I didn't call the next morning or the one after that. I waited until DH and I could have time to have a conversation about this possibility of a second child. Immediately being told "Absolutely not" isn't much of a conversation. When we finally did talk, I told DH that I really want to do this. That a sibling isn't taking away from P; it's a gift. That I would be thinking about this for a while because although his No would make my decision for me, it didn't change what I was feeling in my heart. The end result was the same. We're not going to adopt again. I can't force a situation on DH that he really doesn't want to be part of. I called P's adoption worker and left a message, explaining that we weren't able to move forward with the situation and shared some of DH's concerns. She wrote back a kind email thanking us for considering the situation and stating:

the fact that you are so focused on P's best interest is one of the many reasons I thought of you for the child I am currently working with. P is lucky to have both of you.

Of course, we all know that we're the ones who are lucky to have P in our lives, but it was a lovely reply. I'm doing better with the whole situation as time passes. I don't want to live my life as though it's lacking in some way because I have only one child. I know I'm beyond fortunate to have my one beautiful boy. I'm trying to focus on appreciating what I have.

Possibilities

P's adoption worker called me this afternoon to "check in." Since we finalized over 6 months ago, I was surprised to hear from her. She gave me her cell phone number to call her back and said I could call until 9 o'clock tonight. Little warning bells started going off in my head. I called anyway. She's trying to find a home for an 8 month old legally free baby girl. She asked if we're interested. She didn't know if our reluctance to remain in the pool was due to wanting only one child or if it was about not wanting to deal with legal risk and all that it entails again. I told her that I'm shocked she doesn't have a line out the door for this little one.* I told her I'd talk to DH and call her back tomorrow. What I wanted to tell her was, "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

DH has had serious reservations about adopting again. Sure enough, he immediately shot down the idea. He doesn't think he can physically handle two kids. He worries that we couldn't financially handle two kids. He loves taking care of P during the day and is afraid having a baby would take away from P. He's concerned that this little girl may have more special needs than we can deal with (there's prenatal drug exposure and mild developmental delays and the unknown). I totally understand all of his reasons. I know I need to respect his reasons even if I have more faith than he does in our abilities.

But, oh, this is breaking my heart. I didn't even realize how much I long for another child until this afternoon's phone call. Now, I'm sitting here imagining a sister for P, a daughter for us, knowing I'm just torturing myself because it's not going to happen. DH is unchangeable once he makes up his mind. Even so, I'm not going to call the social worker back to give our answer until tomorrow. A lot can happen in 16 hours. It's not likely, but keeping the possibility open even just until the morning makes me feel a bit better.

*Realistically, I think there's more to the situation than she can share with me now. There are many possibilities. Since we aren't at the point of a disclosure meeting, she can't tell me all. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around why there wouldn't be families fighting over this baby. A legally free 8 month old available for adoption is unheard of.

IVF always works. Everyone who uses it is successful and has a baby.

So I'm a little late on the Bust a Myth post, but the theme of my life seems to be better late than never, so it's only fitting that I'm trying to pump this out less than two hours before National Infertility Awareness Week ends. The reason for my tardiness is that I've been going back and forth about which myth I felt called to bust. I thought perhaps the one about not being able to adopt a baby when doing foster-adopt. Or the just adopt one. Or the just relax one. But in the end, it's the IVF myth that has caused me the most heartache and so, for me, is the most deserving of being busted.

I started 4 IVF cycles. Two of them ended in transfer. Two of them ended in IUIs due to poor egg quantity and probably quality. None of them ended in pregnancy. I was ready to keep on going until I reached my health insurance provider's limit of 6 paid IVF cycles (I live in a state that mandates infertility coverage). I had a friend who was able to get 7 IVF cycles paid for by her insurer and got pregnant with her daughter on cycle #7. I bought into the myth. I figured if I just got in enough cycles, I would hit the jackpot like everyone else who did IVF. . .

And then I had my first, and then my second, failed cycle. . .

And my RE brought up the donor egg talk. . .

And I got booted from my RE's practice so as not to mess up their success rate, nicely booted, but booted just the same. . .

And my new RE told me that my chances of getting pregnant were less than 5% with IVF and way, way, way less than that without it. . .

And my health insurer decided that I'd be blowing their money if I tried IVF again with my own eggs so they said #4 would be my last. . .

And I finally realized that IVF doesn't always work. That the fail-safe sometimes fails. That there would be no biological child for me and Mr. OGE. I wish someone had told me! Although, if they had told me, and perhaps they actually did tell me, I would have always pictured myself on the positive side of the statistics. You can't go into an ordeal like IVF expecting to fail.

The revelation I've come to recently is that even though I didn't get pregnant, IVF didn't fail me completely. It gave me options. It gave me some sense of control. It gave me the opportunity to learn what an amazing and supportive group of friends and family I have. It helped me feel like I did everything I could possibly do to have a biological child, and in doing so it helped me to let go of that dream and move on to another---the dream of becoming a parent through adoption.

For more information about infertility, visit RESOLVE.

