I Have Been in a Fog

I have not written in a while for a number of reasons.

First, I am having a hard time making myself do anything. Part of the problem is that I am still trying to adjust to the medication and part of it is that I am just overwhelmed. As I have said before I am getting close to finishing college which is terrifying on so many different levels. In some ways I am setting myself up for failure, and that is not going to happen, but it is easy for me I know how to fail.

Second, what was already a scary financial obligation of surrogacy is getting even more frightening with the current situation that we are all facing. Part of me knows that we will find a way to accomplish this not matter what, another part of me is trying to prepare myself for the reality that this might not happen. I am in the process of finding ways to cut costs, which is not easy. I need this to work, my heart needs this to work.

Over the past week or so I have actually begun to entertain the idea of what our life would be like if we were childless. The first thing that came to me is that it would not just affect us but our whole family and while I know they would be supportive I also know they would be broken hearted. Under no circumstances are we having a child to satisfy others, but the reality is that infertility affects everyone that loves you and has suffered right along with you. For me though, while it would break my heart in ways that I cannot fathom, I would learn to live without ever being a mother. It is conceivable to me that I could find a way to do something really meaningful in this world that would make it bearable. People go through their lives without children all the time and they find a way to have beautiful, meaningful and often extraordinary impacts on the world. Even though I thought mine would be to raise a child who loved and respected everyone it may not be and I am starting to accept that as okay.

Just because I am starting to think about these things does not mean that I am giving up we are still planning on going ahead in the new year. It is important to me that I know what my life will look like in the future, so I have something to throw out the window when my world gets turned upside down and the road takes a big curve. Plans are made to be broken and goals are set to be changed, what is important is that we keep looking into a future and seeing all the possibilities that life has to offer.

I am going to try and be here more I promise, and I will try to find some ways to make this more affordable which I promise to share. Thank you for your patience with me. This road is long and lonely at times, but I am finding a lot of amazing people along the way.

Whispering about surrogacy and infertility

I am re-posting this today because I have had some comments about the "Comments Section" is messed up in the other post. Hope this works. Thank you so much to all of you who read this before.

Just stumbled across this blog Barren and Beautiful who asks the question "Why do we whisper about infertility?"

Since I love answering question (and none of you is asking any), I will answer questions I find floating out in blog-world.

There was a time when I did not want anyone to know about these difficulties, I felt so horrible about myself that I could not fathom the looks of pity and false sympathy. My infertility diagnosis came when I was 21 while I was still trying to identify myself as a person. In childhood, I always imagined that my primary title as a woman would be "Mother" and as I approached that milestone, it was suddenly snatched away. Over the past 11 years much has changed, as it does for most people, the biggest change for me though is my ability to talk about infertility without shame.

At least that is what I believed before reading the above-mentioned post. With my friends and family, I give them all the gory details, of which there are plenty; with others, I use it almost as a weapon. When I hear the questions, "So do you have children?" "Wow, you have been married a long time, when are you going to start a family" or "Do you not like children?" My immediate reaction is to kick them in the shins or stick them with hot pokers, but since my mother did an excellent job in curbing these violent tendencies I usually just say "We are not ready" or a similarly benign answer. At some moments, those moments when I cannot stand to hear that question, I say things like, "I had to decide between being a mother and being pregnant, so we chose to be parents." or "It is not possible for us to have children." or "I am infertile so having babies is not that easy for us." I am sure that there are more but those are the ones I use most of the time. People are always disarmed and generally try to change the subject, though there are others who actually keep asking questions. As stated above I love questions and do my best to answer them.

I hate this part of myself, that part that wants to hurt others who hurt me. A part of me who picks out people's insecurities and uses it against them. 99% of the time, I can keep this side of me in check and then there are those times when I let it out in all its glory. This is the part of me that I would happily get rid of if given the opportunity that is until I feel the need to defend myself. The only solace I get out of this is the hope that the next time they are around someone without children that they will not ask insensitive questions.

I am trying to whisper as much as I can about infertility because lately discussing the subject has brought out a side of myself that I cannot stand.

On track 2 of this album, I am here telling everyone about my infertility. This blog is a safe place for me to talk about what is happening. The majority of the people here are going to something similar and understand how cutting these comments can be. I am sure there will come a day when someone says something negative, but that day has yet to come. I am so grateful to have this outlet and the feedback from all of you. Knowing that other people are out there helps more than you know. Infertility becomes very lonely after so many years and there are some things that try, as they may people not in the infertility shoes cannot understand.

