Amused

One of the many indications that my path to motherhood was a very uncommon one: my reproductive endocrinologist (who is an internationally known practitioner and surgeon), calls my cell phone himself and asks me to forward him information about our Indian surrogacy clinic to pass on to a patient. Seriously, who else has has their doctors call them to suggest referrals?

Happy 3rd Birthday, Bee!

Dear Isabella Juliet,

You're 3 today!

You're doing so many cute things lately. You're starting to tell stories that make sense. You can negotiate with us. You're developing a VERY clear sense of your own taste. And Bells, you're obsessed with Disney princesses. (This obsession thing is apparently genetic. I can see so much of myself in you!) You're learning some cute things from the movies, too. Right now, one of your favorite things to say when we tell you we love you is "I love you most" (from Tangled). For the record, it's not true. We love you most. I promise.

I don't know if you will ever care enough about your beginnings to read this blog someday, Bell, but I wanted to make sure some things are clear in case you ever do...particularly in light of many of the struggles I've written about this past year.

Bella, Daddy and I wanted another baby. We'll never try to hide that from you. Our first choice wasn't for you to be an only child--but when we made the decision that we needed to be done trying for more, our primary concern wasn't about us. We worried about you. We wanted another child more for your sake than ours.

I can't tell you how many times we've looked at each other in the last three years and said "Do we really want to risk changing everything ? Life is so great with Bella. Could we ever love another kid as much as we love her?" And the main reason we decided to try and were so disappointed when it didn't work was because we have loved being your parents so much we knew parenting any sibling of yours would be incredible, too.

So as you grow, Bells, I want you to remember something very important: You have always been enough for us. You will always be enough for us. There has never been one second of your life that we wished for a boy (we were hoping for another girl, to be honest. Neither one of us cared about having a son). There has never been a time when we wished you had a different hair color, eye color, height, weight, or personality.You don't have to be perfect, get straight A's, get into a fabulous college, play sports, sing like an angel, draw like Picasso, or write like Shakespeare. All we care about is that you grow up to be a godly woman with a strong character. There is very little you could do to disappoint us, baby girl. Please don't ever feel like you shoulder the weight of two or three kids' worth of expectations. As long as you love the Lord, whoever you turn out to be is fine with us.

So today, Isabella Juliet, on the day you turn three, I want you to know how grateful we are to be your parents. I want you to know how excited we are to watch you grow from the precocious little girl you are into whatever young woman you want to become. It is a privileged to be your mother, baby girl, and I love you so, so much.

Happy Birthday!
Love,
Mama 

Funny Stuff

Ten Funny Things Bella has said/done lately:

1. Bella: "Mommy is my daughter."
2. Bella to Shawn: "Daddy, I love you. You're cute,cute, cute."
3. Bella: "Mommy, your curly hair is fine and your forehead is very little." 
4. Bella handed me a chocolate chip one morning, "So you will be healthy, Mommy." 
5. Bella took one look at my bed-head and said: "You need a hat!"
6. I started singing along to one of her videos and she yelled: "Mommy, stop singing! The TV is singing!"
7. Bella: "Zaira made a mess of my life!"
8. After watching Tangled 5,000 times, I've had to explain that mommies and daughters don't kiss on the lips like Rapunzel and Eugene. Bella is still not completely convinced.
9. A few nights ago, after reading the story of Abraham and Sarah to Bella, who was obviously not paying attention:
   Me: "Who was this story about, Bell?"
   Bella: "God."
   Shawn : "Isn't she a little young to be giving that answer already?"
   Me: "No, Bella, God was in the story, but it was about a person. Who did we read about?"
   Bella: "Jesus."
10. And last night, I heard Bella get up out of her big girl bed, go into the bathroom, and a few minutes later flush the toilet (score!). I kept an ear on what was going on upstairs. I heard her making noise for about another five-ten minutes, then silence. I assumed she'd gone back to bed, which happens some nights (other nights, she makes a bid for freedom). An hour later? We found her asleep on the bath mat, the light still blaring brightly.

The Power of Choice

Well, it's been a few weeks now, and I feel like the worst of my emotional storm has blown over. Not that I've made an instantaneous recovery and am totally at peace, but I'm no longer breaking down in tears every day.

From the beginning (and I'm talking about the very beginning--finding out at 15 that I didn't have a uterus), the worst part of infertility has often been the frustration of feeling powerless. The frustration of being powerless where other people have choices.

When we found out about surrogacy in India, that feeling of powerlessness receded. Finally, I got some choices. I didn't have to wait on friends or family members to be ready to carry our child for us. I didn't have to prove that I would be a good parent to a social worker or an adoption agency. I got to choose when, who, and how. And for the last 3.5 years, that powerlessness has stayed at bay.

