, and applying for freelance reporting jobs right and left.  I want the option of being able to work from home, and make my own hours, if and when I become a mother.
My goal also is to be able to stay "employable" and keep myself relevant in the world of outside employment.  My husband is terrified if he is the sole provider when we have a child and loses his job, that we'll go to the poorhouse because no one will hire me if I'm "just" a stay-at-home mom.
Anyone else dealing with this conundrum?

Eight Months!

On Friday we spoke via conference call with the California Branch Director of Holt. She told us the time line for adopting a child in Ethiopia was about eight months. Eight months! The webinar I attended last month gave the timeline as something between twelve and eighteen months.

I have been having so many dreams lately where I become mother, and feel that in-love, blissed-out feeling of being a mom, only to wake up and realize I am still childless. Finding out that Alex and I may become parents in less than a year (more akin to an actual pregnancy) is kind of a dream come true.

For now, we have a boat-load of forms to fill out. There is a 16-page questionnaire that asks VERY personal questions. We need to get notes from our doctors assuring everyone we are physically and mentally fit to adopt a child. We need to get fingerprinted. We need to fill out a form for a criminal background check.

This may seem like a lot of paperwork, but for gosh sakes, it is a step forward for us. For each form we fill out, we are one step closer to meeting our child.

What to Ask?

Tomorrow morning Alex and I have a conference call set up with the California Branch Director of Holt International. The call is supposed to take about twenty minutes, and it's supposed to give us the opportunity to ask all sorts of questions.

This kind of feels like the part of a job interview where the interviewer asks if you have any questions for them. Of course you do, but you just can't think of any that don't sound stupid, and you don't want to sound stupid to someone who will be making a very big decision that affects you.

Alex is very good at asking questions. It's what he did for a living for twenty years. Because I was in radio, I just turned on the recorder and let people talk, only nudging them if necessary. My worry over sounding like an idiot overrides my natural curiosity.

But this is too important a call to let my insecurities take over. I'm pretty sure a social worker has never gotten off the phone with a prospective adoptive couple and said, "They're just too dumb to adopt."

I want to know about the political climate in Ethiopia, and if there's a reasonable chance the adoption program there could run into trouble, like those in many other countries have. I want to know about the care the children receive before they are adopted. I want to know how Holt matches children to parents.

Any other suggestions?

Haiti

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20100113/cm_huffpost/421014

I Want to Believe

I was holding my mother's hands as she died, and could feel the energy leave her body and fill the room. It was such a profound experience that it forever altered the way I view death. I now believe that our energy survives. I'm not sure how. I am not a religious person, and it seems religious people have concrete ways to view the afterlife. I don't have those skills.

In my quest to figure out what I witnessed at my mother's death, and to open myself to any possible relationship I could still have with my mom, I visited a spiritualist today. She is not a fortune teller or psychic, as she will be the first to tell you.

So, what I experienced today with the spiritualist was similar to what I experienced with my mother during her final moments alive. Something. I don't know how to describe it, because I don't know which words fit. And I either believe in it, or I don't. I want to. It flies in the face of what I'd held to be true for most of my life. But I want to believe. And we'll see what happens from there.

He Has Your Eyes

Alex and I visited his sister and her family in Vancouver this weekend. We got the chance to spend some time with our adorable and rambunctious niece and nephew. Our niece looks just like Alex's sister. Our nephew is a clone of his father. It's times like these that remind me Alex and I will never have a child that looks like us. I'm still a little bitter about that. For the most part, I've accepted that we will never have biological children of our own. I try to look at the positives: no labor pains, no episiotomies, no deflated breasts. Remember, I'm wracking my brain for the positives. It helps when I feel that strong pang of envy every time I see a woman my age with a swollen belly and pregnancy glow.

I've heard of adopted children taking on the appearance of their adoptive parents. One of my best friends often remarks how much Angelina Jolie's Ethiopian daughter resembles her. I have to agree. My step-mother-in-law has also reminded me that our child will pick up our mannerisms, idiosyncrasies, and the general vibe of our family. Bottom line: my giddiness about becoming a mother, even if it's not to a child I give birth to, overshadows any petty regrets I have about not having a kid who looks like me or Alex.