I cannot whisper about infertility because I love this support system made possible by me going "public".

Moving onto track 3, I want to use this experience to teach others about this little understood part of infertility and what I think is the most surrounded with misunderstanding. One day my child will go out into the world and I want to try to reduce the number of people will have misconceptions about how he/she came into the world. It is difficult for me to think that one day someone may say something hurtful to my child about surrogacy. I can only hope that it is long after they are old enough to know the entire story so that they realize how ridiculous the comments are.

I cannot whisper about this issue because the more people who know the reality the fewer chances ignorance has to affect my child.

Skipping to track 4, being here in the black hole of infertility a lot of emotions build up. In the years that I kept this all quiet were painful and difficult years. For the first four years of our marriage, we dealt with this issue by trying to convince ourselves that children were not something that we wanted in our lives. It was important for us to not discuss children for two reasons, we both knew that it was going to be a long process and we were not really ready to become the parents that we wanted to be. Around 3.5 years into our marriage we started to talk around the edges of adding to our family. Since we knew that, it was not going to just happen we started to educate ourselves about the options. I did really well with this emotionally for about 6 months, I was able to stay detached and look at everything in an objective manner. Then one day I was reading a website and it hit me, "we are going to be parents, we are actually going to have a baby." That was the day the clock really started to run, and it has been getting louder with every passing second. Every announced impending birth felt like a punch in the gut. When surrogacy finally became our chosen path, I knew that I was going to have to do a lot of work on myself before I was ready to participate appropriately in this adventure. Being able to work out many of my feelings here has benefited me more than just about anything I have done. Having to be brutally honest about the process and the accompanying feelings has helped me shape what this journey needs to look like for everyone involved.

I do not whisper here because it is cheaper than therapy.

Finding the balance between screaming from the rooftops, spitting in peoples' faces, or being a mess of mental illness has personally been a constant battle. I believe that I have been getting better at finding this balance, but I am human and do get it horribly wrong from time to time. Infertility is a wild and bumpy journey, but mostly it is an overwhelming journey that gets very heavy sometimes. Staying silent or whispering in corners is doing very little good for all us women and men who are locked in the struggle to become parents in a way very different from what we had expected.

the surrogacy waiting game

nothing is happening, we are in a holding pattern. which means nothing is happening except that my mind is racing. these are the times when i start to question everything, i am trying to stop this. these are the times when that dark monster finds a way to invade, and this time i am going to win the fight.

one of the blessings and curses of infertility is that you get to decide when you want to start trying to have a family. the really bad side of this, is that there is never a "perfect" time to have a family. something is always standing in the way, there is always one more thing left to do, one more trip to take, one more dream to accomplish. the depth of this struggle makes us want to be the "perfect" parents, while we know that there is no such thing, and that we will fail miserably in this quest within the first hour of our child's life. we just are not perfect people types, we are the type of people who do everything in life the hard way. we question everything that comes easy and deem it not worthy of our attention, those are the things we toss aside. it is my biggest fault and the thing that i would change tomorrow if i could, unfortunately it is just not that easy.

our child will start their lives with a father who is tattooed up one side and down the other, a mother who only wears makeup when her mother makes her. yes i still worry about what my mother thinks, which leads to another point, my child is going to be raised by someone who has never felt like an adult. do you need to feel like a grown up to raise children? i know grown up things and can handle some big situations, but i have never felt like an adult. i told you that monster was trying to get in my head.

fact is that i know we are going to do the best we can and that will be enough. we are going to manage to raise a perfectly fine child. we just need to get one and start the raising process. we just need to give up the idea of the perfect time, because no such thing exists. times that are better than others sure, but not the perfect time. i feel like a kid the month before christmas, my letter to santa is all written and now i just have to wait and i hate waiting. i have been waiting for this all my life, i want to start doing. it is coming fast, and i know in a few months this will all seem silly, but tonight i hate the waiting.

a family through surrogacy

I have been working my way through a lot of blogs over the past few days, it being ILCW and all. A lot of people have been leaving comments here which I LOVE. In leaving comments I have been reading a lot of comments and I noticed something. I am getting a lot of comments about how brave and courageous I am. This is not true. I have written another post about this, but I want to make this really clear.

