Category: Child-Free Infertility

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Infertility Bets On Hold, Part 2


(If you missed Part 1, click here … )

While I’ve pretty much begun to resolve those particular grief issues, there’s still that lack of strength that I feel I need in order to go through the entire adoption process.  Because it takes someone who really has enough strength to climb over the proverbial brick wall getting in the way of having a child. And specifically, I’m talking about all the rules and reg­u­la­tions and inves­ti­ga­tions into your pri­vate lives just to raise a child that is not bio­log­i­cally your own. Quite frankly, I know that I don’t have what it takes to go through that.

Why do I say that? (And Kelly … hopefully, this will help answer the question you posed to me at one time … ) Well first of all, I just know what I’m capable of handling emotionally, and I know that I wouldn’t be able to survive any further disappointment or heartache. Or as my new favorite quote from Pam says:

It got to the point where the potential for more heartbreak was more overwhelming than the glimmer of very small hope.

The second reason I feel as if I have little strength is because I have little confidence that things will come relatively straightforward and simple to us.

Not that I expect adoption to be an easy path. If we did decide to adopt, I have this very strong suspicion that we’d have so many more walls to climb. Give me a chance to explain … and I’d absolutely love to hear what others have to say to contribute to this discussion.

Let’s start off with Domestic Adoption:

  • Hubby & I both Asian American; Filipino American, to be specific.
  • How often do you suppose any Potential Birth Moms (PBM) would look at our dossier and — just by looks alone — think that we’d make great parents when their child will (most likely) not look at all similar to the adoptive couple that they’d hope to raise their child?
  • Or that the PBM might worry that their child would face more barriers having Asian American parents?
  • How often are Asian American babies given up for adoption; especially if the PBM is also Asian or Asian American? Culture dictates that family is important. If the child is not wanted in the immediate family; chances are that there is another family member (aunt, cousin, third uncle twice removed) that is willing to raise the child. Unfortunately, that’s a situation that’s likely never going to happen to us.

Moving onto International Adoption:

  • There are stricter laws and regulations from various countries in effect.
  • Some specific countries, like Russia and Guatemala, have either suspended or have placed holds on any adoptions to the US.
  • Wait time. Even for Filipino adoptions there are certain stipulations on how and when a child can be adopted; when the child can come back to the US with the adopted parents. And quite frankly, I don’t think I can afford the three-year wait in order to adopt a child from my native country.

And finally other, all-encompassing barriers:

  • Age: Let’s face it. Hubby & I are currently pushing 40. And yes, I know that there are couples out there that are raising babies that are much older than us. But there was a reason why Hubby & I started trying to conceive within a year of marriage: I had always seen me as a younger mother; one that wanted to finish having babies before the age of 30. There was a specific reason behind that: my mother and I are exactly 3o years apart in age (sorry Mom!). Growing up (particularly in high school), not only did I deal with a cultural barrier, but I also dealt with a huge generational gap. Both my parents were pre-baby boomer, while I was most definitely a Gen-Xer. Even though after I turned 30, I knew that this was something beyond my control, adopting now — especially as the rules and regs of adoption have gotten more strict — well, it no longer seems prudent for both Hubby & my sake.
  • Energy: Along with age, this is the second biggest concern that I have. And, if I was honest with myself, the flimsiest barrier of all. Because, really this has to do with energy and stamina. It’s one thing to raise a child with the thought in mind that you’ll be young enough to (somewhat) keep up with their needs. It’s quite another thing knowing that I can no longer wake myself up in the morning without hitting the snooze button a dozen times. Would I be able to care for another life if I can barely care for my own? Like I said, flimsy … but I’m just being honest.

I don’t bring up these points to be negative in any way, shape or form. I’m simply stating facts that appear to be the most obvious barriers for our individual case when it comes to adopting a child. And that’s assuming that we would ever go down that route. And, as I said above, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what I perceive as barriers.

*****

As it is, I feel that we’ve already played our game of Infertility Roulette. We’ve already placed all the bets we wanted to at this time in our lives. And we lost that bet. With adoption (or h*ll, even if we ever decided to go through IVF again), I want something I can be sure of … something I can count on.

I hesitate using the word “guarantee” … since nothing in life is ever guaranteed, but after more than ten years of fighting the odds and now facing even greater odds against us (age, finances, etc), Hubby & I opted to get out of the betting pool.

And this is why, at least in my eyes, it’s never as simple to “just adopt.” It’s never easy to go through another round of IVF.

This is why Hubby & I have decided to “cut our loss” … or in this case, “cut the strings” … and live child-free after infertility.

