Yeah, I know, but I kinda thought maybe

If there's one phrase that could sum up the last year and a half it would be this one: "Yeah, I know, but I kinda thought maybe." It fits in so many situations, from the macro - "Really? You don't think you're too old to have another kid?" - to the micro - "Every sign points to you not being pregnant; do you really think there's hope this month?" I can't even tell you how many times I've said it to myself... yesterday included, just before another cycle drew to a close.

Things are winding down here, with my 41st birthday three days away and an absolute certainty that there will be no pregnancy before it arrives. I know that deadline was self imposed with a convenient built-in exit clause (which I will be using, most likely) but it still looms large. Or medium-sized, anyway. I guess I thought I had to have some dramatic conclusion to all this "trying," but I think instead it will just quietly go away. Not this month, probably not next month, but soon. And I think I'm okay with that.

I realized something recently, though. I've been dreading telling people that we've stopped trying almost as much as I've been dreading the point where we stop trying. Why? Well, I guess that the best way I can explain it is to say that right now, infertility is like a painful cut. Continuing to try for another child is a protective bandage. It puts up a symbolic shield and eases the pain a bit, in part because I know we’re still trying, but also—just like a band-aid that people can immediately see and know there’s something to be careful of—other people understand how badly we want it. Take off the bandage, stop trying to have a baby, and the wound is just open, and practically invisible unless someone takes the time to look closely. And just like any wound, it will heal with time, but never completely. To put it succinctly, that’s gonna leave a mark. There’s no doubt about it.

In our old house we had neighbors with an only child, a girl named Danielle who was one of the most delightful 10 year olds you could ever meet. Eli was just a peanut at the time and I remember her mother saying to me that seeing him made her wish for that baby stage again. I, in all my infinite, ignorant insensitivity replied, “Well, you could always have another! La la la!” (No, I didn't say the "la la la" part, but I may as well have.) Now, two years later, with a wholly different perspective, I cringe when I think about what I said to her. Sure, there’s always a chance that having one child was their choice. But there’s an equal-if not better-chance that it wasn’t a choice. And knowing what I know now, I believe what I said to her was painful. This is the type of salt-in-the-wound comment that I dread.

I think this is at the root of how I can feel so content with the idea of raising Eli as an only child, and yet still feel so hesitant to tell people so. Because saying we’re done at one could easily imply that one is all we decided we wanted, when really it’s what we’ve made peace with.

I've started to think about what what to do with our guest room, the room that was supposed to belong to another child. I'm thinking a small wall-mounted flat-screen and some furniture rearrangement to allow us to move the exercise bike up from the basement. I'm thinking maybe I'll still go ahead and get the print that I bought as a "nursery decoration" framed because otherwise it will just collect dust in the closet. I'm thinking some new bedding, since it will likely be there for a long time. I don't relish moving forward in this direction, but maybe it will distract me for a little while. None of it feels good, but ultimately it feels right. And I guess that's the best I can ask for.

Phew!

That was quite a month. I think I mentioned - before the chaos and general insanity began - that I managed to drum up some freelance work. I sent out marketing materials for my book indexing business (one advantage to being a former academic is knowing plenty of people who will write books in the future) and it yielded some editing (and later, indexing) work. For the last six weeks or so I have been helping an old colleague edit a book, the topic of which was so closely connected to my own research that it may as well have been my own. And, to sum it up, it was awesome (and tiring).

At first, it sort of made my head hurt, this whole "thinking" thing. It had been a while. But then I got into a groove and I was just digging it. Sure, I neglected Eli a bit (two days ago, in the heat of the final crunch, he was introduced to the joys of Blockbuster, which I utilized to plant him on the couch for a morning) and he didn't love that every spare second brought me to my computer, but given that I pretty much just covered his preschool tuition for next year, I think he'll forgive me. Which brings me to the other awesome part: this whole working thing? They pay you for it. You work, and then they give you money. It is remarkable how easy it is to forget how good that feels. But now I remember. And I'm hooked.

Money has been so tight for us recently that the money I just earned is pretty much already spoken for (preschool tuition, some car repairs, things like that) but in the midst of it all I did manage a couple of splurges. First, instead of regular coffee, I got lattes - not every time, but often enough. (That had been a place where I cut back. I just love going out and buying a hot cup of coffee but couldn't justify $4.50+ for a drink, so I went to the regular American stuff.) Yum, lattes. And, I also bought myself a pair of expensive jeans. Oh, how I love my jeans.

