A Medal in My Bra

Each month I run a local peer support group for RESOLVE.    Someone recently asked me why I continue to run the group, almost 3 years later.  What do I get from it?  Call it a personal form of therapy, call it what keeps me humble and able to appreciate all the good that has come into my life.  Call it a mission – I love to put people in touch with others – to help create life bonding moments.

Each month, for better for for worse,  I am given the opportunity to remember the many, many, moments that loosely define my personal struggle to build a family.

Some are good memories, like the monthly breakfasts with my good friend, as we bitched and whined our way though eggs and bacon.  I get to fondly remember my husband proclaming himself the ‘Ass-Master,’ a nickname in honor of his ability to deliver my intermuscular progeterone in oil shots without a bruise to my backside.  I remeber the thrill (odd word choice, but others who have been there will understand) of our first transfer and carefully trying not to pee out the embryo.  I smile, almost secretly, at the hope that I felt walking out of a meeting with our adoption agency director.  Frustrating moments abound.  It seems like only yesterday I was waiting for a nurse to call with my HSG levels.  And  don’t even get me started on listening to the co-worker inform the office she is pregant – again – and this time they didn’t even plan it.  And can anyone please tell me why the clinic never seems to have my file on hand when I show up for an appointment!

Some memories I have all but pushed out of my head because they take up to much energy to revisit them:  a hard night spent crying so that the blood vessels burst under my eyes, hours curled up under a blanket, wishing for more than the miserable existance of living in this infertility fog, walking around the track thinking up baby names and wishing for a miracle as life passed me by, losing our baby to a miscarriage early in the pregnancy.  That one still brings tears to my eyes. To be sure, my husband, a handful of close friends, tons of peaut M&Ms, and the occassional glass of wine got me through some of the worst times in my life.  In my efforts to become pregnant, I  have tried most of the traditonal and downright bizzare methods known.  Anyone else would have done the same.  I recently came across a journal entry from that time and thought it would be appropriate to share.

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How did I go from being a fun-loving, relatively intelligent Jewish woman to wearing a St. Gerard medal in my bra?  St. Gerard, in the Catholic religion, is the patron saint of expectant mothers.  This fact comforted me as I slipped the blessed medal underneath my shirt.  Immediately, little nagging voices started to fill my mind.  “Maybe you should put the medal on a chain and wear it around your neck instead?”  I pondered this as I walked over to the refrigerator to grab a handful of M&Ms, my favorite staple these days.  The medal fell out of my bra and I bent to quickly retrieve it from my dog’s waiting jaws.  I shoved it back inside, this time in the space right between my breasts.  The dog went back to sniffing the floor.  “You are crazy, this won’t work.”  I sat down at the kitchen table and reviewed the card, a lovely sentiment from my friend that had arrived in today’s mail.  My friend Ellen is a religious person.  I had recently shared with her the devastating news of my miscarriage this past winter.  She indicated in her card that some years ago, she had given a St. Gerard medal to a former co-worker who had suffered several miscarriages.  The woman wore the medal in her bra, to keep it close to her heart.  After one year, she conceived a healthy boy.  “We aren’t Catholic,” my voices insisted.  I adjusted the medal with the full knowledge that I had done many strange things during the past 2 ½ years in my struggle with infertility.  As I saw it, wearing the medal in my bra met the basic criteria of where I was at in my journey, mentally and physically:  it didn’t cost any money, cause me any bodily harm, and didn’t require getting up at the crack of dawn.  “Harmless,” I thought, as I shoved more M & Ms into my mouth.  “Besides.” the voices continued, “this may just be the thing that works.” 

THE CALL

See all those people driving along and chatting on their cell phones?  Wonder if any of them are in the middle of THE CALL.

I was thinking today about the role of THE CALL in the adoption process.

THE CALL can come from a social worker telling you that your paperwork has finally been approved and you are now free to come home after weeks away in another state where you have been eating a steady diet of peanut M&Ms.

Or maybe it is your facilitator or lawyer who makes THE CALL.  This conversation is the one that has real potential to change your life forever.   In heart pounding silence and open mouthed awe, you are informed that a potential birthmother has ‘expressed interest’ in you.

The real test for most adoptive parents is when THE CALL from a potential birthmother.  THE CALL from a potential birthmother brings you crashing  back to your high school all of your insecurities.  Your dating days memories come flooding to the surface.  The “special” time when you start to question who you are at the moment and who you will become in the future.  No pressure, but this is the call when it is most important for your true self to shine through.  No pressure.  Ha ha!

I found it was helpful to talk to as many people as possible in preparation for this moment - THE CALL from a potential birthmother, whenever it happened.  Just to hear advice from other waiting parents calmed my frayed nerves, and gave me hope that I would soon be in the very awkward situation of basically dating the mother of what I hoped would be my future child.  Somehow you make it though and honestly the key is to be yourself.

When we got THE CALL I was at a meeting.  Around 9pm my cell phone beeped indicating that I had received a message.  I heard my husband asking me when I was coming home.  My first thought was that something had happened to our dog (who had been sick that week).  When I called my husband he was acting weird.  My next thought was that someone had dropped by the house and I tried to think who it would be.  Maybe it was a surprise for me.  I asked him if I should come home now, before the meeting was over and he agreed.  I asked him if we had received a phone call and he said yes.  Then I got it.  I grabbed my purse, my half eaten sandwich and my water bottled, said my goodbyes and left. 

