January

After pulling out our calendars, we've decided to shoot for January for IVF round 2. Waiting until January is good because it gives Clint plenty of time to heal, makes sure that he gets through his finals, and allows my body some time to heal as well. However, there are a few downsides to January as well: (a) just waiting to start the craziness again ( At some level, it would almost be easier on me emotionally to keep moving constantly towards our goal, but mentally I understand the need to postpone for a while), (b) having to driving up to Carmel every other day in December when the weather could be nasty, and (c) throwing our holiday plans up in the air. Earlier this year we thought we would be able to drive down to Florida to spend Christmas with my family and Duriya, our exchange student. Now, we're unsure where we'll be in the preparatory process to know whether we can still hold those plans. I know that in the grand scheme of things my family will be OK with whatever we feel we have to do; it just sucks to spend another Christmas without them around.

Again, I apologize to my friends for going AWOL. I feel like I'm just now beginning to emerge from my black hole. This process is all consuming and then to get the news that we did just really messed my world up. I would say that still for about 3/4 of my week I feel completely disheartened that Clint and I will never have children and we will spend years and hundreds of thousands of dollars for nothing. I feel as if I'm experiencing samsara, a constant vortex of craving, clutching, grasping for something and coming up empty handed, empty souled, over and over again. Its just hard to keep your head above water in that mess.

I loathe going out in public right now because I am acutely aware of all the pregnate women around me, or the couples with small children. I can't focus on anything else and hot tears of self loathing for the jealousy and hopeless I feel stings my eyes. I want to feel happy for these women. I know I should feel happy for them but I simply cannot stand to be around them. It's not their problem--its totally mine and I hate it.

We had one glimmer of light this week when we met with one of our friends to get some information about adoption. She adopted 2 boys, the eldest of whom is approaching 13, I think. It was good to talk with her because she eroded a lot of myths that I was concerned about after researching adoption. Talking with her also assured us that we should not experience any problems trying to adopt given that we're young, educated and successful. We're the type of parents birth mothers want their children to go to. We still are just in the information gathering phase but we have made some early decisions if we decide to follow this path. First, is that we won't move beyond the information gathering stage unless and until conceiving our own child is impossible. Second, we will adopt domestically. Third, we will adopt a newborn, and fourth, we will use an attorney's office, rather than an adoption agency.

Still there is a lot of time to pass before we will know exactly what path to follow. I just hope my patience and faith will carry me through.