sliding away

There is a lot that is going on in my life right now. Since, no one wants to read a novel I am going to take this one thing at a time.
I am depressed, seriously having problems sleeping even though I am exhausted, I care about very little, and for right now this is a comfortable place for me to be. A medication that I am taking is causing this current bout of depression and I knew that this would happen when I started the medication. Why would I volunteer to take a medication that I knew was going to do this to me? I am quitting smoking, which I have been quitting and starting for a little over a year now.
Sadly, without the Chantix I am incapable of putting down my companions. I hate admitting that I am so attached to these things that I know are killing me, but I am. When I am smoking I have to know where they are all the time, they come with me everywhere, and they make me feel better. Most people think that it is disgusting, and it is, but at the same time, these companions of mine have seen me through a lot over the sixteen years that we have been together. Our relationship has just runs its course and it is time for me to finally get rid of them.
The depression is also coming from another place. I am under a lot of stress and pressure, and the way to cope with that for me is to just lay down until it passes. Well, there is no way that I can do this now. I have to actively get myself out of this, but it is a struggle. Graduate school is just overwhelming, it is not difficult the actual work is simple, it is just the pace and the massive change to my routine. I commute an hour each way three days a week and I cry most of the way home, I know that it is simply cathartic, but I am getting sick of this.
The other component, the nastiest, most appalling component, yes worse than the smoking. I am scared of being a mother, in fact I am terrified of that overwhelming responsibility. To think that someone would work so hard to attain something and then be terrified of actually getting there, I feel horrible for even thinking that this is true. It is true though. I know that people say I will be a great mother, and I am sure that they think they are helping, but it does not help. Those reassurances only make me feel that the bar has been raised that much higher. To me this is the dirty little secret of my infertility; I feel that I have to be a better mother than any other mother on the face of the earth, and I know me well enough to know that there is no way that that is ever going to happen. I do not think that I am going to be a horrible mother, but I know that there is no way that I am going to win any mother of the year awards. This idea has been floating around in my head very long time, but the closer we get to the reality of parenthood with a child the more that this weight is laying on my chest.
I spent much of my pre-teen and all of my teen years in a deep clinical depression. I remember someone asking me why I was so miserable, and of course I had no idea why, what I did know was that it was comfortable there. I knew miserable and it was easy for me. Years were wasted in that state, years that I will never get back and years that I would never trade. I learned to many valuable lessons, most importantly I learned that true happiness is the best thing in the world.
I will come out of this place. A couple more months on this medication and it will be over, and I will come out the other side happier and healthier. I just wish there was an easier road.

ABC

Adoption- I was adopted when I was 12 days olds, I am thinking about working in the field of adoption, and we seriously considered adopting before we started down this road
Bella- what my mother’s grandchildren will call her, because any incarnation of grandmother (makes her feel old) just is not good enough for her. she is going to be a great grandma.
Crying- something that I have been doing a lot of lately, and I have no idea why, more of that in the coming days
Daisy- my favorite flower and my insane kitty
Exhaustion- what I have been feeling since starting graduate school, I am going to beat it before it kills me
Fat-what I am, what I have always been or at least felt like I was, and what I am determined to not be for the next chapter of my life. of course, I am failing miserably, but at least I am determined.
Gasping- what I have been doing for air these days. Not only am I running around like crazy, but it is so hot and humid that it is hard to breath. I hate the south this time of year
Happiness- something that is at least coming and going at this point, it has taken me a very long time to get here
Igloo- what I want to live in at the moment, have I mentioned it is HOT
Jaymee Joy- my name. I was named after my mother’s parents. I spent every weekend with them and those are some of the best memories of my childhood. I am so fortunate to have my nana still here. my papa died when I was 17 and I will always miss him.
Kenya- where the husband was born and one of my favorite places
Laughter- what I desperately need more of in my life at the moment
M- the husband, who wanted a stupid blog name that I am currently refusing to use, well not currently, I am never using it again. He is the love of my life and I could never imagine having to face the world without him.
Never- when I truly believed that I was going to be a mother
Octopus- my favorite sea creature, they are just so damn cute
PCOS- my first fertility issue
Quest- what my life has been for way too long, a quest to motherhood, a quest to the undergraduate degree, a quest to the master’s degree
Rage- something that I think I am finally getting over. The anger that came with the infertility has been the part that has bothered me the most, I am just not a good angry person.
Sabrina- the most amazing woman I have ever met, I could not have custom made a better person to carry our child.
Time- something that I have wasted too much of and never have enough of, and that makes me sad.
Understanding- something that I have a lot of for other people and very little for myself
Von Willebrand’s- a bleeding disorder that has made my life crappy and my second fertility problem because it is just not good friends with the PCOS
Water- something that I have always loved in all it’s forms except to drink, which is really bad
X- really you expected me to come up with a x word, yeah I am just not that talented
Yesterday- when everything that I need to get done was supposed to get done
Zoos- I love them, I have no idea why but I just have the most fun.

so that is a bit about me. i have a lot going on at the moment and i will tell you all a bit more about that later.

Decisions, Decisions

You know when you have that one subject that keeps coming up in your life, where every thing you seem to do seems to turn around that issue. Well, this has happened to me, and I feel that I have to talk about it now, not that it will make the issue go away but because it is so important in the world of surrogacy and infertility. For me the focus has always been on getting the child here, all the rest of it could be dealt with once that precious gift was in my arms. Only problem is that every choice that I make now affects my child's future. There is such a huge burden, and one that many people who have babies the "old fashioned" way never has to grapple with. Often, way too often, when things scare me I just want to hide, and this time I cannot.