A Notable Notary

I was in Target yesterday and was able to walk by the baby clothes without feeling sorry for myself. Here's why:

I mailed off the first round of required papers to the adoption agency. We had to get a form notarized first, and so Alex and I hit a notary in Hillcrest on Alex's lunch break. The office was the size of a coat closet. The man had a terrorist watch list posted in his bulletin board. Rush Limbaugh was blaring from the radio. Alex and I signed the form, then allowed him to look it over and apply his much-needed signature. Alex said "I like your storefront" and the man ignored him. Or maybe Rush was saying something particularly poignant at that very second and Mr. Notary didn't hear.

When he had stamped the form with his seal, he handed it to me and said, suspiciously, "What country are you adopting from?"

"Ethiopia," I answered.

His cheeks flushed red, and he said, without a trace of sincerity in his voice, "Good luck with that."

Alex and I left, laughing, as Alex said, "Two Jews adopting a child from Ethiopia. He probably burst a blood vessel."

Ah, the first encounter of many we will have with questionable people who disapprove of our family. It emboldens us in our decision all the more. In the words of a former (thank God) president, "Bring it on!"

Congratulations from H & R Block

Alex and I filled out an application on New Year's Day with Holt International to adopt a baby from Ethiopia. The application was online, and I found it easier answering very personal questions by having to type them rather than write in longhand. We emailed it in on January 2. I wanted no part of 2009 attached to this adoption. 2009 was such a dreadful year: my mother died, I miscarried, found out I have such severe endometriosis that I can't get pregnant. The year ended with me hospitalized for pneumonia and possible Swine Flu.

Yesterday I went to H & R Block to get our tax returns from the last three years printed out. We need to send those in, along with a photo of Alex and me, a picture of our house, and a notarized adoption agreement. As I sat down at a tax preparer's desk and waited for the printer to spit out what I needed, I told him we needed the documents because we were adopting. The tax preparer's face lit up, and he shook my hand. "Congratulations!"

It was the first time since the miscarriage that another person congratulated me on upcoming parenthood. It felt wonderful, and appropriate. I haven't felt this kind of motherhood-related bliss since I was pregnant.

Good riddance, 2009

"Grief turns out to be a place none of know until we reach it."

-Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Where things stand today...

After two years of trying to conceive a baby, I visited a Reproductive Endocrinologist in Atlanta, where I was living at the time. She believed I was suffering from endometriosis and scheduled a laparoscopy and hysteroscopy to make sure. Within a week of my diagnosis, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I flew out to California to bring my mother back to Atlanta with me so I could take care of her. At her urging, I underwent the laparoscopy, and was diagnosed with Stage 4 endometriosis. My RE told my husband Alex and me we had less than a 5% of conceiving without in vitro fertilization. Because my mother hoped to live long enough to see me become pregnant, my husband and I decided to start the fertility treatment. My mom died before we could begin with IVF, but we decided to forge ahead in her memory. I became pregnant after my first round of IVF, only to miscarry weeks later. Alex and I then moved to San Diego. We still have one embryo left in the freezer in Atlanta, but we are filling out adoption applications now.

This Will Be an Everlasting Love, Blah Blah Blah

I recently tried to convince a friend of mine, whom I'll call "Alisa," to find a mate using the Internet. Everyone does it, I told her. (Even though secretly those eHarmony commercials make me want to vomit when ever I see them.) There's no shame in it, I said. But still, she begged off, and seemed a bit hurt by the suggestion.

Cut to a few weeks later. My husband and I have started the process of adopting a baby. The law firm we're probably going to go through posts the profiles of adopting couples on its website to attract birthmothers. I thought it was a great idea, until I checked out said website. Most of the couples were adorable. Possibly cuter than my husband and me. A lot of them were more athletic than we are. Virtually all of them were super-duper Christian. I felt insecure and frustrated looking at these profiles.

But most of all, I felt angry. Why did I have to pimp myself as a parent, when all it seems everyone else just has to do is just think about getting pregnant and they become a parent? Why do I have to beg to become a mother?