There's a store in Boston's North End which has a reputation for being able to find the perfect pair of jeans for your body. So, one weekend afternoon when there was a lull in the work, I took off in search of my destiny. Unfortunately, the first pair was a miss. I got them home and just though, "eh." So, I took matters into my own hands and emailed the store owner (hey, if you don't want emails, don't put your address on your store's site!). She was very gracious and told me when she'd be there and said she'd be happy to help. And help she did. I love, love, love my ridiculously overpriced denim.

Somehow, another benefit of all this work was some clarity in thinking about the whole grow-this-family plan. We haven't made a final decision yet, but we're leaning very heavily toward raising Eli as an only. Lately I've been increasingly aware of the sense of relief (combined with a healthy dose of disappointment, but still) that I feel each month when there's no pregnancy. I know I'd still be thrilled if it happened, but there's a part of me - a significant part of me, it seems - that would look forward to a family of three. That, combined with the fact that the largest age difference we would like is four years, and the fact that I will be 41 in four months, has led us to believe that we'll probably try for a few more months and then call it a family.

Oh! And I was talking with the woman for whom I was working all these weeks about raising an only child, because that is what she is currently doing (a 15-year-old daughter) and her solution: get a dog. It might sound ridiculous initially, but think about it: She was saying that her therapist's opinion is that her daughter needed not to be so much the center of things, needed for someone else in the family to also "need." A dog accomplishes that. And for some reason, when she shared this with me, a weight was lifted, as if I suddenly knew how I was going to pull this off.

Anyway, that's where things stand right now. I'm looking forward to getting back to this blog in a meaningful way, and with that in mind, I'm changing formats a little - or at least introducing a new one. It occurred to me that I often put off writing because I feel like I'm writing to "you," (the small group of people who find their way here), and then I suddenly feel pressure, and I just don't write. My primary purpose in writing anything is so that Eli has a record of what his crazy mother was up to way back when. So, from this point on, many of my entries will start with "Dear Eli." I thought about switching blogs, primarily because I had all kinds of fun ideas for titles (like "The Eli Papers") but I'll stick with this. I want the option to have other kinds of posts and he's already going to have weed through about 12 different on-line sources to get the whole story (if he even cares), so it seems the kind thing to do.

So, coming soon: Letters to Eli.

And p.s., no that is not my butt in that photo. Ha! As if.

A Party of Three

If I ever threw a party and no one came, I imagine it would go something like this:

I would awaken the morning of the party, excited about all the possibility the day was going to hold. I'd be giddy. I'd imagine all of the details, everything unfolding in just the most perfect of ways. I'd envision the perfect conversations I'd have with my guests. I'd anticipate how they would love all the tasty treats I had prepared for them. I'd preoccupy myself for all the morning hours just knowing how perfect things would be.

As the hour of my guests' arrival approached, I would begin listening for them. I'd listen for their cars barreling down the street; I'd hear car doors slam in the distance and move quickly to the window to know immediately who had done it. As the time drew even closer, I wouldn't spend even a second worrying that they weren't coming because of course they were. Instead I would focus my energy on guessing who was going to arrive first.

A few minutes would pass and all of my guests would officially be late, but I still wouldn't worry. Most people don't show up on time, and no one wants to be the first person at a party. I'd take a walk into the dining room to make sure everything was in order, to make sure I hadn't forgotten to put out the artichoke dip or the cocktail napkins or the little sesame pretzel things I found at Trader Joe's. Feeling reassured that all was, in fact, right with the world, I'd return to my perch just to the side of the window - the perch that's close enough to see what's going on, but not so close that I feel I'm hovering. A watched pot never boils so I wouldn't want to hover.

After 10 minutes I still wouldn't worry. There must be traffic somewhere. Maybe I should have scheduled my party a little earlier in the day? Another 10 and I might start to wonder, but certainly someone will be here soon. By half past the appointed hour I would feel officially justified in worry, and some sadness would probably creep in. But mixed into all of that would be some hope, too. After all, 30 minutes late is not too late to arrive at a gathering.

That hope would fade, I suppose, as another half hour crept by with me on my perch and my artichoke dip cooling on the table and the drips of water on the outside of my lemonade pitcher pooling on the table beneath it. And at a certain point I might decide it was time to put some food in the fridge - just for safe keeping, because surely someone would come to eat it. So one by one I would take my dishes and cover them with saran wrap and make room for them on the shelves.

