Eight months old!

Chloe is eight months old. EIGHT MONTHS. Holy moly, how did that happen?

She is showing some asymmetry between her left and right sides, which means she will need some therapy and ongoing alternative therapy work to help address it before it impacts her crawling or walking down the line. We don’t want out girl having muscle atrophy from favoring one side, or motor skill problems. So, we continue to work on it.

BUT!! Besides all that, she is a pure delight! She is a very social baby, loves meeting new people and is very generous with her smiles and babbles. My husband and I wonder what we could have done in our past lives that was so phenomenal to warrant having such an easy-going and pleasant and healthy baby girl.

I’m back at work – I pumped for MONTHS on the job. Juggling that and conference calls/meetings and protecting my supply was probably the toughest thing I’ve had to do consistently over a long period of time, in all my life! She is now well established on solids and starting to be waaaay more interested in the world than nursing. So, at least I have a freezer stash of breast milk to last us since it looks like our nursing relationship is coming to an end. I would be more torn up about it, except that I did a partial wean about 2 months ago when pumping at work got to be too hard. That was quite a transition; I think my hormones were going haywire. Now, the transition from partial to full wean is much more manageable.

My husband and I put an offer on the house we’re renting – the owner wanted us to move out so she could put it on the market and we said, “Uh… we’ll buy it from you!” So that offer is pending. While we would have preferred to wait another couple of years before buying a house, the reality is that we didn’t want to move right now – we love our neighbors and our neighborhood, it’s close to public transit, there is a really good elementary school nearby – so it seemed the right choice to go ahead and jumpstart our plans for purchasing a house.

The downside – and it is a significant one – is that with depleted savings, we will have to put off a second child for a year or two beyond what we were originally thinking. So instead of having kids 1-2 years apart, they are likely to be 2-3 years apart. What this does is rules out completely our consideration for getting pregnant again – I’ll be into my 40s, and it was tough enough trying to get pregnant from age 35 to 37, so I can only imagine what a nightmare it would be later – and it also puts our second child even farther out if we are on a waiting list for adoption for a long time.

We have accepted this. We are enjoying our little blessing in Chloe as much as possible and not worrying too much about a second child for now. We can only make as best decisions as we can with the situations and information we have before us. The house it is! For now anyway.

How adoption can reset your view about biological children

I came across this piece written by a mother who tried to conceive in her 30s, experienced difficulty, went through the adoption process, then became pregnant. She noted:

You can have a child. As soon as we brought Emily home, we felt it was meant to be. With an adopted child, it’s less narcissistic: You aren’t always looking for ways they are or aren’t like you. She gets to be her own separate person. Having Emily has helped me see my son the same way. Instead of “How is he like me?” it’s “How can I help him grow to be his best?”

I think that’s a beautiful concept! I really like it. I will probably have a tendency to look for similarities in the little one I’m carrying between my husband and me. We opted for conceiving first, adoption second, given my age. But I do like the idea of loving and getting to know a child on his or her personality and preferences alone, without any preconceptions about how the child would/could/should be because they carry our genes.

Still, I look forward to shaping an adopted child, and finding that they learn positive things from me and my husband – more of the nurture side than nature side.

Our first adoption informational session

I know… I just had a positive HPT, yet we’re going to adoption informational sessions.  Are we nuts?

No!  After two failed pregnancies, I can’t just sit on my hands. I need to *do* something.  Besides, even if this pregnancy sticks, we’ll likely be adopting our second child anyway. That was always an option. So, the agency whose materials spoke to us the most had an info session last Saturday and we went.

First of all, let me say that there is a world of difference in the materials I have received from various agencies.  Some are so blatantly sensationalist and emotionally manipulative, that it makes me puke. “Imagine you’re young and pregnant. You’re scared, you don’t know where to turn…” Seriously, people? Ease up on the melodrama.  I want the facts. And I am skeptical of your “facts” if you line up all the adoption options and you have 20 items in the disadvantages column for everything but your agency.  How transparent.  I totally understand that the purpose is to sell your services, but don’t do it poorly under the guise of presenting an “objective” approach to evaluating options.

Then there are others whose glossy reprints have scores of happy family photos… except they’re all Caucasian and heterosexual and good-looking. So, what if you don’t look like that? I prefer the reprints with families of all kinds!

And then there are those who obviously didn’t even bother to have their materials proofread. The content uses “it’s” for possessives and says, “Don’t be mislead…” and so many other grammatical and spelling mistakes that it actually distracts from the content. Ugh!

So!  The first agency we decided to check out was one that had been around for a long while, and in their print materials, made it very clear that they do not have any restrictions on race, ethnicity, age, marital status, anything.  On their website, they have an interracial and gay couple holding a little baby.  Now this is an agency that fits my values!

