Gardening

I love to garden. I discovered gardening a few years ago when we were still living in a north-facing high-rise where we could barely grow shade plants on our balcony. My husband mentioned to me that a friend of his was going to be joining a community garden and did we want to join as well. I knew nothing of gardening but I do love the Farmer's Market and cooking so figured I'd give it a go.

Our community garden was about a mile from our house as they are fairly popular and it was the only one we could get in to. Coincidentally, or not so much, we were given a plot that was literally a weedy field. Joel went to great lengths tilling and prepping the soil, adding organic matter and breaking up the clay. We sowed our seeds and watched the plants begin to emerge. I was completely hooked.

This was the same time that we were on the tail-end of fertility treatments and were beginning to explore adoption. With no control over my own ornery and stubborn fertility it was nice to be able to have a small hand in creating and producing something.

It was an extremely therapeutic hobby. I loved quiet mornings by myself in the garden weeding and monitoring the progress of our food. We grew lettuce, carrots, beets, Swiss chard, broccoli and a lot of herbs. I decided that gardening was the perfect hobby for me. We stayed in the community garden for a couple of years. There were high and low points of being a in a community garden. There was a lot of theft of vegetables, vandalism and water would arbitrarily be turned off. This wasn't the best experience for someone projecting their fertility onto a plot of land.

Last year when we bought our house, we still had a large plot in the community garden and the owners of the home we bought had planted a small garden with squash, eggplant, tomatoes, kale and lettuce. We had two gardens and it was heavenly.

This year we are focusing on the garden in our own backyard and freeing our space in the community garden for someone else. Joel spent last weekend preparing raised bed boxes and we've been growing our seedlings since February. Nora, still a bit sleepy from being sick, took a two hour nap and we were able to plant most of the garden. It was such a great experience for Joel and I to have time together and to know that we won't be making runs to the grocery store for produce all summer. I've already begun to harvest the lettuce and peas that I planted in March and the Swiss chard isn't too far behind. I'm so excited to have our own garden right outside our back door this year and I can't wait to share my love of gardening, cooking, food and eating with Nora.

Up: A Little Reminder

A couple of nights ago Joel and I watched the movie Up. We had both been wanting to see it for awhile and so we finally rented it. We brought sleeping Nora to the basement/make-shift movie watching space in her bouncy seat and we settled in to watch the movie. I had heard some interviews on NPR about the movie but other than that did not have a clue about it.

Divulging a piece of the plot here:
We got to the scene where infertility was addressed and I instantly burst into tears and began sobbing. (Joel already thinks I'm slightly crazy and over-emotional so he's not as phased by this any longer). The scene was so poignant and caught me completely off guard. (I knew from the interview they couldn't have kids but I thought that part would be glossed over). I was looking over at Nora and just sobbing. I wasn't crying about a bio kid vs. adopted kid which I really need to clarify. I was crying because watching that scene put me exactly back in that place of hopeful expectation and then ultimate disappointment. This cycle is repeated until the day Nora was put in my arms. Even waiting during adoption, while hopeful, is filled with it's own types of disappointments (not being selected, failed matches, long waits etc.). It just reminded me of all that we'd been through. Gratefully, I was able to look over through my tears and see the most precious gift anyone has given me.

In all my excitement of becoming a mom I had put all of the infertility issues away and this movie reminded me. I have a lot of friends on this journey now both in the blogosphere and those who are a part of my life and it made me so sad for the struggle that each of them and some of you are still facing. Those emotions are so hard to deal with and I hate to see anyone on the difficult parts of this journey.

When I began the process of blogging and reading blogs I hated following blogs of people who had already adopted. I'd read up to the part where they brought baby home (to give me hope) but then had no interest in reading about their life with baby. It was just too hard. Melba had a great post about this topic and I don't want to repeat her sentiments because she says it so well here: http://mandmadopt.blogspot.com/2009/12/little-conflicted-about-chirstmas.html. But, I was just reminded of how hard the wait is and how hard the journey can be and I wanted everyone who is currently on this path to know I'm thinking about you.

Closing a Chapter

I really feel as if I'm closing a chapter of my life over the next couple of days as I prepare to move out of our condo. We bought this place just months after getting married. It's in a really young, hip neighborhood close to downtown, restaurants and bars. We took advantage of it all and really loved living the lifestyle that this place afforded us. After a few years living that lifestyle we slowly started talking about kids. Eventually that gave way to trying to start a family. Our plan was to see how things went and then move to a house when the time came.