So now I get it: Why "Alisa" is hurt at the suggestion of looking for a guy on the Internet. Because why should she have to advertise herself like a car for sale to find a date?

But the brutal truth is, I do have to use the Internet to become a mother. Fair or not, endometriosis has turned my reproductive organs to mush. And Alisa hasn't been able to meet a man worthy of her beauty and charm. Maybe the Internet is God's way of evening things out. If you believe in God. The jury's still out for me.

Sorting through the past

My sister Tara and her husband Mike drove up to my mother's house this past weekend to sort through my mom's personal stuff. It's been four months since my mom died, but it felt like it happened just last week knowing my sister was in my mother's house. Some small part of my brain still believed my mom was there, in that house, and Tara arriving there to report the house was empty was just further proof that my mom is really, truly gone. As weird as that may sound, my sister Sheila was going through the exact same thing. Like, there had been some huge mistake and my mother was still alive, still in her beloved little condo watching Perry Mason re-runs with her giant cat on her lap.

My mom kept everything. Well, everything that pertained to my sisters and me. Every drawing we made in school. Every story I wrote as a child. Our baby clothes. Tara sorted things into boxes to take back to Sheila and me, and some things went into a group box that the three of us will sort through together later.

I always knew my mother loved me. I never once doubted that. But it's only now that she's gone that I realize no one will ever love me like that again.

The Newest Mermaid

When I was a toddler I wanted to be a mermaid so badly that I slept with a can of Chicken of the Sea tuna. My mother never made me feel weird for doing so. I had seen Charo dressed up as a mermaid on some 1970's variety show, thought she was beautiful, and wanted to look just like her.

I believe my obsession with mermaids ended after my mom read "The Little Mermaid" to me. Now, this was not the sanitized 1990's Disney version of the story. In the original, the mermaid must kill the prince or she will die and turn into sea foam. She cannot kill him, and so sea foam she becomes.

The other day I was at Dog Beach in Del Mar, just a few miles down the road from Carlsbad beach, where my sisters and I scattered our mother's ashes. It was the first time I saw the Pacific Ocean since we scattered her ashes in June. I felt so close to her, watching the sea foam lap at my feet.

I looked up the original passage of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" about the sea foam, and I felt as if the relationship I had with my mother had come full circle:

"The sun rose up from the waters. Its beams fell, warm and kindly, upon the chill sea foam, and the little mermaid did not feel the hand of death. In the bright sunlight overhead, she saw hundreds of fair ethereal beings. They were so transparent that through them she could see the ship's white sails and the red clouds in the sky. Their voices were sheer music, but so spirit-like that no human ear could detect the sound, just as no eye on earth could see their forms. Without wings, they floated as light as the air itself. The little mermaid discovered that she was shaped like them, and that she was gradually rising up out of the foam."

La Quinta, Super 8, and Holiday Inn

My husband and I are driving home to San Diego to start our new life there. I guess it's not that new, considering my sisters, nieces, nephews, and friends all live there. It's quite bittersweet because my mother won't be there to welcome me back. It stings every time I think of it. Sometimes, before I go to sleep, I ask her to visit me in my dreams. It's strange, even though I don't dream of her, I feel like I've spent time with her, and it makes the pain ease up a little bit.

Driving to Abilene, Texas today. I'm looking forward to the scenery changing from lush and green to dry and brown. It's the native Southern Californian in me that craves parched landscapes.

We've got my two twelve-year-old cats and a rambunctious dog along for the ride. Our dog is pretty mellow in the car, but one of the cats meows her complaints about being stuck in the car for hours on end. The other cat waits until we hit the motel, then meows her dissatisfaction throughout the night.

I'm anxious about arriving in San Diego on Wednesday, though. It's my birthday, and it will be the first one without my mother. More on that later.

You're so pretty

The last words my mother ever said to me were, "You're so pretty." She then slipped into a coma and died ten days later. The thing is, when she was alive, she said those very words to me all the time. It would truly hurt her feelings if I ever put myself down in front of her.