The car ride home was the strangest 43 minutes of my life.  I started laughing aloud and thought this was so exciting.  Then I compared this moment to how I felt after getting the call from Dr. W saying we were pregnant.  It wasn’t the same, to be honest, but it was a good feeling and I want to run with it.  I had a vision of my husband saying that we had to fly somewhere tonight and tried to guess where that would be.   

Suddenly a strange sense of calm kicked in.  Maybe my defense mode was up and I was trying not to attach too much importance to this call.  It was only a call after all. I tried to think about other things and then just before turning on the radio to hear the President speak I realized that somewhere out in the world was a possible son or daughter of mine (a bit ahead of myself, but I was hoping for the best possible outcome!)

When I got home my husband had me look at the computer where he had typed some notes from his conversation with the facilitator.

“9/15/2005 tonight at 8 pm I was sitting on the sofa watching “Extra” TV, and eating a peanut butter sandwich on Texas Toast. The dog had just found his missing Clifford Toothbrush – it was behind the sofa.  I suspect the nieces. At eight, I received a phone call that I answered with my mouth half full of peanut butter. The call was from C. She told me a birth mother had called her this morning, and wanted to speak with us…”

My 95 year old grandmother had recently written me a letter with the advice to relax.  Anyone else would have gotten an earful.  As anyone who has ever been through infertility treatments know, the ‘just relax’ sentiment is about all you can stomach before socking the other person in the jaw or running over their cat.   Seeing as the letter came from Grandma, I let it go.

But she was right.  I needed to listen mostly;  to find out all I could without probing.  I like to think that I spoke and listened with compassion that night.  Almost as if a co-worker or a friend was coming to me with this situation (I have a baby I cannot care for).

So I took a deep breath and my husband took a picture.  I called E. 

And OUR CALL lasted for 1 1/2 hours.

Top 5

As an adoptive parent I tend to find myself in the position of being on the receiving end of some really ‘interesting’ comments about my choice to build my family through adoption.  Nothing is off limits and questions come from close friends and strangers alike.

Here are the Top 5 winning questions (in no particular order) to date.

1.  Didn’t your husband want any children of his own?

This question was posed to me by a co-worker.  It was a slow shift and we were talking when I shared with him that I may not be around the office much during the summer since we were hoping travel out of state to bring home our second child.  This co-worker and I aren’t particularly close and to be fair he doesn’t know all the intimate details of my life.  However, the fact he assumed that the ‘problem’ was mine and that my husband (who was very much invested in the adoption process) would prefer ‘his own children’ totally rubbed me the wrong way.

2.  Do you have to give them back when they turn 18?

We have open adoptions with both of our daughter’s birthmoms.  A close friend of mine, upon hearing the news of our first daughter’s birth told me that she was overjoyed for us, that she had shared the news with her mother (I am close to the entire family) and that she had just one question for me.  What a winner it was!  She was concerned about the ‘open’ part of our adoption and wondered if we had to give our daughter back when she turned 18.  Somehow I can’t get my head around the fact that in her world I was going to do the raising of the chlid (hard part) and that someone else would reap the reawards.  Although given the cost of a college education these days, this arrangement may seem like a good idea to some people.

3.  How much did they cost?

Ahhh….the money question.  A rough poll I conducted of other adoptive moms in a play group I attend with my girls, proves the money question is a favorite of the the well meaning friend, as well as random supermarket patrons.  Got to watch out for the little old ladies who shop between 10am – 2pm.  As for me, it was a neighbor who first wanted to know. 

4.  Are you going to tell them that they were adopted?

Both of my daughters were adopted at birth.  We are the parents they know and love.  Of all the questions that I am asked about adoption and my family, this one really takes the cake.  I have been asked this question many times, by all sort of people, and it always amazes me.  Of course we are going to tell the girls that they were adopted.  In fact, they already know.

5.  Now that you have adopted, are you going to have some children of your own?

This last question was asked, oddly enough, by a couple who attended the monthly infertility support group that I run.  For the record, after almost 2 1/2 years of being a parent I have no doubts that these children are mine.  The love I feel for them is very real and they make my heart smile everday.

A is 2

Our house is a case study for Nature vs. Nurture.

This fall, my daughter A turned 2.  Where has the time has gone?

She is so much like me – always wanting to put things ‘back’ (phone to the cradle, covers on the tupperware, socks back her her drawer.)  I love watching her play with her dolls, imitating the way I talk to and care for her baby sister.  She loves to laugh, loves to cuddle, and loves to learn.

I laugh when people tell me she ‘looks just like me’ – as an adoptive mom, I know that looks aren’t what matter and have learned the hard way.

(Read secretly pleased that she shares my curly hair)…just another sign we were meant to be together.

Maybe she is just exhibiting the quinessential toddler behavior that thrives on order and routine.  Demanding to read the same bedtime story over and over and over.

Or maybe not.

Motherhood vs. Menopause

Why am I so tired?

A. The baby woke up 3 times last night.
B. My new HRT protocol isn’t working.
C. Both A and B.

For me, motherhood and menopause are one and the same.
That is to say in a nutshell, that I now live permanently in the state of Tired.

Technically, menopause came first – at age 31 with the diagnosis of Premature Ovarian Failure (POF). Next came the blessing of mommy-hood through the whirlwind rollercoaster of two domestic infant adoptions.

The toddler just woke the baby up and now the dog is barking.