The good, the bad and the ugly

Change. The very nature of the process is scary. With change comes uncertainty, risk and vulnerability. Because of this change is stressful. Though there's always the promise of a good outcome, there's also the threat of messiness and loss along the way. These past couple of weeks have been one filled with lots of change. Grey and I have been busy making plans for the future, focusing on healing and transitioning for the next steps. With all of this has come an emotional piece that neither of us were truly prepared for.

There's been the good. Therapy with David and Dee has been helpful at identifying key issues and allowing us to work together as a couple. What we're learning is how strong our bond is and how both of us have not only the same fears and worries, but also the same dreams and goals. With the help of David, we are learning how to communicate all of this better and to find ways to overcome the damage caused by external stressors and toxic individuals. In addition to this, Grey and I started working on the paper work to begin the adoption process. We've been sorting through forms and triaging importance and attention. Some of the forms have been fairly straight forward, requiring only basic information or needing us to make appointments with others to help us complete them. Others have required more thought, answering questions about lifestyle, parenting plans, hopes for the future. In a lot of ways, these exercises have been beneficial as they've allowed us to work together and verify how many values and life-views we share. Granted, there's also an underlying sense of invasion and the realization that most parents don't give any of this much thought when they decide to expand their family. Still, we have both been trying to embrace the knowledge that there are many benefits to these exercises.


But with the good, there's also been the bad; the moments of frustration and grief. Grey and I are working daily on coming to terms with our new reality. Since making the decision to stop treatments, there's been an even more present feeling of isolation and exclusion. Friends we know in real life who had struggled with infertility have become absent, being silent since our last miscarriage. It's like their pregnancies cleansed them from infertility, so they are now quick to cut off any reminder of that time. Equally frustrating has been online support, where group members who are now pregnant or parenting after easily becoming pregnant complain about their current lot, wondering aloud about the "could-have-beens" when they have what Grey and I are breaking ourselves for. Yes, I know that life is difficult, but some if this feels superficial and makes us both feel even more isolated then we previously were.


And then there's the ugly: the things so few want or are willing to talk about. The past year has been spent putting our faith in modern medicine while putting everything else on hold for treatment. With the realization that modern medicine would not be the answer to finding our children, we began to start making plans to live again, pursing our dreams and goals. Yesterday we learned that by moving forward on that end, we may have to put the adoption process on hold. The agency we are looking into currently has an extended wait for matching birth parents with adoptive parents, with an average time now being 16 months instead of the 10-12 months. On top of this comes the knowledge that if we relocate outside of the state, we will have to complete a second homestudy because of this. Our initial path on this part of the journey is now blocked and we are at a loss for how to proceed. 


Last night while trying to calm myself, I came to the first of many ugly truths on this: I'm no longer willing to sacrifice everything for this process. I've been beaten up and ripped apart for the past year as we underwent treatment, all for 2 losses and a lot of heartache. I can't continue to do that and hope to be a fit parent. So I'm committing the ultimate infertile sin: I'm making a choice for me by pursuing career options that could result in putting adoption on hold. I'm keeping my interview and we will assess what needs to happen based on this information. Is it a good plan, hardly, but I think it's the right decision given what information we have. G_d knows this hurts, though, and with the hurt comes the envy towards those who will never have to make these choices. 

All in all, we're alive and we're trying to move forward. But the reality is, unlike before, our path is a much more rugged one, filled with many more obstacles and pitfalls. I'm sure there will be a day when we both can look back on this time and laugh, marveling at how naive we were and how we shouldn't have stressed about this or that, but being in the thick of it makes me wish we had some sort of a guide or even a more defined roadmap.