Blogoversary Winner and Ramblings

First off, thank you for participating in my blogoversary post!  I loved reading all about where you all were 9 years ago.  Thanks for sharing! I used random.org to come up with a random winner and it chose #12- missohkay!  Please email me and let me know what name you'd like on your custom cards and where to send them.  So thrilled to make them up for you!

Lots of thoughts running through my brain tonight.  I've had several topics pop into my brain for blog posts, but those will have to wait for tonight.  Tonight I need to dump out the swirls of thoughts onto this blog.  That's really what this blog has been about for me at times- the ability to write it all down and be able to clear my head.  Back when I started blogging all those years ago, it was really just for me. I am now blessed to have met many amazing women through this blog, and for that I am forever grateful.  Anyway, so I am apologizing in advance for what will really be a random post tonight.

We've made a tentative decision on the adoption front.  We are going to work with an attorney and her marketing firm for now.  We'd like to work with the other agency as well, but will need to put it on hold for now.  We just don't have the resources to do both, and for now I feel that working with a "do it yourself" plan works for us.  Not only is it less expensive initially, I have more control.  And let's be honest- I am a control freak and after all of these years of being out of control during treatment, I am going to hold onto as much as I can with this. 

I've created our website and I am pretty happy with it.  I spent lots of time looking at other sites and reading adoption books.  I've asked friends to look at it and everyone has said it's perfect and reflects who we are.  I don't think an agency could have done that for us.  I might eat those words later, but for now I feel confident in our plan.  The next step is to take that information from the website and create our paper profile.  I've started playing with that and even purchased pages for mac to have some more design freedom.  Again, I've looked at other profiles and hope to create something that truly portrays who we are. 

We're hoping to meet with the attorney's marketing coordinator next Friday.  We'll get the information about setting up our 800 number.  We've decided to have them answer our calls for us.  It just won't work with my teaching schedule for me to have a cell phone with me at all times.  We've been assured that the number is unique to us, and when it is answered it is with the knowledge that someone is calling on OUR behalf.  Once we get the 800 number, I plan to create business cards and flyers.  Then the plan is to get those out to everyone we know to pass them on.  I just have to believe that our match is out there and hope and pray that someone who knows someone can make the connection. 

And then there's next Friday, October 7th.  I've felt this day looming for the past month or so.  Someone said the date out loud to me and it literally took my breath away.  I was immediately taken back to the moment I knew that our miracle pregnancy was over- the moment I miscarried at school.  I can't believe it's been a year.  It seems like it was yesterday and an eternity ago all at once.  I am actually having a hard time thinking about going to the inservice we'll have at school on the 6th.  While it isn't the actual date, it is the same inservice that I was teaching at a year ago.  Just sitting here typing about it makes my breath catch in my chest.  I wish I could skip the inservice, but they are all mandatory now.  You must be on your deathbed to miss them.  So I will go and pray I can keep calm and have the strength to get through the day. 

Yes, you may have noticed that I also said that I hoped we could meet with the attorney's people next Friday.  I am hoping that spending the day moving FORWARD will help me get through.  I am hoping that having something to focus on and feeling that we are making progress will help ease the pain that the day will surely hold.  I find myself thinking back to a year ago, and realizing that I was blissfully unaware that my life was about to be shattered. We had just gotten our second beta results, and they were perfect.   I really thought we had finally gotten our miracle and that we were finally going to be parents.  I had no idea how much pain and heartache was about to come our way. 

While I am having moments of intense sadness, I am also feeling hope. I am hopeful that we will finally become parents and finally have the chance to love a baby of our own.  I even found myself researching different bottle types last night.  I was actually looking at babiesrus!  I feel like a split personality right now.  There's intense grief and excited hope all rolled up inside me right now.  It's like a tornado in my heart and head right now!  It scares me, honestly.

Thankfully we have a day off from school tomorrow.  Feeling much better now that I have "dumped" some of these thoughts here.  For those of you still reading... thank you.  :)

It's my Blogoversary!!!

It was nine years ago today that I first posted on an AOL journal.  Does anyone even remember those?  I was able to merge all of the posts over to blogger when AOL journals closed and moved to this blog a little over a year ago from my initial blogger site.  Nine years?  Who would have thought that I'd still be writing about infertility and we'd still be a family of just two?

Here is that very first post.  If I knew then what I know now.... I don't know if it would have been any different.  I think I would have become much more bitter and angry at a younger age for sure!  Even then I had my doubts it was going to work, but there was a glimmer of hope.  And just maybe, just maybe....there is a tiny little glimmer once again, today?

We're taking BIG STEPS with our adoption very soon.  But that's another post all together. 

In celebration of my nine years of rambling blogging, I'd like to do a little give away.  Now, bear with me as I have never done a give away of any sort here on my blog.  I know it's what all the cool kids do, so I'm going to give it a shot.  If you are here for ICLW, you are in luck!

So what am I giving away?  How about a set of handmade notecards?  One lucky commenter will win a personalized set of these from my etsy shoppe 

To enter, just leave a comment on this post.  Tell me what were you doing NINE years ago today- What was going on in your life?   I'll put all the comments in a hat and pull one out.  Be sure that you have a link to your blog or an email that I can contact you should you be the big winner.  Contest closes at the end of the weekend... let's say Sunday night at 9:00 CST.  (Let's just go with the 9 theme, ok?)

