Hubby will tell you that I’m a research junky.  It’s just something I’m really, really good at, and something I happen to like.  And it’s not often that those two things go together.

By the time we finished infertility treatments I knew WAY more than I’d ever wanted to know about the ins and outs of it all.  I suspect the same will happen with adoption.  Currently, I’m mostly reading blogs.  And mostly those about international adoption.  Unfortunately, the process is so slow that what blogs there are, aren’t updated much. It can be a bit isolating.

I have a number of books on my wishlist that I’ll work my way through but it’s hard to take too much on when we’re looking at not bringing a child home for at least 2 years and probably longer.

One thing we ARE doing though, because we have no choice, is taking a 10-hour online course.  It’s part of the Hauge requirements that, as part of the homestudy, adoptive families take some sort of formal adoption courses.  And each placing agency interprets this differently.

I have to admit to excluding one agency we were looking at because their education requirement was so high.  That agency sent you boxes and boxes of books and expected reports to be written as well as wanting you to take an in-person class. Now I’m really not adverse to reading about adoption.  Or taking a class.  Or even writing reports.  But there are so many hurdles to jump through that I wanted to be the one to pick and choose what I looked into.  And hubby was less than interested in those types of requirements.

So we chose the agency that was probably the best choice anyhow.  And their requirement is a 10-hour online course.  We’ve decided to break it into 5 segments, doing 2 sections a week.  And I was actually somewhat excited to start it last week.  But then we did.

The text is taken from a very dry study written in 2004. It isn’t overly text-heavy but it IS very clinical.  It’s one thing to know about behavioural issues caused by institutionalization but damn!  Tell me what to do about it?  There is no practical information (which admittedly, I’ll be finding somewhere else but…) to be found here.  No methods to try or signs to look for.

To prove that you’ve done the course, you take a test.  In this case it’s approx. 3 very basic multiple choice questions following each section.  So far, we’ve been 100% accurate but then I think we would have had we not even read the materials.

I’m not really sure what I expected or what I’d even suggest.  What we’re doing is relatively painless but also without a lot of merit.  Will we learn what we need from other sources?  Sure!  We even have one of the few international adoption clinics in the US, at the university that hubby works at.  We’ll definitely take their course once we’re farther down the road.  But not everyone has that opportunity.  Not everyone is going to read as voraciously as I will.  Why have an education requirement and not educate?

Everyday for the past week or two I’ve mentally cataloged the list of things I needed to blog about. But one thing or another keeps getting in my way: work, freelancing, sleep, a good book….so forgive this rather disjointed round-up (again!).

First off, a huge welcome to the world to Coleman, PeeSticksandStone’s son who was born a week ago today.  Mother, baby, and father too! are doing great and I can’t wait to meet the baby when I’m in New York next month on business.  Please stop by her site and offer your congrats and read about her surprisingly easy birth story.

Another welcome to….our new kitten.  When I got my first cat, in 1988, it was after YEARS of wishing for a pet.  I set out deliberately that day to choose a kitten and got a best friend, Nym, who lived to be 17.  I got our current cat in 2006 when hubby was still living in the UK and we were waiting for immigration to work it’s magic.  We wandered into a store that was holding an adoption fare and the cat, Willow, chose him and that was that.  And she’s a great and constantly entertaining cat.  But she isn’t a lap cat and I missed that about my old cat.

We’d thrown the idea around about getting a 2nd cat.  Willow is extremely attached to our dog and I thought some feline company would be good for her when we take the dog away hiking for the weekend.  And I really wanted another fluffy thing that wanted to be curled up beside me. And seeing Calliope’s post on her lost cat made me yearn for one – and a longhair this time. We visited a pet store that was having an adoption fare.  We went for corn to feed the squirrels. I played with 2 kittens.  Both were nice and sweet but neither was THE ONE.

I remembered that there was another store around the corner that fosters rescued cats.  We peeked in.  And I narrowed it down to 3.  One, a silver tabby was beautiful and sweet but neither a total lapcat nor totally playful like Willow is. One, a pure white cat, came and sat on my lap the minute I sat on the floor.  There was a “meant to be” quality to it but…she just wasn’t what I was looking for.  All the while, a little grey ball of tribble-like fur with four white paws was darting around the store.  She’d come close enough to say hello and would be off like a shot.  The more time we spent there, the more she ventured out.  And I knew we’d found our kitty.

First day home

Hubby has been tolerant enough to let me name her Dindi (pronounced Jinji) after one of my favorite Frank Sinatra songs.  It’s a bit of homage to my dad who is the world’s biggest Sinatra fan and the name suits her.

She’s made friends with the dog.  Willow….well, the hissing is getting less.  We’ll see what happens.  At the moment, Dindi is curled up behind me on my chair so I guess I was right about her being fine once she was out of the store and used to us!

Like most people, I spent the rest of the weekend watching coverage of the Michael Jackson situation.  I’d wanted to write about it but…..I couldn’t put what I was thinking into words.  I wasn’t the hugest fan in the world but I respected the hell out of him as a musician.  I’m grateful that Becky at MommyWantsVodka wrote this post. Yes, this is what I wanted to say. We’re all guilty. And it’s sad.

On the adoption front….I have my 2-hour individual interview with our SW on Thursday.  I’m trying to go in with an open mind but she has a very defensive manner that puts me off.  She’ll say that there are no right or no wrong answers but then act differently when I answer her questions.  I’m going to do a LOT of deep breathing before I go to see her.  I need to be calm, and pleasant and tell her what she wants to hear without denying the truth.  Can I do it?  I’ll have to.  But I’m not looking forward to it.

There’s more, I’m sure but I’m also crunched at work.  Another post in and of itself but first I need to do it and then I can blog about it!

Since I got my daily video workout in early today and know already that tomorrow is going to be a heavy work-day, I thought I’d give a quick update on the adoption thing.

First off…Bulgaria has just passed official legislation whereby parental rights are automatically terminated if the parents have had no contact with the child for six months.  Whether this means that children younger than 12 months will finally be available for adoption is a question that only time can answer.  But it is certainly a step in the right direction.

For our part, we’re still drowning in paperwork.  I just sent my clearance paperwork off to Washington DC today.  DC has been a particular worry for me.  I used to consult for the government (the District not federal) and know what a mess it can be.  Even finding out what form to fill in, has taken weeks but SW has been assured that I’ve filled in the correct form.