Since Dr. Shivani told us that my egg collection hadn't produced good results, that feeling of being without choices returned in full force. And I know that for a long time--possibly the rest of my life--the fact that other people can just get pregnant whenever they want to will bother me.

But I've realized something in the past few weeks: I do have choices.

I don't really like my choices, but I have them. We could try again, but my emotional resilience and lack of desire to constantly be saving $1,500 a month (and the real possibility that we could do it all to end up right back here) don't make it an appealing option. We could  try again with an egg donor, but that would be even more money, and I don't want to do that for some of the same reasons I don't want to adopt. We could adopt, but again, I don't want to. So we've picked the best of the options we've got: remaining a family of three plus dogs.

And I realized something else: I can make choices to make life easier for myself.

I co-run a mom's group at my church. I'm fulfilling my commitment for the year (which ends next month), but I'm not going to do it next year. Instead, I'm doing some behind-the-scenes stuff for them, which enables me to got to meetings when I feel up to it (many of the women there are good friends, some of whom are incredibly sensitive, so I don't want to bow out entirely), but next year I can skip meetings if I don't feel like going. And last week, although I was supposed to be manning the registration desk, I walked away from it when women started talking about trying to convince their husbands to have a fourth child (they didn't know my situation, so this wasn't as insensitive as it seems). I also chose not to let myself feel guilty about walking away.

I don't see myself going to many baby showers in the future. I'm not going to let people tell me I "should be happy for them!" when people announce pregnancies (I'm aiming for getting back to where I was after Bella's birth: indifference). I'm going to come up with some gracious conversation endings for when people inevitably say stupid things to me. If people have the nerve to keep pushing it when I try to end conversations, I may occasionally give myself permission to make them feel as uncomfortable as I can.

The other thing I've realized is that I am going to own the choices I've made--acknowledge that I chose the parts of my life that were under my control--and try to focus on what I have instead of the options that aren't available to me or the choices I didn't make.

During the days that I don't leave my house, this is already pretty easy, because I love my husband, daughter, and four-legged daughter, and there is nothing about my days with them I'd change (well, maybe I'd like Bella's tantrums to instantly disappear). And the more time I spend out in the world at large, I think the better I'll get at blocking out the temptation to envy others. After all, I don't really want their lives...just some of their choices.

I'm Not Asking You to Solve a Problem

To regular readers: I linked this post to my Facebook wall. I don't usually do that. It's really just an attempt to avoid conversations I don't want to have. There really isn't any info in here you don't know, so feel free to skip it if you wish.

For those of you who don't know, we have tried four times in the last year to have another baby. Sadly, it did not work. Three surrogates, two frozen, and two fresh transfers later, Shawn and I decided that we're out of (mainly) emotional and (secondarily) financial resources to try again.

Bella is going to be an only child.

We're sad, of course. This wasn't our desired outcome. Infertility was never our plan, nor were miscarriages and failed surrogacy attempts. We would have liked more children.

We are, however, going to let ourselves be sad for a little while, and then choose to focus on the wonderful blessings God has given us. So many people in our situation would never have been able to have a biological child. We're so grateful for what we have, and we plan to strive for contentment. I (Carrie Jo), am not having a lot of success with this right now, but I know that in time, it will come.

We appreciate that this is a difficult situation to know how to help someone through. Most of you can't begin to imagine what infertility, cross-continental surrogacy attempts, and miscarriages after spending tens of thousands of dollars on the pregnancy attempt feel like. I don't expect you to. I would however, like to help you out by telling you what NOT to say to me:

1. ANY version on the words Well, this was obviously God's will.
   Trust me, knowing that doesn't help. Of course this was God's will. If it wasn't, we'd have gotten pregnant again. Do I believe God's will is best, even if I can't understand it? Of course. Does it help? NO! I don't like God's will right now. I hate it. I'm having long discussions with Him about how much I hate it. Knowing He wants something different than I do for my life only makes me mad at Him, and anyone trying to console me with empty, Sunday school platitudes will only serve to make me mad at them, too. So seriously, don't say this to me--in any of its various forms.
2. Someday, you may be grateful for this.
   Doubt it.
3. You know, so-in-so is going through something similar.
   Um, no, they're not. No one in my day-to-day life was born without a uterus and had to enlist the help of doctors, IVF, and another woman's womb--whether in this country or another--to have a baby. Almost everyone I know who's gone through any sort of infertility has gotten to be pregnant themselves and gotten to have more than one child. Don't compare my situation to anyone else's. I know I'm not the only person in the world with problems (and I know that compared to so many people, my problems are not that bad). But I am the only person you know with these problems. 

And this is where the title of this post comes in. We've thought through, prayed about, and considered many scenarios over the nearly seven years of our marriage. We arrived where we are: a family of three. We don't see this as a problem to solve, and we would appreciate it if you did not treat it this way.

