Another day down...

Thank you for all your comments and prayers. They mean a lot to me. Of course I haven't heard from the social worker. Maybe that was to be expected. I had hoped to be able to schedule the first meeting this week-end. I guess that is not happening.

Kathy from So these are the days of my life has asked me whether we will be moving to Venezuela permanently or for a short while. Well, it is not permanently, but not for a short while either. We will move there for three years. I know it will be difficult with the whole developments with the government. But I am also excited about being having the opportunity to live in a new country, learning a new language and being exposed to a different culture.

But what I am really terrified of is that we won't be matched before we move. I am wondering whether there is a birth mother that doesn't mind her child moving to another country. Will she see the opportunities of the child speaking three languages? I am - as you can all see from my writing - not a native English speaker and would like to speak my mother tongue to the baby. My husband of course will speak English. And we hope that it will pick up Spanish on the road by playing with other kids.

If we don't get matched before we move, I will be devastated. I don't know what happens then. I mean, we still would have our home study, but would it technically be an international adoption if we are US citizens? I am not yet, but I am working on it. I hope that we will get some clarification during the home study. This is why I am so upset with every day that is passing by unused. I want to get this home study done as fast as possible to have a profile for birth mothers to look at.

I also don't know what happens, if we haven't finalized the adoption before moving overseas. Will we still have to do the three post placement visits required by our state even if we don't live there any more? Can these visits be waived under certain circumstances? Otherwise, I guess, we will have to pay for the Social Worker's trips to South America where she can update our home study or do the post placement visits. Any legal advice out there?

I just sent the agency an email. I am sure now I made it on their most hated clients list. Maybe they can send me already the information on the "Dear Birthmother Letter" and the dreaded "Scrapbook". I have never scrapbooked in my life and have no experience with this. So I am sure it will take me longer than the experienced Scrapbooker. The Director of Domestic Programs mentioned to us at our meeting that there is a possibility to do it online. I guess that is more my kind of scrapbooking. And I still have two weeks before I am traveling and could use this time in a meaningful way.

The waiting game...

Sorry for not updating you. I ended up hand-delivering the check to the lady in the adoption agency. So I took the metro in my lunch break and walked a couple of blocks. I thought she might not appreciate my effort and that I maybe should have called to announce it. But I only wanted to drop of the check, so I figured it would only take a second. I walked in the agency and asked for my case worker. The lady at the reception told me she was on the phone. But then she slipped her a note and my case worker came out. We talked for a short time and I handed her the check. DONE. Another thing to cross of the list. I also asked her, how long it is going to take until we hear from the social worker. She said I should call her, if I haven't heard from the social worker by Tuesday. That means, we are in the waiting game - again.

It feels like I spent the last 10 years of my life waiting.

First I was waiting for the right husband. Which took a freaking long time! We finally met in July of 2003. I was 29 at that time. That is when it all started. After I was sure he was the right man for me, I was waiting. For his proposal. It happened pretty quick in June of 2004.

After our wedding in October of 2004, I was waiting for our church wedding until trying to conceive. Well, actually my husband did. We disagreed on it, but because marriage is about compromise, I was willing to wait. Then after the church wedding in July of 2005, I was waiting for conception to take place naturally. That didn't happen. Instead I got a cyst in December of 2005. Then I was waiting for the cyst to disappear by its own. Of course that didn't happen, so I was waiting for the surgery in April of 2005. After the surgery, we had decided to try to conceive on our own for a couple of months. So I was waiting again. Then I had another cyst in May of 2006. We tried to get that under control with Lupron and I waiting for my temporary menopause to be over. Then that didn't work. So I was waiting again. For my next surgery.

After the surgery in October of 2006, I was waiting for my health insurance to start in January of 2007. You guess right, that didn't happen. The insurance screwed up, so I had to wait until February 2007. Then we finally started the first IVF cycle. I had to wait for the medications to work. I had to wait for the retrieval. I had to wait for the transfer. Then I was in the two-week-wait for the result in March of 2007. When the cycle failed and we had our first bitter negative, I wanted to wait a month before starting another cycle. Then we conceived naturally and I had to wait for more blood results. When they confirmed an impending miscarriage in April 2007, I had to wait again. For the miscarriage to take place. After the miscarriage, I was waiting for another cycle to start in May 2007. When we finally were ready for that, I had to wait for more medications to work, another retrieval and transfer and for another negative after two weeks. After that, we decided to start an immediate new cycle in June of 2007. Another wait for more medications to work, another retrieval and transfer and for a low positive beta after the two week wait. Then we waited for more blood tests. And for a rising beta. Which happened first. Then we waited for another blood test and received a falling beta. So we had to wait again. For another miscarriage to take place in July of 2007.

After that, we decided to move on to adoption. So we waited. First for the information material to arrive in our mail box. Then for the information meeting to take place. Then we finally decided on an agency. Then we filled out the application in October of 2007. And we waited for the pre-adoption group to take place in December of 2007. We waited for the intake meeting at the agency. They wouldn't want to let us come in while in fertility treatment. Parallel we did a last try in assisted conception - an IUI cycle. So we waited for the medications to work again. For the IUI. Another two week wait. For nothing. Then I waited for the day three blood work to come back. With a FSH level, that indicated that we needed to wait. AGAIN.