* * * * *

We learned a heck of a lot!  And after recently hearing my good friend’s discouraging stories about how she and her husband were rejected time and again by multiple agencies for various reasons, domestic as well as international, I was ready to give up before we even started. They’re older, she’s Jewish, he’s Christian, there is history of anxiety and depression which is now a non-issue since it was well-managed many years ago… I mean, these people would make wonderful parents, but they’re out of the running for some reason or another.

After this initial info session, however, I’m feeling a little bit better, not so discouraged. We may go to a few more, just to gather as much information as possible.

Adoption is NOT just second-best

My husband and I started trying for a baby on our honeymoon, September 2010.  We wanted a blended family, babies through pregnancy as well as adoption, but with my age already in the mid-30s, trying to conceive first was ideal. We would adopt our second child.

Two failed pregnancies and over a year later, I’m ready to start looking into adoption in earnest.  I really wanted to experience pregnancy and childbirth, but my priority has always been to start a family. Adoption will take a long time; I’m ready to start next month.

In general, the response to my desire to move on to the adoption process has been somewhat negative.  Not negative as in “don’t adopt,” but negative as in “don’t stop trying to conceive yet,” or “don’t adopt yet.” There’s this pervasive notion that adoption is a sad, last-resort option that people should only explore is they have to. (There is an upsetting photo making its viral way around Facebook that has two babies, one laughing and one crying, with the caption, “Dude, I was just joking, you’re not adopted.”  Getting a lot of LOL’s and such.  I hate that!)  My goodness!  Conceiving vs adoption was solely a question of which to do first for me, not which to do at all.

I knew from the very beginning that I would not want to go down the technology route for pregnancy. Taking fertility drugs, batteries of tests, IVF – absolutely not for me.  The emotional toll and general feeling that there’s something “wrong” with me is what I want to avoid. Also – and this is weird for some people to hear from me – who cares?  Who cares why I can’t get beyond the first trimester?  I don’t need to be diagnosed, because I don’t feel as though there is anything wrong with me.  I’m healthy, happy, doing ok financially, and am surrounded by loving family and friends. I like my job, like the people I work with, cook at home 3-4 nights a week, my parents are still around and doing well, I have a wonderful husband… I can’t discount all of that and center dissatisfaction on what isn’t there.

But apparently, other people do.  It enrages me when my talk about adoption is not received with congratulations and excitement but rather sorrow and pity – and even worse – suggestions about what I can and should do to optimize my pregnancy options so maybe I don’t have to “give up.” They are the ever-annoying “Have you tried…” responses.  Ugh!

* * * * *

After my miscarriage last year, I did not ovulate for 6 months.  I went through tests then, and it was terrible! All the tests came back negative – nothing seemed wrong.  Well, what good did that do, except put me into a tizzy? My body re-set itself and came back on its own time.

What would a battery of tests do for me now, except put me back onto an emotional roller coaster, waiting for test results, then interpreting test results, then discussing options… meanwhile, time is ticking on bringing a lovely child into my home to love and care for through adoption!  This is ridiculous.

What if I did go down the path of taking this drug or that, acupuncture, or whatever else they have?  And what if I spent another 6 to 12 months anxiously waiting month after month for a missed period or positive HPT, and it never happens?  What a nightmare! Then what does that say about me, what does that mean?

I would much rather pursue the more positive path.

* * * * *

My husband is concerned that I might regret my decision later, that I will look back and wish I had done one more thing, explored one additional opportunity, or pursued one extra process, before walking away from pregnancy and childbirth.

But I’m not. I’ve always been focused on the family aspect of this journey, not the pregnancy aspect.  Maybe it’s not in the stars for me – I’m ok with that.  I just don’t understand why everyone else is not ok with that!

Revealing adoption status

Link: Relative strangers: More people searching for long-lost family members – Inside Bay Area

This is a timely piece, after my last blog entry.

I’ve often thought about how I would tell any adopted child of mine about their adopted status, and whether I would offer it as part of their identity from the beginning or reveal it later when it felt right.  (But like a lot of things, a right time will likely never reveal itself.)

What if we get a child as an infant?  How do you explain things at 2 years old, 3 years old?  Do you not bother when they’re that young?  I just cringe at the thought of a “great revelation” when they’re at a young school age, or even in their teens – yikes!  Maybe there’s a way to do it over time, first instilling in the child the idea that families happen in lots of different ways, not just babies coming from mommies’ bellies.

I also hear there are children’s books about adoption, which should be helpful.

I think adoption is so beautiful and promising and uplifting.  It’s got its challenges, of course, but I like to think there are more happy endings than not.  And if those adopted people find their blood relatives, what a journey to be on!  I hope I would support my adopted child in that effort 100%.  I like to think I would.