Venting

I read alot of infertility blogs through Google reader and subscribed to them through Blogger. I have TRIED to unsubscribe to a few pregnant IFers for months now and every time I think I have it, whole bunches of posts of theirs show up. I hate knowing they're at 26 weeks now or whatever - I unsubscribed for a reason (my own mental sanity) so I wish it would just stop showing up!

I joined an FB surrogacy group yesterday after much contemplation, because it connects my real name to this blog in a way, which I have tried very hard not to do. I don't know why I have a problem sharing about this journey in real life, but I know that if IRL people read what I write here it would cause me to a) not write as much and b) be careful about what I write.

I thought I had all the "news options" on my FB ticked off and was very pleased that it didn't show up on my wall after I joined because I was thinking I had mastered the privacy settings which are constantly changing. Then some hours later when I checked FB again, I saw that my mom had joined the same surrogacy group.

I instantly burst into tears. This is what I mean about emotions always being nearly right at the surface - almost anything brings me to tears. It wasn't so much my mother joining, although it was that as well, but at that apparently my joining had been broadcast to all my FB friends when nearly none of them know about surrogacy and only a handful even know about adoption. Why am I embarrassed? I don't know. I know intellectually I shouldn't be, but in a way I feel like a failure of nature. No one else I know on FB has ever adopted (not that I've asked) and only a handful have done IVF, ALL successfully. I've never posted anything about my infertility journey, and the only thing ever related to babies I've ever posted was on the day of what should have been my twins' birth. That day I posted that lovely quote from Laura Bush.

I won't have a problem telling people AFTER we have a child that it's been adopted or through a surrogate, so I know I shouldn't have a problem doing it now, but I do. There's a level of pity there, I feel, which won't be so present after it's already been done.

So yeah, I was really upset yesterday when I saw that. And then I was super mad at my mother. She and my dad are the only people in my family that know we're doing surrogacy, and my ILs are the only people in L's. And now she's (unwittingly?) broadcast it to every one of her friends and family in FB. And she's NOT doing surrogacy herself, so why must she insert herself into everything? She is really not sensitive in the slightest. She already constantly tells me how she's going to be an old grandmother after I've told her how hurtful that is (oh yes, because I have INTENTIONALLY not had a child after all this time). She even told me I should tell our potential surrogate that she feels that way (that she's going to be an old grandmother) because she thought it would help convince the surrogate to work with us. Um, no. Again, first off, very hurtful to me, secondly, thanks for making it all about you. Third, we're PAYING a surrogate, we don't need to beg them to do anything. That's my mom, having really no faith in me and thinking that I can't get anything done on my own merits. When I was younger and not married she would tell me that if I found a guy who wanted to marry me but hated my cats, I should get rid of my cats ASAP. I would respond by telling her I would never marry a man who hated my cats, and she said I would never get married then. (I had two cats, it wasn't like I was crazy cat woman or anything. And I married a man who had two cats of his own, so there.)

She also understands nothing about IVF and really makes no attempt to. But she wants to be in this group? Effing bullshit. I'm so so upset. I should have just stayed out like was my first inclination.

And thus concludes word vomit Tuesday.

The Potential Surrogate Meeting

Oy, what a weekend! We drove 2.5 hours south (one way, so 5 hours total) to my aunt's house for a big family dinner on Saturday night, and didn't get home till midnight. then we left at 10am on Sunday to make the 3 hour east(1 way) to meet with our potential surrogate and her family. So exhausted, I'm almost glad to be back at work!

The meeting went really well. I'm really excited, and I just realize how embittered I am over this whole infertility journey. I'm going to have to come up with a nickname for this blog because it looks like we'll be working together!! *throws confetti*

Well, presuming all the legal stuff comes together. I don't see why it shouldn't though.

They live in a cute colonial with a fantastic backyard in MA and she and her husband have three kids and are DONE so far as that's concerned. They are ADORABLE. L and I brought them coloring books and crayons, and we were hanging around Target on saturday night (before we drove all the way home from my aunt's) trying to find something to get for them and realized how out of our league we were. No one in my family has any kids yet and my two closest friends just had their first babies last November and 3 weeks ago. And I'm in my 30s. go figure. So I have not had any need to buy kid stuff ever, and even all the baby gifts I just bought aren't kid toys yet.