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Related Links:

Cutting The Strings

Infertility Bets On Hold, Part 1

Thoughts on Adoption

Information on Filipino Adoptions

Wiki Info on the Pre-Baby Boom Generation

Wiki Info on Generation X

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Infertility Bets On Hold, Part 1

(I guess I need to start off by saying, no … things have definitely not changed in my barren world. And don’t let the title of this post fool you. Apparently I may have “freaked” a couple people out by both the title and the picture below … LOL!)

I’m not a betting person. Which, when you think of the many trips Hubby & I have taken to Vegas, is quite humorous. All those casinos, and the most we played were slots.

I mean, I’ve played poker and blackjack in my college years; but seriously, all bets were based on pennies. Or cigarettes, depending on who you were playing with (<cough> Tim <cough>). But to place actual money that’s more than a dollar (okay, maybe $2 max for a slot machine)? Can’t see myself spending that kind of money.

My odds with these tests were never good

Which, given the odds that Hubby & I were given when we did our one cycle of IVF, makes it ironic. We were given a 51% chance that we’d be successful in our pursuit to become pregnant. We knew the odds were only 1% more on our favor. We had hoped to win this bet — a bet in which we put a boatload of money into the pot — and we lost. And I was devastated.

That’s not to say that I regret ever having done our one cycle of IVF. Because even back then I knew that this was something Hubby & I had to try in order to feel as if we tried everything in our quest to reproduce. I’m just simply saying that the results of that bet, that one IVF cycle, was enough for me to know that I could never place another bet on another IVF cycle ever again.

So yes … the next logical step would be to go for adoption, right?

Except adoption isn’t a simple thing to just “think about.” First, there’s the process of grieving the fact that I can’t have a baby. That alone is nothing simple. That process involves never being able to experience pregnancy. In my case, it involved never being able to see two pink lines in a pregnancy test.  And it involves feeling as if my body’s failed, not only me and my Hubby (especially my husband), but our parents and our siblings. And our siblings children, too.

Then there’s the other part that I needed to grieve; which is outlined in more detail in this recent post. It’s grieving the fact that we will never be able to have our own biological baby.  A child that we could pass our genes to. A child to pass the Filipino traditions we were taught growing up; and finding a way to blend both our American and Filipino sides together. A child to carry on my Hubby’s last name.

And while I’ve pretty much begun to resolve those grief issues, there’s still that lack of strength that I feel I need in order to go through the entire adoption process.  Because it takes someone who really has enough strength to climb over the proverbial brick wall getting in the way of having a child. And specifically, I’m talking about all the rules and reg­u­la­tions and inves­ti­ga­tions into your pri­vate lives just to raise a child that is not bio­log­i­cally your own. Quite frankly, I know that I don’t have what it takes to go through that.

(Part Two continues tomorrow … )

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Related Links:

Thoughts on Adoption

Baby Picture

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Identity Labels

Anybody remember the old-school Dymo label-makers? I’m not talking about the fancy electric ones where you can type in whatever you want before printing it up. I’m talking about the ones where you turn the dial to choose the letter and squeeze the handle (as hard as possible) to imprint it on the red or black vinyl tape. And G*d forbid if you misspelled a word and have to start from the beginning.

For some reason I was thinking about that label-maker this past weekend. And really, it started last week when I received a wonderful email from an old High School Friend (HSF) that I hadn’t heard from in years. She had responded via Facebook in regards to the post in which I admittedly found myself questioning my purpose in life.

HSF talked about how, as women, we are always questioning ourselves about what we truly want in life. That we’re always finding a way to label ourselves while simultaneously trying to achieve more than what we can physically and emotionally handle. And that, in the process, we tend to lose perspective of who we really are in the grand scheme of things.

For HSF, it’s a matter of juggling multiple identities. She’s a wife, a daughter, a mother of three (beautiful) children. She’s also a free-lancer, a founding president of one of her alma mater’s alumni groups. Yet as beautiful as her life appears (especially from perusing through Facebook), she admits that she’s still coming to terms with the “Successful Career Woman” label; especially as she’s currently staying at home to with her three young kids.

The point of HSF’s email was not to point out how much different her life was to mine; rather it was simply to point out that regardless of how we view our lives, we only limit ourselves by placing labels on who we are or what we do. And furthermore, why can’t we just enjoy the path that we’re currently on and embrace who we are while traveling down this path?

I must admit, I’m still struggling to deal with the valid points that HSF has brought up. I’m sure it has to do a lot with the many years of believing that “Motherhood” was the end-all be-all for a woman’s livelihood. (I contribute this, as always, to the strong Filipino cultural influence that I identify with.) And, even though I’ve accepted the fact that I can’t have biological children of my own, I still long for something to fill that void that Infertility has robbed me.

Furthermore, with my recent unemployment situation, I feel as though I’ve been stripped yet another label that I’ve identified myself with. That “successful career woman” identity flew out the window the day I found myself surreptitiously without a job.

