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.

closer

hello blog land. Im back from vacation in Northern California, and feeling mostly refreshed for it. Brian and I had our final homestudy interview with the foster/ adopt certifier on Friday. Whew.. what an invasive process. Every regulating body in the state of Oregon is totally nuts. We continue to inch closer to certification/ placement but its sort of slowed down to a crawl. This coming Thursday is the final saftey inspection, and walk through. We have a check list and its my job these next few days to be sure that everything is ticked off. Most of my vacation time was spent chatting with my stepmom, who had a TON of interesting info to share about the child welfare system and what is likely to happen with our adoption attempts. She has worked for the agency for 22 years. She said that sadly, family is ALWAYS given prefrence for adoptions these days. Even if its super extended family. Even if the child is already comfortable in a foster care setting and has been since birth. That said, often family members interested in adoption, wont be cleared or wont pass a homestudy. My certifier explained it as the apple does not fall far from the tree theory, but they do have to give family a chance. Adpopting through the state is possible, but not as easy as it was a few years ago, when they did give current caregivers some clout. My stepmom mentioned that she was pretty sure they would have us in mind as medical foster parents. This hadnt crossed my mind much, because I am not a nurse. I know a few practical nurses that do this for a living and I thought you had to have nursing skills. Ive been told that because of what I have done for work, caring for the elderly in their homes with nursing delegations for certain things like G tube feeding, medication admin, and wound care, that I can easily be put on the list to take infants that require a little extra care. Of course they wont give me anything that I cant handle. At least I hope not. Anyhow, the certifier confirmed that this is what she was planning to do, and she told me to start buying stuff for an infant! Finally ordered a crib Friday night and it should be here in a few days. Nursery room is getting totally douched out and we are setting up a shelving unit for plastic bins in the dirt basement. I plan to post some before and after pics in the next few weeks. Its a lovely feeling, knowing that our child is going to live in this nursery, in this house. Im still keen on embryo donation and might try it sooner than later. Perhaps this spring, even if we have foster kids. Nothing wrong with trying to complete the family in one fell swoop, is there?

catch up

This week has been a bit of a nightmare. Brian had his second solo interview with our certifier on Friday. He told her a few things I wish he could have left out. Unflattering things about his family, my family, and me. Im not up for candy coating who we all are or lying about anything, as we really have nothing to hide. Its just that some nitty gritty details could have been left out. Brian is like George Washington, he cannot tell a lie. He confessed to me friday evening, his defense was that he wasnt going to lie by omission, and I was saying that they never even asked about these things. He volunteered, and in my opinion embellished. UGH. Anyhow, this cumulated in my accusing him of attempting to sabotage our efforts to be foster parents. I was reptilian and mean about it for the better part of the evening. I simply couldnt stand the thought of having yet ANOTHER thing taken from me, should our application be denied. I finally came around to thinking that it is what it is. Brian is who he is and I wouldnt really want him to be any different. They will either approve us to be foster or adoptive parents or they wont.

Our homestudy is dragging on a bit. I thought the interview on friday would be the last until we did a final interview about placement and the saftey walkthrough. It seems that our certifier wants both of us to go to her office this coming friday to be interviewed on our own, one last time. I will wait in the lobby while brian does his, and then we will switch. All told we will have done 17 hours of interview and soemthing ike 32 hours of classes. Ive been asking around, people who have done this in other states think this process is a bit insane. I phoned my stepmother who works for DHS this morning, and she said its a brand new home study protocol and nobody knows exactly what they are doing. She hasnt done one or seen one yet.

My last day of work came and went without much fanfare. There was a cake, as promised. Ive still plenty to do to get things in order for our future foster children, but am also wondering what to do with myself. I want to take a class this fall, there is a Tango school up the street. Or maybe painting at the community college. Now that Im not doing fertility treatments I want to live like an adult for a while. An adult who has interests other than peeing on various kinds of sticks and spreading her legs for any doctor who will have a peek. I want girls nights out with wine and intellectual stimulation. I want my pre infertility / pregnancy loss life back, but I hardly remember who I was a few years ago. Its going to take a bit of effort.

Wait list

I am on a wait list for embryo donation at a clinic in southern California. They say the average wait time is 1.5 years. Im still going to check out the clinic in Seattle but I do like to have more than one option. The clinic in CA charges a bit less for this procedure, but of course I would have to factor in travel costs and some extra monitoring with my RE here in portland before I flew out for the transfer. The seattle clinic insists on several counseling sessions with a therapist that knows something about embryo donation before their clients procede. I think this is fair, although I doubt anyone locally would have a clue. My HMO had a hard enough time searching for somebody qualified to deal with recurrent pregnancy loss. Im trying not to get caught up in all of this, its really back burner stuff for the time being.

My last day of work is this coming saturday. There will be a party with cake on friday. Our garden shed is finished and we are in the process of filling it with some of the stuff from our "spare" rooms. The new AC unit has saved us a few sleepless nights, though so far this summer has been pretty cool. Friends from other parts of the country find it hard to believe that we get such hot summers here, and the fact that we hardly ever see any snow in the winter.

Im making a few plans for the time between quitting work and getting kids. I might make a trip to Eugene to see my dad and friends in my hometown. A long weekend to the coast may also be in order, one last private weekend with Brian before our lives change considerably.