Then we waited for the intake meeting at the agency to be scheduled. Then we waited for all our paperwork to be completed. Then for our reference letters and our FBI clearances. Then we were waiting to be matched with a social worker. And now we are waiting for her to call.

Is anybody with me here that I have done my fair share of waiting? I am Mrs. Inpatient. I want things to happen. Now. I don't want to wait until she decides she has some time to finally think about calling us. Maybe next week...

If you believe in God and you pray: Please pray for the social worker to call soon. Please pray for our baby which may be growing inside another woman's womb somewhere in this country at this moment. Please pray for his/her mother and her health. And last, but not least: Please pray for patience for me.

We finally got assigned a social worker!!!

First of all, let me tell you about our week-end. Picked up hubby on Friday with a three course candlelight dinner waiting for him. I made him put a blindfold on his eyes. He got sick in the car. Not exactly the reaction I had hoped for... I didn't tell him where we were going and drove around our neighborhood a little to distract him. He still knew for some reason that we were home. I didn't want him to see that I had finally gotten rid of our Christmas tree who had been sadly waiting to be emptied of all the Christmas ornaments and candles for a couple of week now. Hubby is always busy and never seems to have time to do it. And I was just sick of seeing the tree standing there and ended up doing it alone. I ended up asking one of our neighbors to carry the tree down our stairs for me. Which he did.

On Saturday, we sorted through some papers. I finally managed to clean out our guest bedroom/hopefully future nursery. On Sunday I went food shopping and got our mail. Hubby finished some projects in the house like putting up an ipod radio we have received from his brother and sister in law for Christmas. No, not last Christmas. Christmas of 2006!!! And yesterday we went skiing. We drove all the way to Pennsylvania for a little snow. And had a fantastic time. Skiing is the only sport where I am actually better than hubby. We didn't go skiing for the last three years, so that was a special treat, even if it was just for one day.

And today, I called the adoption agency again. I am sure I made it already on their "the most annoying clients we have ever had" list.

I haven't shared this with you yet, but last week when I called again to find out what was happening and why we were not making any progress they told me that our reference letters had to arrive first. I thought we were waiting for the FBI clearances, but it turns out that none of our reference letters had made it back to the agency yet. And before they didn't have those they couldn't assign us to a social worker. I didn't understand how this was possible as our friends had told us they were taking care of it. Great! I ended up sending an email out to all of our references and calling in addition to make sure that they understood which priority this had for us. And that they were holding up our journey to parenthood.

It seems to have worked because when I called today, the lady actually told me the name of our social worker. But we first have to mail in the check of $1500 before she can contact us. Great. I could have done this last week if they would have told me. I find it frustrating that they don't tell me this things before so that I can go ahead and do everything from our side to advance this process. I will be traveling to Europe in February for two weeks and I would like to have done as much as possible before then. I don't want to waste time. We don't have any time to waste.

And there is still this nagging fear that we won't be successful to adopt before we leave the country. It is kind of hard to explain to a birth mother why she should give us her baby if we will take it out of the country in a couple of months...

I don't know what happens then.

Wild dreams

I had this really weird dream last night. I want to share it with you. We had gone to the store and bought some small poisonous snakes. I have no glue what we wanted to do with them. Maybe it was one of hubby's projects that take forever to get finished. I only remember that we brought them home. But I didn't know where he put them at that point.

Then I was sleeping and woke up and hubby was not there, so I went to look for him. He had taken my mattress from the bad to the living room and was lying there in front of the TV. Next to him was our bathtub that he obviously had ripped out of the bath room filled with water. I don't know how he made sure the water wasn't running out as there are obviously no pipes in our living room, but after all I was dreaming. The water was cold. I don't know what attracted me to take a bath in a bathtub with cold water. But I decided to take a bath. So I went inside the bathtub. I asked hubby where he had put the snakes we had bought. He told me they were in a plastic bag inside the bathtub. He had filled the bathtub with water so they wouldn't escape. I got really made at him as it was the bathtub I was just taking a bath in. So I jumped out. I wonder why he would let me take a bath in a bathtub with cold water and the snakes that he had purchased.

When I was standing there, I saw a little scorpion come out off the water. Of course it was a poisonous one. Hubby had some shrimp cocktail on the cupboard and the scorpion went straight to the shrimp cocktail. I wanted the shrimp cocktail, too, so I took tooth picks and was shooting them to the scorpion. The scorpion shot back. Fortunately I could avoid being hit by a tooth pick. I was yelling for my husband to come and get something to catch the scorpion. It took him forever to come back, but he finally came and brought a glass which we put over the scorpion. We then released the scorpion and I woke up.

What a weird dream! Normally I can't remember my dreams, but who could forget a dream like that? I tag everybody that reads this to tell us about their latest weird dream.