There might be some decorations on the wall, but I'd leave those, at least for another day. It would seem too final to take them down altogether. Not just yet. But after another hour or so, it would seem silly to leave the lights on, and I'd be tired anyway, so I'd quietly switch them off and just go to bed. And I'd drift off to sleep knowing that my party would have been grand, but unfortunately, no one came.

But here's the thing: I didn't throw a party, I tried to have a second child. And I made all kinds of preparations and I waited and I looked for signs and I thought I saw signs and I checked to make sure everything was in order and it was and I went back to waiting and still no one came and I started to lose hope and to wonder if maybe I shouldn't have tried all this a little earlier until finally it became clear that no one was coming so I shut down and tried to get some rest.

And while there's no denying the sting that comes along with opening yourself up only to be left alone, this one doesn't sting quite as much as you might think. Because first of all, I wasn't waiting alone. I had David there with me through it all and he makes any party worth having. And the other thing? I threw this same party three years ago and just the right guest arrived at that one. So even though this party didn't quite pan out, I do know the joy of a party gone well.

I am starting to find some peace concerning this journey we're on. I haven't taken down those decorations yet - still too final - but I have started to nibble at the untouched party food and I have started to accept the fact that this party may be simply a party of three.

HA!

That's what the universe seems to be saying.

After that long rant the other day and and a minor catharsis last night, David and I seem to be leaning toward abandoning the biological child cause. Not immediately, but soon. We're both in the same place - actually, I'm very lucky in that he's supportive of whatever direction I happen to be leaning on any given day but, overall, he's very content to raise an only child. So we talked about all of that, and how nice it could be, and how many ridiculous obstacles we've had in the last year, and what a great option adoption of an older child is if we decide later on that we want to grow the family.

We had been planning to attend a party of sorts in a couple of months. The state adoption agency holds these periodically to allow prospective parents a chance to gather information and get to know some of the older children who need homes. We weren't going to find a child as much as we were going to see how the whole thing felt to us. It's in October and I've really been looking forward to it.

After David and I talked I figured it was time to put it into iCal. Before I did, I asked David, "When is that work thing you're going to in California?" Yeah. That's right. He leaves the day before.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I did both.

Warning: Profanity Ahead

When I communicate with other people on-line -- whether here in this blog, in other people's comments sections, or on LiveJournal -- I tend to avoid profanity at all costs. I do that for a few reasons, the most important ones being that I know that some people find it offensive, I don't think it's typically necessary, and while some bloggers have a way of weaving curse words into their prose in a way that's practically cute, in my writing I think it just sounds harsh. With all of that in mind, I have generally avoided a virtual potty mouth.

Until today.

I've had it. No, excuse me. I've fucking had it.

For the last year we have tried to make a baby and I've slapped this ridiculous Pollyanna attitude on the whole thing and I'm not sure why. In the beginning I was a little surprised that it wasn't going as easily as it did with Eli (who was conceived on the second month; when I was 37; boy was I lucky) but didn't get too down, aside from the to-be-expected pouting and disappointment. Then when more than a few months had gone by I complained, but only infrequently. And as it became clearer that things might not go our way immediately, or even ever, I still tried to put a bright shiny spin on the whole damn situation, telling people "We're very open to adoption" and "I realized recently that it's very exciting not to know where the next member of your family is going to come from" and "No, I really don't mind talking about it." More recently, my sound bytes have been along the lines of "We're open to all possibilities" and "I'm so lucky to have Eli,"* but the general idea is the same: "Yes, I know we're in this unenviable situation but look how gracefully I'm handling it! Surely you envy that, don't you?"

While painting on this happy face, I also dutifully request book after book after book from the library, devouring them as if the very process will alter the fibers of my being that so desperately want another biological child. I finish each one feeling more educated about our options, but still not really wanting them. I also scour the web for information on even more possibilities, again hoping that just the accumulation of a virtual mountain of information will change how I feel in my heart.

Simultaneously, we spend every cycle giving it our best shot. I chart my temperatures in a somewhat obsessive way (that's the researcher in me, insisting on complete data sets). After the thermometer beeps its shrill little beep I leap out of bed and eagerly log the daily nugget of information into Fertility Friend, as though each reading above the cover line is money in the bank - what bank, I'm not quite sure. Maybe some bank that sells healthy biological offspring for 98.6 cents. And I pee on my ovulation predictor paraphernalia so often that if I tell Eli I have to go, he responds with "On a stick!" And David and I faithfully do that baby dance until we just. can't. do. it. again. And every month we get nothing.

