Relaxing in the Parlor

It is artistic talent from the canvas of DD. That is her photo of me & my poodle at my house when she was visiting. Can you recognize me from my thighs? I am also wearing one of those maternity style shirts that I swore I would never but & even have a post drafted about, but since she caught it on film I will admit I do love them.

Quite cool, huh!

Who would have know that I would find one of my best friends on the internet. Here’s something even better…… she is even cooler IRL.

I just got back from recruiting in IA and I have a whopper post drafted so check back soon. The internet was “out” so I could not post it, but I did not want to loose the moment so I drafted it in word.

I am grateful to be home and back in 2007.

Just got a call from Mr. Jitter’s. 

FIL had his 18 month cancer scan today and it came back clear. 

I am so happy I am shaking.

Please join me in a celebratory hoot n’ holla.

There are few things in life that evoke such varying emotions as fire.

As I sat in my backyard and stared into the urban fire blazing in our brick fire pit I felt a soothing desire. While my mind was reminiscing of cooking hot dogs on a camping trip and falling asleep near a crackling warmth on Christmas Eve, I realized how far removed infertility took me from enjoying life. I was finally able to decompress as I burned off the pain of dealing with infertility and stoked a new adoption dream with each added log and and kindling. I halfheartedly joked to Mr. Jitter’s, as he grabbed a paper grocery bag to help the fire burn quicker, that we could just burn the contents of our IVF file. Perhaps we will tomorrow night.

I am not certain why I am drawn to fire. Perhaps it’s allure comes from historical to present reference; fire was a cultivator of society and in some form or another is still a common trait of mankind today. When we are in control, fire cooks our food and keeps us warm, yet when fire is in control we risk losing everything. We are dependent on fire, or the concept of combustion, to survive, but this very thing that sustains us can so quickly take us, all our humanly possessions, and often our spirit.

While dealing with infertility I precariously played with fire and towards the end I found my ability to maintain control slipping away. Perhaps it is the control I currently posses over my personal fire that fosters my ability see the destruction of fire as a chance for something new.

New opportunity. New path. New experiences. New life. New family. New relationship. New understanding. New fears.

Most importantly, a newly found happiness.

Since our adoption process officially starts with our 2 day PAC trainings tomorrow and Friday, I want to let you all know of my “new” adoption blog. I will still be updating this site, but I wanted to create a site that I could someday give to our child as a gift outlining our process while illustrating the desire we share to make them a member of our family. Both my husband and I will be updating this site and the topics will range from culture, process, to general thoughts about adoption.

It will be open to everyone I know and will not be linked to this site in any way. Please help me preserve that wish and prevent me from having to go PWP.

The site was named after ……. leave a note here if you want the site. Sorry, it had to go bu-bye since I have been giving the new site to friends and family who have google powers.

I am board and waiting for Mr. Jitter’s to get home from teaching so we can eat dinner and make each other laugh.  So, you lucky ones get to be my outlet for pent up extrovert energy since I feel like I have been laughing all day in my head at funny things and have had no one to share them with. (Other than DD who I just got off the phone with  – in my best east coast Jewish accent “love her”)

For example, I need to share the fact that I just finished making a batch of Jitter’s Famous Egg Salad for dinner (to be served on toasted Pumernickel with a side of tomato soup) and I actually felt sorry for the chicken whose egg I was shelling.  Now, I a non-ashamed carnivore, often feel sorry for animals our society consumes but instead of choosing to not eat them I buy ones that were supposedly treated well before we mercilessly killed them for our capitalistic driven food market.  It is probably all a hoax, but it eases my mind as I chomp on a side of bacon.  Back to the chicken, as I was shelling the freshly boiled eggs I was making a mess of the egg.  The shells were sticking and I was destroying the eggs in the process.  As the egg fragments sat on my cutting board waiting to be chopped I noted that the poor chicken must also have “egg issues”, just like me.  Aww, the poor chicken may also be infertile.  I hope there are some little chicks she can adopt and imprint herself as mother on them.

Pathetic, huh.  Does it make more sense if I tell you that today is CD1 and I was not expecting it because I really stopped playing calendar games.   Unfortunately my lack of planning left me dealing with the crotch lava while standing at a job fair downtown all day.  I should have seen it coming when I found myself crying a few days ago as I read “How much is the puppy in the window” which I was purchasing off the discount book rack for our future child.  Or when I again cried as I drove by our striking university workers because I was just so proud of them standing up for what they believe in, even though I know the group is mostly composed of graduate students eager to jump on the bandwagon of any social justice cause.  How about that jar of frosting I spooned into my mouth and directly to my thighs last night after I polished off the caramel candy corn.

