Now that we are on our way, I just pray that it will actually happen one day…soon pleeeeease!

Sitting in a semi-circle were a few couples and a single woman. The presenter was a 50 something year old woman who went into alot of detail about how important it is to remember that applying for a child DOES NOT mean that we will all get a child. She explained that our application is an “offer”, not a “demand” for a child. She explained the complications of adoption, procedures and statistics and answered a few questions. The number of international adoptions in Catalunya have halved in the past few years. Last year, Catalunya had about 800 international adoptions. That means 1 in every six couples that apply, get lucky. My heart sank and as I glanced at the others. I wondered who would and who wouldn´t end up with a child. It was that same sick feeling in my stomach, that possibility and then reality of failure, that I have felt with IVF for the past year.

I reminded myself of the positives..we are young-ish, both in our 30´s, very healthy, married two years, good incomes which exceed the minimum required, no children and a perfect family home to raise a couple of kiddos. And beyond these more mechanical requirements, we are dying to be parents, to love a child or two, take care of them, offer them love, stability, protection and lots of fun…

Will it be a two, three year wait? I feel ok about the wait and think of all the things we need to do before our child comes home. A fence around the pool, those baby-proof doors at the top and bottom of the stair case, paint the spare room, buy a bed, a swing set, a sand pit, toddler clothes, all the fun stuff I´m dying to buy but haven´t had any reason to yet. Astro boy thinks we´ll need a new car with air bags. He´s going to be a protective daddy. Cute.

So, yes I can deal with the wait. But what I don´t know how I´ll deal with, would be the possibility of nothing, nada, niente. The chance that we, for some reason, won´t be chosen, ever, at all. That, just like IVF, this was all for nothing. I beg the skies that we are on the adoption road because we are supposed to become parents this way. I pray to all the goddesses, that we will finally experience the joy of having our little family.

Next week we start the paperwork..medical checks, police checks etc…

I know why..Timing. My head and heart are much more interested in my road to motherhood right now. Much more keen to spend hours looking at IVF and adoption blogs. Naughty, silly, time-wasting?…probably, but it´s where I´m at. I´m learning that we can´t be everything all the time. We shouldn´t be so hard on ourselves. And that withdrawing from some things takes courage and wisdom and doesn´t have to mean failure. Embracing this, isn´t easy for me.

I was raised to be busy. I had a busy mother. I teach full-time and train new teachers, hang out with Astro Boy, cook healthy meals, go for a long walk, catch a film and cuddle up with our feline friends..well there´s the week gone. But I often feel like I waste time. Like I´m not busy enough. Is spending time with my partner and enjoying our home a silly waste of time? The 20´s me would be outraged at the thought of such domesticity. I used to travel alot, work around the clock, take photographs, meet different people all the time, live out of a backpack. It was fantastic. But I´m not there anymore. I love those memories. I love that I did all of that. But today I´m here, happily married, wanting to be a mummy.. and about to go to an adoption information session and about to do a FET cycle with my frozen embies. Gulp.

My RE said on the phone yesterday that we can go for it as soon as my next menstrual cycle starts. Astro boy says we can go for it as soon as we´ve saved the cash. That means (at least) a couple of months away.

As for today, I need to get to get off my arse, get on the bus, walk to school and plan my classes for next week. Get busy girl!

Today a new era begins..

(Happy, deep breath) Today we called the Generalitat de Catalunya (local govt) to enquire about adoption. In that five minute phone call our lives changed. We are enrolled in an adoption information session next Friday 15 January at 1pm. We´ll be informed about how to start. We´ll be there with many other people wanting to adopt. We´ll wonder about all those people. They´ll probably be wondering about us. But mostly, we´ll want our process to move along as fast and as smoothly as possible. Please, please make it happen fast.

Last night I spent quite a while enjoying this blog: www.witheyeslikemine.blogspot.com

Valerie has adopted two Ethiopian children. She is an inspiring and dynamic woman. She was sure and positive from the very beginning that she really would have her adopted children. After my IUI and IVF failures, I notice how much self-confidence I have lost. I notice how much I need to work on recovering my heart, my gusto for life and confidence in my goals. I want to face the adoption process and the beginning of motherhood full of laughter and strength and endurance. I am praying for my heart, for Astro boy´s heart, for our children, for the red thread that is already bonding us with them, for our journey to becoming wonderful parents and getting this family thing happening.