A sad night and random toughts on infertility

I was really sad last night. It started with me watching this video of the song "I would die for that" that I posted below. I started sobbing. Because I realize I would die to have a child. Of course it wouldn't make much sense of me dying while giving birth to a child. Because then I wouldn't be able to experience being a Mom at all. But I would easily give 10 years of my life for the possibility of getting pregnant, staying pregnant, and giving birth to a healthy baby.

When I went to bed a read a little in the bible and come across the paragraph "Put your faith in me". I have faith in God. But it is so hard to have faith and not knowing whether it will pay off. What if I decide to wait for the Lord to help us. And he doesn't. I am scared to have that kind of faith and I am struggling with this. I also read a little from the book "Hannah's Hope: Seeking God's Heart In The Midst Of Infertility". It is a great book for everyone that believes in God and deals with infertility as well as their family members.

I found out this week that a school friend of mine is having her second baby. The first one was born in May 2006 and their newest addition to the family is being born the same month, just exactly two years later. I was o.k. with her telling me, because I had assumed that she was pregnant when we saw her in September. She looked pregnant to me and was not drinking any alcohol. But I thought it was probably early and they didn't want to tell anyone.

I am still amazed how people can just get pregnant so easily. For all of us infertile sisters, there is so much ART involved in it. Measuring temperatures, having sex at exactly the right time, endless blood tests, ultrasounds, injections, retrievals, IUIs, transfers, medication, etc. Outsourced reproduction basically.

Sometimes I wonder how people actually get pregnant at all. I mean, the right sperm needs to find the perfect egg at the right time after a long and difficult road. The sperm needs to break the shelve of the egg, it needs to fertilize it. The zygote than needs to travel all the way to the uterus. It needs to implant. And then it needs to grow into a healthy little baby for 9 months. This all combined sounds like a lot of effort.

And still it happens so easily for some people. I have to admit that when I think about it, I see a side of me that I don't like. I envy those people. Sometimes I feel like they are living the life I was supposed to be living. I never thought it was going to be so difficult for us. I envy the people that are not really trying and get pregnant. I wish I could be those people. Infertility has taken that all away from us.

I would die for that!

This song describes beautifully and exactly the pain of infertility. I am sitting here sobbing while I am listening to it.

I confess: I dated bad guys!!!

I am really early in the office this morning. I had to drop hubby off for an early morning ride to New York City where he will spend the next two days on a business trip. So I am home alone. I hate being home alone. The house feels different without him.

I miss waking up next to him in the morning. I miss seeing him get dressed. I miss kissing him goodbye in the morning. I miss waiting for him in the evenings. I miss kissing him when he comes home. I miss spending time with him. I miss talking to him. I miss having dinner with him. I miss watching TV with him, cuddled up next to his shoulder. I also miss kissing him goodnight. I even miss his snoring during the night.

He is my longest relationship. We have been together that I can't even think back to those pre-hubby single days. I never enjoyed being single. I always wanted to be with the person that was destined to be with me. And I have been trough a lot of trial and errors and kissed many frogs, before I met my prince. It took a really long time until he came along.

I had a history of dating men that were not good for me. Most of them didn't really love me. And I tried really hard to make them fall in love with me. But of course, that didn't really work. The few men that did actually love me, I didn't treat very good. The less someone was interested in me, the more I wanted him to like me. It was a strange thing and I didn't realize what I was doing to myself for a very long time. And had one crazy relationship after the other.

In 2001 I had met this guy at a ball. He was 39 at that time and had never lived with someone. We started a long-distance relationship and traveled back and forth. He was very particular. He loved his apartment and was a complete germophobic. I did the dishes one day and wasn't allowed to dry my hands on the dish towel that I had just used. Because my germs could stick to the towel.

He had a particular way to shake out his comforters. Of course I didn't do it right. He didn't have a toilet brush in his bathroom, so whenever I needed to use one, I had to go into his storage room to get it.

He had this job in a bank where he wouldn't go before noon. He didn't have anyone to report to. When he went to work, he usually had had his first beer already.

And he was cheap. He earned four times my salary, but wanted us to split all expenses even. And did I mention that he thought I was too fat? I am 5'10'' and weighed 136 pounds at that time.

When my dad had cancer he was more concerned about getting his Xmas present at Xmas than about how my dad or I were doing...

And I? I had a very low self-esteem and dated him for more than a year. I was 28 at that time and thought I'll never find someone. When I finally after another episode of him being creepy found the courage to break up with him. I swore myself that I didn't want to be with someone any more that didn't really love me.

And a couple of months later, I met my hubby. And he has shown me his interest in me from the beginning. I was first very hesitating. This felt different from everything I had ever experienced before. And it took me a while to understand that he was the best thing that could have happened to me. I nearly screwed it up. But I am so glad that in the end, I realized that he was the one for me. And while I usually fell for someone and my feelings would decrease after a while. With him, it is the opposite. Since I met him my feelings for him grow every day. And I can't imagine my life without him.