Excuse me: Fucking nothing. Also affectionately known as Jack Shit.

I'm tired of being positive about this. I'm tired of being emotionally removed from it. I'm tired of being reasonable. I'm tired of being optimistic. I'm tired of being a pillar of strength. Mostly I'm just tired.

A few days ago my temperature took a nose dive and I thought to myself, Great. This one's done and it's only a 22 day cycle. Of course I did the obligatory googling about implantation dips and was able to convince myself that it might be so. And then when, the next day, my temperature did shoot back up like a beautiful rocket full of pointless dreams, I thought This could be it! I kept my enthusiasm in check - after the 7-7-7 debacle I knew better. But I did hope, quietly and just a little. But it should have come as no surprise that this morning my temperature had sunk even lower than that first dip. And I've begun to feel that old familiar feeling, and Aunt Flo, that old biddy, she's on her way. And once again the dream has died.

And I'm so fucking over this.

*By the way, I don't think it needs to be said and yet, somehow, it must be said: I know how lucky I am to have this kid. I know how lucky I am to have conceived him so easily. I know how lucky I am to have conceived him at all. I know how lucky I am to have a healthy child. I know how lucky I am to have a child. My bitching and moaning should not take away from that at all. But focusing only on that is what leads me down that Pollyanna path and I've begun to realize that that's not healthy for me because it doesn't acknowledge all of what I'm feeling. Sometimes I need to bitch and moan because even though my entire heart is full of love for my one and only, I'm greedy, and I want more.

Hey, Universe, it's Enough Already!

The year: 1993.
The place: Union Street, San Francisco

I had just seen Sleepless in Seattle with one of my closest friends. As we strolled down the street we had a deep conversation - as deep at 26 year olds can get - about signs. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks had respected the signs that the universe threw at them, and look what it got them. True Love. Happiness. Surely we just needed to open our eyes a little wider and all things wonderful would be ours in no time.

I don't think that conversation put us directly on a path to utopia, but I do subscribe to the philosophy that nothing is a coincidence and that there are times when the universe is trying to tell me something.

This might be one of those times.

We are coming dangerously close to the one year anniversary of this family's quest for another member. Basically, we finish out this cycle and we're there. Along the way, the obstacles have been so plentiful they've been downright comical. We got off to a great start (for a month), followed by a rude halt caused by a gazillion little house guests. How do you fit a gazillion guests in your house? It's easy when they're PINWORMS! Blech. Not my happiest memory. Since the drug doesn't mesh with pregnancy, we waited a cycle. Then we continued on our merry way with other less disgusting obstacles like a very poorly timed business trip for David and a less-than-ideally-timed glassblowing weekend away for me. (With some fancy footwork we managed that one.)

A few more months of fruitless trying and then a letter from my OB saying she'd be leaving her practice permanently to improve maternal health services in Zambia. I can think of no one better suited to the work - and that fact is also why I adored her as my OB - but it does make it difficult for her to see me through another pregnancy, doesn't it? Oh well, no matter, I've been through worse (ahempinorms) and carried on. I could always find another OB.

After the basic fertility tests, we made a decision that the very slightly increased chances we would have if we pursued IUI and IVF were not worth the financial or emotional costs. The only intervention for this family would be acupuncture. I found the guy - you know, the one they write newspaper articles about because of his success rates; the one everyone knows someone who went to him - and started treatment. Month one: No change. Month two: Craziest temps ever. Month three: Acupuncturist gets a detached retina and is out of commission for two months.

Huh?

HUH?!

Universe, I could deal with the worms. I could deal with the poor travel timing. I could even survive without the woman who brought my perfect son into the world. But, this. Are you kidding me?

(And to top it all off, one of the things I keep thinking about when we consider raising Eli as an only is that he's perfect. No developmental troubles, save for a few sensory things we can handle; no medical issues; he's - dare I say it -easy. Of course Autism is one of the potential problems I mull over and worry about. And so as I settled in with my lunch and my Tivo remote to see what wise words Oprah had to offer me today, should I have been surprised that the episode she chose to re-run was the episode on severe Autism? Probably not.)

