Do eggs define my worth???

How come are there so many things in this world we live in that seem to define us as women.. Are you smart enough, athletic enough, thin enough, tall enough, rich enough, funny enough…can you manage it all and be a super model..but please don’t be a bitch….

And just when you think enough is enough….you are settled… in a great relationship..good solid job..you take care of yourself. ..and yeh…you actually do juggle it all and have your super model moments to boot.  Then the hammer drops..you can’t do your part to create a baby…your womanness…your vessel…is broken..damaged..incomplete….or time has simply run out.. whatever your situation…it is the most painful blow of all time.

Now what….I guess that is different for each of us. For me,  now what meant letting go of the traditional dream of being pregnant.  The belly that everyone wants to touch..that your husband talks to while you’re lying in eachothers arms…all the excitement of friends & family…etc…

Not only did my body not work properly…but I was to old ( ick ) I hate that…I hate that the doctors almost broke into laughter when I asked about fertility at 44 yrs old.  However, it also took me forever and almost having to beg to just get a doctor to give it to me straight.

Sure I could have found a doctor willing to provide fertility treatments…for the right price…But I/we knew right away that wasn’t the place for us.  What we did know was adoption felt really right.

So everything should be fine, right. I/we are on the path to finding our child through adoption.  Well….wrong.  What do you do with all the feelings that come up as you hear..so & so is pregnant..it seems like there is a pregnancy explosion around me.  Each time I hear the news.

It hits me to my core…not for the reason you would probably think..in my case it makes me sad for my husband.  He is 6 yrs younger than me, and of course many of his friends have young (very fertile) wives. Seems they sneeze near eachother and their pregnant…Sometimes I can’t help to feel my sweet husband got jipped.  I have told him how I feel and he always assures me that I am totally wrong. That he loves me and our journey is a perfect one for us…Did I mention how fabulous my husband is….But even with his reassurance…it wears on my heart.  I hate that he is having to endure this waiting process, unsure of when we will find our child..

But then I think…maybe I can’t create a baby…but I sure know I can be a fabulous mom and eachday I try to be the best wife & partner I can be… And those qualities are worth their weight in gold…..So for me…I won’t let my eggs define my worth…

waiting!!!!!

Lately it has become increasingly hard to keep the faith in this process. To believe that a birth mother will find & chose us, with so so many parents waiting. I dream about her & and our baby so much much…and then I feel foolish dreaming about it. We just had another adoption friend placed with a child and I am so thrilled for her. But it is hard to think that our day will come. I start thinking, maybe that was the last baby. Maybe we aren’t using the right services, maybe we wrote something wrong on our birth mother letter. It’s terrible…then I get worried that I am manifesting the baby not finding us because I have so many doubts..then I start to feel like a total freak. And wonder if I am fit to be a parent…if I can’t even handle this waiting period with grace. It’s just so hard to trust in all of this…I want to scream it from the top of a mountain… And instead I do more research on which diapers we will use to protect the environment, and I get through another hour.

trust

Auhhh…Trust ….For me this is the biggest challenge of all…

First you have to trust in the agency…that they are legit and will do what they promise to do. And then trust that the guidance they give you will result in adoptiong a baby….Then you trust the social worker to gather your entire life story and interpret it correctly & fairly….Then you trust in the fact that that a birth mother will choose you…and that she won’t lie to you about her health, her history with drugs/alcohol, the birth father….etc…then you trust that the universe will bring a healthy baby….then you trust that after you have built a relationship for months & months , she will actually follow through with placing the baby…

You realize very early on that all you can do is trust….cause you really have no control of this process…

waiting

Hurry up and wait…You spend many many months in hyper speed to get all the requirements done to become eligible to adopt. You get your BML done. You get yourselves up on the website and out there for all to see…You get a special cell phone with a separate number, so the birth mother can contact you directly….and then you wait. and wait. and wait….

When we first “went live” so to speak…I was so excited when the cell phone rang…now after having my heart race out of my chest so many times…just to answer it and hear a telemarketer on the other end…I have lost some of the anticipation  excitement.

They prepare you that it could take 2- 3yrs….but come on…can any of us really take that in…especially at my age…2-3 yrs is a life time.  I know I know…45 isn’t elderly…but lets face it..it’s not 35.  and it makes a difference to how I will age with our child.  I am lucky to be a young, healthy 45 yr old…most people think I am in my 30’s so that is a big plus…but time is time…and if all goes really well…I may have 30 plus years with our child…is it ever long enough though???