Cut to: not yet three months after her death. I feel like my body has betrayed me, in the most excruciating way. I could not get pregnant naturally, as most women can. I had to undergo a very physically and emotionally grueling cycle of in vitro fertilization. And it worked. I became pregnant. And then my body failed me again. The embryo died inside me. It was like I had planted a rosebush in a pile of sand.

I want to be angry at myself. I want to look in the mirror and say terrible things about how I failed at the most basic human capability. But something is stopping me.

Yesterday, while cleaning out my mother's suitcase, I found one of her lipsticks. It was barely used. I'm pretty sure I bought it for her, because she hated to buy makeup for herself. I put the lipstick in my own makeup bag. And this morning, as I looked in the mirror, I saw my reflection and the face of the person who has kept me from what I want most in the world.

But it is also the face my beloved mother treasured so much she used her last words on this earth to complement it. And so I put on my mother's lipstick, looked at myself in the mirror, and said, "You're so pretty."

Miscarriage

It's over. All those weeks of injections and blood draws and ultrasounds and mood swings--over. Just last week it seemed the tremendous physical and emotional effort of IVF paid off in blissful happiness. I was pregnant. Each time I went in for a blood draw to make sure my numbers were going up, I'd get a call from the nurse reassuring me that "everything looks great." Except last Friday.

The phone rang, and my caller ID identified the caller as my clinic. I answered, looking forward to hearing the words "everything looks great." But instead, my nurse Nancy said, "Unfortunately, I don't have good news for you." My numbers had plummeted. I was told I would miscarry in a few days. "So it's over?" I asked, crying. "It's over," Nancy said.

I have been bleeding, very heavily and with extremely painful cramps, for three days. Every time I look at the pad and see a clot, I wonder if that was my baby.

The week I knew I was pregnant was the happiest of my life.

To tell...or not to tell?

I am pregnant. My nurse Nancy called on Wednesday morning to tell me the unbelievable news. I was in shock, because it's news I never expected to hear.

I almost immediately felt protective of the news. But so many people knew we were doing a cycle of IVF, because my husband had to tell his boss to get time off. Also, both my sisters and their families knew, as did a handful of my closest friends. They all knew Wednesday was the day we would learn if I was pregnant. But it felt weird for SO many people to know I was pregnant, considering how early it is. In fact, one of my husband's (pregnant) coworkers chided him, saying, "You're not supposed to tell people until the second trimester."

I know that's the conventional wisdom. But I think that's something my grief counselor would have a problem with. She would say it's a way of having control over something (miscarrying) that you really don't have control over. Besides, this may be the only time in my life I can say the words, "I'm pregnant."

The longest day

I just returned from the IVF clinic for my pregnancy test. I walked into the lab, the phlebotomist jabbed me with the needle, and it was over. Now I must wait for a call from the nurse, sometime between 1 and 4 p.m., to find out the results of the test.

This gives me plenty of time to think about my cycle, now nearing its end. There is only one thing I think I would do differently. I would get a haircut before I started. I felt so emotional during the cycle, with all the hormones pulsing through my system, that I didn't have the patience to sit still for a trim. And now I have a Carol Brady-like mullet. It's not pretty.

My friend Pam gave me good advice yesterday. She said instead of praying for a certain outcome to the test, ask for peace with the result. Just thinking about the word "peace" calms me down. I know if I'm meant to be pregnant, I will be. And if not, I won't. I just have to have confidence that eventually I'll come to terms with the outcome, and will find peace with it. I believe I learned enough from my final days with my mom to embrace that.

Progesterone problem

My doctor took me off of the progesterone injections last week. I had a reaction that she had never seen before. Nor could I find anyone else with the problem online. The muscles of my rear end were so sore that I couldn't walk or sit down comfortably. And it only got worse as the days progressed. Last Tuesday, I woke up in a lot of pain and had a fever of 101.5. I phoned the on-call nurse, and she told me to come into the office. My doctor was flummoxed. She put me on Augmentin, and antibiotic, just in case I had a staph infection.

Now I use a vaginal progesterone suppository three times a day, with a estrogen patch. Within a day of stopping the injections I could walk again. The pain went away within three days. Big sigh of relief.