The issue of how we are going to tell our child about their very special beginnings and all the amazing people who were involved is frightening. After years of questioning my place in the world as a women, and something that I still have trouble looking at some days, my immediate reaction was to say that there was no need for my child to ever to know if they were the product of donor egg or sperm. This is not about all my insecurities, this is about a child that has no say in how they came to be, but have every right to know where they came from.

When we thought that we would need a donated egg, we put a lot of thought into everything that we were going to use as selection criteria. I have written about how weird that whole process was, and how at times it was just down right creepy. The part that was the most difficult was deciding if we could choose a donor who was not willing to meet the child later in life. After all the debate and putting the whole thing under a high powered microscope, we decided that we had to make sure that the child had as many options as possible and it was not our right to take any option away from our child.

Yes, in some way it is awful. I want to believe that I will be enough for them. As a child of adoption, I know in my heart and my head that it has nothing to do with me or the husband being good or bad parents, in fact it has absolutely nothing to do with us except for the fact that we made the decisions from the start. This issue is about our child having the right to know whose nose they have, if they are at a risk for disease, or any other fact that they want to know. Yes, I believe that there is a difference between being the child of donor sperm or eggs and adoption. I am not really sure exactly what all these differences are, or if this is just something that I tell myself. In the end, at some point in time I am going to have to do a thousand things that make me uncomfortable and upset because it is best for my child. I just thought that we would be able to hold that off until preschool.

We still have every reason to believe that we will be able to use my eggs. This is just an issue that keeps coming up in various aspects of my life.

Moving Along

On Thursday of last week, yes, I am very late in posting; we had a very good appointment at the clinic. Everything is right on track and we should be doing our transfer in September. Sabrina has a calendar of all the medications and blood draws that she will be doing leading up to the transfer. Let me just stop and say that all that is completely overwhelming. Those needles are HUGE!!! All the awe that I have for what she is doing for us grew by a thousand when the nurse took out that needle, not to mention the oil suspended medication. I know that most intended mothers have been through all this before themselves, but I am the exception. This is the first of many things that I am sure where I think I am totally prepared and understand what is going on, only to be knocked on my butt by the reality. Just wait till we get to the actual birth, I am still advocating for an epidural for myself.

We were with my parents over this time, because the doctor is within walking distance of their house. I learned a very important lesson in telling them about our plans. As excited as we all are about getting ready to start this process, we need to guard ourselves at the same time. The need to make sure that we have not set ourselves up for an emotional train wreck also has to be balanced with our want to just be happy and excited. Things go wrong, no matter how tempting it is to act like an ostrich in this situation, it is important for me to stay aware of how attached I am getting to this date. It is after all just another date on the calendar.

My main job at this point is to be a support system for Sabrina. Yes, this is our child and the genesis of our family. It is just the start though, and she is the one that is really going through all of the physical process. The most physical thing that I am going to do is a few minor injections (please remind me of this later) and an egg retrieval that will be finished in a matter of a few weeks. I have been reassured a thousand times that she knows what she signed up for and that she really wants to do this for us, and I believe her but I also feel bad for her butt (cause it is going to HURT.) Once our child is born, then I will start to worry about them. I have the luxury of being able to just worry about Sabrina, because I trust her implicitly. I have no doubt that she will do everything in her power to make sure that we have the healthiest child possible.

When we first started this process, I was most afraid of losing the control of how the baby was gestated. Now I am just worried about making sure that Sabrina is treated with the upmost respect, is as comfortable as possible, and has the best pregnancy possible for her. Over the past few years, I have read the same horror stories that everyone else has about surrogacy. I have seen relationships go horribly bad, and I have learned from each of these experiences. We want this amazing relationship to continue, and I feel confident that even the pitfalls that I am not aware of can be overcome. My confidence comes from knowing that we already have a relationship that was strong enough to survive the contracts, and that there is nothing that I do not feel comfortable discussing with her.

We are moving forward!! I never thought that this would happen. During all those months and years that we spent researching and working towards this day are finally paying off.

Due Date

We have a due date!!!

Okay, not that kind of due date, but a date none the less. On August 7^th we will know if we will be able to use my eggs! The genetic results will be back on that date. There was a mess up in the insurance and the clinic that delayed the results, we should have had them weeks ago. I was furious when I found this out, and really got to the point where I just wanted to go ahead and get a donor. It was the plan in the beginning so why not?

Why not, becomes a very loaded question where you asurrogacy re talking about the genetics of the child that we are creating. In the beginning, and now, my first priority has been to make sure that my child does not have the bleeding disorder that has made my life so difficult. While I know that there are so many other things, like my huge hips or my learning disability, that I could possibly pass on, but this is something that I can prevent. Sometimes, I believe that part of this is just a need to control the one thing that I have control over in this situation. Then on the days that I am able to actually think clearly I know that this is really about a quality of life issue. Just as we plan to provide the best educational opportunities and medical care that we can, we also want to make sure that our child is in the best health that we can make them from the start.

If we are able to find the fault in my DNA that is causing the von Willebrand disease. We will then be able to move onto Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis of our embryos. This is a process that I am still learning about, and there is a lot to learn. I of course will update you all as I begin to know more.