Of course, one of the things on the form was that I had to list every address I’ve lived in for the last 18 years.  Ok…but I haven’t lived in DC in the last 18.  So I threw those on to.  Even the house that is no longer there, having been torn down i.e., condemned.

I don’t know if all of you can list every address you’ve ever lived at but I can’t.  There is still one short-term abode in Brooklyn that I’m missing and will just pretend didn’t exist because I can’t find the address.  Now, those of you who know me in real life know that I’m a sentimental fool.  I don’t throw things away.  I have every letter that some of you have ever written me!   And thankfully, some of those were written to the now-condemned building.  I KNOW that some came to me in the missing Brookyln apartment but those letters seem to be AWOL.  I suspect that they’re in a friend’s attic in Boston (you know who you are) and some day she’ll allow me to pay her children to go through the boxes for me so that I can throw out the 90210 video tapes and….whatever else is in there.  But in the meantime, I’ll just pretend that I never lived at that other place.

The absolute hardest part of the home study process (aside from dealing with multi-national international  law in our case and our somewhat dippy SW) is the personal questionnaire.  “Describe your childhood” it directs you. “Name your family’s 3 strengths and weaknesses and what you’re doing about them”.  It doesn’t really ask these in a logical order either.  So half of the battle for me was to reorganize the questions into some logical order so that I could answer them sufficiently.

It was a bit like a job interview: “What is your greatest weakness?”  No one is going to say “I don’t get along with co-workers” or “I’m lazy”. The answer in my case (which is actually honest) is “I can be too much of a perfectionist.” See….it’s a negative AND a positive.

These questionnaires follow on the heels of our “thoughts about adoption” questionnaire.  While this one made a heck of lot more sense, we were told that there were no right or wrong answers.  Yet the questionnaire was slanted. “How”, it asks “will you integrate your adopted child’s heritage into your own?”.  Well….see….we’re a bit full up on heritage at the moment.  We have enough issues with US and UK and my being a bit of a lapsed Jew and hubby being a proud Scot to keep us busy.  Yes, if we were adopting a 10 year-old who was aware of their own culture, I’d be all over learning the Bulgarian holidays and recipes.  But with an under 3 year-old…..????  When they get curious we’ll explore it together.  In the meantime, I think they’ll have enough to keep them occupied.

I don’t mean to be flip.  I think that heritage is extremely important. But one step at a time.

I don’t know how those answers will go over.  Same for the ones about birth parents which is touchier-than-touchy subject. Will I help my adopted teenager try to find their birth parents when they ask?  Yes, probably.  Do I want to exchange photos and letters with those birth parents right now when my eventual child has been languishing in an orphange?  No, I think that they gave up that right.

But each set of parents and kids need to find their own path.

The other really fun bit of this is the letters of recommendation.  I’m sure that most people who adopt are either (1) living neither at least one set of grandparents (2) have a local close-knit group of friends that the child will be welcomed into.  We of course have neither.  Hubby’s family (who would be thrilled by any form of parenthood that we choose) live about 4,000 miles away.  My family – who will also be happy – is about a 10-hour drive.  Hubby’s friends, who don’t even know that we’re moving towards adoption or were ever trying to get pregnant – live mostly in other countries.  Mine are mostly on the East Coast and while accepting and supportive, probably aren’t going to be here to serve as a welcoming committee.

So we need letters from a member of each of our families (trust me, this is going to be a process) and well as from three friends.  One would guess that they want these to be mutual friends. But…hubby has friends of whom I’m an acquaintance (and they don’t know we’re doing this) and I have friends of whom hubby is an acquaintance.  So we narrowed it down to (1) one of my best friends who is a parent of two wonderful daughters, and adoptee herself and whose sister has adopted twice.  She will be the voice of wisdom friend in this and is thankfully, a fairly creative writer (and the same one storing all my stuff in her attic). (2) One of my oldest college friends, who is the father of 2 IUI-conceived children who has written something close to a dozen of these letters and whose beautiful prose (thanks to him being an English Prof) will hopefully masque the fact that while he knows me very, very well.  He’s never met hubby. And (3) a friend we both adore but to whom neither of us are emotionally very close.  That being said, he’s thrilled to have been asked and would make a wonderful “uncle” to our future child.  Also he lives in an obscure place that we might eventually settle in so that seems to fit.  We will owe all of these people (only 2 of whom are readers of this blog and one of whom is my dad) for a long, long, long time to come.

Anyhow, so if this blog is quieter than usual it’s because of the daunting amount of non-work related papers currently filling my desk.  In some ways, progesterone shots were easier.

June 6th was our 7th anniversary.  We’ve been pretty good about keeping to the “traditional” or the newer “modern” gifts.  You know….the first anniversary is “paper”, the second is “cotton”, etc….

Well, the 7th is either “Copper” or “Wool”.  Yeah…um…. Copper is mostly garden features.  Our rented garden is already highly featured and wool….well, I like sheep but you don’t get a lot of them in Nashville.  So I was stumped.

Somewhere along the line, I started asking myself what I’d get hubby without those restrictions.  And I looked at the spreadsheet where I list any gift ideas that happen to come to me.  One of them was “Glam.our Sh.ots”.  You know, that mall-based photo shop?  But I’d heard so many bad things about them and then the one here went out of business so….

First off, I have to explains that hubby is a visual person.  I’m not.  I like to have photos of my love-ones and old family photos are my most-prized possessions (as so many of my family has passed away) but I don’t really have photos on my ipod, etc….I just don’t look at them like that.  But he does.  And when he’s away, he asked me to send him photos.  There is nothing more uncomfortable for someone who doesn’t like to be in photos than to be asked to take some of yourself.  But I’ve tried.

And I liked the idea of doing it “the right way”, you know, with a professional and all. So I started scouring the internet.  And believe me, I came up with some, um, interesting, photographers.  I settled on one whose work I really loved.  Her photos were sexy but not vulgar or really even all that revealing.  She also held day-long marathons in a B&B, booking four woman in a day and had hair and make-up people onsite along with a stable of “costumes”.

We chatted by email and she immediately put me at ease.  Well, as much at ease as I could be given the post-infertility 20 pounds that haven’t shown any sign of going away.  I deliberated waiting until Xmas to do this but was, frankly, stumped for an anniversary gift (See….Xmas is about a month before hubby’s birthday and then comes Valentine’s Day and then our anniversary by which time I’m plum out of ideas). And it just seemed to be the “right” gift.