Day 5 blastocyst transfer

I was scheduled to have a Day 3 embryo transfer on Friday. The nurse called in the morning and told me all five embryos were still alive and looked healthy, so the doctor wanted to push the transfer until Sunday...a Day 5 transfer. I felt elated and surprised hearing this. From what I've read, it's quite good if it's possible to push the transfer until Day 5, because any blastocyst that survives that long in a Petri dish has a good shot of making it in the womb. And Day 5 is when a blastocyst would be in the uterus during a natural conception, because on Day 3 the little guy is usually still in the fallopian tube. So a Day 5 transfer more closely mirrors natural conception.

There's a chance all five could be dead when they open the incubator tomorrow. But it's my believe that if they'd transferred two into my uterus on Day 3 they probably wouldn't have made it, either, and I can't stand the thought of thinking I'm pregnant for two weeks (again) and then finding out I'm not (yet again.)

The day after egg retrieval

Woo-hoo! The nurse just called and I have five embryos! During the egg retrieval process, they were able to harvest seven eggs. Six were mature, and five fertilized. I know this is no guarantee that the five will continue to develop in the next day or so. I have braced myself for bad news throughout the process, and will continue to do so. But I've also learned to celebrate the small victories, or in this case, the microscopic victories.

The retrieval process wasn't bad at all. The sedation I got was somewhere in between having my wisdom teeth removed and the laparoscopy I had in May. I wasn't nauseated when I woke up, just a little out of it. When I got home I was famished, because you're not allowed to eat after midnight when having surgery. I downed a Cup O Noodles and a Darvocet, because I was experiencing a little cramping. The Darvocet ended up making me nauseated, and I battled that for about an hour before the queasiness subsided.

My first progesterone shot is tonight. A bit nervous, but I feel like I'm in the home stretch.

Day eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen

The last week has been a blur of belly shots (not the good kind) and blood draws and ultrasounds. Thankfully, last night I got the O.K. from my clinic and my husband gave me the trigger shot. I highly recommend icing the fanny with an ice pack before injection. I hardly felt mine.

I'm feeling some of the side effects today of that shot: major bloating, nausea, dizziness, anxiety. Of course, most of those symptoms probably also have to do with the fact I'm having my egg retrieval tomorrow morning. I'm worried about feeling sick when I come out of anesthesia. I'm also more nervous about how many eggs they'll find, and the quality of those eggs. The last time I came out of anesthesia (after my laparoscopy) my husband had bad news...I had stage four endometriosis. I hope he has better news for me this time around.

I'm thinking a lot of my mother today. By thinking of her, I feel closer to her.

Day seven

I have six follicles now. My visit to the clinic today showed my estradiol levels doubled since Sunday, which the nurse was quite happy about. It looks like I'll be given the trigger shot on Saturday, with egg retrieval on Monday. Of course, things could change...but that's how it looks now.

Day six

This is how I look now. But without the smile on my face.

I spent most of the day napping. I didn't even bother to put on a bra.

I didn't have to go into the clinic today for blood work or an ultrasound, which was a plus. But I have to go in tomorrow.

Day five

There's something so empowering--after spending month after month feeling helplessly infertile--about injecting your body with hormones and watching your body respond accordingly.

During my check up this morning, the ultrasound showed that I now have four follicles maturing at a good rate, at least that's what I think the nurse was telling me. I get so nervous when I'm there that a lot of what is said goes in one ear and out the other. The nurse called me later to say my estradiol level is also where it should be. I don't have to come in to the clinic again until Tuesday. Woo-hoo!

My belly is as large as it's ever been. Even larger than right after I had my laparoscopy, and my stomach was filled with carbon dioxide. I'm wearing pants and shorts with drawstrings, and large shirts that won't accentuate my swollen belly.

Not complaining, though. I'm just thrilled that, so far (and knock wood) my body is responding properly to the hormones.

Day four

I think I'm starting to feel the effects of the drugs I'm shooting up. My belly feels bloated and sore. I either feel very happy, or very tearful. And I have an amazing appetite. Not just that...food seems to taste better. I went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant tonight, and I almost cried eating the spring rolls and Pad Thai--it tasted that good. That, and I cry at the drop of a hat these days.