Also today, I need to return my RE phone calls. She has left two messages. We need to talk about those 9 frozen embryos. I can´t lie. I would still love to get pregnant. But I´m so scared of more IVF failures. Terrified actually. Please no more crying myself to sleep. No more envy and isolation. I need some success towards motherhood. I don´t need that genetic link with my children, but I know I need children. I want to become a mummy..read books and chat and cook and pick up my children from school, build a cubby house, Saturdays at music school and Sundays in the garden, chaotic evenings at home with baths and dinner and homework and bedtimes. I´m ready for motherhood madness.

I feel like if we adopt, then maybe a pregnancy might just happen naturally later. In it´s own time. When we don´t push and pressure and force it to happen and surround the possibility with angst and anger. Or maybe it won´t. Cause maybe that´s not the path and it never has been.

Today I feel excited about next week´s adoption info session. This is my light today and it´s what will keep my smiling all week..

After dinner, we did a little ritual around the fireplace. We wrote down something we want to farewell from 2009, a sentiment or experience and then a hope for 2010. Then we all threw our texts into the fire as a way of placing our writings in the hands of the universe. Not hard to guess what my hope is.

Things to remember about 2009?

You saw me cry until my body shook, until no more sound came. You watched me hate my ovaries and uterus and RE and especially my pregnant friends. I´ve never hated and hated so much. You helped me feel like a complete failure, tested my marriage to dangerous limits and taught me to dislike everything about my life. You convinced me that, yes OK, after 3 IUIs and 2 IVFs, I am most probably infertile. I´ll never forget you, now bugger off.

I threw all of that into the fire! What a relief!

Today, on the 31st of December 2009, I´m so happy to write about a life-changing shift since my last BFN. Something quite magical. Was it my reiki friend´s work on me? Is it the beginning of a new chapter? Or is it sheer exhaustion? Probably all of these.

I am happy and proud to announce with all my heart that we want to….

Adopt a baby!

2010 is going to be quite an adventure for us..

We are ready, excited, completely positive and sure. We are smiling again.

So, to summarise the cycle. It was a short protocol. All over in two weeks. My ovaries stimmed nicely. Maybe a bit too nicely and produced 21 eggs, 14 fertilized, transferred 3 and froze 9. Not bad for an old chook.  Ooooo ahhh they were very impressed at the clinic. Post ET, I was doubled over in pain for three days and probably went back to work too soon. My doc didn´t want to transfer three, in case we should have a high-risk multiple pregnancy. OMG she makes me laugh. She pisses me off and makes me laugh at the same time. I don´t like her. Actually, I´d like to punch her. She races through my visits. Makes very little eye contact with me and after A YEAR tells me, very casually, that I have polysistic ovaries.

This 2WW included my work xmas dinner at which I ended up caving in and telling a few work mates that I´d been away for a few days because I´d done IVF. They got all emotional and hugged me as if I was already pregnant. Very uncomfortable situation and will be even more uncomfortable telling them it didn´t work, after xmas break. Can´t wait.

Astro boy and I are having longer talks about looking into adoption in 2010. We started with IUIs in 2007. It´ll be three years soon. During which ALL of my closest girlfriends have become / are pregnant. One called me from Australia during my 2WW to share her good news. Luckily I was at work and so quickly congratulated her, said a few other nice things and then rushed off to teach my class. My stomach felt that deep, dull nausea it does every time I hear about another pregnancy. It´s almost a mini panic attack. I feel my breathing change and I can´t focus on anything. Another girlfriend called last week to ask me to be her baby´s godmother. It´s all a bit too much sometimes. It all feels like a very long streak of bad luck and sick jokes. Then we had friends over for dinner three nights ago, who are into astrology and reiki and told me I am a “nurturer”, and that I might not be a mother in this lifetime but can “nurture in many ways”. Very bloody comforting.

