What do you know!?

I got a message from our foster/adopt certifier today. She said that she turned in our homestudy/file to her supervisor yesterday, and it's going to be "staffed" tomorrow. I wasn't at all sure what staffing meant, so I phoned m stepmother who said that it means that it will be reviewed and signed and DONE tomorrow. Probably along with a few other people on our certifier's case load. Whew! Since Brian and I are being put on the shelter care hotline list, stepmom says we could be getting calls as early as tomorrow evening, as lots of kids need shelter care at night and on the weekends. Of course they will be looking for a longer term placement for us, but sometimes a shelter placement can lead to a long term foster placement, and its the best way to get babies right from the hospital.
Very excited, will update soon.

On another topic, Ive been in email contact with an RE on the East coast with some special RPL credentials. He told me to get Brian in for a sperm DNA fragmentation test. Have any of you heard of this or done it? My own RE has not mentioned it. He seems to think its just as likely to be a male factor thing as something wrong with my eggs. Who knows? If the test came back abnormal, we would be willing to consider a few donor sperm,clomid, IUI cycles.

wrench

I met my certifier for a picinic lunch on Saturday. It was pleasant enough, I got to visit with a couple of other adoptive parents/people waiting to become adoptive parents. The certifier was dropping hints that our paper work is not all that close to done. That we won't be hearing from her again til she finishes her vacation in late October, which stinks a bit because she said we would be done by first week of October, at the start of September. Before that she had told me start of September at the latest. I know she only works part time. I know shes probably over worked, but I would just appreciate a realistic time frame so I can carry on with other parts of my life! I for SURE wouldn't have left my job in August, had I known. I am reminded of our time dealing with US immigration. Brian and I felt so uncomfortable with the fact that one or two government workers had such a huge say on how we lived, on what our future together would be like.

I have been learning more about the new policy regarding engaging family / extended family in care plans and permanancy plans. They are looking for any family, anywhere. Current caregivers are given no preference. IF parental rights are terminated, IF no capable family can be found, then its possible to adopt. These rules just changed as of July 1st. My stepmother and the social worker have told me this throws a pretty big wrench in trying to adopt a child under 5 from foster care. My gut feeling is that this is not going to be the way we will expand our family in the long term. After all this work and waiting. Im feeling quite tired again. We of course will still foster children, under the assumption that they will all be returned to parents or family, but I think its time to actually put a plan for the Embryo donation cycle in place.

Sitting tight

Time is moving slowly at my house. I've been biding my time. Pottering about the nursery. The crib arrived and I put it togther by myself. Not so lucky with the changing table, which required Brian who drank beer and sang along with the Smiths while erecting the thing. Showing that he is both manly and sensitive. Heh. My mother and I have been second hand shopping. I have a few outfits for preschool or toddler aged children. Jeans, sweaters, pajamas. There are lots of baby things, sleepers, onsies, receiving blankets, bottles, crib bedding. I feel like a big imposter, of course. Be that as it may, there will be flesh and blood children inhabiting these beds and these clothes in the near future. I just wish there wasnt such a wait. Always the WAIT.

The saftey inspection went fine. Social worker claims to be "almost finished" with the rough draft of the homestudy write up. She sent an email yesterday, saying that Brian told her I had cancer in my teens. What?! I did have a tumor. A giant fibroid aidenoma in my right breast, had a pretty good scare but they took it out and said it wasnt malignant. I was 19. Anyhow, I guess Brian never really got the gist of that whole story considering that it took place years before I met him. He thought it was cancer, she wanted to know what my prognosis was. Im pretty sure she thought I was hiding that from her. Ha! Funny now but how akward.

Ive been out numbered by Brian and my OB. They both say to try another 2 or 3 clomid cycles, so here we go again in the next few days. This cycle I will skip the luteal phase progesterone, and get my 7 dpo level taken to try to confirm ovulation. OB agreed to this as the suppliments were the RE's idea.

I am planning a trip to Iceland and the UK for November of 2011. We will rent a little flat near the sea in Norfolk for a couple of weeks (not too far from Brian's parents) then spend a week in Reykjavik which is supposed to be beautiful that time of year. There is that to look forward to and to plan things around.

blameless

I was cleaning my kitchen a few days ago. I cant remember the exact chain of thought that brought on this revelation, but suddenly I was moved to tears when it occured to me that this is not my fault. Any time during the past couple of years, if you had asked, I would have asserted that of course it wasnt my fault that I had miscarried so many times. That I was infertile. But secretly I was pretty sure that it was. I had somehow been careless with those pregnancies. Worried too much, and my infertility was due to a character flaw. Or not taking good enough care of my health, caused by my anxiety disorder. That women who can manage to bring a pregnancy to term are somehow superior and I inferior. That if I wasnt hoisting around my rather stout, 4 year old niece, or squating to dig my 12 lb Le Creuset dutch oven out of the bottom shelf of my cupboard, then I wouldnt have started bleeding either time. The embryos could have made a better attachment. If I could just have cultivated enough of that non chalant lightness that makes other women "relax" and sail through their pregnancies unharmed, and also allows them to become pregnant easily.

I suppose by feeling that I was to blame, I somehow was making it less sad. Its not tragic, if its your own damn fault. Being blameless almost makes me feel more vulnerable. It IS sad. it IS unfair. Terribly fucking unfair, and now I get to grieve it a little more proper.