Dear Baby B

Dear Baby B,

Tomorrow morning we head to the hospital to pick you up.  We only know a little bit about you as of now.  I am not sure if it has fully hit us that tomorrow morning we are going to be parents again.  I cannot wait to see you and hold you.   I have dreamed about you for years.   You are loved and wanted.  We have been anticipating your arrival for months.  We are eager to welcome you into our home and our family.  We are eager to love you unconditionally forever.

Love,

Your New Parents

A Year Ago Today

A year ago today (12/29/2013) my husband said the words to me that I discussed in this post.  Wow... so many has changed in a year.   Instead of sobbing today I am doing a full load of baby laundry.   I didn't think it was possible for so many thing to improve in so many aspects of my life in just a year.  I am so thankful.

Becoming Sane

I can tell you that each month we were trying to conceive after the miscarriage I would think that as had succeeded.  I let myself believe every twinge was it.  I was going to be pregnant.  Of course it never was and it made me crazy.    It made me block pregnant people on Facebook, it made me unable to even cut through the baby section at Target, and it made me sob when people said they were pregnant. 

 

Making a plan and deciding to pursue fostering, foster to adopt, adoption has made me sane again.   Last week I went to Target and I looked at ever single aisle of baby stuff.    Because we are getting so close.  I can see that baby in the crook of my arms.  I can smell that sweet baby after a bath. 

 

It is now a matter of WHEN instead of IF.

 

That has made me sane again. 

We are (hopefully) Going to be Foster (to adopt) Parents

I feel like I have always had a hear for adoption/fostering.

My husband... not so much.

 

I don't remember exactly when, but it was after we lost our baby when I remember being out to dinner with him at one of our favorite places, Mama Leones and asking if we could apply to foster.  It was a quick no from him.

 

I think it was a year after that when I had him print out the forms.   He was getting more on board.  But they say on the shelf in our guest bedroom and I never filled them out.  One day earlier this year as I was tidying up that room I remember coming across them and tossing them.  Because I didn't think he would be on board.  Because I thought we would get pregnant on our own...

 

In mid-July before our 4th wedding anniversary I brought it up again.  Chris printed out the papers again at work and brought them home.   A new path for us to venture down.

 

 

 

So we filled out the papers.  I told my mom and my sister.  We told the people we were going to use for family/personal references.

 

During the application process I would learn others were pregnant and it would hurt all over again.  I felt at times like why are we here filling out paperwork, getting fingerprinted, having background checks ran on us when other people just get pregnant.

 

I was elated when our paperwork was ready to be sent in.  I happily mailed it away, even paid more to send it Priority even though the office it was going to was only about 25 minutes from our home.   When I got back in the car, postage receipt in hand I took a photo to document it.  Sort of like what I would have done had I taken a positive pregnancy test.  This was our positive test!

 

 

That following Monday I got a call that our initial paperwork had been turned in and we would receive an email to schedule our 30 hours of foster care training. 

This was all really happening.

 

 

 



Different Dreams

I used to dream of becoming pregnant

and staying pregnant

and delivering a baby in a hospital.

Now I dream of getting a phone call

saying yes

and a baby showing up on our doorstep.

I used to dream of perusing through the baby name books and choosing the best names.

Now I wonder what will be the name of the baby that comes to us.

I used to dream that I would give birth to a baby with brown hair.

Curly brown hair and hazel eyes.

A baby that resembled my husband.

Now I dream of all sorts of babies.

Black and white babies.

Babies with blond hair or black curly hair.

Babies with blue eyes.

I used to dream of the perfect baby shower.

Now I dream about being able to round up enough stuff before our first placement arrives.

I used to dream about how I thought our family would expand through

Now I dream of how it will really be. 

To Finally Let Go

 

For so long I kept letting myself think next month will be it...

next month you will get pregnant...

 

I can't even tell you how many next months have passed...

but it has been A LOT

 

As I sit here... 36... married for over 4 years and trying for a baby for just as long I know.