I was about to put down my deposit when the photographer got some horrible health-related news. And I was back at square one.  She gave me the name of another photographer who didn’t really seem to be the right fit and he suggested someone else and….although I was a bit sceptical, I hired her.

We met for a consult. Exchanged ideas.  Planned out the day.

On the day of the shoot, I went and got a manicure (a rare occurrence made rarer by the lack of inexpensive nail salons around here) and then met the photographer and make-up guy at the hair studio.  As someone whose idea of hair care involves slathering my hair with the appropriate products and then letting it air-dry (unless it’s REALLY a special occasion when I whip out my diffuser), the lengthy process of having my hair curled and the straightened and stuck into place was really a trip.

Then the make-up and boy was this an experience.  I can put on a bit of light foundation, lipstick and mascara.  But this was the full-blown deal including false eyelashes.  I kid you not when I say that the process took well over an hour. This was an amazing experience.  I’ve never felt so doted on – at the same time, I kept thinking about TV stars who have to go through this all the time. AH, now I see why they have to get into shoots so early!

We then all converged back at my house.  The photographer brought a ton of clothes and costumes (including more sets of ruffled panties – which I didn’t use – than you could shake a stick at). And we covered my amazing leopard-print chaise lounge in a crimson and gold tapestry.  I settled on a black bustier and accessories (including a mix of my grandmother’s and her grandmother’s rhinestones).  While I was nervous at first, they both had me laughing through the whole thing.  And she was great a direction so I didn’t feel like I had to wing it on my own.

We did some more shots upstairs in the mini-kilt my Scottish hubby had made for our first anniversary. And then some in an antique blue silk negligee that the photographer brought.  It literally took hours but was such a surprisingly good time that I was sad to see it end.

As hubby was coming home from work though, I had to remove the false eyelashes and the bulk of the makeup.  I didn’t have the heart to wash my hair out though as I don’t think I’ll ever get it looking that good again.

I chose from an online album and had prints made and put them all in a…..copper photo album (had to work that copper in somehow) and they were a hit.  I literally catch my breath when I look at them – I can hardly believe it’s me.  Amazing what you can do with some good make-up, the right lighting and just a little bit of photoshopping!

When I started telecommuting, I thought a number of things would magically happen.  I would be more relaxed, I’d have more time to take care of non-work things (i.e., exercise, hobbies, house stuff, emails), the dog would get a ton of attention, and I’d be free to focus on all of our adoption paperwork.

Some of that has happened.  Some of it hasn’t.  I’m in a strange mental place where the end of my work day signals the end of my productive hours.  That was fine when I was working late at my last job, but now that I end at 4, I really think I should be doing SOMETHING. Perhaps it’s the heat or the stress of the past few years but aside from a cursory house-cleaning or an ocassional errand, I don’t seem to be able to do much.  And that bugs me.

I also had expectations for how the adoption process would work.  And this is bugging me too although it’s somewhat out of my control. Even with our newfound truce, our SW is making me batty.  She’s just SO SLOW.  I write her asking questions about their poorly designed forms and it takes her many, many days to get back to me. We don’t have a second appointment scheduled yet. It sometimes feels like she’s working on our case one day a week or something – perhaps I should have asked, up front, how many cases she had on her plate.

With having to get clearances from six different states, included DC which is always the worst to get any information from , and all of hubby’s UK stuff I knew that this was going to be a longer-than-average process.  Some home studies are done in 6 weeks. I’d estimated four months for ours.  And now I’m beginning to wonder if that’s accurate.

Once the home study is done, then we have the dossier to prepare. And with the wait time in Bulgaria being approx. 24 months….well….I really want to get a move on.

Hubby and I leave tomorrow for a mini-vacation for our 7th anniversary. We’re looking forward to a long weekend of hiking, hot tubbing, and good food.  I’m also excited about giving hubby his anniversary present – something I’ll write more about later. With the IF treatments and all that entailed we haven’t had a proper vacation in 2 years.  This won’t be one either but at least it will a get-away where we can focus on each other and on having fun.

But when we get back, I guess I need to call SW and have a chat with her.  And see what we can do to gently move things forward.

And then I need to take a good, hard look at my day.  And trying to figure out where I’m getting derailed. My work is getting done but I don’t seem to be able to do anything else.  Perhaps the summer heat is weighing too heavy or perhaps the draw of the back yard is too strong.  But I need to create this life to be what I want it to be.  With all of the things that are out of our control, this is something I need to take charge of.  Maybe then, the other things will follow suit.

While we seem to have reached a type of truce with our SW…only time will tell.

In the meantime, two things caught my eye this afternoon.

The first is that Holt International has stopped accepting new applications for their Bulgarian program.  Holt was one of the three agencies we’d considered but the most restrictive of the three.

One of their waiting families posted a note today that they received from Holt:

First, in case you haven’t already noticed from the website we are no longer accepting new families into the Bulgaria at this time. I wanted families currently in the program to be aware of this. The reason is not anything new to you. As you all know Holt re-opened the Bulgaria Program and there have been uncertainties from the beginning. Because we’re still unclear as to time frames and ages of children, and we’ve been told it will be 18-24 months from the time the dossier arrives to Bulgaria to the time of referral, we are feeling like it would be good to get a better sense of how realistic these time frames are before bringing any more families into the process. We also would like to get a better sense of the profile of child and just how young children will be referred.….Even though we aren’t certain how young children will be available in Bulgaria , we do know the children will be at the youngest 3 years. ”

This actually contradicts other information I’ve heard and read and I’m sure the adoption forums will be all abuzz and I wait to hear what they say.  That 18-24 month time-frame is consistent with what I’ve heard.  The age, however, isn’t.  As we’re looking to adopt a 3 year-old, I’m not yet overly concerned but it does bear watching….

The other, more or less unrelated post comes from nashvillist:

Nashville is 11th among America’s Bargain Cities, according to Forbes. We were ranked on four criteria – Cost of living, housing opportunity, unemployment rate and average salary. The good news is that we were 6th out of 50 in both cost of living and housing opportunity, and the bad news is that we were 49th out of 50 in average salary rankings.

Yup – that sums up nashville.  Although honestly….cost of living (food, tax) is HIGH.  There is a lot of housing but in our area, the median house price is $436K.  It’s only the really downtrodden areas that are balancing this out for these ratings.

Not in all the time we were trying to get pregnant did I have a panic attack; not when I miscarried, not when Dr. Ambitious prescribed wild amounts of meds; never.  I’m thankfully not prone to them anyhow, preferring to attack a problem and find a way to solve it rather than let it incapacitate me.

