Diarrhea …

It blows.

How Toddlers Conquered the Earth

I understand that my daughter is building her immune system and sinus/ear/upper respiratory infections are just part of it.  But why do I have to get them with her every time?  Or, Troy gets it and passes it to me.  Or my mom gets it and passes it to me and Troy.  Then my dad gets it.  My mom keeps my daughter and my niece, who then passes it to my sister-in-law JoAnn, who gives it to my brother and my nephews.  Next we all pass it to our co-workers, and before you know it, all of Austin has fallen.  Watch out, Texas.  You’re next.

One infection at a time, they will take you down.  Slow death by toddler.

Foster-to-Adopt, FET and Frozen Embryos, oh my!

Troy and I have been talking a little bit more about foster-to-adopt.  A good friend from work is currently going through a private group called Pathway.  We’ve been in touch with them and they’ve sent us a packet to start working on.  I feel like I’m at the bottom of a massive learning curve, but since we’re not in a rush it doesn’t feel insurrmountable.  There are two things I worry about the most as far as qualifying goes – our financial state and the home visit.  We’re fine financially, but we always seem to be paying off some debt or another, and we don’t have much in the way of savings.  We’ve made great progress but are still working our way through it.

The home inspection seems a lot more daunting.  I keep a fairly clean and tidy house, but there seem to be so many rules!  Cleaning products and food can’t be on the same shelves, which is hard for us since I coupon and have quite a stockpile.  I’ve got cleaning products on the bottom shelves in the garage and canned goods above.  I’m sure we’ll be doing quite a bit of rearranging.  All meds have to be in locked cabinets.  We’ll have to get used to that, instead of having them out.  I usually forget them if I can’t see them!  All alcohol has to be in locked cabinets, too.  Where am I going to put all these locking cabinets?  Do I need to put a lock on my bathroom closet, since there are cleaning products and vitamins in there?  Are those toddler safety latches the same as a lock, and will they suffice for under the sink cabinets?  The checklist also specifies a certain amount of floor space in a child’s room.  I don’t know if Davie even has that much floor space!  They also require a written fire escape plan that is practiced regularily, and a blueprint of the house designating what each room is used for.  And what about … ahem, TMI … the marital “toy” drawer by the bed?  Are they going to look in there?  We should probably put a lock on that, too.

Well, we’ll figure all that out as we go.  I wonder how many home inspections it’s gonna take us before we finally pass?  And I realize, it may all be for nothing.  When we’re honest with ourselves, we only feel comfortable parenting a child as old as Davie, since that’s where our experience is so far.  Probably really a little younger, since we’ve found toddlerhood can be quite the challenge!  I know it’s rare for babies to come along in the foster-to-adopt pathway.  And we only want to foster a child that is available for adoption, which  I think is probably the biggest snag for me.  We went to an introductory fostering class for the state a while back, and I can still hear the speaker stressing that “the goal of fostering is to reunite families, and foster parents have to be committed to that goal.”  There is such a massive potential for heartbreak here.  I don’t want to send a child back to a bad situation.  I want to love and nuture them and keep them safe.  Our committment is really to adoption, not fostering and returning a child.  And I don’t know that our hearts, which have been so broken by infertility, could handle the heartbreak of loving then giving up a child.  I expressed all of this to Pathway, and they still encouraged us to go through the application process.  So here we go!

If anyone has gone this route, or has any fostering advice, or advice on the qualifying process, I’d love to hear from you!  Please comment or send me a link to your blog so I can read your story.  Thank you for putting it out there.

But this doesn’t mean we’ve closed any other doors, we’re just opening this one!  I’m still in a fight to the death to get United insurance to finish paying for our April and August IVF cycles.  Just $3000 left to pay, and all of it was approved in advance of the procedure, so we don’t know why United is fighting us on paying now.  But we’ve got great advocates fighting for us, so as soon as that is settled, we’ll move on to FET.  We have four frozen embryos, which we will split into two FET’s (assuming all thaw).  We’ll pay for those FET’s ourselves, and we’ve taken out Flex Spending Accounts to pay for those.  If those don’t work, we’ll go the adopted embryo route, probably two tries.

So, I don’t know that I’ll ever get to be pregnant again, but I do think we’ll be parents again, and Davie will have a sibling.  Step by step, we’ll get there.

In the Moment

I’ve never wanted to live ‘in the moment’ more than I do right now.

When we’re young, we just want to get older. Then we’re in school, and we just want to build a career.  We’re single, and we just want to meet “the one.”  But right now, today – this is the sweetest my life has ever been.  Every day I marvel at the wonder that is my daughter.  Every night, I grieve a little when she goes to sleep and her bright light winks out, ’til the next morning brings her back to me again.  Each moment is so precious, so beautiful.  It’s more than I ever imagined it would be.

I see her hug my infant niece, watch her idolize my nephews.  She stares at other children in fastination and wonder.  She’s sweetly shy, absolutely enthralled.  She would make a perfect big sister.  Sassy, bossy, loving and tender.  Jealous and protective.  Loving and loved.  At this most perfect time of my life, infertility slinks it’s way into each day.  I feel so absolutely grateful for what I’ve been given, and so absolutely guilty for wanting more.  I grieve for each embryo lost, whether lost in the petri dish or bled out of my body.  I’m so sorry I failed you, my little ones.  Each one of you was wanted and loved.

I love God.  My faith is strong.  He is Creator, Giver of Life.  So why did He chose not to give life to our little ones?  Will they be waiting in heaven?  Was each a person before they began?  When does life begin?  What about the millions who miscarry naturally, before a woman even knows she is pregnant?  Are there billions more in heaven than were ever born on earth?  Have I been irresponsible with this gift, attempting to create life where it wasn’t meant to be?  Has my sin doomed my children before they ever had a chance?  Does God still love me?  If so, why did He hurt me so badly?  He could’ve chosen at any time to let any of those babies live.  But He chose not to.  I’m trying to figure out how to be okay with never understanding why.

Living in the moment means reveling in every thing that is Davie.  How insanely brilliant and perfect and breath-taking she is.  I once heard a quote about how having a child is to spend the rest of your life with your heart outside your body.  To live so raw is excrutiatingly beautiful – and exquisitely painful.  Each milestone passes with the realization we may never experience it again.  Such a strange state to live in, balanced between a dream come true and a dream unfulfilled.

Oh, Lord, please help me survive living in this moment.