Fed Up and a Sign

On Friday I was simply fed up.  Too much to do, too much waiting, and where the heck was the baby that was supposed to miraculously join our family??  Where???  I was crabby.  

I think Jamie was getting a little fed up, too (probably due to me talking about me being fed up).  He told me that he prayed that we'd get more information and closure on Friday.  

I had calmed down by the end of the day, and was happily picking Griffin up from daycare early.  We were heading to the library, then to the new ice cream parlor in town.  A little Mommy-Griffin date.  

I took the turn to daycare and was shocked at what I saw.  A mommy dear and her sweet little spotted fawn crossing the road.  I had never seen a deer in Mary's neighborhood.  

This may sound weird, but deer have been a bit of a "sign" for me.  Years ago, before Griffin was conceived, I was frustrated with my inability to get pregnant.  I was on the way home from Bible study and begged God to give me a sign if I'd ever get to be a mom.  Within a minute, a deer and her fawn crossed the road.  Griffin was born about 10 months later.  

During my second pregnancy, I noticed that near the same spot was a fawn on the side of the road, dead.  I miscarried soon after.

When I was doing IVF I was driving home from a movie with friends and saw a field FULL of deer...Maybe 15?  16?  17?  I went in for an ultrasound and had a crazy amount of eggs....15+!

Of course there was the time that I saw the deer with her twin fawns and I still haven't seen my twins show up!  :)

Anyway, I thought that God was giving me a sign that there would be another baby in our future.  And, for those of you that think I am reaching for anything at this point, well, maybe I am.  But, if it keeps me going, sane and positive, I'll hold on to it! 

Dark Nights

Starting the night before Griffin's 5th birthday party, and lasting for about a week, I kept waking up in the middle of the night.  Sleepless.  I used to hate the sleepless nights, then I did a Bible study on Esther and found that my sleepless nights (and I've had lots during our battle with infertility) were best spent with God.  So, I prayed and thought in the middle of the night.  I thought about Griffin turning 5, and maybe that we were brought down this road to know that we did everything we could, but that we weren't going to be able to have more children.  Maybe we were done.  Maybe we weren't meant to be parents of multiple children.  The thought is crippling to me, but I feel like I need to get my arms around it.  It might be true.  As much as I don't want to believe it, we really might not get the chance to have another baby.  My doctor may have been right when we went to see him three years ago because we were concerned about our inability to conceive.  Maybe we had our one golden egg and that's it.  Our golden egg, Griffin.  I thought our doctor was nuts, now I think he was being realistic.

I laid awake night after night thinking about the should have, could have would have.  Should we have tried a third round of IVF?  Should we have explored other adoption agencies?  Should we have gone to Chicago for further testing.  Should, should should we have?  Like it's over.  But, it's not.  See we can still do these things, it's up to us.  But, it's scary.  Very scary.  What is going to work, cause us the least amount of grief, and allow us to bring another blessing to our lives.

Then, the sleepless nights subsided, which is good because it was turning me into a wreck.  I was groggy all day, doing my best to be my best, but I wasn't.  I was falling apart all over again.

When I was up one night, I thought I should blog about these dark, over pensive nights.  And, i'd call the post "Dark Nights".

We went to Church this morning and a guest did the sermon.  She talked about a camping trip.  A cold, wet, mosquito filled,week long camping trip with a sleepless, dark night that seemed to drag on forever.  Then a wet day with no warm showers and only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat....no hot, delicious food.  Those days were tough, but at the end of the week they knew they would have hot showers and hot delicious food.  Things would be great again.  Just like life.  We have the tough, dark nights.  Boring food, too many bugs, lack of fun, no warm comfortable showers.  Then when we get those things wonderful comforts back, we appreciate them much more.  We are better people for enduring the cold, dark nights.

Then she said a word that I never heard during a sermon at church.  Infertility.  She said, "Some of you may be dealing with your cold, dark night right now.  Maybe it's divorce, death, infertility..."  I didn't hear much for the next 30 seconds, that word stopped my in my tracks.  I was completely choked up and I noticed that Jamie was, too.  I was so incredibly grateful for her uttering that word when I needed it most.  My cold, dark night will not always be cold and dark.  Some day we'll have our cozy bed, hot showers, and delicious food again.  The sun will shine down on us.  God is good.

I am so glad we were spoken to so clearly today.

And truthfully, although I am deeply saddened by our losses and our inability to have our family grow in the way we had hoped, our life is SO full of many blessings.  In between our meals of peanut butter and jelly and our dark nights, we have amazing family memories and mush to be thankful for.

Hope and a Sign

On Saturday we were registered for a Resolve Family Building Conference in the Cities. (Resolve is a national infertility association that assists families struggling with infertility. I attend a monthly support group in St. Cloud through Resolve.)
We woke up at 5:00 a.m. to get to the conference in time and could quickly tell that the roads would be bad (wind, wind, wind). We looked online and the road conditions were indeed bad, so we thought we'd have to skip the conference. As the gal that looks for signs (Miss, I know I am not the only one!), I thought this was our sign that we needed to give up the battle. (As you can tell I am a bit burned out lately!) Positive husband came to the rescue. He told me to jump in the shower while he cleared the driveway and he'd check to see how bad the roads were.
We got on the road and got to the conference mid-way between the first session. We missed the keynote speaker, but I didn't mind one bit--we got there. As much as I feel defeated, deep down in my heart that I am not ready to give up hope.
We had a great day and learned so much about coping with infertility, alternative options (i.e. acupuncture) and adoption. We skipped the sessions on artificial reproductive technologies...we feel like we are WELL versed in that area! I am so blessed to have such a supportive, understanding husband. We split up and went to different sessions so we could get as much info as possible, he was so great at recapping what he learned. I'm happy to say that after the conference today, we feel even better about our decision to pursue adoption. (But, don't be thinking I have let go of the pregnancy dream!)
We seemed to have a very unique situation with a biological child conceived naturally, yet a huge amount of struggle to have a child afterwards. The struggle sucks, but we are really blessed to have G.
I hope that some day we are panelists at this event. We want to help others get through their struggle.
Anyway, how is this for a sign? At the end of the day there was a prize drawing, we could put our tickets into boxes labeled for the items we would like to win. We won $1,000 towards our home study through Lutheran Social Services!
Our night ended with dinner with a good friend that happened to be in town from Madison. The perfect end to what turned out to be a great day.

Along the Way

Along the way of our family building journey, we've encountered situations that encouraged us to look more closely into adoption. Maybe they were just coincidences, but they seemed to be nudging signs to us. For instance....

• Getting my blood drawn for IVF and having the nurse show me a photo of her beautiful adopted granddaughter.
• Meeting with an acupuncturist to get assistance with fertility and finding out that he has two children adopted from the same agency we were considering.
• Attending an event with several children included, all of which were adopted except for Griffin. Also at the event, an attorney that we knew commented that he loved his work with adoption. We left agreeing that we would someday adopt, and found out that next day that we were pregnant through our 2nd round of IVF (we miscarried at 14 weeks).

And, there's more! Maybe I'm latching on to these things because I want direction as to where we should be heading.....but maybe these things have been put front and forward so we notice them and follow the path towards adoption. Either way, we've started down a new path and are excited to see what our future holds. I can't wait for the day when our family photo includes 4 (or 5) of us!