 

I know that my body will never create and carry another baby.

I am starting to accept and deal with it.

It sucks, but it is my reality.

 

Secondary infertility is my reality. 

Find the Courage to Let Go of What You Cannot Change

 

I will likely never make a baby with my husband.  That is something I cannot change.  Well I guess I could if we were younger and had tens of thousands dollars, but we aren't and we don't.

 

So we are moving on to a different path...

 

Perhaps it is the path we were meant to be on all along...

 

 

Sometimes I Forget...

Sometimes I forget who I was before every waking moment was consumed with having a baby.

 

And to be honest... I think I have started to remember.

 

Because it would be wrong to say that every waking moment still consumes me with trying to have a baby.  A lot of my life is consumed by it.  I told my husband jokingly the other day that our bathroom sink looked like a fertility clinic - two types of Ovulation Predictors, Pre-Seed, pregnancy tests, little plastic cups to pee in... 

 

 

I don't remember the last time I sobbed... probably earlier this month when I got my period, that always seems to do it.   But I did manage to recently purchase outfits for friends expecting twin girls (cue the jealousy) without any issues.

 

As much as I want a baby... we are coming on four years... four years of no birth control... three years of actively trying... and I am 36. Not exactly prime baby making age.  And although I hope it doesn't come to it for us I have been beginning to think about our life without a baby and without a focus on it... things like sleeping in, trips just the two of us, an empty nest (because our daughter will be a high school Sophomore next year, and non-procreational sex.  I can't tell you the last time we even had that.

 

We are currently on day 16 of my cycle.  This is our second cycle of Clomid which I took on days 3-7.  The Clearblue Advanced Digital Ovulation test seems to screw with me every day with that damn flashing smiley . I am praying to see a solid one soon as I have been on the blinky one for 5 days even though the package says to expect two days of blinkys before a solid.  I have had it with this test and have a different kind to start next month.   Hopefully I will not need it. 

Another Month Down...

My period arrived on Monday... just as I had expected.  I of course hoped it wouldn't arrive, but I didn't have any symptoms that would lead me to believe it wouldn't.  Of course each month I also think I would love to be one of those I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant ladies... and then I convince myself that even though I am bleeding... that I could still really be pregnant... that I could be one of those women who still has their period even when they are pregnant and then they end up delivering a baby into a toilet at Disneyland.

 

Hey... a girl can dream, can't she?

 

 

Almost 4 years into this whole thing I am getting discouraged.  I am 36.  My husband is 37.  We have an almost 15 year old.  When will enough be enough? I tell myself each month just one more month, then when my period comes, just one more.  Will I be 46 and telling myself the same thing?  I hope not. 

 

I think my husband is over it.  I know he wants and would love a baby... soon.  But I also think he would be fine if that baby never came.  I think he is looking forward to the time when our daughter is grown and out of the house and it is just the two of us.  We met when my daughter was 9 so we have always been parents.   I on the other hand have wanted to be a mom my entire life to a bunch of kids and the thought of only getting to it once kills me.  I was so young when my daughter was born.  I was a single mom.  I was a good mom, but I don't think I soaked it in like I could have... I was just trying to get by.  I always thought there were would be more babies down the road.  And there were... they were just never born.

 

 

I have a prescription for Clomid in my cabinet...  Here goes another month of trying. 

When the Tears Come

Things are better.

 

I don't cry as much as I used to.

 

Our house sits behind a school for special needs children.  When it is warm out (like today) I work from the dining room table with the screen door open.  Without fail every day around noon the kids come out to play.   I can see them and hear them from the table.

 

Today I could hear them on the swings and they were singing popular songs.  These were older kids... probably in fourth or fifth grade.

 

I began to cry.

 

 

My tears were brought on by not knowing if I will ever take another child of my own to a playground to push on the swings.

 

 

That is my reality.

