Vitamin D and adoption are unrelated topics

I continue to sit at work with not much to do. Today, I have scoured etsy for last minute Christmas gifts, I have written emails to friends with whom I have not been in touch in a long time, and I have tried to read a very dry, but very relevant (but very dry) book on Learning Disabilities. I am struck by the contrast from my last job where 11-12 hours each day wasn't enough to get my work done. It's funny how it's so uncomfortable to have things out of balance, in either direction. I suspect I will be very  busy again before I know it.

So, while I have some time to spare, dear reader, let me entertain you with thoughts on disparate topics.

1) Vitamin D: If you have not come across Jay's blog at Stork Stalking, I strongly encourage you to check it out. Through reading her blogs and generous comments on my blog and others' blogs, I have come to appreciate the relevance of vitamin D in health related matters, not the least of which infertility. For a thorough explanation of the impact of vitamin D deficiency in infertility, start with her tab on the science of infertility and continue on by searching for through the vitamin D label. Jay has such a great ability to make complex scientific information accessible, and I feel very grateful for how willing she is to share her knowledge.
After reading some of the info on vitamin D deficiency, I started to supplement with 2000 iu per day. I thought it couldn't hurt. After about 2 months of this, and after my trip to Cuba in the sun, I visited my family doctor and asked her for labs, including vitamin D. Since I have osteopenia, she was all for it and sent me off to get this tested, along with the usual suspects (tsh, CBC, glucose, iron). The only thing that came up as low was, you guessed it, my vitamin D levels. I was advised to supplement with 1000 to 2000 iu per day, but I sometimes go up to 3000. And perhaps I should go higher. I have to say that I am hoping to improve my chances for the next round of treatments by making sure my D is in the happy zone.

2) Adoption: I have not given many updates on our adoption process here, so I thought I'd update you now. We did finish our home study in November and our social worker Gretchen said she would have the report done in January. We did the adoptive parent training intensive back in Sept/Oct. We are technically at the point of being a "family in waiting". Except that I have not signed us up with the agency or any licensee as of yet. I thought about doing that when Gretchen suggested we call up the agency and put our names on the list, but I think it's the wrong time right now. On one hand, I would like to put all our sticks in the fire and just see what happens. But on the other hand, it would mean that if the agency wanted to present us to birth parents, we would have to say no because we are in active treatment. And I think that knowing there are birth parents who could potentially chose us would really mess with my mind. Especially if the subsequent round of DE IVF failed. As awful as it is, I experience regret and guilt often in my life and I would find a way to regret and feel guilty for the fact that we said no to being presented. Can you see the mindfuck implications?

I still experience a conflict inside about the adoption versus the treatment route. I am and have always been very open about adoption as an option for creating our family. And I am and always have been wanting/hoping/praying to be pregnant one day.  

There is a very disentitled part of me that doesn't entirely believe we deserve the gift of pursuing treatment at a US clinic. Fortunately, there is another part of me that knows to take the gift simply because it is being presented to us, and to just be thankful. The disentitled part of me says that I should just accept my medical condition and stop trying to have science perform miracles by making me pregnant. (I know, that's quite a statement to make to a group of infertiles, but that's me, ready to shock at any hour). Move on and...wait for it... just adopt (you know I'm being sarcastic here). I realize that this makes adoption sound like the consolation prize, but that is not my point. My point is that there are babies being born from women who can conceive but cannot parent, and that I can parent but cannot conceive, so I should maybe focus on trying to parent such a baby, instead of insisting on defying the odds through a medical intervention.

But then, the 'what ifs' start bubbling up. I got pregnant last time, what if I were to get pregnant again? What if this time, I didn't have a miscarriage? What if by some miracle, I got the baby to term and we had a child through DE? Well, that would be swell (note the apt use of a euphemism).

And what is the advantage of DE over adoption for us? Well, we're not too concerned about whose genes reside in our child. Of course, we would like to avoid things like Huntington's or other such awful genetic diseases, but frankly, it doesn't make a huge difference for Mr. A or I to have our child share his genes or not. Not at this point in our journey. I know that might sound discrepant from your experiences, but that's where we are at. If the door to using your OE slams in your face, you orient towards other options. We want to be parents; that is our main priority. Then it should not make that big of a difference whether we focus on adoption or DE. The difference for me is that the pregnancy itself is a very important part. I want to be pregnant. I have had numerous dreams of being pregnant, I've always believed I would be pregnant and if there is any possibility that it will happen, I feel like I have to pursue it. I don't think it's better than adoption, I think it's just that all things being equal, I would prefer to start with our child from the very beginning.

And I know the pregnancy may never happen again. The 12 weeks we had last spring may be it. But it feels like I have to give it a good try. It doesn't put adoption off the table for us. We are thinking that a second child would come to us through adoption and it is something we both want.

I worry about this post and whether I've offended anyone in talking about where I'm at with all this. Please know that this was not intended to offend. It's just me working through all of my thoughts in writing. I think it's very tricky to straddle the ART and adoption worlds. People tend to be in one camp or the other (or one camp after the other might be more accurate). Yet, some of you straddle the two beautifully. I'm not there yet. I'm in the messy phase of sorting it all out.

unfoldings

And I'm not talking about my winter sweaters, although those are frequently unfolding as well these days. We had a very short mini blizzard today, much to my delight. I am one of those silly Canadians who actually loves snow. Winter is on its way. Hello, cross country skiing.

There has been some progression since our return from vacation, both on the adoption front and on the fertility treatment front. We have actually completed our home study at this point. Our lovely social worker Gretchen has been to our house twice since our trip and we were able to wrap things up this week. It's just as nerve wracking as some of you have described in your posts to have the adoption counselor come over to the house. It was 2 days after returning from Cuba, and one day after starting my new job. I was frantic, but also reached a point where I had to let it go because there were too many balls in the air at the same time. The house was clean enough.  She noted a few things we need to take care of before a child can come into our home like cover the outlets, deal with the blind cords, secure some of the bookcases to the wall, but otherwise, she didn't write us off on the basis of an unkempt domicile. We like Gretchen very much and feel like we are in good hands with her. The next steps in the adoption process, given that we've completed the home study and done the parent training is to register with the private agency we have chosen, as well as some licensees in the region. We are not quite ready to do that yet, given what is happening on the other front.

Mr. A was anxious about having kids for a while in the fall, but he assured me that this anxiety didn't mean he wanted to call the whole thing off. He was in a slump, something I can relate to since I have found myself in various depths of slumps at different points in my life, and with offending frequency in the last 3 years. I can't say that at the time I was completely reassured. Maybe because I am still in slump territory myself, maybe because it's hard to trust that good things will ever happen, or maybe because that doesn't negate all the work we still have to put in to hope to become parents, but, you know, I didn't jump for joy when he said that. I just took it in quietly and thought "ok, then we'll work on our options."

The funding was a big issue for us, since it is not the kind of money we can tackle ourselves at the moment. Parents on both side have the means to help, but it was a question of stepping on our pride and asking them. On either side, we are the significant hope for bringing grandchildren into the family, as I am an only child and Mr. A has only one sibling who looks like he may not procreate. So, the answer was how much do you need and when do you need it by. That was a relief, a blessing. We have been in touch with the DC practice and even had a phone consult with the doctor on Tuesday morning. We are in the process of booking a time to go down for our one-day visit to the clinic for early January.

There is so much more to write here, but the clock has struck the 12 strokes of mid...(well, it's actually 9:40pm) and I am about to turn into a pumpkin.

Sending warm congrats to Roccie who has just welcomed little baby Jay.

adoption chronicles

 After our first consultation with the adoption counselor in July, I felt a great deal of anxiety about the expectation that couples should have resolved  their infertility before embarking on the adoption journey. Resolved. What. It doesn't even look like giving birth to a real life baby resolves it at all, how could NOT having a baby and starting the process of adoption bring you any closer? It seemed to be one more thing I could be angry and indignant about. How could the world conspire to prevent us from being parents?

I knew about this. We talked about adoption with the psychologist at our clinic, and he was clear in stating that adoption agencies sure don't like it when couples come to them like they are backed into a corner. This was another thing that made me nervous about starting the adoption process this summer, so soon after the miscarriage, and in such rough shape emotionally.

But the alternative to not starting the adoption process was killing me. Waiting around for the effing biopsy, and mulling over the same donor egg vs donor embryo question over and over again, bombarded with doubts about my biologic capacity to grow a baby inside my uterus, all felt like a passive way of wasting time. And yes,  I know it isn't passive to grieve. BELIEVE me, all that crying and raging, and insulting people in two different languages when I am driving in my car for no reason at all is very active. But active grief does nothing to get you a baby.

We started our home study on Friday, after filling out the mound of paper work and the police clearances and the medicals, et cetera. I get myself fingerprinted tomorrow. The parent training starts this weekend. It's a little funny that the child psychologist has to go hear about attachment for 2 entire weekends, but there are no exemptions: the training is mandatory.

