Great Things Happen to Great People

Among the 5 of us we now have 8 children.  All of them miracle babies complete with their very own miraculous story.  All of them special and all of them deeply and completely loved.

In March 2005 I started a peer support group for RESOLVE in my local area.  My husband and I couldn’t believe there was no support for people struggling with infertility and family growing options in our area.  And we were sick of driving.  Oh, so sick of driving to appointments and meetings and clinic visits.  You name it, we had to drive there and it just seemed impossible to fit one more location into our already over scheduled infertile lives.

I choose a location near my home so that if no one showed up for a meeting I could easily return in minutes.  I hung up flyers at doctors offices, yoga studios, beauty salons and therapist offices.

J and J were my first ‘couple’ and in fact they were the only people who attended a meeting for a good 3 months, maybe longer.  It is hard to remember now.  The peer support group does not require any long term committment, but J and J hung on.  We (along with my husband) became fast friends.

At first J and J struggled with male factor infertilty issues.  Then the other shoe dropped.  Everytime Girl J went to to the doctor she received some bad news of her own.  But they hung on.  The stress of work, the insensitive comments from family, the many hours spent in front of the computer searching for THE ANSWER. 

The rest of us – our circle of friends had now grown to 5 (more if you include the husbands) - began to slowly (and I don’t use the term lightly) resolve our family building struggles.  Girl J tried a new diet and Boy J hit the gym.  A vacation was taken.  Time off was considered after the devestating death of twin nephews.  Their path seems built upon loss after loss.

J and J decided to pursue domestic infant adoption and held the yard sale of all yard sales to help fund the cost.  Friends and relatives happily donated trash and treasure for the cause.   After interviewing agencies and setting up meetings things seemed to be progressing.  And yet, after much debate J and J changed course and began a parent training program through DSS.  Maybe it was their bad experience with a particular agency that led to this, maybe it was wrong information along the way or lack of guidance from a knowing adoption professional.  But things happen and they went down this new path toward parenthood.

Their request, an infant 0 -12 months.  J and J knew their chances and decided that the finanancial future of their family couldn’t withstand the cost of a ‘typical’ infant adoption.  Boy J wanted to give up his second job someday…

They waited.

They decorated a coordinated nursery, suitable for a boy or a girl.

They waited.

On April 14 a baby boy was born and 2 days later J and J got a call.  The baby was legally free for adoption.  He was healthy, he was perfect, and he was now their son.  That Saturday, to the joy and happiness of all who have waited with them, J and J brought home Baby J.

Great things do happen to great people.

Clean Margins

If infertility, POF, a part-time job outside the home, and a very full-time job inside the home juggling the ups and downs of two children wasn’t enough, the big man upstairs decided to throw one more monkey wrench in my 35th year of life – breast cancer.

In December I was diagnosed with DCIS (Stage 0) breast cancer.  In January I had my first surgery.  Friday at 5pm, my doctor calls with the results.  The margins aren’t clean.   In March I was back on the table again.  Still no luck.  The margins still aren’t clean.  And then finally, just last Wednesday, the third time proved to be a charm because I got the happy word today.  CLEAN MARGINS!

Never thought I would say the following words with such glee but, “I can’t wait for radiation!”

 

The Positive Side of POF

I belong to a listserve for women with Premature Ovarian Failure (POF).  For those of you who have never heard of POF, it affects about 1 – 4% of the female population.  This number equates to approximately 250,000 – 1 million women in the US.

How do I manage to be so special?

A recent thread on the listserve has been about the “Positive Side of POF” and much to my amazement, there actually are positive sides.  That the same women who circled, no make that downward spiraled at breakneck speed through the 7 stages of loss at the shock of this diagnosis have now managed to come up with silver linings to their life altering condition is nothing short of a miracle.

Here are some of my own personal positive POF points (PPP):

1.  The loves of my life – A and J

2. A new perspective about life and what is truly important (ie. health, family and friends)

3.  Not having to waste money on tampons or pads

4. My infertility twin Robin and Dora, the nationally ranked sharp-shooting cop from Chicago

5.  No cramps or untimely visits from your ‘friend’

I invite others who share this mixed blessing to chime in with your very own PPPs.

Big Ones

A conversation between my daughter A and her 2 1/2 year old daycare buddy:

Daycare Buddy:  My mommy has big boobs.  When girls get older they get big boobs and boys don’t.

Daycare Provider:  How do you know?

Daycare Buddy:  I saw her with her shirt off.

A:  My mommy has big boo boos too.

*I should mention that A frequently tells me that I have ‘big boo boos,’ she has ‘little boo boos,’ and her younger sister J has ‘little little boo boos.’  The topic of boo boos comes in a close second to her fascination with all things poop.  To be 2 again huh?

