Adoption

I saw this article about this mother and daughter running an adoption scam over at Cecily's blog. This article really upset me, especially when I read the caption under the judge's picture saying he was reading an emotional letter written by one of the couples who were victims of these two women. I can only imagine what these couples are going through. To have your hopes up, and then to have them shattered like that. How can people be so cold? I never can understand why God allows such people to have children, but not those who would be wonderful parents and who treat people the way they would want to be treated.

I know what it feels like to want a child so badly that it hurts - that your body aches for a child. Having something like this happen has got to be devastating. Much like having your hopes up that an IUI will work or the Clomid will work, I suppose. I hope I don't have to go through the adoption process. I hope that God will bless my husband and I with our own child and we don't have to go through the adoption process - hearing stories like this scares me.

Personality

I have always been the shy girl, of which some have mistaken for being a snob. I have always felt inferior to other people - for reasons such as looks, intellect, wealth, and lately, because I can't seem to get pregnant. Yesterday, I went to a friend's birthday party and for some reason or another, I just felt like I wasn't part of the "cool" group - the group that everyone wants to hang around.

I don't want to feel this way. Perhaps, if I do go see a counselor, it might help with these feelings. Perhaps, I need to work on this before God allows me to be a mother. I wish that I wasn't born like this - I wish I wasn't a shy person. I wish I didn't feel inferior to others and feel left out. I want to feel like I belong somewhere. I want to feel liked. I want to feel like people actually want to hang out with me and not hang out with me because they feel like they have to. I want to feel like I'm actually living, and not just going with the flow. I want to be a happy person.

Books & Infertility

I'm reading this book called The Time Traveler's Wife

Read more at your own risk... as I spoil part of the book...


In it, I came across a section I wasn't expecting. The couple are having trouble with having children. They become pregnant, but keep having miscarriages. Eventually, they become pregnant and carry the child to term. The part that the wife describes how she feels and how her husband feels at what his wife is feeling hit so close to home. I'd say that's exactly how I'm feeling - such loss, such anger, such grief - and I've never even become pregnant. Her husband reacts in a way that's different from my husband, but I can imagine that he might feel the same way at points in his frustration in not being able to make things better that for the husband in the book turns to anger at his wife - not because she can't keep a pregnancy - but because he wants his wife to give up. He seems to understand why she can't, but he wishes that she could.

How can you ask someone to give up on something that they've waited so long for? It's just not going to happen easily - or ever. A part of me is missing - I feel empty inside - do they who say this really want me to go through life like this? Would they like that for themselves? Do people who tell me to relax think that it's really helping to tell me this? I can't stand to hear those words anymore. I sometimes wish that I was a woman who had no desire to be a mother - to be pregnant - to give birth to a baby. That way, I wouldn't have to feel such grief, such loss, such bitterness, such anger. I saw myself in the character in this book - I only hope that I will finally have a child like the character in the book. I will treasure my child so much knowing all that I've been through to have him or her...but I think I've waited long enough. It's time for you to come, my sweet darling child. I'm ready for you. We're ready for you. Please, PLEASE, come soon. I want to finally meet you. I hope to see you soon.

Talking About Everything

A couple of my coworkers suggested I try talking to someone about my feelings about getting pregnant, about feeling like a loser most of the time, and other thoughts. I think it's a great idea, and I'll probably do so. It just gets hard sometimes to talk to my friends - I feel like I can't share things with them like I would think friendships are there for. My group of friends are just not that way - they don't really share their feelings. Plus, I'm not sure how much they want to hear if someone did share their feelings. So talking to a counselor who is actually there to listen to you might not be a bad idea. I've been thinking about going to talk to someone for years - because ever since I can remember, I've always felt left out - like I was missing something that others have - looks, personality, the ability to conceive children, for example.

So we'll see if I end up going to see someone. My coworkers think that the service for employees of my company are free, but they weren't sure. It might be worth it.

A Normal Woman

A normal woman would be able to get pregnant within the first year of trying, be able to hold a pregnancy, and then have a healthy baby. Not me. I'm not normal - I think there is something more going on than what my doctors have been able to find. Because if my left tube is working,then why aren't I pregnant? It's been over 3 years now - 3 years 3 months to be exact.

While I was down in our cafeteria getting my lunch, I saw this woman who is pregnant. I know - so what's new - but this is her 2nd child. She was JUST pregnant and she's pregnant again! Hello universe, how about you let people who want children and don't have children get to have their first child before you start letting people have their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 12th, whatever. I'm not a bad human being. I am an honest person. I will be a good mother. I don't understand why I just can't be normal and get pregnant with no problems and have a healthy baby 9 months later.

Adoption

The other day I found myself looking at an adoption center website that I got to through an infertility website (I can't remember which one). Before I went to the site, I thought adoption would be fine, but actually looking at the site and requesting information scared me to death. By considering adoption, am I giving up trying to get pregnant myself? I'm not ready to give that up yet. I'm not sure I'll ever be. But part of me thinks that I should look into adoption now because it can take so long and because I'll need to save up for it. And because I'm not getting any younger. I don't want to be in my 40s when I have my first child. I really didn't want to be in my 30s either.

How is it that I'm the only one in my family who is having trouble getting pregnant? Is it because I started trying when I was 28 instead of age 18 like a lot of people in my family, with the exception of, I think, one aunt who had her first child at 26 or 27. It's depressing.

