Ongoing Baby Quest

I guess at this point in the story I should back up and fill in a few blanks, although the blanks won’t be apparent until later. And hopefully they won’t be apparent at all, if I just fill them in now. You know what I mean. I’m babbling already, aren’t I?

When Blaine got orders to Tinker, the Air Force Base in our hometown, we began our third year of TTC. As those of you who know me know, and those of you who don’t know me can probably guess, I am a control freak with a serious Need-To-Know character defect. Ignorance is not bliss, as far as I'm concerned. At this point the internet wasn’t a household item, and I had already read every book our local library had to offer. We knew if we wanted help in a social or emotional or informational capacity, from other couples going through the same thing, we were going to have to look for it in a live, face-to-face situation. So we searched out the local branch of Resolve, the National Fertility Association support group, and began attending meetings.

A couple of good things came out of this. First, we made friends with a great couple (if you’re reading this, S., “hey chickie!” :) who made walking that infertility path a lot easier, and a lot more fun. Not that it’s ever “fun”, but it was great to have another couple who had experienced the same struggles as us, and who could go out at the drop of a hat without having to hire a baby sitter, and without sitting around all night talking about their kids, and without sitting in front of us, breast feeding her child-yes-someone-actually-did-that-way-before-Blaine-and-I-were-enlightened-about-breastfeeding-and-we-freaked-out-and-totally-didn’t-know-where-to-look-and-oh-my-gosh-her-boob-is-RIGHT-THERE-so-we-just-pretended-like-it-wasn’t-happening-in-our-living-room-three-feet-from-our-shocked-faces. Seriously. Trust me, NO childless couple ever needs to see that. Ever. Second, we realized that while it was frustrating for us not to know WHY we weren’t getting pregnant, a lot of couples attending Resolve were facing the finality of knowing they would NEVER get pregnant, so maybe we should just quit our big fat whining and get over ourselves. Third, while Blaine and I had always been open to alternative ways of building our family, I think it helped us explore, and come to terms, with those ideas more quickly. I had cousins who had been adopted, and Blaine himself had been adopted by his step-dad when he was young. So we certainly weren’t hung up on the idea that children absolutely, positively, biologically, MUST spring from our own loins. But the other members attending Resolve at that time gave us a safe forum to explore and vent and learn, and I was grateful.

So, around the beginning of Infertility Year Four, after Blaine and I had our first negative IUI (insemination), we decided to apply with an adoption agency. Everyone said to us, “Oh, once you apply with an adoption agency, you’ll get pregnant. It always happens that way.” And we thought, “Wouldn’t that be great? Two babies! We should be so lucky”. Then, a few months later, we were down two negative IUI’s, and it was time to pay our adoption agency fee. And everyone said to us, “Oh, once you write that check, you’ll get pregnant. It always happens that way.” And we thought, “Oooh, yippee, two babies! We should be so lucky”. And then a month or two later, and yet another negative IUI under our belts, we received word that we had been approved by the adoption agency and our profile was available for viewing by birthmothers. And everyone said to us, “Oh, just wait. Now that you’re approved, you’ll get pregnant. It always happens that way.” And we would talk about how if that happened, we would be the luckiest people in the world. Surely, surely, one of these inseminations was going to work … and if we adopted a baby near the same time, it would be like having twins! We would be the luckiest people in the world … twice!

And by the end of that year? Six artificial inseminations, no pregnancy, and the adoption agency had gone out of business, taking our money and our hopes with them.

This is probably a pretty accurate estimation of when I entered my very unattractive “pissed at the world” phase.

OK, ok, so the adoption agency didn’t really, **technically** go out of business. But it might as well have. For the six months it took from the time we applied until we were approved, they were a fully-staffed, smooth-running operation, who, on average, prior to us applying, had placed approximately ten babies a year with waiting families. It was a smaller agency, nothing like Gladney out of Texas, but we liked that. Although there were certainly no guarantees, Blaine and I were led to believe it would take no more than year for us to get a baby, as well. We were guided through the process of filling out our applications, having our background and criminal histories run, getting friends to write us letters of reference, submitting photos of us, posed oh-so-perfectly in front of our fireplace with our pets, to submit along with a Dear Birthmother Letter that we agonized over writing. “Please, please, please, pick us to raise your baby, we don’t want to seem desperate and groveling, even though we are …..” We had our home study done, where a social worker comes to your home and interviews you to see if, in his or her opinion, the home life you would provide for a child is safe and loving.

And with every item we accomplished, with every checkmark we made on our Very Long List Of Adoption Stuff We Have to Complete, I got more and more bitter.

I’m not sure I can find the words to explain how deeply {probably irrationally} irritated I was that I had to submit myself to this sort of scrutiny … this judgment, this begging for approval, from total strangers, about whether or not Blaine and I would be deemed qualified to adopt and raise a baby. Certainly I understand the need for these sorts of criterion … DUH. But when everyone is looking at you, and the home you live in, and critiquing your job and your marriage and your education and your decisions and your LIFE, and passing judgment about whether or not you are ALLOWED to get a baby …. It was infuriating to me. Infuriating. No-one who is able to get pregnant the “normal” way has to ask anyone’s permission. None of the pregnant patients where I worked had to take time off from their jobs to sit through a three-day parenting seminar, attendance required. None of the pregnant girls I went to high school with had to pass a home study, inviting a total stranger into their home, and clean like a crazy, obsessed person for a week before, and bake fresh cookies to offer as refreshment which the woman DIDN’T EVEN EAT and sit back and answer her questions about how you would raise the baby, and what your plans are, and what your expectations are, and oh my God what do I say about spanking? What if I say no, we would never spank a child, and this woman assumes I am too lenient to be a qualified parent? But what if I say yes, I do believe in spanking, and she thinks that makes me a child abuser? The decisions we all make as parents are part of an ongoing learning process, and I wasn’t a parent, yet I was already being judged on how I would do it. None of my pregnant co-workers, or friends, or relatives, had to sit through an interview process, whereby someone who doesn’t even know you has the power to stamp “approved” or “NOT!” on your request to be a parent.

It. Made. Me. Crazy.

I abhorred it. And at the same time, as it became more and more obvious that the fertility route wasn’t working, adoption was quite possibly going to be our only avenue to becoming parents. Do you know how hard it is to despise a system, and resent everything you are required to do, and at the same time hold it up as the possible answer to your hopes and dreams?

Then, it pretty much became a moot point. This adoption agency that we applied with basically shut down after we were approved. They went from a fully-staffed agency, working out of a nice office suite, to a part-time social worker in a one-room office with an answering machine that she stopped in once a week to check. For the first year after we were approved, you know how many babies they placed with families?

Zero.

Three years of temperature charts and bloodwork and ultrasounds and putting pillows under my butt after sex and fertility drugs and hot flashes and mood swings. Nothing to show for it.

A year of artificial reproductive technology. Big Fat Nothing to show for it.

A year of jumping through hoops to get approved for adoption, and waiting on their approved list. Bigger Fatter Nothing to show for it.

Yeah, my “pissed at the world” phase had officially begun. Really, really, unattractive. Almost as unattractive as ………. Oh, who am I kidding? It was the most unattractive phase yet. And can you believe it’s not the lowest point we would reach?