Try Again

That article in Adoptive Families magazine is available online.  I guess I could have said my article.  Kind of cool, if I may say so myself.

Another Quick Update

I am last, but wanted to say that the meeting with Belinda, our egg donor, was uneventful - which I think is a good thing.  LB played with the barista and didn't seem that interested in Belinda, but a week later was talking about her.  I was a bit nervous because I am never really sure if I am going to feel threatened or not and Belinda was a bit nervous because she was afraid I would judge her for some recent life choices.  I wasn't threatened - although a little contemplative about who we are - and I certainly didn't judge Belinda. We vowed to get together more often and I hope we will.  I want any relationship our daughters might want to have with their genetic contributor to be easy and I think the key to that is an easy relationship between her and me.

I have also recently been published!  In Adoptive Families magazine, I have an article that combines a couple of my blog posts about going the DE route. I have to say, I am pretty excited.  Unfortunately, it doesn't not seem to be available online.  If you want the looooong version of the story, you can go to this post and then this one.

For those of you who might be finding me for the first time due to the article, I would like to say that I am not as sad about using DE as I once was.  If I think about how we were finally able to have children, I still feel a loss and a sense of failure, but those feelings stem from every single cycle - assisted or not - that failed and the hell that we went through.  Yes, I also still wonder if having been successful with my eggs would have been a sort of vindication, but that will never happen and I rarely think about it.

Our girls are wonderful little human beings and I hope they will have long, happy lives.  I think about what genetics mean (Would having Brad's grandmother's wedding ring mean anything to them?  Would having my grandmother's wedding ring mean the same?), but for the most part it is just a fact of their conception.  They are who they are and I am the person who gets to be their mother. 

Not What I Meant

I just reread my last blog post.  I shouldn't have blogged while working . . .I was going toward a lot more detail about Brad's mom's (Kay is her name) passing that would have made sense of it being 'good news' in some ways.  I am still going to spare the details, but wanted to say that I am not happy that she died.  One of the things that will be better (eventually) is that we will no longer be waiting and hoping that she would change her mind and want to be a grandmother to our children. It is harder now because the hope is gone, but we will also now put it entirely behind us.

It is interesting how many aspects of my life I look at differently because of the use of donor eggs.  Kay didn't want to be involved in our lives or our children's lives.  In the past I might have left it at that. Now I think that just because Kay didn't want to be a grandparent shouldn't mean that our kids couldn't have someone fill that role.  I am seriously considering shopping around for some surrogate grandparents.  Who cares if it isn't someone who is one of our parents?  I have great memories of time with my grandparents and it would be nice for our girls to have similar experiences.

Just for the record . . . my mom is alive and involved with the kids.  We hope she lives another decade or two but she has heart problems and not sure that is likely. 

Tonight we expect to get together with Belinda, our donor.  We meant to before but plans got canceled. If we get together tonight then it will be the first time in over a year.  It will be interesting to see how LB and Belinda get along.  Will LB have some sixth-sense like connection?   I will try to post how it goes.

Finding Balance

I was dying in the dessert for lack of water.  I longed with my whole being to quench my thirst.  I dreamed of the day when my need would be fulfilled. I hoped again and again and survived disappointment when the water proved to be a mirage. 

Now I am drinking from a fire hose. 

How is that for balance?  More like feast or famine.  It is crazy how life works.

The good news is that Brad's mom died.  It is sad and there is a lot of never-to-be-resolved issues between Brad and his mom.  She wasn't a horrible mother, but she wasn't a very good one either.  Her sister once said, "(Brad's mom) is just like me, she doesn't like kids."  More than that, she was almost always negative and unhappy and did very little to change that.  In fact she fostered it.  She hated winter and spent the last winter of her life - knowing she would likely die before Spring - in a cold house rather than turn the heat up.  She could easily afford it.  For probably the first time ever, her house stays nice and warm so that those of us cleaning up and selling off stay comfortable.

All of this reminds me that now is the time to enjoy life.  It is of course easier during times of feast than times of famine, but it is still too easy to forget how lucky I am.  It is my nature to see what is missing.  Lately, I have been much better about seeing what I have.