To add more excitement to my evening,  my house seems to be a place where all lost dogs come. I was just interrupted by my dear std. poodle barking in a way he only does when another dog is lurking outside our front porch. I swear, he invites them over because they always come to my house.  I got to play doggie rescue lady and call the owner who just came to pick her up wayward chocolate lab. Come on people get a fence or leash your dog.  Now the beatch side of me is coming out.

Go period – it’s your start day- go period – get it on.

Who knew CD1 could be such a riot.  Perhaps next month I will take my period shopping or to dinner and a movie. It may not work well for her to get a pedicure, huh?  She is going to be around for the rest of my middle life so I better buy that Cost-co sized box of tampons and force a friendship.

Raise your glasses (please no tomato juice) to my new monthly BFF.

We have our first adoption meetings on Thursday & Friday of this week. The meetings are mandatory for all adoptive parents and the topics range from dealing with infertility ( grrrr…) to country specific adoption information. It is a full 16 hours and while I am looking forward to it, I am dreading it at the same time.

The agenda came in the mail and the first time slot on the very first day is devoted to small group discussion of infertility and pregnancy loss in relation to adoption. OK, let me get this straight, you want me to meet people for the very first time and then tell them my deepest emotions and feelings and then shut up when I hear them say that it was not god’s will for them to have a baby so they “just” moved on to adoption? Isn’t this a very personal item for a small group discussion with complete strangers? Although I pour my life out to you on the internet, I don’t openly discuss my feelings in public. Very few friends and family members have ever seen me cry – happy or sad. I may be free flowing with the details of our infertility, but the emotions I hold close. My grief is personal. No offense to others around me, but this is how I am comfortable dealing with it.

Now I have to let complete strangers in? We will see how that goes.

In preparation for this portion of the meeting, I have been scanning the national adoption forum our agency manages. The threads are managed by country or domestic and are open to any one across the country or in the world for that matter. I have been trying to “get into this” aspect of adoption, but as with infertility I am just not a forum gal.

The forum seems to be a great place to share specific information about hair care, dossiers, referrals, and process or information related items, but the true aspects of blogging that I enjoy are not present. I appreciate bloggers for their writing and point of view that is usually (always in the blogs I read) explained in an eloquent nature with an absence of emoticons.    With blogging, I can avoid those who I usually do not agree with, or choose the read them when I can handle the emotions that their comments may stir up.  For example, if you tell me you are sprinkling me with baby dust, I am not ever returning to your site. Period. That crap does not do anything but annoy me.  I do not believe there was immaculate conception in the case of Jesus or the package of the baby dust that arrives with those internet HPTs.  Sorry for the heathen comparison, but my practical brain just cannot grasp it. It also leads me to another reason I can not read the forums.  So many of the authors have a biblical verse below their “stats”.  I am sorry, but I am not OK with GOD and I could not swallow a comment made if it was sprinkled with baby dust or holy water.  I am entirely OK with others having a belief in God, Jesus, Allah, Amum, Zeus/Hera, or who ever, but I do not and having it forced on me will not change my mind, just aggravate me.  The other complaint I have about forums, is that there seems to be the forum master poster who can either make the experience good for all or just be a playground bully and know it all.

I may end up eating my words and will probably check out the forum through this process to either work myself up or calm my nerves, but for the reasons stated above and many others, I do not think forum posting is my “thing.”  We started an adoption specific blog which will be shared with family, friends, & you (if you promise to NEVER link to this site from it) and I plan on keeping this site going in addition.

What are your thoughts?  Do you post on blogs & forums?  If so or not, what are your reasons?

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BTW: spell check is not working so please excuse the spelling errors on my recent posts…

We met with Dr. Bowtie for the very last time today.  I am relieved.  I am sad.  I am grateful.

Relieved that this is over.

Sad that we did not get what we tried to.  Sad that this wonderful doctor & staff has also felt our failure.  Sad that I will never have a biological child. 

I could go on about our sadness, but I am going to focus on how grateful we are…. (what, me a normally sarcastic and harsh person has other emotions?)