Yesterday though, I was blind-sided.

I’ve been on the fence about how to think about the home study.  Is it, as hubby thinks, a process of us hiring someone to get all the facts sorted and together and pretty much a “done deal”?  Or, as I’d been thinking, is it a team effort to get the most accurate picture of who we are and navigate the bureaucratic necessities together?

Now I’m wondering if it isn’t us facing an adversary and trying to prove our worth.

There are issues that I’ve run by our placing agency (who in turn ran them by their lawyers in Bulgaria) that shouldn’t be a problem.  In fact, neither the placing agency nor the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice, considers them issues.  We’ve both been married before and hubby has a 10 year-old DUI on his otherwise squeaky clean record.  I’ve seen adoptions go through to people who have been incarcerated; people who have been in long-term psychological care; people who are living just above the poverty line.

But for some reason our Social Worker is stressed out about all of this.  Hubby surmises, and I’m inclined to agree, that it’s because we’ll mean more work for her than the usual homestudy.  That hubby is a UK citizen and I’ve lived in 6 states since turning 18 creates a veritable mountain of paperwork. Honestly, if we could do all of this without her, we’d get it done in half the time.

She’s been asking us for a lot of stuff that we’ve already given her.  Both hubby and I, organized sorts that we are – are bugged by this.  If we’ve gone through the hassle of compiling info for you, you should go through the hassle of looking in your files for it.

Also, what forms and information are available in the US don’t always match up with what is available in the UK.  People here have a sense of entitlement – I’m asking for something from a government office and I should damn well get it – than people in the UK.  Just because WE need it doesn’t mean that THEY’LL provide it.  And SW doesn’t want to hear that.

She called yesterday saying that she thought that some of my emails had been defensive.  That she didn’t want to get 3/4 of the way through our study and then deny us.  WHAT?  There are no reasons for hubby and I not to be approved. Except that she doesn’t want to put this much work in.  She offered us a refund if we wanted to go with another agency.

And honestly, I can’t say that I haven’t considered it.  But here in our little area of the South, it’s hard to find a SW who isn’t connected to a heavily-Christian agency.  And that won’t work for us.  We need to plow ahead and how that SW gets over her own personal issues and does her job.  But it’s scary.  For the first time, I’m worried about this working out.  I was prepared for the wait, the money, the paperwork and the catch-up that we’ll need to do with a child who has spent years in an orphanage.  I wasn’t prepared for this.

The more their is to write about the less time I have to write.  Things work that way.

In the past 2 weeks, I’ve made two trips to NYC. The first as my “you’re done with IF treatments, you’re out of your frustrating job” celebration and the second for work.  Both reminded me of how very much I love the city.  If I could move our beautiful neighborhood into NYC, I’d be thrilled beyond belief.  But obviously that isn’t going to happen.  Sigh.

Anyhow….for those who asked….our beautiful Ollie had surgery this week.  It’s so frustrating to keep seeing bits of him cut out.  There are smarter dogs out there and dogs who listen more but he’s the sweetest animal I’ve ever come across and he doesn’t deserve this.  Hopefully the lab will say that the lump was nothing or…the it was something but that they got it all.  We just have to wait and see.  In the meantime, he’s being a trooper about it all.

Those who know me in real life know that I’ve often had a lot of milestones happen on Thursdays.  I was born on one.  Hubby and I met on one.  We got married on one.  Our one “working” IUI was on one.  And yesterday the first social worker (SW) visit for our international adoption home study was on one.

I had no real idea of what to expect.  SW and I had corresponded by email but in person she definitely wasn’t what I pictured in my head.  Not that that’s bad.  I’m just saying….

We discussed a lot of basics about adoption.  About us.  About the copious amounts of paperwork that we need to fill out.

Our first packet of forms includes:

• An application
• A financial overview form
• Medical history forms for both of us
• Instructions for getting our FBI fingerprints
• A Disclosure forms
• Personal History forms (where you have to talk about your childhood, your expectations, etc….)
• Information on reference letters (from each family and 3 friends)
• and info on criminal background checks which for me means getting info from each of the six states I’ve lived in since turning 18.

I’m pretty good at paperwork and bureaucratic bull.  I did the paperwork for both of out immigrations so I’m up for this. If you can be up for such a thing.

Emotionally, the meeting took a lot out of me.  When SW first talked about “bringing your child home” I had tears in my eyes. Hubby made a good point that we never really believed (however much we hoped) that IF treatments would work.  But this is a surer thing so it feels more real in many ways.

We talked about how I felt about ending the IF treatments. And about whether we’d accept referral of a sibling group (we’re still working this one out). By the time we got home, I was in need of a stiff drink.  Having to watch everything I’m saying takes a lot out of me!

There are more meetings to come – both individually and together.  I completely understand the need for the study but you know, I could happily do without it and it’s just the beginning…..

Still it feels good to be taking this step. It felt to me that we were very united in it something that was harder to feel with IF treatments as I was the one at the clinic in the mornings and I was the one getting the shots, etc…… This is more something that we’re doing together.

On a totally different topic, NEXT Thursday I meeting with someone to develop hubby’s anniversary gift.  It’s a shame that I can’t talk about it now because I’m sure it’s going to be a very bloggable experience but I don’t want to ruin the surprise.

Fridays may be the start of the weekend but really, I’m liking Thursdays these days….

Last Friday was my last day at the crazy job.  I flew off to NYC for exactly the kind of weekend I wanted – frenetic, fun, relaxing, crazy.  I heard music, saw friends (seeing PeeSticksandStones in all of her pregnant glory was a trip), had a pedicure, ate tons of Chinese food, did a bit of shopping.  It was restorative.

Then I came back and spent most of my last few days of vacation trying to turn my home office into a work office.  Not easy.  Space considerations mean that I can’t use my home computer and so had to somehow adapt my required and not-as-high-spec-as-I’d-like laptop to do double duty.  I still haven’t learned to use the home phones I bought.  And I’m working hard to learn the new Nokia that I treated myself to in NYC (the phone I’d been using, which I love, is 5 years old.  Current SIM cards won’t even work in it.  Enough said).

I also worked in a few hours as a spa, a major concert, and some good food.  And today I started work back for my old company.

If I read down the tick list of the things I have in my life (hubby, friends, family, health, job security, flexibilty, etc….) all is well.