I find myself in a strange position now. I have always prided myself on listening to my inner voice, respecting the signs that have been put in front of me. If I'm being honest here, the signs are telling me one thing: Stop. Just stop. It's enough. Quit while you're ahead. Bloom where you're planted. Love the one you're with, and all that.

And yet somehow I can't. Not quite yet.

More to chew on

I was talking with a pregnant friend the other day about whether or not she should have an amnio and she was saying she was leaning away from doing it and would be glad when the window of opportunity was over so she could stop thinking about it. I realized today that that's just how I feel. My window of opportunity for conceiving a second child is slowly closing - I've got time left yet, but not a lot - and I honestly believe I'll feel some relief when it's over. Regardless of what happens.

I think I've written earlier that I am completely at peace with all of our options: biological child; adoption; only child. I mull them all over and on any given day I feel great about one, good about another, and not much interested in the third. And it changes all the time. When I thought the day of the lucky sevens was going to pan out for us (it didn't, by the way) I was thrilled about being pregnant again and about having an infant in the house and about everything that went along with both of those things. The day I knew it wasn't our month I was crushed but by the next day I was back to thinking about adoption. Not international adoption this time, but adoption of a child from the foster care system.

I started research on all of that (it's what I do; I research) and am left feeling pretty good about that option. There are so many wonderful kids out there. I don't have hesitations about bringing an older child into our house, at least not when Eli's older too (this would be several years from now) and boy does this plan take a financial load off our minds. My hesitation lies more with the question of, "How do you get to know a child and then make a "decision" without potentially breaking a little heart?" I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question and I think an info session is in order. (When Eli was first born I was a "new moms' group" junkie. I do believe I have now become an "info session" junkie.)

But then I have my days when I think having an only child is the right fit for us. Maybe. The thing is, I never fully get there. I want to. I have on-line role models who make parenting an only child seem just how I'd want it to be. The chance to get to know your kid inside and out. The time to really engage with them. Quite simply, a happy little family unit. Whether these women stay the mothers of only children or take a different path, at the moment they make life with their onlies look really, really wonderful.

And like I said, I want to get there. But I grew up with a sibling and so did David. We both always imagined we'd have two. When you don't think you will ever be the one having trouble getting knocked up it's easy to be certain about your choices, and that's what I was. Certain. The only thing in question was whether I'd have a boy first or a girl first (because I also somehow thought that was up to me). It's just so hard to imagine raising a boy with no brother or sister. I know I could do it and I know he'd be a happy person. I just never want to hear him say that he was lonely as a child. (That, and there's part of me that thinks that if I'm going to screw up as a mom, it's best spread across a couple of people. Concentrating my flaws onto just one person seems a little cruel, don't you think?)

So that brings us back to how best to grow this family. We'll keep on with the acupuncture and the TTC or the BD or whatever you want to call it. I'm shying away from international adoption (or domestic adoption, for that matter) these days because of two things: cost and time. We don't really have $30K to spend right now and don't anticipate having it in the future. I know there are tax breaks when you adopt and I also know our families would help out, so if money was the only issue, we wouldn't let that stop us. But, there's also the timing issue. Specifically, if we're going to adopt we should start the process now (or at least very soon). That means plunking down about $5K before we've completely given up on a biological child.

And that is how I have found myself looking at websites with photos of waiting children, asking myself if one of them could be mine. Like I said, if we did decide to adopt an older child it wouldn't happen for a few years so realistically, no, none of those children could be mine. But I'm trying this one on for size and it feels pretty good. More research to be done, of course, but it seems like a good option for us, for many reasons.

In the meantime, I'll just keep loving my only. Not a bad option.

It's all in the numbers

One: The number of children I think we might wind up with.
Even as I ruminate over all of our options (acupuncture, charting, OPKs, adoption, donor eggs, adopting Vicki the Robot, you get the picture) I still keep coming back to the fabulousness of having just Eli. I mean, think of it: I can devote scads of time to him AND still have some time left over for myself. Pre-school of our choice, regardless of cost? Done. The cool sneakers when he's in 8th grade? No problem. A car when he turns 16? Sure, let's get him a safe one with airbags everywhere. College education? Not cheap, but we can manage it. Wedding? Sure! We'll spring for half. I mean, it all just seems so manageable. It's not lost on me that most of the things I just mentioned are financial, and we happen to be operating with a rather squeezed budget at the moment. I would never want to make this kind of decision based solely on money, but finances aside, sticking to one is very tempting. I've said all along that I'm content with whatever course our family history takes. It's the uncertainty of it all that'll be the death of me. But the number one does keep creeping back in to my head, and there must be a reason for that. I'm sure there will be other posts on this at other times, but this is all there is to say about it for now.

