Name Game

Things have been going by at a rapid pace.  Buying things for baby.  Researching stuff.  Then not buying things because we're scared the birth parents might change their mind.

Tomorrow, we meet with the birth mother, and the maternal grandmother.  The birth mom and the birth father just broke up, so he's not coming.   We keep hearing about how lovely she is.  I'm excited to meet them, but also super nervous.

Basically we've been doing a lot of thinking, and a decent amount of unproductive worrying.

Tonight we've been feverishly working on names.  We had each been coming up with our own list, but never really talked in detail about important things like which names go together or even which ones we can both agree on (there are a few names, but not many).

I am indecisive on a good day.  Making a major decision on something like a name is stressing me out.

 Julia Spencer is a pen name which came from the names I thought I may one day want to name my child.  As it turns out, naming a kid in real life is a lot harder.   Especially when you have a more difficult last name, as we do.  It's a name that a child could struggle with, or be teased about.  When I married my husband, I thought long and hard about it, but I chose to take his name.

Now, I'm wondering if (for the sake of the child) I should change my name back to a hyphenated name with my maiden name and his name, and give the kid my maiden name.  Or hyphenated name, although I don't like that idea much because the two don't sound all that great together.  And I'm personally not a huge fan of most hyphenated names.  

To add a little pressure to the situation, we have the adoption part of the equation.  The child will be named by the birth mother, and a birth certificate will be prepared.  After the child is legally ours, we will change the birth certificate to what we choose.   That child will in all likelihood have an easier/more desirable name originally if we went with our current last name.   Humph.

The adoption agency recommends choosing a name with the birth mother, or that the birth parents choose the second name and we choose the first.  That sounds like sunshine and lolly pops IF they like nice names.

However, throw in: a) our difficult last name which they may or may not know about already (we think for confidentiality reasons they don't know) b) that we are scared of ANYTHING that might make birth mom think we aren't the best parents for her child, and c) changing your name back to your maiden name might be weird, d) D and I have differing opinions and e) we are supposed to talk about names TOMORROW, and oh, f) We have D's and his parent's feelings to consider.

It's our first big parenting decision and it's a bit of a mess.   Wish us luck.

Feel free to chime in with your opinion too.

Healing dinner

We had Lainey and Paul over for dinner last night. They brought their teenaged nephew who was visiting from overseas, and their gorgeous 2 month old daughter. 

I made this yum-um-my plum cobbler for the first time. Served warm with a little vanilla ice cream, it was devine. I would cut way back on the 3/4 cup of sugar added to the plums. They are sweet on their own. It was a nice change. I don't usually make desserts with plums, although now I wonder why I haven't before. I thought I would share. 

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/m/recipes/plum_cobbler/

(Sorry- I'm typing this on my phone and I don't know how to make this a link)

Lainey and Paul are the couple that I wrote about having the heart wrenching and almost failed adoption earlier this summer. We haven't been to see them earlier because we were away, but we've been communicating often. 

Oh friends, it was such a perfect visit, at such a perfect time. We're so lucky to have them as friends.  Seeing them gushing over their little girl, and seeing D hold her (in the funny awkward/frozen way he does, lol) was so great to see. Holding that sweet tiny baby was was so therapeutic for me. 

I loved listening to her share about which type of stroller she chose, and why, and so many little details of how they are parenting. It's the first time in a long time, (or maybe ever!) that I remember acutally enjoying this kind of dicussion. I think I am healing, folks! 

The visit was perfect timing, and really helped wash away so much of yesterday's stress and anxiety. That is what we are after. That is why we have endured, and will continue.  

They have the same social worker and agency worker that we have, so they can relate to so much of what we are going through. What helps also, is that Lainey is a social worker so she's really good at listening, not judging and offering support. 

With the exception of D's mother, they will be the only ones (in 'real' life- I'm so glad to have all of you here too!) that we will confide in about specifics about the pregnancy and the birth parents. Our social worker has reminded us to use discretion, because much of this is our child's information. They should get to know their history before the rest of the world does, she says, and I agree. 