Let's hope that 9 years from now I am not still blogging about infertility.  Let's hope I'm focusing on raising our adopted child(ren).  Surely it won't take us another 9 years to realize that dream, right?

Have a wonderful day!

September ICLW

It's been a few months since I participated in ICLW.  For those of you new to my blog, welcome!

I'm a teacher and an artist living in the Chicago suburbs with my spoiled lab and my swim coach husband.  Our infertility story is long but here is the nitty gritty in bullet points: 

• Started TTC in 2000
• PCOS
• 4 IVFs- and 3 FETs
• Considered "unexplained" infertility by even the top experts
• 2 miscarriages in the last year, one a "surprise" pregnancy, the other a last chance IVF at CC.RM
• We're done with Treatment (for now)
• Homestudy approved for Domestic Infant Adoption 
• Weighing our many options for marketing and agencies
• Trying to gather resources for adoption after depleting most of our savings for our final IVF.
• Hopeful that we WILL become parents through the miracle of open adoption

It's my blogoversary in a few days, so I am hoping to do a give away.  I always have ideas for posts swirling in my head, so I am hopeful that ICLW will give me the prompting to get posts actually published and out here. 

I'm always looking for adoption blogs to follow.  Please leave me a comment if you have one, or know of one that you think I should check out.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Loss for words...or maybe not?!

There's so much I want to write about- so much I need to write about to process and get my thoughts in order.  Yet, I am having a hard time finding the words.  So I am about to ramble.  I apologize in advance.

We had a good meeting with adoption agency #1 on Friday.  We are supposed to find out today if we are one of the 6 couples they will accept this month.  And then we have to decide if we want said spot.  This is a marketing only agency- which has a great reputation and is small and could be exactly what we need.  However, the costs are due UP FRONT for marketing- and it's not a small sum of money.  They do ALL of the work for us- including creating a paper profile and printing them. It's a two year contract, and if we were to find a match on our own, we'd be able to put our contract on "hold" for a second adoption in the future.  But we do not get any of our money back.

I've also finally got our website up and running.  If you're interested in the link, please email me at puzzleblog@me(dot) com and I'll send you the link.  I don't want to post it here, as I don't want someone to link my personal ranting on this blog to our website/profile.  We really haven't done much marketing on our own yet.  So, should we really try to market on our own before signing with a marketing agency? 

Time is not on our side, though.  If we wait another 6 months to sign with the agency, it could be 6 months lost.  I wish we had the resources to just sign without worry.  But we need to be thoughtful about where we put our resources. 

I know that we are not comfortable answering calls ourselves.  With me being a teacher, I can't answer a phone during the day, and everything I've read says that it should be the wife to answer any calls from expectant parents.  I'm wondering if there is a way for us to do some of our own marketing and have someone "screen" calls for us.  But then I wonder if your 800 number goes to a phone bank, how do they know which adoptive parents the call was meant for? 

We are playing phone tag with the adoption attorney we worked with during our failed placement in 2007.  I know that she also has a marketing company that she works with.  We'd like to hear about their program as well.

We've thought about traditional agencies- It's just not the right fit for us.  We aren't religious people, and we don't have the financial resources many traditional agencies require.  We also have trust issues and don't want to have all of our resources with ONE agency.  But then, we could also apply to several agencies, too.

Lots to think about.  I look back at all of the decisions we made about infertility treatment and the mistakes we made.  It's hard not to worry about making mistakes here, too. 

In the end, every mistake will be worth it when we finally have the child we've yearned for all these years.

Trying to remember that. 

Baby Steps

We're taking some steps on our adoption journey... baby steps, but moving forward.

We have an appointment with an agency tomorrow that partners with our homestudy agency to provide marketing/birthparent search services.  It's a large sum of money upfront, but it gives us 2 years with them.  We'd still have to cover legal fees and birthmother expenses through our homestudy agency as well.  It's an option for sure.  However, they only accept so many couples at a time, so we have to go through the interview tomorrow to see if we would even be considered for them.  I'm a tad nervous, but figure if they don't want us, it wasn't meant to be a good fit anyway, right? 

We are also sending an application to an agency in San Antonio.  A friend told me about them, and we thought it was worth getting information.  They are also very selective, but give priority to childless couples with documented medical infertility.  According to their website, they only accept the number of couples they feel that they can match within a year's time.  All good things in our mind.  However, I did some research online, and there are mixed reviews on this agency.  They also require a weekend orientation in San Antonio.  Again, we don't know if we will be accepted to even apply.  At this point we've only just sent in paperwork to inquire....

We also sent our application into Project Cuddle to be a rescue family.  Project Cuddle is a great organization that works with women who are at high risk of abandoning their infants.  There's no cost, and we just send in our application, letter, and verification of our homestudy along with our photo. 