We’ve been splurging a bit now that hubby is gainfully employed and I’m back to my old salary and have ordered a “real” grill (not that I get it – a $10 grill and a bag of charcoal always made me happy but what do I know?). There are quite a few work things I need (lap top bag, headset for my phones), etc…and the call of sushi is always wispering in my ear.But we’ll buckle down.

Our first meeting with the social worker for our home study is next week and I’m excited (to be starting the process) and scared (of the paperwork and the complications of hubby being a UK citizen) of finally getting going.

The universe just can’t let me be though. I woke up in one of those fogs last night – the ones that sometimes bring me true insights and direction.  And what came to me was “You’re spending all this money on a grill, why not pop $150 or so on another IUI and see what happens?”

But that isn’t the voice I want to hear.  I don’t think that Dr. Ambitious’ idea of “more is better” is the way that my eggs work.  And even if I can talk him into doing a follistim cycle and only going for a few really good eggs…..I don’t know if I want to put my body through anymore.  Repronex seems to have done a number on me in many ways.

Then again, I can’t fathom the thought of throwing out the follistim in my fridge.  I WILL use it. So why not just go with a doctor who makes sure all the swimmers get in the right place?  Sigh….I don’t know.  I have a few months to think about it but….I want that door closed.  The thing is, I’m not sure if it currently is.

I’ve also just made a doctor’s appointment for our wonderful sweet dog. He’s just 5 and the most gentle animal you’ll ever meet.  Even for a Golden Retreiver.  But he’s purebread and came with some of the worst of his breed’s tendencies, healthwise.  At the age of 2 he was diagnosed with mass tumors.  We had 2 taken out of him.  He’s been fine for the last 3 years.  A few weeks ago, he had what looked like an inflamed bite.  It’s still there.  I’m pretty sure that the cancer is back even though I’m praying that I’m wrong.  He’s really too special to have to keep going through this.  It isn’t fair.

Life is always a balance, I guess, of good and bad.  Sometimes the swinging disorients me though.  Can’t it stop for just one minute?

In just a few hours I’ll be done with the job that could have been my dream job but was really just a huge pain in the neck.  My desk is packed up.  My tasks are completed (aside from the newsletter which I’ve agreed to do on a freelance basis).

Over the past 15 years or so, I’ve come to believe that things happen for a reason.  Taking this job got hubby out the big, bad city, for instance.  Had I gone to my then-boss and aske to telecommute she would have said “no” without a thought.  However, my 9 months away have changed her mind.  We’ve gotten exactly what I would have asked her for in the first place had I thought there was a chance that it would come to pass.

Although there were a lot of red flags apparently, I HAD to take this job, had to try it our or I’d have always wondered.  The job I’m going back to is interesting and has a lot of perks but I wouldn’t say that it fulfills my soul.  Leaving my current job though, will allow me to go back to my freelance work which DOES fulfill me that way.

I have no second thoughts about this move and for me that’s saying something.

As my reward to myself for the past two years which have included: too many IUIs to count, an IVF which saw us moving cross-country during the TWW, a 10-week miscarriage and at least 3 chemical pregnancies, not to mention this job and all of the associated stress, I’m going to NYC tomorrow.  I need the freedom of taking subways and readily available (and relatively cheap) cabs.  I need to overload on music and theatre and chinese food. I need to see PeeSticksandStones in her very pregnant state and really come to terms with it face-to-face.  Of course I’m deliriously happy for her.  I wouldn’t take this away from her for anything in the world.  I just want it too.  And I have faith that our time will come, although in a different way.

Most of all though, I need to feel the sense of freedom and exhileration that NYC always makes me feel.  I need to spend time with friends who know me so well that I never have to mince words.  I need to remind myself that I’m once again gainfully employed and while we are working to pay off the IF debt among other things and while adoption will bring it’s own costs, we have a workable plan to do that.  And I need to go back to being the relatively unguarded person that I’ve always been.  Being here, in a work situation that has put me constantly on the defensive and in a less-than-stellar place physically (mostly due to the side effects of various aspects of IF treatments), with casual friends rather than the type I’m used to surrounding myself with, has built up walls that I need to tear down.

When I get back from my trip, I’m going to attempt to rebuild my half of our office into something that I can work in full-time.  I’m going to rebuild this blog so that it displays the hope that I have in my heart. I’m going to get my body sorted out.  I’m going to work at tearing down the walls.  At FEELING again.  I miss me.

But first, I have three more hours to get through……

These periods of waiting for things to change don’t offer up a lot to write about. Which makes me think of a quotet one of my favorite shows of all time: Crusade.

Dureena: My people are taught to avoid cross roads, also beaches, cliffs, pits, caverns, and wells.
Eilerson: Where do you go on vacation? Another part of the room?

Rimshot.

Anyhow…..I find that I’m both excited to be coming up to a cross road and a little bit tired of coming to cross roads, while still knowing that life is filled with them and that I seem to come across more than my share.

I have three days left at my current job.  These past two weeks have made me 100% sure that I’m doing the right thing.  While I personally like just about everyone I work with, I don’t like working with them.  Or…perhaps I would in a different company but not this one.  I’m fairly certain that I’ll maintain at least a casual friendship with a few co-workers though.  But nothing like the co-workers I had/have at the company I’m returning to.

In four days I go to NYC for a few days.  It is less a vacation and more a filling my soul trip.  I thirst for NYC if that makes any sense.  I will indulge in chinese food and friends and music and will come back exhausted but, I think, refilled.

Then I have a few days to try to turn my half of our office into something useful for actually getting work done instead of just surfing the net, answering emails and working out in.

It’s possible that I’ll also be doing a small bit of freelancing for my current company.  With everything going on, I can’t turn my back on the potential income but I’m waiting for them to actually decide what they can pay me before I commit to anything.

I’m looking forward to getting back to a structured, logical work-life.  And to being able to tend to our home and animals (and myself!) properly instead of just getting home at 6.30 to make dinner and fall asleep on the couch.

On the heels of my May 4 starting date comes the opening of the floodgates though.  Our meeting with our social worker, our medicals, a 24-hour trip back to NYC for me for a meeting, two big name concerts.  It will be time to really dig in and start making my life what I want it to be. Of making myself who I want to be.

Forks in the roads are tricky but they also offer opportunities for triumph and success.

Having ten days left at my current job means that I’m filling my time with (1) typin up lose ends (2) writing manuals in case they ever sort of who will be taking over various parts of my duties, and  (3) getting ready for my new job and generally surfing the web.