I'm also keenly aware that some of my veggie-charting friends might judge this baby, even if they don't know they are doing it. I want to shield him or her from that as much as I can. 

I feel like I'm becoming a Mama.  Tears are pouring out now.

Curve ball

Last night the social worker sent us the medical and social histories of both birth parents. 

As D grilled our meat outdoors, and I prepared the rest of dinner, I scanned through the documents. After looking at the egg donor profiles, I've become a lot faster at scanning through to quickly see if there is anything glaring. After dinner, I planned to have more thorough look. 

I expected no big surprises. We had spent 30 minutes on the phone where the social worker reviewed the information with us, basically reading from this document, line for line. 

Except there was something. 

She has smoked marijuana throughout her pregnancy. It said "Every day in the first trimester, and now once on weekends".

WTF. 

UM. So, it was important that they told us that he loves performance cars, and that she takes Zumba classes, but NOT about THIS? 

My heart dropped. 

I'd never researched the effects of marijuana on a baby. I've had no reason to. 

I thought maybe it was a typo. I calmly emailed the social worker (SW), asking her to seek clarification from the birth parent counsellor.  After all, the agency worker made a big deal about how great of a situation this was, and the fact that there were no drugs, other than prescriptions for a UTI and morning sickness pills. 

The agency worker and birth parent counsellor were conveniently on vacation today, so we talked to someone else. She said they would try to reach one of them on vacation. We thanked her. 

In the mean time, we had a meeting scheduled with our local SW for the afternoon to sign paperwork for this adoption, one document of which, said that we were comfortable with, and had reviewed their medical and social histories. 

I emailed our local SW and told her about what was happening. Her response was that "maybe it wasn't identified as a risk factor"- Ummm, sorry, WHAT!?!? She also said that is "her 15 years experience marijuana that it isn't associated with major problems".  She said she's seek clarification from the other SW. 

It wasn't the "let's get to the bottom of this" ..."I'm sorry that happened" ..."that should have been presented to you earlier if that was the case" social-worky answer I was hoping for.  

We had friends stop in that evening, so we kept things to ourselves and calmly waited things out until morning. 

Then, I woke up this morning and had a full blown, anxious, teary freak-out. I'm getting really good at those. I have lots of practice under my belt, I guess. I should add that skill to my resume. It really is impressive. 

My thoughts were: 

1. This wasn't a typo. It wouldn't have been written up as it was. 

2. What is this agency doing? Why was this missed? Was this intentional?  Are they incompetent? What else is missing!?!

3. Who is this pregnant woman who CHOOSES to smoke cigarettes and marijuana when she KNOWS she is 7 months pregnant!?! Why!!! I think about the baby in her womb being exposed and I cringe.  She's taken prenatal vitamins since week 3 of her of pregnancy. I remember that she wrote that she wants to take a health program at college next year, haha! I feel furious at her. I hate that she is doing this to that baby.   

4.  Even though he hasn't said it overtly, I know D wants this baby regardless of this new information. I feel pressured, and that he could be making a decision out of desparation. 

5. I don't know how I feel about this new information, and if it is a deal breaker to me. 

6. I have not fully researched this or called the Motherrisk hotline about the effect of marijuana on a baby.  All I've read are a bunch of mostly non-researched based internet garbage articles saying that it may not be that bad. 

7. I think about how my aunt told me that my mother smoked pot before she knew she was unexpectedly pregnant with me (and she took birth control, and who knows, she probably drank too?). I maybe could have been a rocket scientist without that exposure, but I really don't feel much worse for the wear. 

I sobbed in the shower, and then after I got out. This isn't going to be easy either.  Why!?!

8. I think about that beautiful little baby girl or boy. I feel a sense if protection for him or her. I think about who they are. Are they less loveable because of this? Would my parenting experience be harder/less rewarding if a learning disability or some other possible marijuana effect were present? Absolutely not.  