So I wanted to buy one (well three) of those water coloring books - do you remember them? The ones that had color "invisibly" in the coloring book pages and when you took your paint brush and dipped it in water and painted in the lines it turned colors? I thought it would be fun and not too messy but they don't exist anymore!! Now they have clear markers that you color over the lines and then the pictures turn colors instead. What, was water too messy? The markers seem so wasteful to me.

We were there for about 3 hours just chatting about our families and ourselves with a little surrogate stuff in there. I mean, I was pretty much decided even before the phone call. This was just to meet them and make sure they weren't psychos - and all major questions were answered in our phone call already. We talked alot about baby stuff (like we were assuming this would just WORK the first time) and it's when I realized how bitter I was as a person. The surrogate (ok, I NEED a nickname...hmm...) was talking about her first baby and how after she saw the heartbeat she was so relieved because it's only a 5% chance of miscarriage after that and I couldn't help but cynically say, "yep, but that chance always seemed to find me." and they asked if we watched Parenthood and I told them we don't because we try to stay away from all parenty/baby type shows because it's just too difficult for us. As I was saying it I realized how bitter I sounded but I think the pain is still too close for me. I honestly don't think I will get over it until I have a child in my arms. The tears always sneak up when I'm not expecting it.

But she was great and a total chatterbox. Seriously after we left it was so quiet in the car and it was kind of nice, lol. I never thought I was that quiet of a person, but I was sort of yesterday.

She emailed me last night saying how great it was to meet us in person and how we all get along so well. She said she was putting her daughter to bed last night and often she will trace the names of their family on her back as she rubs her back to get her to go to sleep. Apparently their daughter asked her yesterday to trace L and my names on her back. So cute :)

So she's emailed the surrogate agency to say she's excited to work with us and I will tonight and then we'll see what the next steps are! Send in more money to the agency, I'm sure.

Ok, after some thinking about it, the new nickname for our surrogate will be Gabby. Get it? :)

Welcome ICLWers!

Ahh, another round of ICLW! Nice to start off the year with this. Welcome to my blog. If you'd like to learn more about how I got here, you can click on the About Me tab at the top of this page. It's long though, so for a short version, here goes:

Been married nearly 5 years, we're now in our 4th year of trying. We have unexplained infertility and recurrent miscarriage. 4 times I've been pregnant (twice on our own, twice with fertility treatments) and I've never made it out of the first trimester. My last pregnancy was with twins from our second IVF cycle. One passed at 7 weeks, the other at 11 weeks. It's been a tough, tough road.

We're now far into the adoption process: homestudy ready and right now in the middle of getting profiled. We're so hopeful something will happen with that this year, because it's been such a long road. We're also pursuing surrogacy, thanks to the generosity of my inlaws. Basically we want a baby/babies - any way it happens for us. Someone wants to drop one off on my doorstep? We'd be thrilled :)

Anyway, I'm not the greatest writer, this blog is more pretty much Word Vomit Thursday, every day I write. I write to release my feelings, so more often its been depression, sadness, and anger. Whatever comes into my mind I write, because getting it out feels better than keeping it in. Welcome!

Things Looking Up?

So far, 2012 is going well! Well, except for slipping on black ice two days ago while walking the dog and losing her leash. But she came back when I called her, so that's a positive too!

When it rains it pours, and when good things are happening, the opposite is true as well, it seems. I had called my mom to tell her about the surrogate on Monday night and she asked about adoption and I told her there was nothing on that front and likely wouldn't be for who knows how long? She told me, "Hey you never know, it could be tomorrow for all you know," which I agreed with.

And then yesterday we got a call from the adoption agency for a profiling opportunity! Our first real one, since the other indirect one was never heard back from. It was so exciting.