For more about National Infertility Awareness week, visit here.

Still here and waiting some more

I know it's been a while.  I just thought I would share that we're still waiting to get P's amended birth certificate.  We were told it would take 16 weeks from finalization which seemed an inordinate amount of time at that moment.  How naive we were.  We aren't at 16 weeks quite yet, but DH went to the state office to check on the status of the birth certificate.  He figured it might be ready and if not he'd have a better idea of when it would be.  He was told not to bother checking back until at least another two months have passed. And that it probably wouldn't be ready then because they were short-staffed and swamped.  So sorry.  Next in line.

Ugh.  I love bureaucracy.

Is that my kid? Do the math.

DH found a photo on the ground in the yard at the end of our driveway. It was a photo from a professional portrait studio of a baby wearing a My First Christmas outfit. DH brought it inside and left it on the counter.  I asked him who it was.  He said he didn't know, but he didn't want to throw it out because he thought there was a chance it could be Phenix.  His thinking was that maybe it fell out of an envelope the social worker had given us with another photo of P from right before he came to live with us.  She'd found that photo in his file while preparing for finalization and gave it to us along with some other info. 

The photo DH found stayed on the counter for almost a week.  We couldn't tell if it was Phenix or not and we didn't want to risk throwing it out.  More than likely, it's just a photo that fell out of someone's early Christmas card and blew from the mail truck to our front yard. But when you adopt a child older than a newborn, early photos from before the adoption are treasures. Throwing one out would be like tossing your wedding album in the trash.  You just don't do it. 

Over the past couple of days I've started feeling guilty because I can't tell whether it's Phenix in the photo.  It sounds silly, but I've caught myself asking what kind of mother I am that I can't recognize my own kid.  Then I remind myself that I've always been horrible in those baby photo contests when you have to match the baby photo to the celebrity.  I can't find the similarities between the infant face and adult one.  I just can't do it, so this isn't really any different, right? Then I go back to examining the found photo and looking at Phenix and deciding and changing my mind a million times that it definitely is/isn't him.  And I ask myself what kind of mother doesn't recognize her own child.  

Today I realized that on the back of the photo someone had written the words "6 months."  I'd seen the words before, but for reasons I can't explain I didn't really attend to them.  I finally did the math and figured out that Phenix was only 3 1/2 months old for his first Christmas.  So unless someone labeled the photo incorrectly or had him take a first Christmas photo in March when he actually was 6 months old, Phenix is not the baby in the photo.  Other information had pointed in that direction: the baby in the photo was chubbier than P likely was (he had bad acid reflux and was about to be labeled failure to thrive at that age) and the mouth and ears weren't quite right. But the eyes and forehead were similar and I'd never seen him before he was 12 months old so how could I be sure?  The "6 months" math seems pretty conclusive. 

So the photo isn't sitting on our counter any longer.  It's in a drawer in our desk in the office.  I still can't bring myself to throw it out.  Why? Because. . .well. . .I just can't.  You know.  Just in case. 

Holiday Cards

I read about this offer (50 free Holiday Cards from Shutterfly) on Wendy's blog, Our Story.  Like a lot of people, I don't usually like to post stuff like this on my blog, but I loved the cards that Wendy showcased and I've had good experiences when I've used Shutterfly in the past when making mouse pads for P's Aunties and photo magnets for DH to put up in his locker at work. I figured it was worth a look.  I'm glad I did look because when I went to Shutterfly I found the perfect holiday card for us.

This has been a big year for us.  A lot has happened, including our finalization of P's adoption, and I'd like to share the news.  However, there's no way I'm going to find the time in the next few weeks to get a holiday letter written. When I saw this card, it looked like it was made for us.  I'm going to list different events from throughout the year.  The #1 moment will be "becoming a forever family." I'm going to put our adoption day photo in the middle and a photo of P on either side. I'm so excited to see the final product.  Last year, it took me forever to find a card I liked. On top of that, I spent about 3 days forcing P into various holiday outfits so I could take his photo and had to sort through probably 1,000 photos as a result before I decided on one photo that I liked enough to use. Since this card is about Top Ten Moments of 2010, I feel comfortable using some great photos from the summer and fall and don't feel like I have to use a Christmas one.  I may actually get my cards out early this year!

Final

We finalized! Friday, October 22 was Phenix's adoption day. It was an amazing, joy-filled day with lots of friends and family helping us celebrate. He's been ours in hearts since we first met him, but now he's ours forever.  Nobody can take him away.  I didn't realize that I was holding my breath, until after the court ceremony, when I was getting congratulations hugs from Phenix's brother's parents.  Suddenly, I could breathe again and realized that I hadn't really been breathing for a while. What a difference a signature on a piece of paper makes!

I'm now able to write his real name, Phenix Jake, and share some pics of him. In all honesty, I'll probably freak out about privacy and take these down at some point, but here they are for now:

ETA: I did end up having my privacy freak out and took the photos down.  I have to decide how I'm going to deal with the battle between being open and honest and being private on here.  Maybe I'll write more about that in a future post.