We think we might have a good chance with adoption. We both have good jobs, a lovely big home and garden that we own, we are healthy, have been married for two years and have supportive families. I guess I´ll have to wait and see what happens with the frozen embies. After that, we could try donor eggs. We don´t have any issues with the non-genetic issue and there is no waiting list at our clinic. Donors are anonymous and they try to physically match the donor and mother as much as possible. That policy sits well with me. At 38, after three failed IUIs, two failed IVF cycles I am guessing that my eggs are crap, sizzled, scabby and stinky. I wouldn´t even mind going straight to donor eggs for the next cycle, but Astro Boy and Dr-I-HATE, will probably convince me to use the frozen embies first.

For now, I need to scrape my heart off the floor and get a dinner party organised for New Year´s Eve. Going off to buy the food tomorrow and will avoid looking at mums and strollers and cute babies with scarves and woolly hats.

Call me crazy, but I´m on one of those Aitken type diets. Yep, no carbs for two weeks. This diet doesn´t limit the amount of protein or some vegetables you can eat, so I actually don´t feel very hungry between meals. It´s been a few days and my face is looking slimmer as is my gut. Also noticed that my pants were a bit baggier today. How weird that during a time of my life, that I want to get pregnant and get round, that I´m actually getting thinner by the day.

I might be a bit happier in two weeks, when I can eat carbs again. Just two pieces of toast for breakfast, but god it´s going to be good. And in about eight weeks, around the time when I will hopefully be closer to my normal weight, it´ll be time to do IVF number 2 and …drum roll….get fat again!

I even attempted coffee with a work friend and her newborn. Oh, by the way this is a friend who got pregnant in the first month of trying. I wasn´t sure how I´d go in the presence of such abundant fertility, so I´ve turned down her invitation to coffee twice in the past month. Of course, she´s on maternity leave, loving being a mummy and showing off her very happy, relaxed baby. Which is exactly what I´d be doing. Shit, I´d be glowing, smiling, laughing my head off as I´d wipe vomit off my collar for the millionth time. I´d be squishing  my little bundle of chubbiness all day and thinking how great life is. So, I do understand her joy and desire to catch up with friends. But I wasn´t sure if I was the right friend for her right now, or she for me.

Anyway, I decided to be a big girl and do the coffee thing with the isn´t-life-just-perfect mum today. (But quietly invited another one of our colleagues to join us, just in case I wouldn´t cope and would have to run out of the café in tears). Particularly as we went to a very mummy café because it´s non-smoking (lots of cafés in Spain STILL permit smoking). So, I was a bit concerned about being the crying, childless freak running out the door, knocking into prams and seeing all the happy, café mummies in the mummy café looking perplexed at infertile me. Ugh.

I was so good that I maneuvered the pram into the café for happy mummy friend and said all the right things. The conversation jumped from baby to work, back to baby, then some more about work, some group baby staring and admiring, as little one nodded off quietly and then we all got back into work talk.  I´m not usually so excited about work talk, but it was my saviour today. I think I coped quite well, but wouldn´t want to do coffee with new mummies too often. It´s ok, but not great.

So yes, today I was brave and chirpy, a good friend, and apart from writing this post, decided to not to look at even one IF or IVF blog. Well ehem… I might sneak a couple in after dinner. But hopefully not. Cause sometimes we all need a break, from new mummies.. and even from ourselves.

It´s midsummer festivals here in Spain. Tonight and all weekend, there will be festivities til the wee hours of the morning in our town, well the town I work in ten minutes away. There will be street theatre and stages with live music, food stalls, the restaurants will be full, competitive team events will take place every hour, fireworks and traditional Catalan burning of a historic character will mezmorise thousands in the main town square. There will be no cars, no rushing, just streets and streets of fun during these balmy, summer nights.

We might go. But what I´d really like to do is take off to the ocean for the weekend. Might have to wait until next weekend, when Astro boy has finished the last touches in his home studio. I need to prepare a seminar on teaching songs and games to young English learners, which I´ll give to new teachers at work next week.

Ugh how on earth will I focus on work this year? I thought I just might go back to work a bit pregnant after summer. I thought I´d start to show in a few weeks. I thought I´d announce it at the xmas lunch. Yeh right. I didn´t really think I´d be so lucky and get a BFP on my first try, but oh wouldn´t it have been amazing to be wrong.  I don´t want to go back to work with no pregnancy news. All I want to do is prepare for and do IVF# 2 in November. I want to do some daily, gentle exercise for the next two months, eat well, sleep well, feel closer to Astro boy and try to think positive thoughts. How many pregnant announcements will I hear during these coming months? Shit, strayed from those damn positive thoughts already.