9. Is perfectionism and worry about being judged playing into this? 

I think about some of my friend's pregnancies. I recall a friend who kept a chart on her fridge to keep track of if she had her exactly proper number of veggies that day. 

10. I think about all of the things I've done to increase my hideous fertility, even by just a smidgeon. I think of the care and love I always imagined doling out to my future unborn babies. I think about care the love I did give the babies I lost. 

11. I think about my four embabies on ice. 

12. I feel my own compound losses coming to the surface again.  I see my anxiety, and D's growing by the minute. 

Shortly after the shower, I told D that we need to talk. I blurted out all of the things I just wrote about, only not as coherently.  I said, "we need to cancel our SW meeting. We need more information.  I can't decide on this today, we have time. Let's postpone this meeting." He agreed. 

Except, we couldn't get a hold of our SW, because she was in an out of town meeting. 

She finally called us, 15 minutes before our scheduled appointment. 

We briefly discussed things, and she suggested that we should meet anyways, just to talk this out, and to get some other paperwork cleared up. We agreed. 

15 minutes later, she arrived at our door with a birth parent counsellor. (We had met her a few months ago.  She was not the counsellor that interviewed our prospective birth parents.)

The meeting was mostly good. We  especially valued the non-judgemental, and informed insight  and support of the birth parent counsellor.  Our local SW wasn't as great of a support or as professional as we would have hoped for. 

We reviewed the social and medical history line by line. She talked about her experience with adoption and recreational drug use in pregnancy. We talked about the strengths of the couple. 

"This is just about as clean of a history as we see", they both said. We were both surprised to hear this.  They failed to mention that in our homestudy and adoption preparation! 

"There is no alcohol consumption. There are no hard drugs. There was prenatal care.  The pregnancy is not hidden and the birth parents seem confident in their decision to place the child."

They offered us no judgement, if we decided this match was not right for us. 

I told them that I was upset that this was not brought to our attention earlier. That it made me lose confidence in this process, and the agency.  They acknowledged our concerns, and talked our their confidence in this agency, and with the experienced and thorough birth parent counsellor who did the intake with the birth parents. 

They talked about how this birth mom seemed honest about disclosing her history, and that may other mothers may not have been as forthcoming due to many factors. 

Part of the way through the meeting, the agency worker called. We put her on speaker phone. She explained that it was an error that she has not mentioned this earlier. That she had been working from an older document, and this information had not been disclosed at that time. She apologized sincerely. She said it was okay to change our minds. She apologized some more. She really felt bad for the error, and she owned the problem. 

It is all a lot for us to take in, especially because we are so new to the adoption world, and truthfully, because I haven't fully given up my dreams of my happy little embabies turning into happy pregnancies and real, live babies. 

We ended our meeting with them, telling them that we would talk it over, do more research, and get back to them. 

We're taking the night to think about it, but I think we've mostly decided. 

This is still our baby. 

This is still happening!

Thank you so much for all of your heartfelt comments. They really were fun to read! It all still doesn't seem real...

I told someone that this feels like winning the lottery.  I keep thinking things like; "Someone picked us for their baby!", "There is a baby kicking and growing right now that is going to come home with us ...and SOON!", "I wonder what the Birth Mom and Dad are thinking about right now?" The thought of it all truly astounds me. 

I thought a match for us would be so far away.  I can't believe it that this all happened so fast.  We only finalized our profile with the agency in early June. After 7 years of waiting for baby, I guess I got used to things happening at a snail's pace. 

I've talked about my hesitancy with the adoption process in the past. I felt scared that I would feel pressure to accept a match that wasn't right for us, or guilt about turing a situation down. I was scared that the birth parents would change their minds and we would end up even more heartbroken.   

I don't feel that anymore, which is surprising to me.  D says that I've been ready for this moment for longer than I knew, perhaps as early as when we first decided to adopt embryos, many years ago.  I think it's because it's the right match for us. 