I guess I just have to remember that no one is given any guarantees in life…some young people lose children…and children lose young parents..we all know life isn’t always fair.  So I will try to focus on the time I will have…and cherish every moment. Hmmmmm that is a gift in itself as some younger parents may not get that one quite yet.

Time to learn

During this process we have taken advantage of many opportunities to learn about parenting..and the adoption process.  Some classes where mandatory for our agency…but most of the classes we have taken are just topics we wanted to know more about. Not that you asked…but its my blog..so here is the list so far:

Preparing for domestic adoption – 6 week course..(once a week-two hrs )

transracial adoption- in order to adopt a baby outside of your own race

birthparent relationships – how to start building a relationship with a birth parent

Raising a responsible child….creating healthy boundaries, responsibility, discipline/accountability, nutring a sense of belonging/contributing to the family unit…I will blog more about this topic later…its really cool

We have also participated in a support group for “waiting adoptive parents”…..

And so far we are signed up for an infant care workshop in November…we are really looking forward to that one.

Dear Birth Mother Letter…

Once we finished our homestudy….and it was approved..it was time to write the Dear Birth Mother letter…to be given to birth mothers that contact the agency in search of adoptive parents…

Yes..the DBL as I will refer to it from now on..is the single most important document you will ever create. So basically in 1200 words or less !!! You create a document sort of like a two page hard cover booklet….. that tells all about you, your spouse, your life, your hopes/dreams/desires, hobbies,pets, occupation, family & friends…oh and don’t leave out anything that might be important to a total stranger..

Yep there it is in a nut shell…1200 words to convince someone you should recieve the greatest gift in the whole world. Oh but to be fair I guess I should mention you get to pick 10 photo’s to accompany your letter. So that should do it right…

homestudy aka approval process

The homestudy…sounds innocent enough..when in reality it is the process that makes or breaks you in the adoption process. You are assigned a social worker ( who in our case was a really wonderful woman ) to take you through the process of being approved for adoption.  There job is to get an idea of who you really are and if you are truly physically/mentally/emotional/financially able to raise a child…No pressure there…Again you fill out tons of forms, there are medical exams, you get tested for TB, you have to supplly all your financial records…then you get to the interviews…and the home check.  The whole process takes a couple months…

All in all it wasn’t to bad…at the time it was what we had to do to get to where we wanted to be…

Jumping through hoops

This is really just a rant…I am pist that here we are really healthy, good, people with the resources to raise a child properly…and we have to jump through trillion hoops to prove that…all because I can’t produce an egg to be fertilized…What the hell!!! I just makes me want to scream/cry/hide…I feel so frustrated that people can have no resources…be on drugs..be in prison whatever…and they can simply have a baby…and worse…it’s there right to..whether they are gonna cause that child to live a life of pain & suffering or not…How is that fair…what higher power is making that ok???

beginning the process

So once we found an agency we began the process towards becoming eligible to adopt. What does that mean? well it started with a four page autobiography- this consists of 85 questions that take you from birth to present..for me it was a interesting journey further into self discovery. You have to answer the questions honestyly( of course) and it really made me dig a bit. My past has been rough at times…and to have to write about that and put it out there for potential judgement…or even worse..what if it disqualified us in some way…I don’t want you to get the wrong idea..I didn’t ever do anything terrible…it wasn’t like that…but I struggled with dysfunctional relationship with men…and made poor choices…when I say rough…I am speaking about hard lessons, events that happened in my life…things that have made it hard for me to trust in people.

then getting finger printed, turning in a birth certificate, marriage certificate, ( for me divorce paperwork ), and then signing over any right to privacy we have in regards to the agency acquiring information about us. You have to be an open book. Which considering the subject matter, makes sense.

Once all of that is completed and turned in with your initial application fee…then you wait until you are assigned a social worker to do your homestudy…

Open vs Closed

What is open adoption? Well in a nut shell it means that instead of a social worker ( or other agency provider )  choosing a placement for a child, the birth parent makes the choice. And the adoptive parents make a choice to have the birth parents included in the life of the child, in a mutually agreed upon manner, forever.

It is not co-parenting. The birth parents are just that…the people who gave the child life. The adoptive parents are the parents who provide/create/nurture/guide/raise/love the child, for life.  With open adoption the child is allowed the gift and piece of mind of knowing where he/she came from. Which in my opinion allows the child to be whole…instead of having that piece missing. It takes the mystery out of being adopted. Instead the child has the opportunity to know about all the aspects of his/her life from birth.

In closed adoptions the birth parents & Adoptive parents rarely meet. The records are sealed. And the child is not able to have any information regarding the people that brought him/her into the world.

For us…Open adoption was the choice that felt right.