We talked about donor eggs. In Spain they only work with anonymous sperm and egg donors. There is no waiting list at this clinic. I was very keep to know all about young eggs. But she said we are not there yet. At this stage, the plan is to do another 2 IVF cycles with my eggs. She won´t do more cycles with my eggs after that. We´ll move onto donor eggs. If we get to that stage, I´ll be about 38.5 by then and very ready to take that step. Do I feel sad that my child might not have my genes? Sure I do. But I would feel sadder to never have a biological child. And it´s as simple as that for me. And so if the time comes to use spunky, young, fresh eggs, then let´s do it. Cause after the donor egg road, it´s adoption, which carries a different and profound beauty. For me, adoption will mean that we´ve given up on biological children. I´m not there yet. My ultimate dream would be to have one biological child and adopt our second child.

We are off to do genetic blood tests. Crazy genes could explain the lack of implantation. I just think it´s my (almost 38 year) old eggs. She explained that IVF remains to be a world full of mysteries and unexplained results. It felt like she felt a bit sorry for me today. Which, in turn, made me feel uncomfortable. Feeling sorry for me, makes me feel like a loser. Rule to all REs – Don´t feel sorry for BFN patients. You make them feel like shit. When we left, she gave me a hug. That was weird cause again, it felt like a “I feel sorry for you” hug. I need hugs from Astro boy, but not from my RE. I need her to be completely sure, even arrogant, that she WILL, damn it, get me pregnant.

So now we have an IVF rest until November. She wants to let my body recover for two cycles and then we start again. Astro boy wondered if I needed more time to recover, but my evil looks stopped him mid-sentence. He was wonderful in the meeting (except for the suggestion of a longer wait til IVF #2). He remembered and asked all the questions we´d talked about at home, when he saw that I was struggling and holding back tears in front of RE.

Well, September will be a busy month starting the new work year, then October we go to NYC for a week, and I turn 38 (ugh). I´ll hopefully find it in me, to enjoy the next couple of months, not drown in my IFness and feel excited about IVF#2 sometime in November.

I haven´t cried. I haven´t broken down. Maybe because I always felt that IVF is such a gamble and I´m not feeling particularly lucky lately. I assumed the BFN all along on the 2WW. I know some women are lucky on their first IVF. But I just sensed that it wouldn´t be the case for me.

I´ve spent the day doing domestic chores, cooking and clothes washing. The best part of today was looking up adoption websites and feeling excited. We´ll give IVF another go or two. But I don´t know if I can drag myself, my entire life and my relationship with Astro boy through years of this. Or maybe I can. And maybe I should and need to, because we have a beautiful baby dream which will no doubt keep us on this crazy IVF merry-go-round. Round and round, on and off, back on and off..and back on for another round, just one more time..

I am full of love and energy to give to a child now. I´m not sure if I´ll still be this energetic in my plight to get pregnant in a few years. And I´m not sure if I can spend many more years dreaming of my child. I´m not even sure what I feel today. One of my sisters tells me to be more positive, another one tells me to turn to God and the other one is sad with me.

Today is a recovery day at home. We are quietly getting on with our things, respecting each others´ space to feel whatever it it we need to feel. We both know the sadness the other is feeling.

On a brighter note, we received a fun email confirming the details of our trip to New York in October. Astro boy will participate in an international design competition representing Barcelona. The event is at a wonderful, historic venue and we´re staying in Soho. I´ve never been to NYC and have quietly wanted to go for a few years. Astro boy won the Barcelona round in April and BAM we´re off to NY. At least this has been a really fun and positive surprise this year.

I will start teaching in two weeks and start a postgraduate course in teacher training. The intensive study in linguistics will satisfy the nerd in me nicely. Then off to New York in October. If finances permit, IVF#2 sometime in November-December. Still need to go for a follow-up meeting with my RE at the clinic to talk about the next step. Baby steps..