D is very anxious about something going wrong (mostly that the birth parents change their mind) and being devastated again.  I can tell he is worried about me being so excited. 

It's in the back of my mind too, but I am trying not to let that doubt ruin this happy time. Most people get 9 months + to be excited about their baby coming. We only get 2 months, and I don't want to waste that time on excessive worrying. 

With everything that just happened with our friends and their adoption, I suppose D's anxiety is not surprising.  The only surprising part, might be that I'm not feeling it as much, even though I am a big worrier too. 

As my Grandmother said, even people who are pregnant feel anxious about the birth, and that something could go wrong.  It's part of expecting. 

Don't get me wrong, there is a part of me that is fr-eak-ing out and scared shitless.  However, I am way more excited.  

This feels right to me. It feels like the right match and the right time. 

We have told some of people in our life who we are closest too. It's been so fun sharing this good news and hearing their reactions. People are so genuinely happy for us. It feels great. 

We will wait to tell more people until after we meet with the birth parents in September.  After we meet with them, our match will be considered official. 

From there, we will prepare for the baby (a nursery- OMG!!!!) and wait for him/her to arrive. 

It is our hope that the baby will leave the hospital with us. After the birth, there is a waiting period for the paperwork to be completed etc. if all goes smoothly, the adoption could be finalized 29 days after the baby is born. 

We will be holding our breath until that day. And then, we will shout it from the roof tops!   

Strangely, I feel really unprepared for an infant.  You would think that in 7 years of trying for a baby, and seeing my friends with theirs, that we would have spent some time thinking about, you know, parenting!?!! Or having a list of boys and girl names? Or having a mental list of things we will or won't do. But we haven't allowed ourselves this luxury before.  

I guess it all felt too heartbreaking, before and too painful of a reminder of we were so desperately missing. I can't wait to start learning about all of this stuff. 

Until we meet the birth parents (in early September), I am going to focus on finishing up my home projects.  When I wrote the update post recently, including a list of some of the home projects we did, I almost wrote about how all of the stuff I was doing felt like nesting.  

I thought I was "nesting" for our 2WW from next frozen transfer and possibly a pregnancy. Guess the universe had something different in mind. :)

Next week, I plan to meet with my family doctor and a lactation consultant to discuss breastfeeding (I'm just researching my options and haven't decided what I want to do yet- more on this topic to come, and comments on this are appreciated and welcomed). I want to also make some lists of what we will need for the baby, so when we get the next green light (the September meeting), we can go out and get things after.  I want to do lots of reading too. 

Especially because the BMom is a smoker, I want to be prepared for a baby that could come early. 

As for the BMom and Bdad's social and medical histories, we got some more information. I feel really good about their situations (I just wish there was no smoking-but that goes without saying).  I can't wait to meet them, and see what their personalities are like, what they look like, and see that precious bump that holds our future. 

Holy cow. This is still happening. 

J 

Ps) I'm looking to read more adoption blogs, are there any you would recommend? 

You guys....

THEY CHOSE US!!! 

The baby is due Oct 15th.  We are so excited! 

OMG. 

More info to come! 

Adoption counselor: "There is a baby due in October".

We got this message over the weekend from our adoption agency.

They gave us a limited social and medical history (below).  They asked if we wanted to be presented to the birth parents this Wednesday?

Here's the scoop:

The birth mother is 20, and the birth father is around that age too.  They are both Caucasian.  There has been no illegal drugs or alcohol. She says she smokes 6 cigarettes per day.  She has been taking prenatal vitamins and been receiving medical care, including taking some prescription drugs in her early pregnancy for morning sickness and a UTI.  She had a depressive episode where she was hospitalized when she was 19, after breaking up with her boyfriend.   She called herself bipolar after that experience, although she is has not been medicated since then and has been doing well.  The social worker believes that this diagnosis was not made by a doctor, and that it could be inaccurate.

They don't want much openness, and are anxious to make an adoption plan for their child.  The birth mother's family are supportive of an adoption placement.  The birth father's mother is not, but both he and the birth mother are strong in their opinion that they don't want her to parent this child.