Well, as we all know, the starting the family part didn't go as swimmingly as we had hoped and then started the years of trying and fertility treatments. Medical procedures, acupuncture, massage and medications are not inexpensive so we decided to stay put. Fertility treatments evolved into adoption and we decided that we really needed to stay put and save up for awhile.

I loved the beginning years of living in our place and being newly married and carefree. The last few years of living here don't have the same happy memories for me. It really reminds me of the waiting and the uncertainty of our situation. The setting up of a baby room only to have it dismantled. This place is beginning to make me feel as if I'm in a permanent holding pattern, forever stagnating in the lifestyle of my late 20s.

On Saturday I'll be packing up and moving out of our condo. It's bitter-sweet but I'm really looking forward to closing this chapter in our lives. I know that the next place we move to will see a baby in it and I'm ready to start that chapter of my life. I'll miss the great lifestyle this place afforded me but I'm even more looking forward to the new chapter that lies ahead.

Creeping Emotions

It's so funny how the wait and emotions in adoption and infertility can sometimes creep up on you. Just when you think it's temporarily out of your consciousness, something will sneak up on you and take you by surprise. I had two of these incidents in the last two days.

On Sunday I was watching L.aw & O.rder and the episode featured a pregnant woman who was in a car accident and ended up going into labor and delivering the baby pre-term. For some reason, this made me want to burst into tears. I couldn't pinpoint exactly why except that it reminded me that I wanted a baby and I'd been waiting more than 9 months. Not that I envied her scenario but it got to me somehow.

The next morning I was in a staff meeting and a video was shown about one of our patients (I work at a pediatric hospital). The video featured a baby who would not have survived without the help of our facility. It showed the happy family so blessed to be holding the baby that they didn't think would make it. Of course, everyone in the room was crying, but, I wasn't emotional for the obvious reason. The story was very touching and did make me want to cry for the family but, again, it was hitting me at a very different level yesterday. It was reminding me that I'm not there yet- I'm still waiting. Again, they went through a terrible ordeal to be with their child and it wasn't jealousy that I felt but more feeling irritated and sorry at my situation.

It's so funny how your emotions will give you a reality check every now and then to remind you that you are still on your journey and the experiences you have had and the grieving that you have done are not that easy to shake off and sometimes things are a little more fresh than you'd like to acknowledge.

Embracing Adoption

I've had the luxury of a half day off of work due to snow today. As a good procrastinator with a messy house and a hamper full of laundry, I've decided to search the blogosphere for other souls blogging about adoption.

I just read a blog about a couple's decision to adopt. I was so excited to read about their epiphany moment and what a great decision they had reached to welcome a child into their lives. Instead, I read that adoption was a "last resort option" for them. Now, I don't want to be a hypocrite. We did reach the end of one road and had to switch paths to another; however, I don't feel like this option is "second best". I feel like it's a little more challenging and takes a lot more work and patience but is not an inferior road to parenthood.

I think adoption opens you up to the possibilities of a life outside of your own and the freedom of raising a child without inherent expectations. I’ve thought a lot about biological parenting and adoptive parenting and I really feel like had we had a biological child we might have projected expectations and talents on that child based on our own experiences and talents. I feel that the adoptive experience allows our child to tell us who s/he is and what their interests and talents might be outside of our expectations. I think this is absolutely true of biological parenting as well but I think that it’s a lot harder to remove yourself, your expectations and your genetics from the equation.

Of course there is always the grieving of infertility of not seeing you husband’s smile or your sister’s eyes reflected in your child’s face. You loose the genetic bond that you have to past generations and to past members of your families. These things are all true. However, I feel like the life and values you provide your child are far more important and provide a far greater connection to your legacy than any DNA could ever provide.

This leads me to my final thought on this snowy day. I very frequently hear from people when I share that we are in the process of adoption that I'm going to get pregnant right after we adopt. Of course, they have a plethora of stories of a friend of a friend to back up this assertion. This statistically happens 10% of the time- a very small and remote number. This also most likely happened exclusively in an era before extensive diagnostics for infertility. I found a very funny term for this on the blog “Tales from the Stirrups” this afternoon: “pregenated”.