Where We Are At

I was recently bulldozed over for a position at work that I have been busting my ass to achieve for over 9 months.  My first thought was to find another job.  I like my job.  I have been with the company for 2 1/2 years and I am able to work from home.  I have held onto it for this long, even when I know I could be making a lot more money doing something else.   We've just sort of been getting by financially with the thought that this work from home job will allow me to stay home once we have a baby.  2 1/2 years later... no baby... I feel like I could have been working another job, saving up for infertility treatments, etc...  I feel stuck.

 

Last month we didn't "try" because a trip home to visit my parents, one my husband didn't come along for, just so happened to fall within my fertile window.

 

Just my luck.

 

So this month another trip home (schedule out of my control) falls at the tail end of my fertile window.  So whereas I filled my Clomid prescription, I decided to hold off in case I ovulated late.

 

I have been taking the digital ovulation predictor kids - the ones that are supposed to show your 4 most fertile days.  I am on day 11 and I keep getting the empty circle.  I started testing on day 9.  I wonder I should have started earlier.  Each morning I hope like hell to see the smiley face...

 

We will see. 

Mother's Day 2014

I came across this on Pinterest and I swear I could have written it.

 

I planned a trip in April to visit my parents.  Only after the trip was planned and the flights were booked did I realize my entire fertile window would be spent at their home without my husband. 

 

April was a WASH. 

 

If that didn't suck enough my period tracker app let me know that my period would then come on Mother's Day... of all the freaking days.

 

My uterus HATES me.

 

After 44 months of trying unsuccessfully for a pregnancy that would result in a healthy/live baby I get to celebrate Mother's Day this year with a box of tampons.  

 



A Weight Lifted...

Yesterday I read a blog post, and I read so many that I don't even remember where I read it, but the writer talked about a weight being lifted off of her shoulders.

 

I felt it... it is me.  Since letting go of this "baby making obsession" I have felt a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders.

 

My reactions to other are different now.  Yesterday I was reading a blog post that was a pregnancy announcement.  And for a tiny little second I felt it, that "everyone but me" feeling, but it was different. It wasn't like it had been in the past.  Past pregnancy announcements from random Instagrammers, bloggers or friends would wreck me.  As silly as it now seems... I took it personal.  When all along I just needed to realize that no matter what I am experiencing other people are still going to get pregnant.  Because it is natural... and it is how it is supposed to be.  I am the odd one out... not the others.

 

Taking a step back from my "baby making obsession" has forced me to enjoy all of the things in my life I already have instead of longing for what I don't have.  When I think back to those days when I was in the thick of the obsession... when I was in the aftermath of the miscarriage... when I was clearly depressed... I think and feel so much differently now.   I am starting to really believe that if my life does not include another baby... then I am going to be okay.   I just needed to step back from it all to see how great my life really is.

 

If you are new here you can read my story here. 

Up Tight B!tch

"You're an up tight bitch".

It hurt.

It stung.

I didn't speak to him for a day.

I needed to hear it and he needed to say it.  I think was probably the most hurtful thing my husband has ever said to me, but it also saved our marriage.

My anger and bitterness from the infertility... from the loss of a pregnancy... had made me this way.  In my husband's exact words "It is driving a wedge between us". 

Truer words have never been spoken.

 

My response to him included  this: "I don't remember what my life was like before my every waking thought was about having a baby.  I don't know how to find my happy again with that one huge thing missing.  I like things to be planned out... and it is so hard for me that our "plan" failed".  

 

I can say that our marriage has drastically improved since this hard conversations that tumbled over into the next day, which was New Year's Eve.

 

Every single day since then has been better.

 

Some days are harder than others.  Some days I have to wipe away the tears and tell myself that it is going to be a good day.

 

I am so thankful things are better.  Things are good.  Our marriage and our family are both in a really great place.

My Story - Infertility Link-Up

 

I am the mother of a 13 year old.  I got pregnant with her when I was a Junior in college.  I got pregnant with her the first time I slept with her biological father.

 

I raised her by myself until I met my husband in 2008.  We had our first date in February of 2009.  We were engaged in July of 2009.  We moved in together in August of 2009.  We were married in July of 2010.  I had been on birth control pills for almost a year when we were married and I stopped taking them on our wedding day.

