I really wish I had a brownie right now - but this post is not about brownies

I'm laying around my sister's apartment waiting for her to finish her shift so I can pounce on the phone and ask her to bring back some brownie mix. In the meantime thought I'd pay some attention to my blog.

I am pretty sure I left you all hanging since I never did report back on the big doctor's visit. Have you felt like that was a real cliffhanger?

It was surprisingly fun. As fun as those things can be. Got the ultrasound and had those weird little vibrating shocks (like tiny pulses) in the ovary area for the rest of the day. Is that normal? Nothing extreme just zippy.

And the good news was that things weren't looking weird. No polyps or fibroids or chains of cysts dancing Greek wedding dances around in there. Little well behaving follicles just hanging around in early cycle mode.

Saw a new doctor. Like her. Operating word here being HER. I just don't get the male ob/gyn thing. I have tried now. Twice. Ew. I really question what kind of man chooses that specialty. yick. I can never look a male ob/gyn in the eye.

I told her that evil man doctor who called on my birthday week and told us not to come back and to go to a specialist had hurt my feelings and I didn't like him. She was properly sympathetic and kind and willing to let me set forth my new treatment plan which will involve her treating my side of the infertility issues while coding my insurance forms as amenhorea (sp?) or whatever words she wants to use to denote anything other than fertility treatment since that could not possibly be covered.

No. I mean of course not. It is totally ELECTIVE to have children. Our society depends on each person basically being able to produce a human replacement in order to continue moving forward (ok, a little extreme but you get my point) but God forbid we need a bit of help doing so and suddenly it's like we are asking the insurance company to give us a brazilian butt tuck or something.

Hrmph.

Anyway, she and I were all "FSH levels" this and "hysteroscopy" that and it was really nice to finally be speaking the right language. Why do they lock you out of this club for so long with stupid platitudes about trying for a year first. Yeah, meanwhile I am trying myself right into advanced maternal age! Honestly if we had gotten to the bottom of all of this before we even started "trying" I would have never gone to the crazy edge of crazyville with all of my ugly crying and confusion.

Our current plan for anyone still interested in this side of the discussion is that we have a consultation with a nice fertility center located off the shores of the United States where prices are much more reasonable and a good friend has had great success. And the beach is involved. And I like the beach. Going to talk to them by phone (actually the consulting fertility specialist (RE) is named Juliet Skinner. AND the clinic is located on an island. LOST anyone?)

So "Juliet" will tell us what she recommends. For free she will tell us this! The local RE here wants to charge us $250 to tell us what she recommends. I really think good things come from those who go to islands for their answers.

Then we will follow instructions on this end of things. And THEN hopefully we will get baby from Ethiopia. And THEN at some point we will hopefully be able to afford to visit Juliet in person.

I realize it is a lot. In one year. It is ambitious. And I don't know that it will happen so don't hold me to it. But it gives me something to do with myself as I wait for our referral. A goal - to understand my fertility options inside and out and have a plan mapped out for later if it is needed.

I guess I want to end this post like this. No matter when and where and how I talk about fertility it is not more important to me than our adoption. I dreamt of my small Ethiopian for a long time. (Well, sometimes she was small and Asian before we chose a country... and sometimes she was a he...but that is besides the point.)

We want to adopt. We can't wait to adopt. We are honored to adopt.

AND we want to experience conception. And delivery. And a teeny weeny newborn who carries a crazy bag of our potentially bizarre gene combinations.

I don't think it is wrong and I don't feel concerned about talking about fertility on an adoption blog. So you'll continue to get some ovary talk here along with the "where the H is our referral???" discussion.

It is what it is. All I know is that since I started blogging about it all and reading books and taking charge of our options and refusing to consider 33 or 34 as "old" and started getting proactive about trying to raise some money I have felt a million times better.

I have not had an ugly cry since the event-which-shall-remain-nameless. And that was almost 3 weeks ago!

~A

Father Reluctance

What can I say? I have written this post three times in three different ways.

There is no way to talk about J and his years of "father reluctance" without sharing too much information that is not mine to share.

I want to wrap up my last post which I realize I left on a bit of a cliffhanger.

So I'll just say that this whole process has been hard on J, who entered our marriage almost 11 years ago saying that he would NEVER have kids. Now it is ironic that to have children, which he is still very nervous about, it requires him to a. divulge every bit of his personal, medical, financial, and professional information to a social worker (homestudy) b. join me at US government offices around the city c. pay lots and lots of money d. join me at expensive doctor's appointments and e. provide samples to fertility specialists

Ironic isn't it? Poor man.

But he is a very good husband and I know he joins me in all of this because he loves me. And he trusts that he will be able to love a child. But this whole thing is still a huge stretch for him.

I wonder sometimes if God is testing us to strengthen our resolve. To make it that much easier to love and adore a little someone who was fought for so hard.

So to wrap up the last post. We decided to continue to pursue the adoption. And we are currently #1 on the waiting list. So it WILL happen at some point.

I think it was very easy for J to consider postponing the adoption while we pursue fertility treatment because he has a much harder time loving the idea of our future child. Do the rest of you have similar experiences with your husbands? I have sought a lot of advice from others and I've come to the realization that J, and men in general, have a harder time attaching to the idea of a child whose face they have never seen. He is in agreement with the adoption. But his heart has yet to fall in love.

I am not sure what we will do about the fertility problems. But after a lot of discussion, and of course ugly crying on my part, we agreed to work on it this year. Some of you have recommended books to read which I plan to look into. I have found some interesting websites and blogs. We'll see a fertility specialist. We'll explore our options. I wish we were rich and could just freeze up some eggs for future use! But that is not our reality so we will see what can be done and make a decision sooner rather than later.

J has come a long long way. And I don't blame him for needing this time to come around to fatherhood. I appreciate that we've been able to spend a lot of time together. We have traveled all over the world. We hiked the Samaria Gorge. Went swimming with whale sharks in the Yucatan. Lived in Thailand and drove our little scooter to watch the sunset on the beach every night. We explored temples in Cambodia and pigged out on pizza in Italy. We listened to a Christmas concert in a tiny chapel in Oxford. And we have celebrated the 4th of July on the Capitol mall 6 times! I will never regret the time we have spent together - just the two of us.

But for everything a season and we are entering a new season of life.
Our conclusion is that we don't have a plan A or plan B. We are just trying to make a family.

~A