I did all my own injections today. The key is using the frozen bag of blueberries to numb up the area of my belly that gets the injection. Then, I put the tip of the needle right on my skin. I close my eyes, and push the needle in. I open my eyes, push the plunger, and then close my eyes before I take the needle out. As long as I don't look at the needle going in or coming out, I'm O.K.

Tomorrow morning I go in for blood work and an ultrasound. Hope I don't pass out this time...

Day three

I felt so much better today about everything. The injections this morning, performed by my husband, were not painful at all. My spirits were up the whole day, which I found surprising considering how most of what I've read about I.V.F makes it sound like you get very depressed and moody. Not so for me. At least so far.

The exciting part is that tonight I did my first injection on my own. I was very scared, shaking in fact. I practiced a few times on an orange, trying to get used to the sensation of the needle piercing the skin. About twenty minutes before I gave myself the injection, I took a bag of frozen blueberries from the freezer and placed it on my stomach. Once the area was numb, I swabbed it with an alcohol pad, and put the tip of the needle against my stomach. I closed my eyes, and pushed the tip in. Once the tip was in, I opened my eyes and pushed the rest of the needle into my skin. I pushed the plunger down so the medicine would go in. I then pulled it out and cleaned the area with alcohol.

I must say, I felt a bit high afterward. I am terrified of needles, and never believed I would be able to use one on myself. But I did. I looked fear dead in the eyes, and fear blinked. I feel so empowered now. A piece of cake!

Day two

Today is my first full day of shots. My husband gave me an injection of Lupron on one side of my belly, and an injection of Gonal-F on the other side. It's not the pinch that bothers me. It really doesn't hurt that much. It's just the thought of the needle entering my body that troubles me. I have a phobia of needles--I always have. I can't watch medical shows on TV because they always seem to throw a shot without warning of someone getting their blood drawn. It makes my skin crawl.

And in that vein (pun intended) I had to go to the clinic to get my blood drawn. The lab was full of women like me, anxious to get the draw out of the way so they can get on with their day. I sat down, filled out the paperwork, and then stuck out my arm. It hurt! A lot! Getting my blood drawn never hurts, but this time it did. And then when the phlebotomist was finished, I heard her say, "Oh, no." She was supposed to draw two tubes, and only did one. She started digging around in the original vein for more blood, but it had already started to clot. I made the mistake of looking over at my arm during her hunt, and almost blacked out. In fact, after she drew blood using a second vein, I started sweating so profusely that she ran to get wet clothes for me. She told me to put my head down, and started fanning me with her clipboard. I felt like such a baby. But I couldn't help it. All that digging made me faint.

On the upside, my husband is being so very nice to me. He keeps saying, "You're my hero." I think I'm going to try and get a foot rub out of this.

Day one

After a night of horrendous cramps, I finally got my period today. This morning, in fact. It is a doozey. I also had my first injection today, .2 cc of Lupron. I was so nervous, and my hands were shaking so badly, that my husband ended up giving me the shot. It pinched a bit...I definitely felt it going in. But once it was in it didn't hurt, and I didn't feel the medication go in at all. But I don't know how I'm going to be able to do it to myself. Just looking at the needle makes me feel faint.

I'm relieved the first shot is over. For me, the unknown is more frightening than any reality could ever be.

Tomorrow, I have an appointment at the clinic for a blood draw and an ultrasound. I also have to do two injections tomorrow morning, and one at night. Scary, but exciting. And empowering. I feel like I am literally taking a problem that has plagued my husband and me for two years in my own hands, and doing something about it. Very, very empowering.

No Country for Infertile Women

Last night my husband and I watched the movie No Country for Old Men. It was taut, violent, and thrilling to watch. There was not one extraneous scene.