And really … that’s what this post was trying to explain.

While I’d love to “give up” those labels that I’ve placed on myself, I also must admit that it’s these labels that I’ve come to rely on to “ground” myself, so to speak, when I’ve otherwise felt lost. It’s these labels that help remind me of who *I* am in the face of uncertainty:

  • I’m a Wife.
  • I’m an only Daughter.
  • I’m a Sister to my Brother.
  • I’m a friend.
  • I’m Filipino-American (1st generation).
  • I’m Catholic.
  • I’m a nurse.
  • I’m a writer.
  • I’m infertile.
  • I’m child-free after infertility.

When looking at who I am; what I believe is the center of my core … it’s pretty obvious that there are those identities that I have no control over. These are the identities that have been imprinted on my soul; the ones that I cannot change. The ones that I’ve grown to accept as part of who I am in this life.

Then there are the labels I’ve chosen for myself (Catholic, nurse, writer, friend). Those are the identities that, despite the years of time and investment I put into them, I can readily let go. But do I really want to do that?

The problem, as I see it, is when one of these identities has been lost; especially at a time where I wasn’t ready to a) let go of that identity, or b) accept that identity for what it is.

Take for instance, the part of myself that identifies with being infertile. This was one label I never expected to own. But the fact of the matter is that after one year of trying to conceive (waaaay back when, it seems), we were unable to get pregnant. By definition, infertility is the inability to conceive or carry a pregnancy to term after 12 months of trying to conceive. That’s a fact. There’s no way I can change that pat of me; there’s no way I have control over that situation.

But take the part of me that identifies with being child-free after infertility. We tried everything that we could possibly do (within our own capabilities both financially and emotionally) to give ourselves a biological child, but that just never happened. And because we thought long and hard about our other options, Hubby & I chose to accept that living child-free was what was best for me. And believe me … it was not an easy choice to make.

And because, she nails it right on the head … here’s how Pam from Silent Sorority recently described the reason why she and her husband chose the child-free path:

“It got to the point where the potential heartbreak was actually more overwhelming than the glimmer of very small hope.”

In any case, my point is that with our decision to live child-free, I dealt with having to let go of one chosen identity and accept a new chosen identity. I had to let go of that identity of motherhood that I held on for so long. and I had to accept that living without children, despite the incredible longing to have a biological child of our own, was my new identity.

As I said before, the decision to live child-free wasn’t a choice that we wanted to make. It’s not that we didn’t discuss opening our hearts to adoption. Or opening our wallets to more infertility treatments. Simply put, identifying ourselves as living child-free was a choice that we had to make. Hubby & I needed to weigh our options to decide if that the small glimmer of hope was worth the insurmountable heartbreak we’d already been through. Hubby & I needed to make this decision so we (or rather *I*) could maintain my sanity.

Because if I didn’t put that label on me, I’d still be struggling to determine who I was … if I couldn’t be the mother I had always dreamed about.

And of course now … my new identity crisis is to determine what to do with my career. But I will take a page out of HSF’s book and learn to enjoy the journey while I discover what’s next.

How about you, Blog World? What parts of yourself keep you grounded? What labels do you place on yourself? How do you identify yourself?

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Cherry-Coloured Funk *

It’s after midnight and I’m finding myself in some sort of funk.

Which is sad, because my last posts were all about trying to enjoy the simple things in life; like the unconditional love that a pet can give you.

I am truly and utterly in a funk.

And I hate it.

I’ve (obviously) been trying my best to be optimistic about everything, but lately it seems as if I can’t catch a break. And it’s ridiculous, because it hasn’t even been more than a month since my life turned topsy-turvy.

Maybe it’s because the loss of my job reminds me too much of another loss that I’ve finally came to closure on. Well, as “closed” as it could get anyway.

I’ve always alluded to the fact that my inability to have children of my own, to be a mother has made me feel less of a person. It’s made me that Filipina, who was brought up to think of bringing up her husband’s children is the only purpose in life, feel like I’ve lost any reason to exist in this lifetime.

And once I  “resolved” myself to a life withouth children, I naturally gravitated to my career as the next “logical” reason to get out of bed every day.

Which, when you look at the time line of my blog, you’d notice it. Starting back in Autumn of 2008, up to the point where Hubby & I decided to “cut the strings.” Plain as night and day; written in black and white. (Figuratively speaking, that is). And when you see how much I put into this job since moving to Chicago; all the effort I made to making my career … it’s obvious that I found something to fill the void of Motherlessness.

Then suddenly and unexpectedly, I find myself without a job. I find myself without yet another purpose in life.

I find myself struggling with the loss of yet another reason for my existence.

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

Earlier today, I asked my husband what my purpose in life was.

This was all before I came to the conclusion I did up above; before connecting the dots as to why I’m feeling the same kind of loss for my job as I did for the loss of Motherhood.