If you're confused by my title and the last paragraph, let me tell you the #1 question I get asked when people talk to me about surrogacy, more children, etc., and the one that I hate hearing the most. It's : "Have you thought about adoption?"

We have thought about it, prayed about it, did tons of research about it, and even met with an adoption agency. Adoption is not for us.

Below are the many reasons why. I am not sharing them because I think adoption isn't wonderful for many families. I'm sharing them because the simple statement "adoption is not for us" doesn't seem to convince many people that we've really thought through it. So, for those wondering about our reasoning, here goes:

1. We prayed long and hard about it. We don't believe it's God's will for our family.
   I could end there, but I won't.
2. We don't have 20-60 thousand dollars. It's rare that adoptions cost less. By the time we saved that much money and found a child to adopt, Bella would probably be at least 8. If we can't have another child in the next 1-3 years, we both consider it pretty pointless as far as meeting our personal family-building, sibling-providing desires.
3. I (Carrie Jo) have a lot of emotional issues that go along with my infertility. I don't want to share the motherhood of my child. Surrogacy meant I had to share the least amount--nine months of pregnancy my child wouldn't remember. Adoption is different. My child would share genes with and emotional ties to other people. Nearly all the research I've read about adoptions stresses how much better it is for a child to have contact with his/her birth family, which means that if we did a domestic adoption, that would mean sharing our child with a birth family. If we adopted overseas, we still might need to take an older child back to look into his/her roots. Emotionally, I know I could do any of these things if I had to for the sake of my child's overall mental health. But I don't want to. Infertility was hard enough. I've dealt with lots of feelings of inadequacy, of jealousy, of bitterness. I don't believe putting myself in a situation where those feelings could resurface and affect a child would be a wise choice.
4. We both worry that we would love Bella more than an adopted child. People assure us we wouldn't, but would you bring a child into your home thinking you might always have an emotional preference toward his/her older sister?
5. Most Christians, particularly, seem to have selective amnesia when it comes to adoption. What they remember are the success stories--or the stories that begin successfully--and forget everything else. The process is a difficult and expensive one. People can wait years to be chosen only to have a birth mother changer her mind and keep her baby. People sometimes get stuck overseas waiting for months for their child's government to finalize paperwork. And while all these things fade to the background when people come home with a baby, sometimes that's just the start of adoptive parents and children's issues. Fast forward to an adopted child's teen years, and adoption isn't always the perfect solution for everyone it seemed to be at the beginning. Most adopted children have some sort of emotional issues knowing that their birth families did not want them. People want to believe that parenting an adopted child is basically the same thing as having your own, but it's different.
6. Lots of people have talked to me about adopting an older child or a child of another race. Tons of studies have proven that the older a child is at the time he/she is adopted, the more likely there will be problems with the adoption placement. Tons of other studies have shown that the best situation for an adoptive child is to be placed in a home with adoptive parents who share his/her race. There are many people out there who are ready and willing to deal with the problems those situations entail. I'm not. 

I know that many people have listened to me say these things or will read the list above and think I am a terrible person. Honestly, I don't care. I see myself as a responsible person--someone who looked at both of the options available to me, prayed, researched, talked, thought, prayed some more, and arrived at the inner certainty that I am not the right person to be an adoptive parent, because adoption would have been all about meeting my needs (or, at this point, the perceived need that Bella has to have a sibling) and not the needs of the child coming into our home.

I admire many adoptive families. I admire the bravery of adoptive parents who can set aside their own emotional identity struggles that came along with their infertility and be emotionally open to sharing the parenthood of their children with other people. I just can't be one of them, and I am so incredibly tired of other people telling me I should be.

So, for those of you who know us is real life, feel free to pray for us as we get over our disappointment. Feel free to invite us over for play dates with your kids. Feel free to ask me whatever you'd like to about our surrogacy experiences. Just please believe me when I say I don't need help thinking through other options. I promise I've already thought about them.

And please bear with me in the next several months/years. I can't get excited about other people's pregnancy announcements. It hurts to hear that other people get so easily what I want and can't have. My struggles with jealousy and sadness don't mean that I don't love you or won't ever want to be around your children. Try to keep in mind that there's a whole world of people out there who will be thrilled for your news and put up with you complaining about morning sickness/tiredness/difficulty losing baby weight, etc. That person just won't be me.

End of the Line

We chose not to blog about this up until now, but we were in Delhi* at the end of February through the beginning of March, undergoing our last surrogacy attempt.