40: My age and, apparently, the shelf life of eggs.
For years I'd heard the statistics about fertility in your 40s and I figured, "Not me." I mean, I haven't had a cavity in years. My blood pressure is awesome, if I do say so myself. And sometimes I'll be very still, in the midst of doing something, and I feel like it's very possible that I haven't even breathed in the last minute or so. Seriously, this happens to me. Given that I actually question whether my body needs oxygen to survive, why would I think those blasted statistics would ever apply to me? I mean, I might not even be mortal, for goodness sake. And yet here I am, wishing and hoping that my tired ovaries will crank out a decent egg this weekend. And while I'm pushing for that, my best friend from childhood just had her ovaries removed the other day. She tested positive for the breast cancer gene and lost her mother to ovarian cancer, so this was what she considered the logical choice (and personally - though I know it's controversial - I don't disagree). So I'm thinking there's a shelf life on these things. It's not hard and fast, but it's there, it appears to be 40(ish), and it's annoying me.

Seven: The day, the month, the year.
I know a lot of very pregnant couples are hoping for their children to be born on this date, what with the lucky symbolism of it. I'm asking the Vegas gods to spread a little luck this way, though. The way I look at it, those couples are already lucky. Those babies are coming out one of these days anyway and there are some of us that could really, really use that luck. Like me, for instance. I'll be ovulating today (is that TMI? My blog; my personal details - sorry!) and I think conceiving a kid on this, the luckiest day of the century, could be very nice. And think of the fetus nicknames! Jackpot. Jackie P. Little JP. Yes, it's the perfect day indeed. So come on, sevens. Mama needs a new pair of baby shoes.

Now that Lisa Ling has weighed in on the topic...

Lisa Ling is like your really smart friend in college. You know her. The one who always did all the reading and asked compelling questions in class. She's the one who had time to be everyone's friend and never seemed to need time to study and then at graduation you found out she was actually triple-majoring in three subjects like Political Science, Physics and Humanitarianism. (That last one's made up but if it really existed you know she would have been ALL over it.) So I knew that her National Geographic special, China's Lost Girls, would give me plenty to think about.

I watched it the other day and she didn't let me down. She gave me the human side of the adoption story, following a very nice family from Atlanta as they traveled to China to fetch their second adopted daughter. It was remarkable to me how similar - identical, actually - their journey was to the journey of the woman in that book I mentioned. So it was interesting to see it all brought to life. But what I was counting on Lisa for, and what she delivered on, was the other side of the story. What's going on in China to cause this and what's happening as a result.

Nothing was terribly surprising, I'm sad to say. It's well known that the huge number of abandoned Chinese baby girls is a direct result of historically recent social policies and ancient traditions that favor boys to carry on the family name. She touched on another important issue that I hadn't considered before, which is the fact that in China when girls marry, they typically move away whereas boys stay close to the family and help support the elders. So, the value of a boy child is not just symbolic. For a family with only a girl there would be very real concerns about how the parents would survive in old age.

The consequences of this pattern are, unfortunately, not surprising either. They predict that in 20 years there will be 40 million men without women to marry. (I think I remember those numbers correctly.) There are already cases of kidnappings and abuse as the shortage of young women eligible for marriage gets more and more severe.

So here is where the fact that my is blog really just mine - no comments=no readers, or some close approximation, right? - means I can speak freely without worry. Well, almost without worry. Let me just say this: What I am about to say is in ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NO WAY a judgement of international adoption or of the people who create their families through it. I am writing this to sort out my own feelings on a complicated, personal issue.

Okay. So.

I started to ask myself, by adopting a baby from China would I at all be contributing to that country's social problems. I mean, if there continue to be families ready and willing to adopt these little girls, are parents in China who face this decision going to feel more comfortable abandoning their babies? This thought came in to my head during one segment in the DVD when the mother from Atlanta visited the park where her first daughter was found and hung a sign written in Chinese with a picture of her daughter as an infant and a picture of her daughter now. The sign told readers that her daughter was found in the park and that now she's a healthy, happy little girl. And she is. And I think the mother's intention was to let the biological mother know that her little girl was okay. But I couldn't help thinking that it also seemed a little like an advertisement. Like, "look where she is now!"