And there was one scene in particular that caught my attention. The homicidal psychopath played by Javier Bardem gets shot in the leg. He can't go to a hospital for treatment, so he breaks into a pharmacy to get the medicine and supplies he needs to treat himself. He treats his wound in a motel room. At one point, he fills a syringe with some sort of drug, and injects himself. My husband and I squirmed as we watched. I then realized that I would be doing that exact same thing, injecting myself with a needle and syringe, three times a day!

It made my skin crawl, to be honest. I know it's not supposed to hurt, blah blah blah. But I have trouble ripping a bandage off my arm. I really don't know how I'm going to inject myself. I really don't. I'm very nervous.

Drugs, drugs, drugs!

My fertility drugs arrived by Fed Ex today. They were in a very large box with ice packs to keep them cool, although they don't need to be refrigerated. I opened the box immediately to make sure the drugs I needed were there. I've got Lupron, and Gonal-F, plus lots of extra syringes and alcohol swabs.

It's kind of a relief. I was worried that my period would start before the drugs could arrive. But now I feel covered, and should be able to start my first IVF cycle without too much trouble.

The weird thing is, the only place I have for everything to fit is on top of the bureau in the guest bedroom. It's the very bedroom where my mother slept when she stayed with us. And the bureau is where I kept all of my mother's medications and nutrition: the syringes, the methadone, the percocet, the pill crusher, the hydrogen peroxide, the Ensure. It's strange to see medications that may help life begin in the very same spot as the medications my mother used at the end of her life.

The $12000 baby

My month of down time before I start my first IVF cycle is about to end. When it ends, the day I get my period, I start with the injections.

Now, my husband and I didn't try to get pregnant this month. But we didn't not try, either. I've been told I can't get pregnant the old-fashioned way, and if I do, it will probably be ectopic. Yet that hasn't stopped me from hoping against hope that I'm pregnant now and won't have to put myself through IVF.

So I looked up some stats online, and it really would be a miracle if I were. Meaning, it's really, really unlikely. I need to not expect it or even act like it's a possibility, because it's really not.

It's kind of a freeing thought, because then on my first day I can be excited to start a process that might end in pregnancy, instead of being disappointed (yet again) that I failed to conceive.

Some light reading

I've been reading a few first-person accounts of what IVF feels like. I'm most concerned about the emotional aspect. I'm afraid I'll go backwards in my grieving process. The two weeks after my mother died were the most emotionally painful I've ever experienced. The grief was so overwhelming that I had trouble functioning.

I'm doing better now, slowing returning to the life I had before my mother got sick. But I worry that the strong hormones I'll be injecting myself with will let all those terrible feelings of loss take over again.

Back to our regularly scheduled program

I am still grieving, but unfortunately my biological clock couldn't care less. Endometriosis doesn't take a break because there's been a death in the family. It's been made clear to me by my infertility doctor that time is of the essence. I don't have the luxury of mourning for six months, then starting IVF. My endometriosis is so severe that it could start to grow back well before then.

So, I went to my doctor yesterday for "sounding" and a lesson on injections. The sounding was kind of like a pelvic exam, but quicker and weirder. A doctor came in to the exam room, saddled me up in the stir-ups, and practiced putting a catheter through my cervix and into my uterus, sort of a dry run for the embryo transfer. The docs wanted to make sure there were no impediments to getting the catheter in, and luckily there were not. It did not hurt.

The injection lesson was quick and a bit confusing. I guess I have the option of doing the pre-egg retrieval shots in my thigh or belly. I talked with a friend of my sister's who had IVF five years ago, and she strongly suggested "pinching an inch" of my belly and jabbing there. Seems doable. She said it really doesn't hurt there. This is a time when it pays to have what the commercials call that "annoying belly fat." More fat means less pain.

As for the post-retrieval progesterone shots, my husband will have to do those. They go in the tushy, and those do smart. But I really don't have a choice. This is what I've decided to do, so it's time to suck it up.

I wish...

I told her everything I wanted her to hear. How much I loved her. How she molded me into someone who was fearless to try something new, even just once. How much I knew she loved me.

I just wish I had the opportunity to tell it to her again, and again, and again.

January 17, 1938 - June 3, 2009

The Bustle in a House (1108)

by Emily Dickinson

The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted opon Earth –
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity –