Grateful

I'm still ridiculously slow on the posts, but trying to get better, I swear! This is going to be super-short, because I'm at work, but I know if I wait until I have "enough time" it'll never happen.

I am just feeling overwhelmed today with gratitude for all of the wonderful people who've supported me through this journey. Many of you are reading - you know who you are. There are also many who don't (and won't, for anonymity reasons) ever actually read this post. But to all of you, I say thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you to those who posted and emailed to congratulate me for finally coming together with H. Thank you to those who cared, whether you posted or not. Thank you to all the wonderful, generous women - single and not, gay and straight, every race, every socioeconomic background - who have given me fertility supplies, baby gear, adorable clothes, and the incredible gift of their time. Not to mention encouragement, sympathy and just plain friendship.

I could absolutely not have done this without you. You are my child's village. And mine.

Love you all,
Princess

P.S. Many of you have asked for photos of H - for privacy reasons I can only offer pics taken from behind or otherwise unidentifiable. I'm still working on getting some of those, and I promise I will post them asap!

*hangs head in shame*

Yes, in fact, it has been six months (and nine days) since I posted. And whoa, what a six months (and nine days) it's been. Every time I thought to post, I just couldn't possibly imagine how I could summarize what's happened, so I just - well, didn't.

But just in case anyone is still checking in (I long ago stopped checking statcounter, sorry), here's the update.

I'm a mom. My son is 4 months old. I finally got a giant cosmic karmic payback in the form of a "stork drop" - adoption with about 1.5 weeks notice - in April 2010.

I'm ecstatic, exhausted, anxious, fulfilled, complete, panicked, overwhelmed, resentful, joyous and in awe. Plus a bunch of other stuff, all at the same time. It hasn't been a cake walk - we're still dealing with all kinds of weird GI issues that make both his and my life an uphill climb - but I am grateful for every single day.

I haven't decided yet whether to change the title of my blog, or just keep on going - after all, I *still* have "no yolk" - but thought I owed it to all of you to at least post an update.

So. My apologies for the long silence. I know many of you have moved into new phases of your lives (of various types) and I'm thrilled to hear about all of it.

Wishing you all hugs, kisses, and a long road that turns out to be paved with gold.



H, incognito in his Baby Banz

The Secret Strikes Again (warning - sarcasm mentioned)

This time it seems to have claimed the founder of the AFA and the current "Patient Education Director" of East Coast Fertility.

http://www.thefertilityadvocate.com/wpblog/?p=2694

**flashback** I am sitting on the sofa. Drinking red wine. Very tipsy. The meditation CDs are in my bedside drawer. Tiny red lanterns on each side of the headboard. A picture of a baby in a metal frame in my child corner, along with a onesie and a figurine of an elephant with its trunk facing downward. I am playing the DVD of The Secret for the umpteenth time because I am about to start my (da-DUM) second IVF cycle. I sip my wine and begin to weep as I watch, because "Ah know, like Ah know, like Ah KNOW" this time it's going to work.

WTF ever.

I've had a lot of amazing things happen to me in my life because I believed they were possible. They also all happened to be in my control, unlike the genetic makeup of the few eggs remaining in my aging ovaries.

This shite works for people who have never really had to face anything truly, deeply disappointing. They need a little mental feel-good to keep themselves going until it works out, because it will, because they are in the vast majority of people for whom it will work eventually if they just tough it out long enough.

My therapist said to me the other day that only true grown-ups can admit that sometimes you just aren't going to get what you want. We pretty much agreed that we live in an entire world of children.

Thing is, children have their own internal logic. Kind of like when I was seven and fought tooth and nail with a classmate who told me there was no Santa Claus. He said he'd *seen* his parents filling the stockings. I told him that was because his parents knew he'd been bad and wasn't going to get anything from Santa, so they felt sorry for him and filled it themselves. I was absolutely POSITIVE I was right. You just can't argue with these people.

Incidentally, here's the actual definition of "magical thinking" (referenced in the title of her post), courtesy of NYU/Langone Medical Center's "Mental Health Dictionary":

Belief that thinking equates with doing. Occurs in dreams of children or primitive people. Characterized by lack of reasonable relationship between cause and effect.

Meant To Be

OK, I have to spend a few words on this little gem, which periodically comes round and smacks me in the face.

People, please grow up. This makes no sense. Just because you discover you are happy with a result you didn't plan, or thought you didn't want, doesn't mean it was "meant to be." It simply means you've come to terms with whatever happened and found the things that make where you are now, good.

If it is "God's plan" that I not have a biological child, wouldn't it be better to give me some unambiguous condition - like being born without a uterus - rather than put me through the hell of trying, trying, failing, trying, losing, losing, trying, losing, trying, failing, failing, and ultimately having to make Sophie's Choice?

If it is "meant to be" that I raise a particular child, isn't there a better way to bring us together than by putting me through infertility and loss, putting a birthmother through the most painful decision a woman can ever make, and putting the child through a lifelong struggle with identity and grief?

If bad things happen "for a reason," um, what IS that reason? What is the reason for my twins being sick? What is the reason for my friend's baby to die in her womb at 29 weeks? What is the reason for another friend being so violently raped at age 12 that she can never bear children? Seriously, what is it?

"Meant to be" is a copout. Pure and simple. We most certainly can - and do - find meaning in our lives in the wake of horrible tragedy, or love a life that doesn't look like we thought it would. But that doesn't mean some sadistic consciousness planned it that way.

The way I see it, there are pretty much four possibilities:

1. There is a God, and all these things happen specifically according to His plan. This would mean God is (to quote a friend) fucked up.
   
   
2. There is a God, all these things are caused by Satan, and God allows them because to stop them would mean intervening in Creation, which would entirely negate our ability to have free will. This would mean that praying is pointless, and also that there is no such thing as miracles, since God doesn't intervene one way or another.
   


3. It's all B.S. There's no God, no ultimate truth, and really no reason to bother being ethical because all we have is this life and then we die. This would mean ethics are pointless, and hedonism is surely the way to go.
   


4. There is a Universal Truth, a unity of matter and spirit, that is worthy of awe. However, this Truth is not a "god" and did not consciously create us, nor does it control or interfere with the Universe in any way. This would mean we can build meaningful, ethical lives through the choices we make, regardless of whatever chance events - good or bad - happen to us.

Of these, I think only #2 and #4 make any sense. And personally, I vote for #4.

Lonely Day

I don't think weekends are good for me.

It wasn't a bad day, really. I went out in the frigid cold on a dogged reconnaissance mission, to identify the source of the black smoke that's been wafting past my windows for the last week. It wasn't easy, but after about half an hour, with the help of my cell phone camera and Google Maps, I finally got the address of the building and made a complaint to the city EPA. I also got on the bus to the Bronx and went to the new mall (first time on the bus, though not to the mall), and found a new quilt exactly like I've been looking for (solid ivory, with stitching in a geometric pattern), at Marshall's, for only $30. And I talked to my goddaughter on the phone for the first time (she's two, and lives in England), and she counted to ten for me. She left out five, but what the hell, she's two. It put a smile on my face for the whole day.

However, with the exception of that one phone call and talking to the EPA, I don't think I said a word to another human being all day.

Plus my eyes hurt and my throat tastes like a swimming pool, which is generally the first sign of a nasty cold on the way.

Plus I've just spent the past four hours watching The Office on DVD. Which, though hysterically funny, is also close enough to truth to be a little depressing.

I'm actually really looking forward to going to work on Monday. This is how small my life has become. I know it's up to me to start enlarging it again, but I don't seem to be doing such a great job just yet.

Little by little by little. Sigh.

Knight to Queen's Bishop Three

So. Yesterday was a very bad day. But today I discovered that my latest corporate chess move turned out even better than I had hoped. I started to describe it here but realized that might not be so wise. Suffice it to say that some pretty high-level people now know my name, know I was dissed, and know that some other pretty high-level people aren't happy about it.

As I always say, don't fuck with a Scorpio. It's generally a very bad idea.

Also sent the $100 to the clinic and should be on the embryo donation waiting list any day now.

Mulling my next move, on each board. Queen to Queen's Bishop One? Or is that too risky?

Back to Work

Well, 2010 is about to begin in earnest. I head back to work tomorrow after being gone for - geez, I don't even know how long. I'm feeling a little - OK, a lot - nervous about the whole corporate chess thing. I have to meet my potential new client, decide if I even want a new client, decide how to get myself connected to the right people in the right ways, all while doing a job I don't really feel very confident about. I mean, I'm a good designer. But in order to advance you have to move on from designing into managing - time, people, etc. - and that's not something I enjoy or am particularly good at.

It's back to work on the adoption front, too. The home study is done, just waiting for the notarized copy to arrive to call myself truly paper pregnant. But my agency hasn't sent me a situation since the beginning of October, and all my networking efforts have turned up zilch so far (even the hits to my website are just from friends). So I'm despairing of ever finding a match. Thinking of running some Facebook ads, which I can target by state and age. But the waiting seems freaking endless.

I actually emailed the clinic with the donor embryo program tonight, just to find out how hard it would be to get back on their waiting list. It's totally anonymous donation, which is why I passed on that option initially. The reality now, though, is that I'd accept a closed adoption, so a closed donation really isn't much different, plus I'd be able to control the prenatal care. I guess the difference is that I'd be *deliberately* bringing a child into the world, knowing they would be deprived of their genetic heritage. It'd be a lot easier to explain to my pro-life relatives, though - I could just say I'm "adopting" an embryo, and leave it at that.

In all honesty I'm feeling pretty down and tired out at the moment. I can't believe how difficult this journey has been, or that is isn't even close to over yet. Here I sit, 43 and still struggling with the same shit - food, relationships, depression, work apathy, blah, blah - and no closer to being a mom than I was at 38. Trying really hard to think of it as the journey of life, but I sure wish there'd be some real progress somewhere, instead of this everlasting slog.