When we met with our social worker/adoption counselor - let's call her Gretchen, shall we - she asked us to talk about our relationship, as well as our struggles with infertility. Like probably 90% of her clients do, I explained that our experiences have been very painful and have challenged our relationship.  We said we were at the point where we needed to diversify our efforts to include adoption. And then a couple of things surprised me. First, I didn't start bawling, which I am prone to do these days every time I have to utter the words infertility and miscarriage. Second, Gretchen shared that the philosophy had changed quite a bit within the adoption world and that she felt it made a lot of sense to start the adoption process even if fertility treatments were still a possibility. It's not that I expected her to say that it was prohibited to do both, but just that we would be considered as too fragile, too eager, not ready enough. She actually praised us for our efforts to go about our process in a systematic way, understanding that time is such an enormous variable.

Was it her praise I was looking for? Not really. I just wanted us to be considered, to be accepted as a couple in waiting.  I just don't want another door to slam shut in our face. We have so few doors left.

Anyway, I can't say that what I am feeling is hope. That would be overstating things by three football fields. I am just putting one foot in front of the other.

Pissing in the ocean: our latest steps to babymaking

I started a mega pumped up cycle last weekend. Those descriptors are to characterize the amount of estrogen I am taking, and certainly not how my spirits feel about it. There won't be an IVF or any other attempts at pregnancy during this cycle, but instead an endometrial biopsy on labor day weekend. Something to look forward to, indeed.

Dr. RE put me on 8mgs of est.race (which includes a nightly vaginal dose resulting in bright green discharge the next day. fun). I am also on an estrogen patch (oes.clim). I change the patch every 3 days and I feel a bit dizzy on the first day of the new application. I wonder if he shouldn't have also prescribed estrogen eye drops, an estrogen nose spray and estrogen bath salts, just to make sure we had all the routes of entry covered.

What's the point of all this? Dr. RE wants to look at the cells of my endometrium to see if they look normal and to rule out serious lining issues before we try another expensive, time consuming, emotionally draining and third-party involving method of having a baby.

Like all of you, I am a very good patient. I am a doctor's dream. I am compliant; I ask good questions, but not too many; I don't pester the clinic; I understand directions readily and follow them to the letter; I avoid investing my medical team with powers they do not possess; I am polite and friendly. This buys you squat in the babymaking department. But this is the mode I find myself in right now. I'm not questioning it and not thinking about it beyond the immediate pill-taking and patch-sticking. I am apprehensive about the biopsy. I had a cervical biopsy many years ago and it hurt like hell.

A negative outcome of the endometrial biopsy is the end of road in terms of ever trying to have a baby through pregnancy. Thus, the end of the road might be near. There is also the other outcome: an inconclusive one, an outcome where we go ahead and contemplate another donor egg or donor embryo cycle, knowing all too well that the chances of success are far from favourable.

This is what led us to get on with the adoption process right away. We had a consultation with an adoption counselor in July and discussed our options. We already knew that our preference was for private domestic adoption, but the consultation confirmed it. We heard hard things during the consult: only about 80 newborns a year get placed with adoptive families in this province through domestic adoption. The average time it takes for couples to be chosen is 2 years. I would have liked to know the standard deviation, but I didn't want to appear like too much of a geek. I might have also been afraid of the answer. Mr. A with his deep well of optimism thinks that we will be chosen right away because we are so awesome. Ha! I'm not so sure about that, but it's nice that one of us is optimistic. 

I realize that efforts made towards having a baby are not in vain, but it just fucking feels like they are. Still, I worked on a farm for long enough to know that if you don't plant any seeds, you will not get any lettuce or tomatoes. So these seeds need to be planted, no matter how crummy my spirits feel these days. 

adopting

I sit in my little study in our new place (we are renting this sweet little red brick house, did I mention?) with a cat on my lap. Yes, we adopted a cat. The truth is that this is the cat's house and she is letting us live here. She's been here since 3 owners ago and so the house is more hers than ours. She arrived yesterday, having been housed with someone else for the time of transition, and now she has returned.

Her name is Tibbs.

She seems a little discombobulated, a little out of sorts. She looks around, walks a step, stops, and meows. She looks at us as if to say "who are you and what are you doing here?" But we feed her and pet her, and she seems to like that. She also appears to seek the warmth of a human body, ergo her current position on my lap. Tibbs is a very fluffy cat, but when you get down to it, she's really bony.

I listened to a CBC piece on 'C'est la vie' about a couple that adopted in Haiti. They got their son in November, 2 months before the earthquake. It took 42 months for them to get him. They talked about their heartache and it made me cry. It made me think that I can't yet choose adoption because there are so many heartaches to be gotten through when embarking on the process. I'm not ready for more heartaches yet. Yet.