I'm not sure what people intend when they “pregenate” me but it’s wearing on me for the exclusive reason that I feel like it devalues our decision to adopt and the relationship that we will have with our child when people make this comment. It reinforces the idea of second best or "last resort". It also perpetuates the idea that we are not happy with this decision and we are settling.

I feel so blessed to have the ability to adopt. To have a mother select myself and my husband and entrust us to help raise her child is the greatest honor and experience I can imagine – definitely not an experience that is second best.

Four Months and Counting

We've officially been waiting for four months for bambino. Honestly, the time has gone by pretty quickly. I've been trying to temper my impulses to buy things for baby for the fear that s/he is going to be dressed exclusively in polk-a-dots and yellow and green. I'm saving some of my shopping for when I'm shopping for a baby that will soon join our family.

I think it's been important for me to start preparing. I'm not going to have 9 months of pregnancy to get ready for baby mentally, emotionally and physically, so, it's been helpful to begin preparing a space for baby both in our physical space and psychologically. Shopping and reading baby books and books about adoption are helping me to accomplish this mental and emotional preparation.

Part of me is resisting the urge to go crazy and buy everything. I think it's going to be important for me to be shopping for my actual child. Of course, in the back of my mind, I still have a bit of fear about doing this. It's easier to shop for a hypothetical child in adoption than a real child. What if our birthmother changes her mind and I've bought clothes and toys for a baby that will not be coming home to me? That's a hard reality about adoption. It's one that doesn't happen as often as people think but one that lives in the back of my mind and creeps into my consciousness every now and then when I think about baby.

We live in a two bedroom condo in the city so I can't help but to see the baby's room. It used to be our office and it is directly across from our bedroom. When I get up in the morning and leave our room the first thing that I see is our changing table. I try to picture my baby on that table. Sometimes it's an African American boy, sometimes a girl with dark hair, dark eyes and olive skin, sometimes it's a freckled girl with red hair. I really have no idea what my baby might look like so I just change up the bambino every so often in my mind. I wonder if people who are having a biological child do this? The variations probably would not be as vast. Probably more like green eyes vs. blue or brown hair vs. blond.

We're Really Starting a Family

I wouldn't allow myself to do anything baby related until after we turned in our video. Really, the likelihood of us being selected without a video is probably pretty slim.

Once we turned in our video I truly felt like we were starting a family. It was really going to happen.



I had this horrible feeling the entire time that we were going through our infertility that buying anything baby related was depressing and pathetic. Why was I stocking up for an impossibility, an unreality?

It was a little bit hard at first when we were accepted into the adoption pool that the outcome was really going to be a baby. After everything that we'd been through I no longer allowed myself to believe that that day would ever come.

It was a strange transition to walk into Babies R Us. No longer was I wishfully thinking that I belonged among the aisles of baby paraphernalia. For the first time I actually felt like I had the right to be there and I wasn't just a voyeur into someone else's reality.

Consequently, I really was on the verge of tears the entire time we were registering because I was shopping for a real baby that someday would be inhabiting the crib, car seat, socks and onesies that we were purchasing.

The Backstory

I was really hoping to be more on top of things than I have been thus far, but, I figure better late than never!

After trying to conceive for three years, including four months of Western fertility treatments and six months of Eastern fertility treatments, my husband and I came to the wonderful decision to adopt.

I had always felt that I wanted to adopt a child; however, it seemed like a complicated propsal. My husband and I decided to create a family the easy way- by having a biological baby. After discovering the "easy way" wasn't easy for us, we began to consider adoption. We came to the conclusion to adopt while on a hike in the Rocky Mountains by our house. We were on a fall hike all by ourselves when the most beautiful snow began to fall. Joel and I began to talk about the journey that we had been on for the last three years. We both came to the conclusion that adoption was right for us and that that would be the path we'd take to start a family. An enormous weight felt like it had been lifted from my shoulders. It was the most natural and wise decision we ever could have made.

We quickly began to research adoption and decided that domestic adoption was the right choice for us. I have absolutely no tolerance for bureaucracy and I couldn't fathom having my life in the hands of a foreign government. I had read so many stories of adoptions becoming mired in politics and corrupt government and I couldn't fathom going through any more obstacles than we already have.

We attended a few educational classes on domestic infant adoption and settled upon Adoption Options in Denver. This agency really seems to have experience and stature in the community and the field. I was really impressed with their staff and, more importantly, with their philosophy of open adoption and with the care they provide to birth mothers.