 

Before meeting and marrying my husband I had times of being a little wild.  I didn't pay much attention to my fertility, was on and off of birth control, and just always ASSumed once I got married and wanted more kids it would be as easy as it was the first time.

 

Clearly... I was wrong.

 

Our "plan" was to just see what happened the first year, but ideally we would get pregnant our second year of marriage.  I was naive to think it would be that easy.

 

 

In July of 2011 as we prepared to move from our home in Virginia to Rhode Island for my husband's job, I went to my gynecologist's office to see the nurse practitioner.  I had always seen her and really trusted her.  I told her we had been sort of trying for a year and nothing was happening.  She ran some tests, we moved, and then she called me with the results.

 

Somewhere I have this all written down, but we were in the middle of the move from hell, but she said I didn't have PCOS, but the makings of it. She suggested I eat a low-carb diet, prescribed Metformin, and told me I would be pregnant in 3 months.

 

 

I was pregnant the next month.

 

I woke up on October 13, 2011, peed on a test, and sobbed in my bathroom.  Finally.  I was also scared to death.  We had just moved so far away, I knew nobody, I had left my job to move, we were struggling financially and I was pregnant.  I questioned if we had made a mistake.  That afternoon I wrapped the test up in a bag and made cupcakes that I decorated pink and blue.  I had them waiting in the living room when my husband came home and I told him and our daughter.  We were overjoyed.  That night in bed I said to my husband, "If anything happens to this baby... I don't know what I will do".

 

I waited on pins and needles for my appointment.  I bought sleepers - one with footballs and one with cupcakes.  I ordered baby books and baby name books and I was thrilled.  Then I started spotting.

I went to the doctor on November 9, 2011 and they were unable to verify a viable baby.  They sent me home, told me I was too early most likely and to come back in a week.  But I knew.

I returned in a week with my husband.  Again... they were not able to determine anything other than what was left of a small fetal pole.  I was told the baby likely stopped developing at 6 weeks.  I decided to forgo the d&c at the hospital and to use suppositories at home.  Really... I just hoped they were wrong... and wasn't ready to let go.

I didn't the suppositories until Thanksgiving night.  I was starting to feel sick and knew it was time.  I had an epidural and a c-section with my daughter.  Taking these suppositories was like being in labor.  I was in awful pain.  I finally miscarried the next morning.

I thought that not being able to get pregnant was painful.  I shed a lot of tears, but finally getting pregnant after trying and then losing our baby was the worst pain I have ever felt.  At times I would sob so uncontrollably that no sound would even come out.

I spent the next year in a daze.  I was sad and angry.  I cried every single day.  I just wanted my baby back.  I resented my husband and our marriage was suffering. Throughout that year I would have months where I would want to try again.  So I would pull myself together and we would try, only to keep getting my period every month.  It was awful.  I think the miscarriage hurt me in ways I never knew possible.  To add to it we were living in a new place, I had no friends, I was working from home, and I was isolated.  Those aren't good things to be when you are already depressed over losing your baby.

As we approached a year after the miscarriage I started to feel better.  We agreed to try again in November and December, but there was no pregnancy.  I was ready for a break again.

In January I started focusing more on myself.  I joined Weight Watchers, started walking, and got out of the house more.  I could no longer live in this funk.  Having a baby had controlled my life.   It was time to put other things in focus.

Two weeks ago I went to my new family physician.  She was warm and comforting and so I told her a little bit about our struggles. She ran some tests.  She says I don't need Metformin anymore and that all my numbers are fine.  My blood pressure is great and I have lost 28 pounds.  We are back to trying again.  We tried in June, but my period came. I had a good cry and not I am refocused for trying again.  We are going to try two more times before consulting with a RE.  I am 35.  Time is ticking.  We know we want a baby.

I look forward to sharing our journey.

I'm sharing this post by linking up at Kelly's Korner - Show Us Your Life - Infertility