The Thing that Sucks about Infertility is that It's the Hardest Way to have a Baby

I started out writing this post about the greatest challenge for me as I deal with infertility. And then that one thing turned into two things. And then it turned into a realization that no matter how hard it has been, I really have nothing to complain about. And then the post became moot. And then it became relevant again because suddenly there was a greater truth than the original complaint. So here is my progression of thought along with a happy ending.

Infertility is on my mind of late because I am soon turning 40 years old. As I approached this number, so dreaded by any woman wishing to bear children, I thought: this is it. If I have any shot at possibly getting pregnant, I had better get going on that treatment now. So I did. Seven years ago, or so, we went through a couple rounds of treatment that were unsuccessful...which quickly led to the adoption of Benjamin. This time we decided to try another couple rounds of a slightly more aggressive treatment, but we found out last week that our final attempt still did not take. We're done with medical intervention now.

So it's over. The lingering hope that our unidentified issue could be circumvented by science...done. Moving on. No babies in this womb. The grief finally ambushed me.

My first complaint about infertility is that it just makes growing a family hard. No option is simple. None are cheap. You have to really want to add a baby to your family. And whether you do it through medicine or adoption, it is a long and challenging process. 

There is the issue of money - medicine costs money. Adoption costs money. Money that some folks would use for a tropical vacation or dramatic home improvements or to pay off college loans.

There is the pain factor. Giving oneself shots in the belly is really no fun. Though I must say, I got a kick out of looking at my husband after he jabbed an intro-muscular needle into my right butt cheek and reflecting on how we never anticipated that living out our wedding vows would include sticking a needle in one of our arses.

Adoption requires struggling through mounds of paperwork and jumping into an intimate friendship on the count of three. It requires adding more people to the family, and being available to others who are experiencing a loss at the very moment you are experiencing the joy of addition.

I sum up these challenges with this: for those of us who are infertile, simply getting to the point of attempting to add a child requires a ridiculous amount of forethought, planning, decision-making, and effort. And for every thought one has toward a possible next step, there are numerous thoughts that pop up against that course of action.

The second burden on my heart is that I just want to experience pregnancy and birthing. I am the mama who dreamed of natural birth, of doing things at home, of breastfeeding for an uncomfortably long time. Some of my friends think me a bit of a hippie. Call it what you will, I really wanted to give birth and be present for it all along the way. I do not have that choice...and my heart hurts a bit.

But as much as I am tempted to complain about it, we who are infertile are not unique in our struggle. In a lifetime, a couple will be faced with any number of health challenges, child-bearing or rearing challenges, life-and-death challenges. Some of us get cancer. Some experience miscarriages in between healthy births. Some give birth and then discover their child has a grave illness or developmental issue. Some give birth once and then can't anymore, and their family growth gets cut off prematurely. Lots of couples deal with financial constraints as they consider having another child. Lots encounter struggles during pregnancy or have premature births.

I can't mope about my situation. Especially because here is where it led:

I am privileged to have the children I have through open adoption. PRIVILEGED. They are dear and amazing little people. I have seen God work through our situation time and time again. And how can I dishonor that by rewriting the script this time around? Why would I want to? I don't have any desire to change our past or the family I have been given, so I will look at this latest moment of grief through a different lens.

I will set aside my feelings of loss to embrace our next journey - we intend to pursue another open adoption. Our final one, as far as I can tell. There must be another boy or girl growing in the womb of a mama who is looking for safety and love in a package that resembles our family.  So we will get out there and wait for her.

The thing that sucks about infertility is that it is the hardest way to have a baby. But in the end, that's not so bad.

Hiking at Hodges

We get out for a family hike every now and then, and one of our favorite places to go is Lake Hodges. I only managed to take one crappy photo of the lake, so you are actually just going to see photos of us on the trails and the suspension bridge, but hey. That's how it goes sometimes.

We keep Sadie pinned in the stroller for the first half of the hike. You'll see that she runs the entire return trip.

And Benjamin gets a chance to mountain bike. Some day he'll be riding these trails with The Papa.

This girl. Always so excited about life. She's large and in charge everywhere she goes. We have a hunch she'll be class president one day.

Moving. Always moving. Except for brief moments when Buckley overpowers her.

Check the next one out: both Sadie's feet are off the ground. That's the case in most of the photos I manage to take of her.

Benjamin takes on a downhill.

Sadie's close behind him.

A quick break near the end of the trail:

 
And a view of the Hidden Valley:

Learning to read

Benjamin is learning to read. This brings up a lot of feelings and responses in me. I guess I'll start with a story:

In the photos posted here, I have created a "print rich" environment - tagged various items around the house with the corresponding word. I know he's not going to read "sculpture" in one of his kindergarten books, but it is fun to engage with him in spelling complex new words, sounding out simple ones, and discovering the ridiculous number of inconsistencies in the English language.

On a whim one day while Benjamin was at school, I put up all the words. When he came home, he immediately noticed and asked, "Mama, what is that word for?"

"That says 'garage.' Why do you think that is on this door?"

"Because that's the door to the garage!" He then ran up the stairs and spied "wall."

"Mama, what's that one?"

"Wall."

After the second example he thoroughly understood that some new adventure was afoot. His head spun around until he discovered "painting" and "chair."

"Are there more, Mama?"

"Yep!  They're all over the house. Go find them."

He took off on a run. A squeal of delight or a belly laugh accompanied each discovery. I was dealing with laundry when I heard him sounding out "art" on his own.

"A-a-a-a-a-a-a rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr t-t-t-t-t. Aaaarrr-ttttt. Aaarrt. Art. ART!  MAMA! I JUST READ ART!!!"