The social worker said the mother was pretty.  That he likes performance cars and trucks.  It's so weird what information you get, and what information you don't get.  At this stage, they just share with us, what they think are the basics.  If they choose us, we'll learn a lot more.

D was quickly onside with knowing he wanted to be presented.  Our social worker said that no drugs or alcohol exposure is rare.   My first thought was of my four little embabies, and how my period had just arrived.  I thought about carrying our baby.

I know those embabies will be there for us later.   This child is on his or her way in 2 months.

We decided to be presented.  We will know if we made the short list, were declined or were selected on Wednesday or Thursday.

There are so many emotions for me right now.

Life could change in a hurry.

Stepping out of the darkness...together

....This post was from earlier in the summer.... I am just getting around to editing and publishing it now. 

The winter and spring were dark times.  I didn't realize it at the time, but there was a quiet undertone in my thoughts, where I blamed myself for what I was feeling.

I chose fertility over adoption, again.  Maybe it was the wrong choice. 

My body failed us, again.  

If I had made my life fuller, and crafted more meaning and purpose in other arenas of my life, maybe this loss wouldn't hurt so much. 

I shouldn't need so much support.  

Why me, why us, why our baby, AGAIN? 

Today, I realize it wasn't all my fault.  We made choices together with the best information we had at the time to get here.  There were a lot of compounding factors.  There was just so much to grieve.   I remind myself that my three pregnancies and four babies were (and are) a big deal.   That our infertility is a big deal.   That is why I was (and am) grieving.    

I want to write it out here so that I remember.  So, if I ever have to visit those depths again I can re-read this.   They are not excuses.  They were my reality.

Note to self:  You can't control how you feel.   It is ok to grieve, even if it takes a long time.  There were compound factors to my situation.  

There was a recipe to my grief:

Winter weather

+

The cumulative grief of infertility and loss

+ 

A lack of social support

+ 

Social isolation

+ 

Hormonal manipulation &  pregnancy/miscarriage hormonal factors

+

No positive distractions

=

Grief, Depression & Anxiety

We have been at the cottage since early May. We've made plans to return home, which have changed again and again. Now finally, we have arranged to travel back in the third week of August. I love it here- and already I feel sad about leaving. We have been away for much longer than planned originally and we need to check in at home. 

Taking a fertility break for this long was not what I originally wanted, but it is what I got. It has been so tremendously healing. Eating, drinking, and no pills. Ahhh. 

I/we needed this time and place to recharge so desparately. I am still fragile but at least I feel that I have time to glue the pieces back together.  

Sadly though, this summer, D has sunk farther into his depression.  His anxiety has also grown. 

After a big talk yesterday, I understand now that he needs more support from me.  I am all he has, his friends and family only talk about only "level 1" topics as we refer to it.  He needs more support. 

He's grieving heavily.  He is sad about turning 38. He is very sad about not having children.  About the big changes that have happened in his industry.  About his loss of spirituality, and about the loss of mine.   I think he may be sad about being away from home, and his friends too, but he insists he likes being where we are, but yes, he does miss 'his people' at home.  

His grief is expressed a lot different than my grief, and it is harder for me to recognize.  His grief is angrier.  It is moody.  It is grumpy.  It is more frustrated.  It is lonely.  It is less sexual.  It often seems more mad than sad.  It worries, a lot.  All of those symptoms are hidden in other places and situations, and not necessarily discussed within the context of infertility and loss.  

At times, even when I do recognize his grief,  I've been selfishly shielding myself.  I am embarrassed and ashamed to admit this.  However,  I have been treading water for so long myself, I was exhausted.  I finally felt like I could see the shore.  Getting back in the water with him is difficult. I feel like I barely escaped it the last time. 

After our chat, I know he needs me to swim beside him. To be his lifeguard.  So, I'll be jumping in more.  

I wish I could waive my magic wand and make things all better for him.   It's so hard to see him suffer.