The End of that Chapter

Life has more quiet moments now that school is back in session. This morning I continued cleaning and organizing my desk area. Something that has piled up over the years in no particular order is the paperwork associated with our adoptions: overflowing hanging files, random documents in a pile on a shelf, in an envelope that never got fully emptied. Receipts, papers poached to request social security numbers or a passport and never returned to the file...I looked at and sorted it all. I also dumped all the infertility treatment forms and medical reports into the "shred" pile. They are no longer needed.

Not gonna lie. The emotion swelled and took my breath away a couple of times.

I'm not sure where the emotion came from - I wasn't sad. It was just a period in our lives that was so...intense. To look it in the face again - the checklists of things to do, the piles of receipts, the lawyer notices, the thick stapled packets of information about ourselves or the birth parents, it opened a tender place in my heart that remembered, viscerally, the weight of it all.

At the same time, that period in our lives is OVER. Done deal. And I experienced great joy in keeping only one copy of each item in a file for the appropriate child and throwing out the duplicates. Each child has a file with his or her origins told in the indifferent language of legal documents. One day these papers will interest them.

I'm trying to understand the hollow feeling of loss that is still there when I say goodbye, in this concrete way, to that chapter in my life. It makes no sense - I am glad to leave it behind. Maybe it's that, while there's finally closure for me, it is still something my kids will open up and experience for the first time one day. Those papers are all familiar to me; I signed most of them or took them from envelopes myself while standing on the wooden staircase of our Albany home, reading them in the winter light that glowed softly through the arched window of the front door. I sat across a table in a room lit by fluorescent lights and helped draft some of them with a couple we were just getting to know.

Closure is good, and closure I have. We are truly in a new chapter in our lives. It is apparent in the way our family has settled. We are one. We are parents and children, brothers and sisters, and the "how we got here" does not diminish this bond. And this new chapter is oh so good. So onward.

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.