Once upon a time we had a plan. Remember back in your 20's when you thought
you could scheme all the details of your life?
We had such ideas and nothing seemed out of our prowess.
The plan picked up momentum with our greatest adventure to
date: parenting. Specifically through international adoption.
I was irked when people would ask about our journey with
infertility. What doctors had I seen,
what treatments had been pursued, what blogs I followed. Why would people assume we hadn't chose
adoption as our first choice? We found adoption to be beautiful and pursued
it whole heartedly. Then once we were
home and settled the intended plan included one or two birth kids followed by
many, many years of raising the wee lads.
Maybe when we were older and wiser with calmer waters once again, we
would see what this whole foster care system was about.
We met a couple from Michigan while we were in Ethiopia who
had such a plan as ours. Rare, no? They were our age, had met in college and had
been together the same amount of time as us and had no birth children. They adopted two young boys, whose ages varied
from ours by about 6 months. And they
are now expecting their third son due sometime mid-summer. Rarer, no?
And I am really happy for them. It is after all, one hell of a plan.
But still I sit here with a lump in my throat, a keyboard in
my lap, knowing that I need to tell you more.
We tried for a while and didn't get pregnant. (You knew that was coming, didn't you, you
clever little minx.) Then we went to a doctor who was able to point out some
problems right off the bat and gave us a prescription. Then we didn't get pregnant. Then we had some more tests done. Then we had a phone call the equivalent of
getting the wind knocked out of you.
I'm well aware that my blog is a garden variety,
scrapbookish family affair that manages 60 readers on a good day. Why post all of this, you ask? Because approximately 22 of you 60 readers knew
in some vague shape or fashion that we were trying to conceive and I simply cannot
have this conversation more than 20 times.
It was hard enough having it once with Jon and a doctor. Not to say this topic is off-limits, just
tread lightly friends and expect tears.
Of course other doctors will be asked and second opinions
will be pursued, but truth be told when I was getting some info back on the
latest round of tests I about fainted. IVF was mentioned as our best bet
due to an amalgamation of problems. Holy
shit. Irony or poetic justice you tell
me, because now I do follow
infertility blogs. And let me tell you,
IVF is the surest and fastest way to annihilate your sanity. Even if we could overlook the aspects of
peace of mind, there are the ethical considerations of what to do with extra (as
the case could be) fertilized eggs.
Freeze them for later? Donate? And of course the cost. IVF has no sure outcomes (other than the
aforementioned hormone induced insanity), while we could be back to Ethiopia on
the same dime.
So now's there's grief.
I'm already a mom. We
are already in love with adoption. I
assume that makes this whole bit of information a veritable cake-walk compared
to others. Truthfully, I'm not too
fussed about seeing a mini-me or Jon toddling about. Or having a child that I can see my
personality in. Honestly, God has given
us a child with interests so close to Jon's that it is spooky. (Spooky in the good, wow, this was the Holy
Spirit matching this little guy up with us as his second family kind of
way.) I've got a four-year old that
talks about Morning Doves and Blue Jays and what his "Granddad" (He
just started saying this. Darling.) and
Grandma think are the best birds when comparing cooing. (Is that even what you call it?) Honestly he knows more tree names than
I. Nature excites him. Sound familiar?
But I still feel like I'm missing out on a right-of-passage
type of experience in which most women partake.
I can't ever remember myself longing for or fantasizing about having
birth children or being a mom while I was growing up, but it was always an understood
in my mind. Assured. Undeniable. Pretty
much what God had in mind when creating my sex.
I'm all for voting, careers, and equal pay, but I'm no feminist. I wanted to be pregnant. I assumed pregnancy. And not the type of pregnant where you have to
fight and claw your way in just to have a chance. Maybe it's all a myth. Maybe no one ever glows. But that's what I wanted. To be glowing and have a chance to sit at the
big kid table. To feel a kick, some movement. To have Jon race in with out stretched hand. To have something to add in conversation with every women-only room
I've been in for the last 5 years.
So pray for us. Not
for news that our doc was a quack and that all systems are a go. Not that we would have some miracle
child. But that our peace would be enormous. That our love of Christ would grow. That we would better learn to love and
support one another. For our
current children and the ones who will join our family in non-traditional
ways.