Surrogacy is the right way for me to make my family, it is the only way that I can have my family. Not that I would not adopt a child in a second. What makes this right for me is that I want my husband to have a chance at having his biological children, not that he says this is important to him. Being the one with the fertility problem makes me feel responsible and makes me want to do all the rest of it the best I can. Surrogacy was the answer. I could have tried to carry our child, but at some point I decided that I wanted to be a mother not a pregnant woman. This was not a brave, courageous, or noble move on my part, it was an answer to a horrible problem.

I started this blog because there was a dearth of straight intended parents' voices in the world of surrogacy. I began to feel like there was some secret hand shake that I did not know. Our journey was becoming very complicated and I needed to know that others had been in my shoes and come out the other side. My insecurity and fear started this blog, and now that some of that has subsided my need to keep others from ever feeling that alone keeps me here.

Surrogacy is the third rail of infertility. Many in the IF world see it as a last resort and the general public have all kinds of weird ideas about what the process. I have had people ask how I could allow my husband to have sex with another woman. Been told that I was exploiting some disadvantaged women who could not possibly know better. Worried myself that I was not really going to be able to be a mother and still have a relationship with our surrogate. I have heard people tell me that anyone who would buy a baby should not be a mother. All of these statements are completely false. In reality none of this is happening, and if I thought for one second that it would I would have quit.

One day my child may have to tell the story about how they came to be and I do not want them ever to be ashamed. Not that I am going to make them wear a shirt saying they were a product of surrogacy, nor am I going to make it a big part of their life. We have decided that we are going to be honest about their beginnings, and yes there was a time we were not sure we wanted them to know. There was a time when I wanted to move to a cabin deep in the woods with my newborn and husband and stay forever, a little family of hermits. I was so angry that all these people were in our reproductive life, so raw from all the comments, and so tiered of feeling the pain. One day it dawned on me that the reason for all this was so that I could be a mother, and if I was just going to runaway I was not going to be a very good mother. A good mother advocates for their child and tries to make the world a better place. So here I am educating a few people about the incredible process that will make my dreams a reality.

Motherhood may still be years away for me and that fact breaks my heart some days. Those are the days that I come here and hope to teach someone a little bit about this process. One of the blessings of infertility is that you have time to research and think about everything. From highchairs to cloth vs. disposable diapers, I have read everything and then some. It was just natural that if I was going to put so much time and effort into those things, I should put at least the same amount of effort into educating as many people about how this whole thing works, so maybe when my child tells someone about surrogacy they do not have to hear a rude and hurtful comment.

There is no courage or bravery here, just a woman white knuckling her way through life.

moving the finish line

this is the story of my life, just when i get to that place where the end is barely in sight, someone moves the line. currently it is my elusive college degree. yeah, i have taken my sweet ass time getting there, but i thought that i was almost finished. let me backtrack, i haven't graduated from anything since the fourth grade, and i'll be dammed if i am not walking across that stage and getting this degree (2 degrees) that i have slaved over for 16 years. yes there have been detours, i like the scenic route, it is much more fun.

so all this planning has been shot to hell. as things stand i will finish next august ('09). so no big graduation for me. i am sure some of you just did your happy dance, i can't say that i blame you, but i deserve this. i deserve to have my 15 seconds of acknowledgement and i am going to figure out some way to get it. this was going to work out so well, hubby would still be in grad school and i could have time to get my masters before we blew this popsicle stand. we would have our baby and life would be good.

i should know by now that my plans aren't meant to work out. i have apparently pissed off the planning gods, this has been going on since the day i learned to plan after all. so i guess it is confirmed, i am officially insane, b/c i keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. or possibly b/c hubby married me, that is all i get, and that is wonderful and amazing, but really is that all i get?

yes, yes, i know that i have to be flexible, and i am, i have no problem letting things happen. just once though, i want something to go the way that i planned. having a kid will throw plans out the window, but i am an adult living with another adult, so shouldn't i be able to plan something? urgh it is just so frustrating. one day it will, maybe, but i won't plan it, b/c that just guarantees it won't happen. hey, maybe if i plan the opposite that will work. check back and i'll let you know.