I think that anyone who decides to donate their embryos or eggs to someone else is incredibly amazing. Even though we're heading down the path to being a recipient family, the way I feel right now, at this point in time, is that I couldn't be a donor. Perhaps it's because I'm infertile, so that any gamete or potential baby is something I just cling to with all my heart and can't imagine giving up. Perhaps it's because I'm selfish and should be shot at dawn with the other criminals. Perhaps, though, just perhaps ... if I were fertile and had my full family already and was still able to produce Good Eggs or had embies on ice, I would be able to feel the ability to share that joy with others. I hope that I would. Anyway, I'm simply in awe of donors for their open hearts and incredible generosity. Such blessings for the recipient family!!
My last post made it sound like all donor embryo agencies charge big fees, but that's not exactly true. The National Embryo Donation Center seems to keep their fees to a very reasonable amount, while matching families in either open or closed situations. I've read that there is sometimes a waiting list, which wouldn't surprise me a bit, but that's just me spreading rumors. I haven't actually picked up the phone and called them to clarify that point or get any additional information. Maybe, for all my talk about openness, I'm okay with a closed situation. Maybe I don't want to fly to Tennessee. Maybe I'm just a lazy selfish person who should be shot at dawn with the other criminals. (See the theme here?)
Here's the thing -- I've asked my infertility doc and my HMO to send all records relating to my IUIs, IVFs, pregnancy, miscarriage, etc. to the out-of-state clinic I mentioned in my last post. They'll then review my records and interview me to see if ... I don't know what they're looking for exactly ... but I assume they want to verify that (a) I'm not batshit crazy and (b) I can actually carry a pregnancy. Both of which seem like good questions to know the answers to. So that's where we are in Project GASP. They can still reject me and we can still change our minds. But there is progress in a direction, and so far it doesn't feel like the wrong direction.
Still, there is a part of me that feels like trying to get pregnant when we've already adopted is somehow hypocritical, a slap in the face to my adoptive mom friends, or a huge betrayal of my little Squeaker. In my heart of hearts, I know that I don't believe any of that is true, but when I'm tired and feeling vulnerable, these are the thoughts I torment myself with. I'm sure it's directly related to my gut feeling that I don't deserve to be happy, that happiness isn't in the picture for me in this life, that things are always going to be Hard or Impossible, that I don't get to live a Normal Life, whatever that is. My dad is back in the loony bin, by the way -- we found that out a few weeks ago. All of this paragraph is related. I know that -- I've always known. I'm the only person I know who was reading self-help books at age 13. It's been helpful to have the inter-relatedness of life come up in marriage counseling, because what is obvious to me is not always so to the Mister. It's been good for our counselor to explain that the way the Mister was raised, the way I was raised, all of this affects how we relate to people now, all of it affects how we think about ourselves and what is possible for us as adults. It explains why I have a job where I make decisions all the time, where I can control much of my environment -- I have that need for control because so much of my childhood was out of control. And when you've grown up with a parent mysteriously absent emotionally (or emotionally over-intrusive when the crazy cycle is swinging in the other direction), when you grow up knowing something is horribly wrong while everyone around you is telling you that you're the one with the attitude problem ... well, you become overly-self-reliant (because clearly no one else is going to take care of you), while at the same time struggling to believe your own instincts have any validity. So that when you're nearly 45 and battling infertility because it took you so long to find a relatively healthy relationship, and the thing that makes the most sense to you doesn't make sense to your friends or family ... (have a baby NOW? at YOUR age? with your demanding job? and your demanding toddler? are you NUTS? why don't you just adopt again?) ... you question your sanity in the middle of the night, so that each morning is a battle once again to live your own life. On very little sleep.
Gadzooks. I didn't mean to get that heavy ... but there it is. My life in a nutshell.
In other lighter news, Squeaker is turning into a little boy before our very eyes. My sweet, pukey, hates-to-sleep, tiny little baby is turning into a rambunctious, opinionated, insists-on-feeding-himself-with-a-spoon and-don't-you-dare-try-to-feed-him-any-other-way toddler. He dances when music comes on, even if it's the cheesy Mozart tunes from his toys. We didn't teach him this. He just started dancing all on his own, big wide grin on his face, having the time of his life. Funny things crack him up, and his giggle is to die for. He's hell on wheels when he's awake. He's already chipped both front teeth, god knows how -- maybe in one of his epic spills, maybe he chews too hard on the fencing around "Squeaker's World" in our living room. He loves grapes and bananas ("nonny!"), and has become absolutely obsessed with washing his hands. If we're anywhere near a sink, he starts rubbing his hands together and gesturing frantically towards the water. He likes helping with the laundry, taking the clothes from the hamper and shoving them in the front-load washer, with the prize, of course, being the ability to push the "start" button and watch everything go round-n-round through the window.
We're weaning him off of his night bottles by gradually watering down the formula. Already, we're seeing a huge improvement in his daytime appetite (he's become a fan of granola cereal for breakfast), but he hasn't stopped demanding the bottle in the middle of the night. I imagine that once it's all water, he'll like it less. His daytime naps are finally what they should be -- one long nap in the morning (an hour! an hour and a half!!) and one in the afternoon. Of course there are days like today when we're out running errands and completely skip a nap, which means that he's ready to pass out by the time we finally turn on the music, give him his lovey, wrap him in his special blanket and put him to bed. It took only 5 minutes for him to go to sleep at naptime today. A world record!!! Nighttime is still hard. Last night he was up pretty much every hour. The Mister and I took turns staggering down the hall to quiet the beast. We're hoping that once these molars FINALLY come through, we'll get more sleep. We also hope to win the lottery, haha. In the meantime we're buying Baby Motrin (for him) and coffee (for us) in bulk quantities at Costco.
I read self-help books at 13. Loved "Your Erroneous Zones" by Dr. Dwayne Dyer. Still a great read!
Posted by: Stacy | March 28, 2010 at 03:21 PM