Like I said, it's complicated. I hope that if anyone else ever reads these words they will understand that I'm really just raising for this debate within my own heart. If this is something my family is going to be a part of, I have to know that I've looked at every side, and that includes the political side. I just have to.

So my feelings about West meets East are a little bit more tempered than they were when I last wrote about them. Part of that is because of what I just described. Part of that is because my first full cycle while seeing an acupuncturist was also my most erratic in terms of my basal temperature and, now, as of this weekend, was also my shortest in length. (22 days? Huh?) But I still have faith that there's a way to grow this family. I just don't quite think I know what that way is right now.

West meets East

I've been spending recent Saturday mornings stretched out with a pillow under each end of me, stuck full of tiny needles. Classical Chinese music plays softly in the background, helping me conjure up images of robustly bursting follicles or eggs romancing sperm or sticky uterine walls or whatever is appropriate for that point in the cycle. When my mind drifts from that more purposeful imagery, I have a lot of time to think and what I think is this: We will have another baby someday and the odds are stacked in favor of a strong Asian influence in the process.

It's not just the acupuncture, though my hope is that eastern medicine is taking me down the right path and my body will soon cooperate. It's also the fact that I'm feeling more and more drawn to adoption in China if we reach that point. At first we had dismissed it, not being able to sort out the logistics of an extended stay with Eli to think about. But something keeps pulling me right back to it. One specific pull was a book that happened to jump out at me when I was in Borders a couple of weeks ago. It's called Forever Lily, and it's the memoir of a woman who never intended to adopt a girl from China yet somehow does.

While I have some problems with the book in general (her oversimplification of the roots of infant abandonment in China, as well as her Eurocentrism, for example) it was incredibly helpful to me as I started trying to imagine what the whole process would be like. She describes, in detail, her journey to China and the process - emotional, bureaucratic, etc. - she goes through to bring her daughter home. It made it easy to put myself there and think, "Yes, I could do that." So there you have it. Yes, I could do that.

We're not at that point yet. I'm probably closer than David is, but even I'm not there. This week I'll go to my first adoption information night. I'll go alone because, like I said, we're not at that point yet. I just need information when it comes to things like this. I need stuff to chew on and I'm done chewing on my Google searches. I also need to feel like we're moving toward something. I don't want another year to go by of TTC, only to look back and wish I'd started doing something earlier. So we'll get this moving forward and see what direction it takes us in. I'm thinking East.

Introductions

It's true this won't be a blog exclusively about being a parent, but that doesn't mean being a parent isn't central to just about everything I do these days. With that in mind, it seemed fitting to introduce my favorite small person, Eli.

We gave Eli the Hebrew name Shalom Asher because we wanted nothing more for him than peace and happiness. In his 2+ years he's lived up to that name in spades. He is the calmest, most cheerful little soul I've ever encountered. He's sweet, he's forgiving, he's thoughtful, he's generous, he's funny, he's quirky, he's quick, he's skinny, he's smart, he's determined, and he's very much two.

Also, he's currently an only child. We've been working on changing that, but so far no dice. I got pregnant easily with Eli so we hoped for the same experience when it came time for #2. Nine months later, here we are, and no sibling. One advantage to being 40 is that the specialists will fast-track you when it comes to infertility so I'm now just finishing up the preliminary testing (Clomid Challenge and HSG) and I'll hope for answers in a couple of weeks. In the meantime I'm preparing my heart and my mind for every other possibility and I'm finding that I'm largely at peace with all of them.

I had this sudden flash a few days ago that not knowing if I'll conceive a second child is actually exciting. I don't mean to put a Pollyanna sugar coat on something that's not simple and certainly not easy, but I believe strongly that you can make your own reality. I choose to make this exciting. How? Well, think about it. If I conceived a second child like *that*, then whammo, my life is settled. A husband, a house in the 'burbs, two kids. No mystery there. But with a second conception in question, there are so many scenarios to mull over. We know we want a second child, but how will he or she arrive? Will we adopt? If we adopt, will it be a baby? Will it be soon? Will we adopt an older child? Maybe in five years? Or maybe we'll decide we don't want a second child after all and we'll be us three for the duration. It's an appealing thought, I have to admit. So I choose to see all of this as possibility and anticipation. It beats limitations and frustration any day.