A lot of adoption bloggers don't blog about their profiling opportunities because they come and go so fast and it gets depressing being rejected (not picked). But this is our first one, and even if we're not picked I feel ok with that. I feel hope for the first time in a LONG time that this is going to happen for us, someway, somehow, SOON.

This is for a baby boy due in May from a birthmom in her late 20s with two other boys already. Father is not in the picture at all. No alcohol, no drugs, all in all, pretty darn great! From the description of the mother (haven't seen a picture) she is my height, my color hair and my color eyes. Dad had blue eyes, but otherwise meets L's description. Not that that is really important to us, but I just thought it was amazing how it matched us so well!

The birthmom gave the agency a very detailed listing of medical conditions that run in the family, including down to the grandmother's cousin - which is great. That shows she really cares and wants the baby to know about his medical history. Another funny thing is that it mirrors L and my family's too! Even down to someone having a congenital heart defect!

The mother wants an open adoption, which is great because the baby will have two half-brothers. She actually wants a lot of contact which we told the agency we were unsure about and really depended on the relationship we could develop. But they told us all we needed to be was open to it, and we are. But since we don't know this lady at all, we aren't ready to make any promises at THIS moment in time. If we were to get to know her over the next few months, I'm sure we'd feel better about everything.

So we'll see. We had to make the decision to be profiled in about an hour, which was nervewracking, but we did and now we just wait and see!

In other news, we're meeting the surrogate and her family the last Sunday of January. By the end of all of this, we're going to have connections to a whole bunch of families, the way we're going!

Fingers crossed. I just know something has to work out. Irons in the fire...something will happen for us.

The Call

Whoa...so talk about wanting someone who is talkative...

Yes, she was VERY talkative. No empty spaces because she filled them all. She said she was so nervous, but didn't sound like it at all! We were so nervous, sounding very stilted, and on speakerphone so we seemed to always interrupt. Gah.

She is VERY nice. Her husband was a little more subdued, sounding protective, which I can understand. It's so funny because they seemed to think we were interviewing all these people, and I admit I didn't try to dissuade them from the thought. No, we only looked at three profiles and to us there was no choice at all. They kept saying things like "If you pick us..." and in my head they were already picked, as long as they were decent people.

We exchanged email addresses and are trying to pick a day to meet up. The only thing is that she mentioned a vacation the last week of April/first week of May and the agency had said she couldn't transfer until april. So how will she be doing a cycle and going on vacation? I emailed the agency to ask and hope it will work out.

Fingers crossed!

Quick Update

Money has been sent and received by the agency and we have been given the number of our possible surrogate to call this afternoon and get to know each other. If we like each other we can set up a face to face meeting. oh gosh. I am so nervous. It's not like I have these calls every day and I'm a very shy person until you get to know me anyway.

I really hope she's very friendly and outgoing because I don't know how I'm going to keep the conversation going...

Will report back later.

Worries

Back from FL and back to the real world. On vacation it's so nice (besides the obvious!) We only hang out with each other, no awkward discussions with anyone about babies, really not even having to think about them in the slightest. i wish I could stay in that mode forever.

We're about to send in our signed contracts for the surrogacy agency. I'm terrified. It's SO much money, and even though we're getting helped out, part of me worries that my ILs don't have the money either and are just being nice. I know they are well off, but I don't know the details of their finances, obviously. What if we do this and then it doesn't work?

Any amount of money we put down is nonrefundable, whether the surrogate gets pregnant or not. In order to even TALK to the surrogate we've chosen, we have to put down $10,000. Holy shit.

I know this place is good and is recommended, but still, it's so scary. What if I *boom* get pregnant myself and for once don't miscarry? I know adoption wouldn't really change anything, but what if I'm in the middle of a cycle (to get the eggs to put in the surrogate) and we get a call to go pick up a baby? What if she doesn't get pregnant and all this money is down the drain? What if what if?

All I know is that I want a child so badly. Going into my 4th year of trying now, and I feel like I've waited long enough. I could continue to see if anything works on my own, but what if it doesn't? What if we're waiting 5 years, 6 years?

But I'm still so worried this will be just a HUGE waste of money, money that I couldn't even comprehend if it were truly mine.