As I sat down today to set up the online payments for my credit cards, I got a shock.  I saw an amount, just under $2K with my old clinic listed as the merchant.  I hyperventalated for a second before picking up the phone to call the clinic.  As I choked out that I hadn’t seen Dr. Celebrity for almost a year and the billing person was pulling up the record, I noticed something odd.  The amount was in the wrong column.  It was a refund. From our IVF cycle.

The way the grant worked was that you paid a set fee.  The grant paid everything else.  The fees were then submitted to the insurance company and anything they covered was refunded AFTER the entire group’s (multiple patients thrown onto a spreadsheet so that the clinic can manage the billing all at once) cycles had ended. When I got a check from them for $43 last fall, I figured that was it. But I was wrong.  I don’t know how many people were in the group but obviously, at least one person had a successful cycle and had a baby last month. It wasn’t us.

The refund we just got (unfortunately refunded back to the credit card instead of refunded as a check) amounts to just over 1/3 of our fee.  I’m happy to have it.  It will allow us to buy a grill or talk in more concrete terms about a vacation we want to take next year, or just take some financial pressure off. And in reality, we would have received the discount whether we’d gotten pregnant or not.  But it still feels a little bit like a “kill fee” you get when you’re hired to write something and the editor either doesn’t like it or cancels the project.  It thanks you for your time but tells you that you failed.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.  It was a very nice surprise on a Monday morning.  And I’m otherwise quite happy at the moment.  But still…..

Since I learned so much from the various blogs and boards I followed when undergoing infertility treatments, I’m not about to forget to utilize these tools to learn about the adoption process.  The only slight difference is that you never saw Dr. Celebrity or Dr. Ambitious popping into a forum to share their thoughts.  Many of the adoption boards DO have employees of the adoption agencies as members.  While I’m not really sure how I feel about that, it can be helpful.  And, at times, thought-provoking.

Yesterday, the coordinator of one of the agencies we’re considering posted that her agency had received a referral from Bulgaria for a 10 year-old girl.  Because of the child’s age, the referral was MUCH quicker than normal and the coordinator also made an interesting comment about how, in Bulgaria, the kids are taught to look forward to adoption – they’re told that if they wait, their forever families will find them.

On one hand, I love the idea that the kids are anticipating their adoptions – that they’re taught that this is a positive change and something to be desired.  On the other hand, what must a child think as they’re waiting and waiting and waiting?

I love the idea of adopting an older child.  If circumstances were different, I’d consider adopting two kids, one perhaps older than the other. But if we have one chance at a child……well, by requesting a child around the age of 3 we’re already missing out on the joys of babyhood – all the experiences we wanted to have and share.  We’re going to miss out on the chance to make a child feel loved and secure from infanthood. We’re going to have to make up for lost time. We’ve missed out on so much already.  I don’t want to miss out on more.

First off thanks to all for the support on the job front.  Yeah, I know it will be great for me and that I’m not taking the easy way out.  I’m escaping a bad situation that some of my co-workers are too inexperienced to realize is as bad as it is.  14 days to go and I can’t get a straight answer on who I can train to run our ecommerce site – you know, the thing that makes us money?  Anyhow….

I rarely remember my dreams.  Over the past two months however, I seem to remember a lot of them.  I don’t know why (can this be linked to whatever has caused me to now go 7 weeks without a period?) and I don’t know why the dreams are different from the ones I usually DO remember; the ones where I’m being chased (bad), or falling off a wall (good actually – not a death-fall and very nice freefall) or even sitting and talking to hubby or friends or family (which is the type of excitement that populates most of my dreams.

Last night I had a dream in which two things happened: (1) I found out that my recent foray into hennaing my hair turned it white-blond in the back (my hair is dark brown with red overtones) and no one told me and (2) I found out that I was pregnant.  I went through my dream being amazed and just more than a little ticked off at the timing (upcoming work obligations, things that hubby and I are planning, finances, etc….).  But I was actually shocked when I woke up to realize that no, I wasn’t pregnant (really, I’m not).  And I was WAY more than a little ticked off at my subconscious for duping me this way.

I’d love to write that things are forging ahead with the adoption.  But this is going to be a drawn-out process.  Our first meeting (to follow up on the millions of emails) with our social worker is May 14th.  The agency list is whittled down to two.

A. A very large, well-respected agency for whom Bulgaria is a relatively new country to work in (they used to work there to fairly disastrous results but this is years later and the offending staff members are no longer there).  They’ve been responsive and helpful even though I’ve corrected them about a few details from my research.  They’re the cheapest option by a very slight bit and the bulk of the payment is due in one lump sum after the referral.  It’s great that it’s so late but at the same time, paying that all at once is frightening.

B. A smaller agency with very strong ties to Bulgaria and one of the agencies really at the forefront of US adoptions there. They’ve offered us a payment plan which splits their own fees up into 3 so that they’re spread out instead of due upfront.  They’ve been responsive an helpful and you get the feeling they just want to make this work.  I’m slightly worried because a lot of people seem to be using them and I wonder if there is the possibility of the pool being too full.  One other plus though is that they’ve worked with our social worker before and say that she’s one of the best, which can’t hurt.

But until we’ve met with the social worker, I don’t want to sign on with an agency.  I’m more frightened of the home study than I am of anything else in this process.

In other fronts, we’re trying to enjoy life here without worrying about cycling and shots, etc.  We’re looking at buying a serious outdoor grill as our (rental) house has a huge and beautiful backyard and we intend to spend as much time as possible in it this summer.

I’m hoping that my new relaxing lifestyle, come May, even allows my sub-conscious to work out whatever lingering issues it has. Cause I really need a good night’s sleep.

Three weeks from today is my last day in my current job.

Three weeks from tomorrow I’ll be flying to NYC (unfortunately without hubby) for a weekend of friends, music, chinese food eating (there is no good chinese in Nashville) and the chance to take in all of the peace of peesticksandstones’ new nursery.

Four weeks from Monday I will return to my old job although as a telecommuter.

May will also include our first visit with our social worker for our home study, our physicals for our home study (and because we both need them), a day trip back to NYC for business and various plans in anticipation of our anniversary in June.

I had a conversation with a current co-worker yesterday about how I’d been here until 9.30pm the night before while trying to get our new website launched.  Our bosses are in  a tropical paradise both for business and pleasure at the moment so I sent an email before I left the office letting everyone know of the status.  They sent an email to staff asking us not to call before 1pm because of the time difference.  But at no point did they address my email or even say “thanks for your hard work SINCE YOU’VE ALREADY GIVEN NOTICE AND YOU JUST WORKED A 12-HOUR WORK DAY”.