And She Wore Purple Pants

My husband and I recently attend the annual ACONE Conference.  We attended several workshops, caught up with frineds from support groups, purchased books in the well stocked bookstore (hard to believe there are some books on adoption that I haven’t read yet!), and just enjoyed being around others who were just like us – touched by adoption.

I had to smile when I saw our agency’s booth.  Not only did our social worker have the standard ’social worker hair’ (my husband was amusing himself conducting an informal poll of the social workers at the confernece,) there was a small crowd of people at the table.  All looking longlingly at the photos of children that had been placed, talking earnestly to the director – ‘oh, we will take twins’ – and sneaking chocloate from the candy dish.

Just over 3 years ago my husband and I went to meet with the director of a small adoption agency in Waltham, MA.  She came to the door talking on her cordless phone, and wearing purple jammies – kind of.  Maybe more like balloon pants – remember those?  It was definitely a home office, or a home she works out of anyway; a Waltham townhome jammed up against another, but with plenty of parking in the back.  Snow-clotted walkway, and an invitation to take our wet shoes “there,” please.  So we did.

She anticipated our questions.  She acknowlodged a vibe she had about me from a call over a year ago.  The same vibe carried through to our meeting.  Domestic infant adoption was for us!  She laid out some fees, and general timelines and couched all of her comments with ’but anything can happen.’  Oh those inevitable exceptions!  She showed us the “Birthmother” books from the couple in the Caribbean, the Graphic Designer couple, the scrapbook queen.  She told us that adoptions are generally too expensive, and she has structured her agency to combat that; we would work with a team.  Us.  Her.  A Social Worker.  A facilitator (mostly on the west coast), and the Birthmother they find for us.  That they get to like us from our book.  A book highlighting our hobbies.  Hobbies?  Holy crap, we don’t have any hobbies.  At this point in our life, our hobbies included crying, driving back and forth to the clinic and other various doctor visits, eating out in restaurants, and petting our dog.

That’s ok, she said, because there are 3 things Birthmothers tend to shy away from.  Older couples.  Ugly people.  And sometimes homosexuals.  (her words, not mine)  So young hot straights have it made – hobbies or not?   She kept telling us we would have NO PROBLEM getting picked.  It’s a guarantee; and it would be under or about a year.  And cost only slightly more than 2 cars.  Or half of a luxury car.  Or a garage addition.  Or ten plasma TVs.  But worth every penny.

Thinking about wanting/getting/having a baby/child was so abstract in those days for us.  A fucking week has gone by, and the feeling sinking in then was of purpose and forward momentum and building.  Now behind the salt-rimmed headache of too much crying there is just mist.  Hard to focus.  Are we moving forward?  A GUARANTEE.   We will be parents?  We were so ready to hear those words, just then and from her.  The home study itself costs just about a years’ worth of car payments.  Or 1 and a half plasma TVs.  But it is entirely worth it.

She laid out a scenario where we could get the home study, while working on Donor Egg cycles.  If a cycle works well, we can put the adoption on hold.  Having to “update” our home study once a year, for about the cost of a storm door.  Or half a snow blower per year.  Happy donor cycle works, child comes along.  We can adopt for #2.  More happiness.  Who wouldn’t want that?

The costs have our heads spinning, and my uncle generally somewhat distant, has made a very generous offer to help us with some costs, through my father.  Wouldn’t it be better to allow a family member to extend a generous offer, helping provide for your family, than to bankrupt yourself in the process going it alone?  At the risk of sounding totally obnoxius, I stronly felt at that point that I was due for someone or someting to make this whole process of growing my family a bit easier.

The lady in the purple pants said things were going to be ok.  And I had to belive her.

‘Butch Up Crabapple’

I only wish I had written the following passage, but I have to credit a former blogger known as Gettup Grrl, who used to write the always fascinating blog Chez Miscarriage.  Unfortunatey, this blog is no longer active.  I had stumbled upon her site one day, in the midst of my own infertility fog and struggle.  Gettup Grrl was funny, she was witty, she was right on the money.

“Anyway, the voice said, “If you’re going to be crabby every time some crazy bitch gets lucky, you’re going to spend the rest of your life being crabby, so you’d better get over it now.  There will always be some crazy bitch getting lucky.  And not just crazy bitches – truly mean people, whiners and troublemakers, dictators of small countries, bossy control freaks and shirll complainers, people who have taken macrobiotic diet principles to extremes, people who steal parking spaces and don’t feel guilty even after you politely beep your horn and make the but I had my blinker on! gesture.  Those people have absolutely nothing to do with how happy you are.  You can live an ecsatic, joyful life regardless of how underservedly lucky some crazy bitch is.  Your happiness is entirely within your control.  It has nothing do do with whether you ever get pregnant, or parent a child who shares your neurotic genes, or anything else.  So butch up crabapple.”

Truer words were never spoken.  Other people have absolutely nothing to do with how happy you can be.  It takes more energy to be miserable than happy, so why not choose happy?