When we started fertility treatments 3 years ago, I dreaded this place.  I could not imagine dealing with the emotions I assumed I would be feeling right now, at the end.  I feel that sadness and shock – it stings and it numbs at the same time, but what helps me work through it is a strong sense of “it could be worse.”  Mr. Jitter’s and I have suffered through this process.  We have had to realize things about ourselves, our relationship, and life that two 30 year olds normally do not encounter.  Or, I should clarify, two 3o year olds of an educated, upper-middle class background in the US.  Generally speaking, life has been good to us and our desire to have a child was partially out of a feeling of wanting to share that feeling with another human being.  I have not always been able to feel this way about life and I will not be surprised if you are puking in your trash can right now with my overload of cheesy introspective emotion.

Don’t worry, I will not be sporting all that “Life is Good” wear, but general, Life is Good, for us.  I have been reading Melissa Faye Greene’s book, There is No Me Without You, and I am certain that we are moving in the correct direction with Ethiopian Adoption.  I will share more about my sobbing page flipping at 2:30 in the morning in a later post, but if any of you are familiar with this book I am sure you have the same reaction.

Am I grateful our IVF did not work?  Absolutely not, I do not believe that everything happens for a reason.  I am grateful that through this entire spirit challenging process, my love for my child continued to grow.  Things do not happen for a reason, sometimes we have enough strength left after being beating down to see a silver lining and sometimes there are coincidences.  

I am grateful that although my body may not be able to bear a child, my heart can still produce enough love to compensate. 

And, well, my desire to post more…..  In my defense, I am in the process of drafting many posts for our adoption blog, training for a marathon (in 23 days), and working our busy season.  I do owe you all a little love though.

I heard on the radio that Labor Day is the official end of summer, and although I agree with the idea, the use of official is incorrect.  The official end of summer is with the start of fall, which is not synced with Labor Day.  Yes, it feels like fall, but it is technically still summer.

Don’t even get me started on the misuse of ironic & literally.

The reason why I am so seasonally focused is because I keep telling people we will most likely have a baby in the spring or summer. There are no guarantees and things can “happen”,  but I have been scouring the Ethiopian adoption forums & blogs and that seems to be the typical time frame.  Not to mention, Mr. Jitter’s is on overdrive and is already starting to lay out documents for me to sign on the coffee table. If things go his way, our dossier will be completed before the home study is finished. Like most other adoptive parents, I want the time to pass as quickly as possible and you always seem to hope for the best.

Hope for the best – Ha – that is a new one. Unlike in infertility, where I despised child related items and detoured around Target so I could avoid that section at all costs, I am now starting to embrace parenthood.

Yes, I am still am infertile and I will always be, but for this first time in my life I feel like I can buy children’s items because there is more of a guarantee that there will actually be a child at the end of this long process.  I have ramped up the child’s book collection, am finishing all my child related knitting projects, and my mother has started clipping me articles about how bad plastic bottles are.  She also is offering to buy us a crib and changing table (yes I picked one out already, but I am too freaked out to even go look at them in person much less have her order it for us).  She even managed to finagle my Grandmother’s rocking chair, which belonged to my namesake Great-Grandmother.   I am 1 of 17 grandchildren on my mother’s side, so you can imagine how special that makes me feel.

I am new to this whole adopting thing, but is there a official, or even unofficial name for what I am going through???

excitedreliefnervapation is all I can come up with.

It is entirely out of my comfort zone to feel more excitement than fear.  I am even starting to not loathe pregnant people.  Note: I said starting – that emotion will never disappear entirely – those knocked up hoars still piss me off..  The baby items I have acquired over the years are starting to creep out of storage and have even appeared on our dining room table.  Wow – there may actually be a child in this house in a few seasons.

Now, I just hope my excitement is not shattered at our 2 day adoption meeting next week.  I cannot help but make the comparison of myself at my current stage and a first time clomider.  Yes, I was that first time clomider years ago and I learned my lesson, a harsh lesson at that.

I hope that does not happen again.

Going around the lake with Mr. Jitters we just witnessed the ultimate fashion faux-paux. I am not talking plumbers butt or muffin tops but really a really bad, state fair bad, t-shirt.

This bad…..

Really, because even if she was 9 months pregnant with quintuplets she was clearly still fat. I am not talking a little extra pudge fat, but really fat.  So pregnancy was an excuse for her to blame her fatness on?

What can she blamer her stupidity on?

She needed this t-shirt……