Anyway, the thought of adoption scares me. I want to be pregnant. I want to have a child with my husband that is our own. What if "they" don't think I'll be a good mother and "they" won't let me adopt a child? And all that's involved with adopting a child. Not only all the paperwork and the home visits, but the fact that one day you'll have to tell your child that he/she is adopted. That scares me for many different reasons that I can't quite articulate. I just wish things were easier. I just wish that I was normal and that I could get pregnant (more on this later).

Crappy Day

Friday was just a crappy day for me. I just felt completely depressed. I felt like things weren't going the way that I always thought they would. I was supposed to be a mom by now of at least one child, if not two. And after being at work all day, I went to a knitting class to learn to knit for the first time, and I completely suck at it. I just wanted to go home and stay at home all weekend.

It's probably a good thing that I didn't write this post when I originally wanted to - on Friday - it would be completely depressing. Today, I'm feeling o.k. - though a coworker of mine told me today that her niece, who has been trying to get pregnant for the past 6 years, is finally pregnant. That's great for her - I can only imagine how that must feel - to be finally pregnant after all that time of trying. I hope to have that feeling someday - hopefully, sooner, rather than later.

Tomorrow, I go to my normal OB/GYN for my annual exam. I want to ask her if she thinks that realistically, I'll ever become pregnant or if I'm just kidding myself. We'll see.

Another day

I didn't get much sleep last night. The cramps were horrible and woke me up around 3 in the morning, then one of my kitties decided he needed love at 5 in the morning (he is such a sweet kittie), then I had to get up at 6 to come to work. I feel exhausted and it's not Friday yet!

I'm really trying hard to concentrate on anything other than the fact that I'm not pregnant, but that's always difficult (why is it that my coworker who's about to give birth always seems to come by when I'm writing on my blog about not being pregnant. Strange.)

I'm honesty tired of trying to get pregnant - I don't want to try anymore. I just need it to happen. I can't keep going through this emotional rollercoaster each and every month until I'm just too old to have kids. I can't keep acting so happy at work and with my friends, while inside I am so depressed from trying to get pregnant. I keep trying to tell myself that maybe I'm not meant to have kids, and I become irritated at myself for thinking that. My husband would be a wonderful father (he wants to be called "papa" by our children), and I think I would be a wonderful mother, especially since I've had to go through so much just to have them.

You know what thought just popped into my head - have you ever heard of the "pencil test" or the "ring test" where you have a friend/coworker/whatever hold a pencil or ring on a string perfectly still above your hand and the pencil or ring starts swinging around and eventually will go up or down or right or left to show how many children you will have and what gender they will be? Well, twice or maybe three times, I've done with my coworkers. Each time it comes back I'll have a daughter, then a son. We've done this test on those who've had children and are past their 'child-bearing years', and it always shows the right number of children and in the right order (even with my grandmother who has had 7 kids). Now, I'm not sure how much faith I can put into these things, but it makes me feel good just for a little bit thinking that it seems to work and most importantly, I'll have two children. Now, if only they'd show up.

:-(

I really, truly believed that our turn had finally come. Usually, I don't feel that way, I just hope that this month was the right month, but this month, I just felt like it was finally going to go our way. So when I woke up yesterday morning to take my temperature and saw that it had dropped - a lot - I didn't want to believe it. Yet I did because temperatures don't lie.

I was talking to a coworker of mine (one who had problems of her own getting pregnant) about this, and she keeps saying that I just have to believe that the time will come when it is the right time. But I really thought this was the right time.

I REALLY appreciate her and others listening and trying to make me feel better by saying these things, along with "just relax, and it will happen" or "you're still young", but honestly, the only thing that will truly make me feel better is by having the one thing that no one can give us - our own baby.

I really wish I could just go home right now and do absolutely nothing because I have zero motivation at work to do anything (so I'm cleaning out files which requires little brain power), and plus, I feel like crap physically, as well as emotionally. And just as I'm writing this, a coworker who is 3 weeks away from her due date walks in to my cube... Nice.

Expectations

I have a coworker who is talking about this trip to Rome that she is going to take and talking about taking off a week here and there throughout the year. She has 5 weeks of vacation, and she's complaining about wanting to take time off. I have no sympathy when I only get 2 weeks of vacation. Anyway, on the way home tonight (we're in a vanpool together), she was talking about her trip and that she wants to take this trip before she's pregnant because next year she'll be pregnant.

It really irritated me that she just expected that she'd be pregnant next year. Her and her husband are going to start trying soon, and she's a bit older than me. She knows all the stuff I've been through with trying to get pregnant, and yet she just expects she'll just end up pregnant right away. And wait, she will. I will be soooooooo depressed (more so than I am now - more on that later) if she ends up becoming pregnant before I do. And she looks like Jennifer Aniston. UGH!

Anyway, on why I'm depressed (at least, more than usual). I think my period is coming very soon. I REALLY, REALLY thought that this month I was going to end up pregnant. I really felt that I was pregnant, that is, until this morning when my temperature dropped. I had such trouble concentrating at work today. I just wished that the day would end so I could go home and cry. When I finally did get home, after feeling the way I did this morning when I saw my temperature dropped, then this afternoon, when a coworker was talking about her pregnancy plans, I did come and cry. My kitties tried their best to cheer me up - but seeing a positive pregnancy test would really be the only thing that could cheer me up right now.