We called the attorney we worked with during our failed adoption in 2007.  We hear she is the best, but she is hard to get on the phone.  She also has a marketing agency that might be an option for us as well.  It's just frustrating because it is so hard to get in contact with her.  We'll need an attorney regardless of our agency choice- and we hear she is one on the best.  There are a few others in the area that I might call too.  

I emailed our social worker from our homestudy agency and she is going to send me the letter for project cuddle and will contact the local agency to let them know we are approved.  If we go further with the San Antonio agency, we'll have her send it out there- but they also charge a HIGH fee for our homestudy to be reviewed. 

We're still learning about all the ways that agencies do business.  It's like starting all over as new IF patient.  It's frustrating to be at the "beginner' stage again.  I am trying to gather as much information as I can- but there's just so much out there! And it's hard to know who to trust and who is going to take our money and break our hearts.  Our hearts are just barely mended from the last year of loss, and I just don't know how much more we can take.  It's hard to put our hearts out there again. 

I also spent some time on Friday working on our website.  I am hoping to get it live this weekend, even though we only have an email contact at this point.  Once we make some decisions, we'll add the phone contact.  One of the big deal breakers for me with the agencies will be what happens if we find our own match through our own efforts.  Are they willing to work with us in that case?  What services will they provide- or will they even "allow" us to market on our own? 

So many questions.  Going to work on my list of questions for tomorrow's meeting.  And then decide what to wear... ?!

Ten Years

There is no shortage of reminders of what today is.  It's been covered in the media for months. 

I don't need the reminders.  I remember that day and the flow of emotions I felt.  I was forever changed that day.  I didn't lose anyone close to me that day, but I did lose a part of myself.  I remember the fear that we had been attacked on our own soil, and wondered what the future would hold for us as a country. 

I was in my second year teaching at my current school.  There were lots of whispers in those first few hours trying to carry on in the classroom without letting our students sense our fear.  Our students were old enough to understand what happened, but not old enough to really understand the weight of the events. 

In addition to all of those feelings and memories, I'll also never forget because of the timing.  You see, Chris was at our first RE giving his "sample" when the first plane hit.  It was the start of our first heavy duty IF workup that day.  In the days following, I remember wondering if we should really pursue having a child.  Did we really want to bring a child into the chaos that our world felt at that time?

We carried on.  We went through with our testing, and learned that I had PCOS.  We thought we'd get pregnant once that was under control.  We had no idea what the next 10 years had in store for us.

So each year, I remember.  Another year passes, and we are reminded of what the world felt like that day.  And the hope we started to feel as the months passed.  We had hope that we could make sense of the chaos and had hope that we would be parents. 

And yet now, America is once again in a state of chaos and division.  Chris and I have just experienced one of the toughest years in terms of infertility.  Will we ever feel that same unity as a country?  Will Chris and I ever become parents?  I hope that by next year at this time, we will be closer to finding an answer to both of those questions.

Please don't think that I am trivializing the horror of that day, and all of the lives lost. As I am writing this, I have guilt over making it "about me" It's about so much more, but this is my memory, and my story of 9-11.  We all have them. 

Finding Peace

Thank you for all of your comments on my last post.  One of the great blessings of our IF journey has been meeting each of you and sharing our lives and stories with one another.  Infertility is such an isolating disease, and yet the ALI blogging community is strong and so very supportive.

I am working on finding peace in many areas of my life.  In addition to our infertility, I have a complicated family situation.  Some issues have resurfaced in the last week, and I am working to find peace with my decisions regarding my relationships with certain family members.  I'm not going to go into details here, but I am so very thankful for the amazing friends and mentors in my life that are allowing me to be who I am.

But that's not even what this post is really about.

My good friend had her beautiful baby boy yesterday.  The friend who I talked through her first medicated IUI and who struggled to tell me that it worked. It was an awkward few weeks, but we moved past it.  She is a dear friend and truly one of my closest coworkers.  She's one of our social workers at school, and often has to provide social work to me so I don't strangle certain children! I didn't mind being around her at all- even when she was 40 weeks pregnant.  Here's the thing- being pregnant didn't define who she was.  We rarely talked about it unless I asked.  And in the last few weeks, I asked lots, and she always took the time to answer me.

I think I may have been living through her final weeks of pregnancy as a way to find peace with the fact that I many never experience pregnancy.  I wanted to absorb as much as I could with her.  She's also a really down to earth type of girl, and was willing to answer all of my questions- the things a girl who has never been pregnant might want to know but be afraid to ask.  And in the last few weeks I would joke about things that are benefits to never giving birth- things she could have done without.

I have every intention of going to visit her once she is home from the hospital.  I am excited about holding her tiny little miracle and seeing her as a mom.  I honestly didn't think I'd ever be able able to say that.  Is it possible that I am finally finding peace with all of this? (We'll see how I do when I actually make the trip to see her!)

As a final note,  this friend sent me a sweet message via FB the night before she was induced.  She wanted to let me know she was thinking of me and wanted to know where we were with our adoption process.  She asked that I keep her posted since I won't be seeing her every day for the next 12 weeks.  So, even the night before she meets her little miracle, she took the time to message me.  I don't know if she'll ever know how much that meant to me.

So maybe I really am on my way to finding peace.  Or at least I am getting good at faking it!