Before I realized that I wasn’t quite that crazy for having these negative thoughts; however irrational it may have seemed at the time.

And Hubby’s answer was, “It’s whatever we want it to be.”

In my mind I know that Hubby’s right. And my heart tells me that he’s right for me to think of this as a time of opportunity.

But the empty feeling I have in my gut keeps digging away at my core; struggling to find something out of nothing. And I wish I could make it stop.

Damn … but I was doing so well.

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

* In case you’re wondering where the title of this post came from, it’s the name of a Cocteau Twins song that completely reflects the mood I’m in. Take a listen to it here … isn’t it hauntingly beautiful?

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Happy Birthday, Flo!

I know I’m a little late, but Happy Nurses Day to all those esteemed Nurses and Nursing Students and Aides out there.

Yes … I know that last Wednesday was the start of Nurses Week, but if you recall from last year … the actual day for Nurses is on Florence Nightingale’s birthday. And that day is/was today, the 12th of May.

Since usually the first couple weeks in May I use Nurses Week as a distraction for another “holiday” in May, I’m finding it quite ironic that I ended up being okay with Mother’s Day this year.

It’s been a really strange Nurses Week this year for obvious reasons. Seeing that I’m currently not employed, it’s not that I’ve had any reason to celebrate.

I know, I know … I can hear y’all asking why I’m not already employed elsewhere … especially since RN’s are in “high demand” all the time. Well, it’s because of the type of career I’ve chosen with my Nursing Degree.

I could go back to the hospital and be a “Floor Nurse” again; but there are a couple things that have me hesitant to do this. First of all, it’s been well over ten years since I’ve done any type of bedside nursing (unless you count taking care of a sick Hubby … ). And in just that amount of time, the acuity of care that one patient requires has more than quadrupled. I’m pretty sure that I can no longer keep up with the amount of physical and mental work it takes to work in the “war zones.” (And trust me … any given day can be as chaotic as a war zone!)

Besides the lack of physical stamina (and probably knowledge of new technology), the other reason I’m fearful to go back to the floors is because of a previous back injury. While I’m pretty sure I’m perfectly fine with lifting things greater than 50 lbs now, a year after my disk surgery I was limited to lifting no more than 25 lbs. I’m just incredibly terrified that if I do any constant lifting on a daily basis, I will re-injure myself. So yeah, heavy lifting is my other fear.

Instead, I’m looking for jobs that fit my career as an RN Case Manager; something that I’m more versed and comfortable at. And since I’ve had lots of supervisory experience, I’m also looking for things within Case Management where I can utilize those talents as well.

So on my job search, I’ve stumbled on quite a few positions I’m interested. All from the various states that I’ve been looking at. (Uhm, that would be IL, MI, OR and WA.) Surprisingly, I already received two phone calls from West Coast locations … I definitely thought that wouldn’t happen so quickly.

And while Hubby & I would love to jump ship and move straight away to Oregon or Washington … the reality is that we still have a house in Michigan and rent through August in Illinois. So moving to the West Coast now would only put us further behind financially. But the good thing is that I’ve received good contacts and recruiters looking for RN Case Managers in Portland and Seattle … so when we’re ready to move, I’ll have someone to contact.

Then there’s two other positions that have definitely piqued my interest. Both are opportunities that would allow me to be more flexible in where I live. One of them is a leadership role for another health insurance company that would have me supervising a staff of work-at-home employees … the benefit of which means that I could also work from home. A definite plus; especially if we need to move out of Chicago by the time our lease runs out in August.

And since the responsibilities of this job would be similar to what I was previously doing before my early departure from the last company, I’m guessing my learning curve won’t be as severe. (Knock on wood.) I’ve already heard from the Hiring Manager for this position and hope to have an interview scheduled with the actual department that’s hiring soon.

The other opportunity is one that I really really like. It’s one that I had thought about transitioning to do in my previous job back in Michigan, but the opportunity never came up; at least locally. And the reason I was interested in moving over to this career is because it combined my love of clinical knowledge and my love of teaching. So right there were two things that had me automatically applying for the job when I first saw the on-line posting.

Yes, this is ME as a Student Nurse

The other one that has me wanting this job is the fact that I can pretty much live anywhere I want to, as long as I was close to any major airport. So again, I could work out of Chicago or Michigan … or even Seattle or Portland, once we get out that way. The only downside would be the amount of traveling I’d have to do during the week; but hey … at least I don’t have kids to worry about! (The irony does not escape me.) I’ve also heard back from this company and am hoping for an interview soon.

So please, oh internet buddies … if any of you have a direct line with the Man Upstairs, I’d really appreciate it if you could put a good word in for me. Because this second (going on third) week of unemployment is starting to get old.