My co-worker made the observation that since they work 24-hours a day they don’t think is’s anything special when we do it.  Ha!  We talked a bit about what I was looking forward to once I’m back in my old job – not the least of which is having a work day that ends at 4pm instead of 6pm.  We talked about all of the things I’d be able to do: mostly, get my life back, be able to work out, be less stressed, read, have time to do more than come home and cook dinner before falling asleep.

And she said, “Yes, at your age, you’re entitled to want that.”

WHAT?????

Okay, she’s in her late 20’s and works ridiculous hours and has a number of active hobbies on the side.  But WHAT?

I rarely feel old.  But damn…..

I’m consciously leaving a job that sounds really “Sexy” on paper – Digital marketing manager of a cool record label – for one that makes people’s eyes glaze over when I tell them what I do – Marketing and Communications Manager of a religion-based women’s non-profit.  If I loved working here, I probably wouldn’t do it.  But I don’t.  It isn’t the job, it’s the mismanagement and amazing level of personal dysfunction.

Yes, there are a million advantages to the choice I’m making: a significant increase in salary, retirement fund, life insurance, shorter hours, more vacation, more holiday time, a boss who is rational and responsive, co-workers who I consider friends outside the office, leave once the adoption comes through, the opportunity to work from home…..

But the work isn’t “sexy”, I know that. I will probably be able to go back to my freelancing through to offset it but no, I guess I HAD to make the mature decision.  The adult decision. Does that make me old????

It’s not raining.  But it is Monday.

On the positive front:

• I have 20 days left at my current job
• The project I’ve been working on since I started here will go live on Wednesday
• The laptop (with dock) has been approved for my new/old job
• Hubby and I have booked a vacation for our anniversary in June.  We’ve rented a cabin and are going to the Blue Ridge Mountain area in North Carolina. It isn’t anything grand but it should be very nice and actually not so much different from our honeymoon trip to Cornwall.
• Today is our puppy’s 5th birthday!  So happy birthday Ollie! (not that he reads this blog, as far as I know, but I guess we never know what our pets are up to while we’re at work!)
• We have a date for the initial meeting with out social worker in May.
• I’ve finally made a start at trying to compile a spreadsheet detailing the various payments/timing requested by the various placement agencies we’re looking at so that I can compare apples to apples.  None of the agencies really do this in the same way.
• I’ve had a reasonably south-beach-diet -esque day in my quest to lose the 20 pounds that are the legacy of our infertility treatments.  I’m determined to really make a start on this and would like to see some advances by our anniversary.

On the not-so-positive:

• Our big gift to ourselves this spring/summer, now that we’re both gainfully employed is a gas grill.  Unfortunately, the one we want (best brand, one of their more reasonable models) is twice what we budgeted.
• I still have 20 days in my current job.
• This is our 7th anniversary and hubby and I have been great about giving each other creative gifts based on the traditional/modern gifts for that year.  The 7th anniversary is wool and copper. Great……
• Hubby and I were brought up with completely different attitudes about debt.  His family had none.  Mine invited it in like a long-lost cousin.  I’m fine with having debt so long as I know how/when it will be paid.  I usually take a long-term view of things anyhow so it rarely stresses me out.  Hubby, who is more “live in the moment” is the opposite.  And that aspect of adoption is freaking him out.  We don’t often discuss it actually but we did this weekend.  A past grant-writer, I plan to start applying for grants as soon as the home study is complete (most grants won’t allow you to apply until then).  I was going to do this anyhow but I need to put his mind at rest before it ends up coloring the whole adoption process.
• As my body has realized that it no longer has to be up to the task, I’m on day 35 of this cycle.  Something in the first repronex cycle really seems to have gotten my body off-kilter and I’m not sure why.
• As part of the home study process we need check-ups and medical releases.  I’m not worried about it per say.  Neither of us has the type of health issues they look out for.  But, honestly, however reckless it is, I could do without seeing a doctor for a while.  Instead, I’m going to make an appointment so that the minute my insurance kicks in I can see someone.  Guess I’m going to have to ask them about all those odd thyroid tests while I’m there.  Sigh…..
• It’s only Monday.

For some reason this post was saved only as a draft, on February 27, 2009…..thought I’d post it anyhow…..

Lassie’s comment yesterday gave a voice to something that has been running in circles through my head.  She wrote “I’ve always found international adoption interesting because your child is probably over there right now waiting for you. Wow.” Yes….wow…..The time-frame given for Bulgaria is somewhere around 18-36 months depending on who you talk to. That’s upon submission of your dossier which includes the home study. Which we haven’t started yet because we haven’t chosen an agency and there seems to be a huge debate between whether the home study agency needs to be Hague accredited.

But let me get to that in a minute.

When I look at the large timeline, it looks like we could get a child who was born around the time that our child would have been born had the pregnancy worked out.  That ties my mind and my heart in knots.  I can’t even say if it’s good or bad.  It just is.

Our child could possibly be out there.  And we don’t even know her.  It’s a very, very strange feeling.

The process of adoption in Bulgaria is that once you get a referral of a child, both parents travel to Bulgaria and spend 5 days with the child.  At the end of that time you accept (or reject) the referral.  You go home.  Three to Five months later you’re cleared to go back and get the child and you go through all of the Visa/Immigration issues at that point.  That 3-5 month period must be excruciating.  Knowing that your child is in an orphanage half-way across the world. Obviously parents get through it and probably like the pain of childbirth, the memory of it dulls over time. But at the time it must be almost unbearable.

Back to the nuts and bolts – In a nutshell, the Hague Accreditation is “an international treaty created to ensure that inter-country adoptions are in the best interests of children and to prevent abduction, exploitation, sale, or trafficking of children.”  An adoption agency must be certified to work in Bulgaria.  There are currently no certified agencies in out state that I really want to work with.  One is prohibitively far away and the other is probably prohibitively faith-based.  Most of the agencies I’ve been in contact with have relationships with various agencies here that can do home studies for them.  A few though are insisting that the home study be completed by a Hague certified in-state agency (I’ve refrained from saying “If I wanted to work with another agency and they were appropriately certified, I would.  I contacted your agency because I want to work with YOU!”).

So the research continues.  I’m the queen of spreadsheets but even that isn’t helping me.