*For those wondering, we switched clinics for our last attempt for two simple reasons, neither of which have anything to do with dissatisfaction with SI. The first was that we wanted to give our last try the best shot we could, and SCI allows clients to use two surrogates. The second was all the wonderful things we have read about Dr. Shivani and SCI on all of your surrogacy blogs. What we read was all true. We had a wonderful working relationship with SCI and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.*

Things started well. Up until the day of my egg retrieval, scans and blood work looked good. But although I had 14 follicles, they only got 11 eggs, and only 8 were mature. Dr. Shivani told me that the embryologist said they were "average" quality. As soon as I heard the word "average", my hopes started plummeting.

7 eggs fertilized, but by the end of day 2, we didn't have any grade 1 embryos. 2 were grade 2, the rest were grade 3. We had hoped to do a blast transfer; that was immediately out of the question. We transferred the grade 2 embryos, one into each surrogate, and planned to do a secondary transfer if, by some miracle, any of the grade 3 embryos survived. They didn't. (We chose not to transfer all of them because any possibility of a selective reduction was out of the question for us, even if the possibility was incredibly remote).

I spent our last few days in Delhi horribly ill, and found out only on the day we left that I was having terrible side effects to the antibiotic Dr. S had prescribed after EPU. Shawn and I both thought I was going into hyper-stimulation. Thankfully, that wasn't the case, and Dr. S prescribed anti-nausea meds that got me home without vomiting on the plane or in customs (bless her!), and we settled into a very discouraging 2WW.

We got the news Monday morning. No pregnancy. 

This news (from EPU day til now) has been almost as difficult as my initial fertility diagnosis 15 years ago. Mainly because I knew this was our last shot, and because I had optimistically expected much better results. I'm only 30. My egg quality shouldn't be tanking yet. Even Dr. Shivani told us (both in two different emails and in person) that she is mystified by my results. There is no reason she knows of why this happened--why our last shot wasn't the go-for-broke, good-quality blast transfer we expected and hoped for.

I'm emotionally wrecked right now. Part of me wants to change my mind and try again, but most of me knows we decided this was it for a reason. We've spent $60,000. We don't have money to try again, or any realistic hope that my ovarian response would be better if we gave it another shot. It would probably be grasping at straws while we wasted emotional and financial resources...the latter of which we don't have.

But I wanted another child. I still do. It's hard to go into Bella's room and know that no one else will sleep in her crib, that all the baby things in the basement aren't ever going to be needed again. I'm grieved Bella won't ever have a sibling to fight with, compete with, and love like crazy. I'm worried that she'll wish her life was different.

I'm ready to lock my front door and become a hermit when I think about the next 10 years. 10 years in which I am going to have to watch all the women around me continue to have babies and expect me to be excited about it for them. 10 years in which I have to answer nosy questions over and over again about the fact that we're done having children and that yes, we have considered adoption and no, we don't want to adopt. 10 years in which I have to figure out how to accept what is and not become bitter about it.

There is a rational part of me under all this grief that knows beyond any doubt that I have a wonderful life, and that I won't continue to be this sad once the first wave of this grief passes. I know what a long list of things I have to thank God for:

• I have Bella, and got to go through all of this last year with 3 failed attempts and a miscarriage already a  mom. So many of you have had to go through just as much or more without that comfort.
• I have Shawn, who might be the best husband ever to breathe. 
• I have a wonderful, supportive family.
• Zaira (our dog) was diagnosed with a congenital kidney condition when she was a year old. The vet gave her a year, maybe 2, to live. She'll turn 5 in June, and none of the vets in our practice can explain how it is that she's as healthy today as she was on the day of her diagnosis--not showing a single sign of kidney failure other than her blood work, which reports that she is at the very beginning stages, the same as she was at 12 months old. I know that her life is a gift--one that has helped me through some of the hardest years of my life.

I could go on, because that only scratches the surface of all the many wonderful blessings I have, but I have to admit, I don't really want to be thankful right now.

I want to rail at God. To say ridiculous things like I deserve another child, or that He owes it to me not to let every single freaking woman I know get pregnant in the next year (because I know they all will), or--at the very least--to keep people for saying incredibly stupid things to me while I'm sad. 

I'm not saying any of those things. I'm not really speaking to Him much right now...although I know my temper tantrum is futile and won't last long. Because I know God has every right to tell me "no",  and that I don't deserve anything. I'm just not ready to accept His will and move forward yet. 

I want to thank all of you reading this for letting me vent...and for sharing my grief. I know many of you that I've never met understand my sorrow in ways my real life friends cannot. I'm grateful to have you to share this burden.

And although I've got swollen eyes and a heavy heart, I'm grateful as I hit "publish" to hear Bella calling "Mommy" through the monitor. I have never, nor will I ever, take for granted how incredibly lucky I am to have someone who calls me "mommy."

Just to Brighten your Tuesday...

Bella (as I walk into her room this morning with a tissue in my hand): "You have boogers in your nose."
Me: "Yes, I do."
Bella: "I put my boogers in my mouth."