I am one of the most impatient people in the world when it comes to getting what I want. For most of my life, I've always gotten what I wanted with relative ease. So far the biggest challenge was getting Dave to marry me... but you see I accomplished that too!
And for this wonderful marriage, I am eternally grateful. And now I want a child. And I've been wanting one for a long time.
We got married in October 2004 and started "trying" in November 2005. Things did not happen the way they usually do, so eventually we sought the advice of a fertility doctor. After many tests, procedures, messing around with my hormones, peeing on various sticks, a miscarriage, and thousands of dollars spent, we were given a diagnosis of "unexplained infertility." So I became exhausted and emotionally drained with the whole endeavor. I stopped tracking ovulation and went back to living a normal life. Sort of. Every month, as much as I try to suppress the feelings, hope wiggles its way into my heart, only to be crushed once again on day 26.
Around June 2008, we decided to adopt a child. Working toward the process of getting certified gave me a sense of purpose and helped to lessen the pain of infertility. I truly believed that we would be selected quickly once we got through the process. After all, we always hear about how there are just SO MANY CHILDREN waiting to be adopted out there... But so far, we haven't been chosen as parents yet. Granted, we've only been certified since January. But I am impatient.
My impatience has inspired me to do a couple of things. First, I went to a new fertility doctor (actually, two of them) to get a second (and third) opinion on what, if anything, is "wrong" with me. I learned that my fertility is about half of what it should be for a woman my age. Why did Doctor #1 not share this with me? Because he didn't want me to be discouraged? Because he is running a relatively new practice and just doesn't have the experience necessary to give me accurate diagnoses? Because he truly believed he could help me to get pregnant? Or because he just wanted to keep me coming back and spending more money? Who knows... At any rate, both Doctor #2 and Doctor #3 advised me to have one more test done- the Clomid Challenge Test. Sounds like a competition on the reality TV show Survivor. Who will win the Clomid Challenge Test and who will get kicked off the reproductive island? This test will identify my level of FSH (the lower the better.) Over 15 is a really bad thing. So I am going to have this test done and then Dr. P will be able to tell me what are the chances of my getting pregnant with assistive reproductive technology. Both doctors said my chances of getting pregnant on my own are virtually nil- about 1 to 3%.
My second course of action was to explore other avenues for adoption. I called an international adoption agency just to get some information and learned, to my horror, that we are quickly approaching the age that is considered "too old" for adopting a baby from another country. Only a few countries will allow children to be adopted by a couple if one of the parents is over age 45 (Dave is 48) and the other countries have set an age limit of 50. By the time we get through all the paperwork, red tape, etc, we could be ruled out anyway. Oh, the unfairness of it all!
Option number 3 would be domestic infant adoption. This is something I have been wary of because I really would be devastated if we were chosen by a birth mother and then she changed her mind and decided to keep the baby. I don't know if I could carry on with this after a loss like that. It happens more often than people realize.
In light of all this, I've been pretty discouraged, sad, and frustrated. I talked to Andrea from our agency on Thursday and she had some reassuring words for me. She said that it often takes over a year to get the right placement, that Dave and I are one of the strongest families in their agency right now, that she doesn't believe age will be a concern at all, and that she is very confident we'll be chosen. We just have to be patient.
We get regular e-mails from Andrea asking us to consider children that are being placed for adoption. These are typically children who have severe health or behavioral issues that have yielded no results when the caseworker searched the database for potential adoptive families. The caseworker then sends out these e-mails to all of the agencies with very minimal information about the child in hopes that families who have already ruled out these situations will reconsider. Usually we have to say no to these requests based on the information provided. I think about these kids and wonder what happens to them. I feel guilty and sad that we turned down the opportunity to be their parents. But we have to be honest about what we can and cannot realistically handle.
This is my new plan to be in action and pull myself out of this funk:
1. Continue to form relationships with adoptive parents
2. Publish (in my house) a list of reasons why the universe will make me a mom very, very soon
3. Prepare the child's room. I've started cleaning out the closet and I seem to be making good progress.
We'll see how this goes.
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