I did find out today that there is a chance for something potentially very good to come our way. This has nothing to do with having a child although it will affect our lifestyle and could aid in the process down the road.  I don’t want to jinx it at the moment and if it comes through I’m going to really have to do some quick soul-searching to make a definitive decision although really, it’s already been made. But if you wouldn’t mind keeping your fingers crossed for us, hubby and I would greatly appreciate it.

I’ve felt lately like someone wearing bifocals.  If I look one way, I can see things up close and if I look another, I can see into the future.

The future view is the one that interests me the most.  I can see this spectoral little girl, playing in the yard with hubby and our dog and laughing.  She’s wearing a pink nightgown and she has long dark hair streaming down her back.  I’m inside, looking out. Just watching them.  Hubby catches my eye and beckons me out.  I step out onto the deck and she runs to me, a bouquet of wildflowers in her hand (in this vision, I’m never quite able to see her face). Hubby comes over for a family hug as the dog tries to join in.

I’m not quite sure where we’re living in this vision.  I sometimes have dreams in which we’re living in our current rental which is the least likely thing to happen. I’m not sure where or if either of us are working although our debt is paid off which (major crises aside) it will be by the time we adopt. But there is contentment and that makes me unworried about the details.

Then I look at the “close” part of the picture.  I was correct that our tax person had made a mistake.  He then made another one this morning but sent me a correction that basically means that, after paying him, we’ll have enough left over for dinner at our favorite local restaurant.  I’m thrilled with that.  At much as I’d like to be getting money back, my goal has been to break even. Dinner out will be the perk.

My excitement about having the complicated part of the home study sorted was short-lived though.  Today we booked our appointment with the Social Worker.  I asked if we should bring anything.  She listed the usual documents.  Then said something like “I need clearances from the states you’ve lived in since you each were 18 and I have the list you gave me.”

Actually, she has the list for the past 5 years.  Which is what she’s asked for previously.  Going back to 18 brings me up to having lived in SIX states.  For hubby, this is worse as he was in the military. And we’ve no idea how to proceed there. I’ve written her and haven’t heard back.  Perhaps she was busy or still hasn’t gotten up from the shock or knocked herself our by shaking her head as she wondered why she ever agreed to take us on as clients.

The long-range view looks much, much better.  If I could draw, I would draw it.  For now I just need close my eyes and remind myself why we’re going through all of this.

I’m learning that while assisted reproduction was filled with big steps: The beginning of stims, trigger shots, retreivals, inseminations, and transfers, the path to adoption is made up of baby steps so small you aren’t even sure if you’re moving or not.

We have , by default, chosen a home study agency.  In part this was by choice – there are certain extreme religious leanings here in the South that I desperately wanted to avoid for a bucket  load of reasons.  And so I had my sites set on one particular agency whose fees and structure were thankfully, in line with everyone else’s.  The social worker I’ve been e-mailing with,  (who I haven’t found a psudonym for yet) was supportive without being ridiculous (I had one SW write me about how many of her clients think that the home study will be difficult but they end up thinking that it’s “fun”.  Now I KNOW people who have adopted and not one of them has used the word “fun” in connection to a home study!), and basically took charge of the most difficult (I hope!) step in our adoption journey.  Without a signed contact or any money changing hands.  She’s just dug in and untied the knots for us.  And I’ll forever hold her in esteme for that – it truly makes me feel like we’ve made the correct choice.

The knots, by the way, are nothing drastic or highly unusual.  Hubby is a UK citizen.  Up until the end of summer in 2005, I lived in the UK too. Part of the requirements for adopting from Bulgaria is that we’re meant to get clearances from everyplace we’ve lived in the past 5 years, testifying to the fact that we have no history of child abuse.  That’s fine except that the UK, unlike the US and many other countries, doesn’t keep a public registry of child abusers.

At first we thought that this meant that we needed to get our police records (basically saying that we lived there and hadn’t been arrested). Hubby has his from his immigration.  THAT gets complicated because the UK wants you to walk into your local precinct and request the report so that they can verify your identity.

Our SW began to make inquiries.  I emailed the four placement agencies we’re considering working with.  We received four different answers.

I wrote the US and UK embassies in Bulgaria.  I’d expected it to take ages to get answers as it had during hubby’s immigration.  But I heard back from both in less than 24 hours.  Neither knew the answer but the US embassy sent us a list of emails.  The SW and I each took one. And she got an answer.  From a real person who gave us his name and direct phone number.  Who then answered additional questions. (If you’ve EVER legally immigrated you’ll realize how different this is, I’m truly amazed).

The upshot is that the UK doesn’t have such a registry.  This can be stated on our home study papers.  The legal requirement does not ask for police reports.  Therefore we don’t need to furnish them (although we might offer them hubby’s unless SW things that this will just remind them that we don’t have one on me).

We haven’t signed anything yet or spent even one dime.  But we have support and answers.

One other potential complication reared it’s head last night as well.  I heard from our tax preparer and the news was NOT good.  According to him the amount we spent last year for infertility wasn’t enough to outdo the standard deduction.  The upshot:  we owed a LOT of money.  Enough to possibly delay the adoption plans.

This morning, I looked over his paperwork and found a large mistake.  I’m waiting for confirmation from him that I did in fact catch something that will mean that we’re getting a small amount back.

So far, today is not a bad day!

A real post has been meandering through my head.  But in the meantime, A from Infertility Bites has touchingly sent me a “Love Ya” award.  She’s one of those bloggers who always seems to know when I need a comment to remind me that I’m not alone. So THANKS A!

The idea of this is that you tag the blogs that you love the most using the following criteria: “These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award!”

Trying to choose just eight blogs is a tough thing but the following are just a sampling of the amazing women who are sharing their stories and their friendship in the web of infertility.  Some have had children, some are pregnant, some are still trying, and some have chosen other paths.  But all are amazing courageous, brave women.

* PeesticksandStones at PeeSticksandStones

* Pam at BloodSigns

* Calliope at Creating Motherhood

* Becky at MommaWantsVodka

* Oro at Birch and Maple

* Luna at Life From Here: Musings from the Edge

* Squarepeg at SquarePegRoundWhole

My last entry here isn’t an infertility blog but an international adoption blog that I’ve recently started reading.  I don’t even know if I’ve commented on any of Spring’s posts but every day I read about her journey in awe.  With good grace and humor, she is dealing with circumstances that would stop most people in their tracks.  Her children and the world of blogging are very fortunate to have her.

* Spring at Forever Spring