I had a moment, I must admit. There's just something so exciting about witnessing the joy of learning. It's been nearly two weeks, and the words are still up. I plan to leave them up until we grow tired of them, or they are learned.

Now here's the WHY behind my little adventure. One of the requirements at Benjamin's school is that they learn 12 sight words in three weeks. Sight words are the most frequently used words in the English language - words that make up some 90% of written language - this, that, we, I, see, and, the, on, of, etc.  They are so frequent that we have figured out that if kids can straight up memorize them, they will read more fluently and not be tripped up so often.

And it's true. I can't tell you how often Benjamin would keep trying to sound out "the" no matter how often it showed up on a page. Knowing these words makes a world of difference.

However...

It is not developmentally appropriate to expect that all kids will be reading well by the end of kindergarten. According to physical and mental markers, some kids will learn to read in first or second grade - that would not necessarily indicate that they are "slow." Of course, in our educational system they will be behind, and that's sad.

For us, the pace of sight words is a bit of a challenge. While he has learned 20 of the 24 so far, a couple of the ones he still misses are in the first set so as far as the teacher is concerned, he's behind. And we just got another set of 12 this week.  I feel the pressure - I hope he doesn't. I am certainly not pressuring him.

This is the reason for the words in our house. He needed to spend some time getting excited over things that have meaning for him - seeing an object that he uses every day and learning its corresponding word. And it worked. He may not know all his sight words yet, but he is excited about words.

In other, related, news: This is the boy who listens to me read C.S. Lewis. Yes - I have been excitedly awaiting the day when I could begin sharing works of literature with him, and he's finally old enough. We recently read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and are now one chapter into The Horse and his Boy.

The thing is - he's a big ideas kid. And I'm a big ideas mama. The nuts and bolts are valuable insofar as they are used for a purpose - to communicate, to create, to unlock a mystery, to understand the make-up of something. I think that if his mind is embracing ideas and imagining possibilities, he will eventually see the reason for learning the tools and will be ready to learn them. In fact, he is learning them - just not at the pace being set for him at his school.

Parent-teacher conferences are next week, so it will be interesting to hear the teacher's perspective. In the meantime, we spin ourselves around in wonder at the ideas that can be discovered through words.

Flashback to 4th of July

Trying to catch up here, folks. For the 4th of July, we hung out at my folks' house where the kids got to meet their (then) new baby cousin, Caleb.

Gigi (short for great-grandma) made an appearance, as did Auntie Rosie.

Grandpa rocked the grill - a favorite pastime we all appreciate.

Almost as much as we appreciate Grandpa's wine cellar as demonstrated by Uncle Mike.

Benjamin declared at the time of this photo that we needed a baby.

And then we went to watch fireworks with all our little buddies from church. We've accumulated quite a playgroup, and these kiddos are becoming fast friends.

Papa Time

Benj sure loves his Papa. He really enjoys one of the same things that first attracted me to him - his fondness for sitting together, looking off into the distance, and telling stories from his past. So Papa and son now have a little ritual: after a couple hours of working on cars or in the garage or yard, they grab a beverage and head up to the balcony to watch the sun set and to swap stories.

At the Maple Street Fountain

One of our favorite hey-it's-hot-and-we're-tired-of-being-at-home things to do is visit the Maple Street Plaza in downtown Escondido. If we even drive past the place, the kids want to hop out of the car to put their feet in the fountain. So over the summer this was one of our hot spots.

The plaza recently came about as an attractive corridor to encourage foot traffic between City Hall and the downtown strip, Grand Avenue. It also serves as a place for bands or food stands during festivals. It cost a pretty penny and has been the subject of controversy, but I love it. One of my favorite things about well-designed urban spaces is the proliferation of artsy, interactive, pretty places for the community to gather. The idea has not caught on so much around here, but we show up!

Her Castle

When she first settled into this patch of ice plant on the hillside, Sadie called it "The Quietest Place in the World."

She has since become fascinated with castles. Yesterday she declared this place her castle, her house, and she invited me to come up and join her there.

She does a lot of sitting and thinking. A bit of looking out over the valley. Sometimes she picks flowers or sings. She often chatters.

Boots are required for climbing up and down the hill.

But sometimes when she walks across the bottom, shoes are less necessary.

She's my little wood nymph or forest fairy or something.

Nature girl.

Not your average day

One of the first art projects Benjamin brought home from school was a comparison of day and night. Here is how he described his pictures:

DAY
That is the sun and the tree is an apple tree. There's a fort in the tree next to the house.

NIGHT
The scribbles up top represent fireworks. The white scribbles on the right are zombies. There are also black widows and lots of zombies in the house - you can see the explosions from them.

I have few words for this night time scene, except that he has never seen a zombie show at our house. Zombies are the Pre-K/K set's fascination, from what I can tell. Must be the talk of the playground.

In other news, he has art class every Friday and they always do really interesting stuff. I am so grateful that he is in a school that values art and music. They only get those classes once a week, but still...I think the quality of the education is quite high.

When the Kids Set the Table

And sometimes Benjamin breaks out the candles for an added touch of class.

End of Summer Sunset

A few hours Saturday evening at Silver Strand beach in Coronado brought forth so much joy. We went to celebrate my cousin's daughter's eighth birthday, but arrived after the festivities due to the necessity of afternoon naps. No matter...the ocean itself and the wet sand proved more magnetic than birthday cake.

Throwing globs of sand into the waves is exhilarating.

As is dancing on the water.

This boy's smile still melts my heart.

And this girl...this is what she looked like the whole time. Constantly in motion.

Ever full of glee. Running out to the water and scampering to shore.

And marching about like she owned the place. Because if ever there were a girl who could own the shore, it would be her.

And then the boy found a bird to chase.

And Mama practiced taking shots directly into the sun.