On the Edge of a Cliff and Ready to Fly

There are things I think of & thoughts I have that I wonder if it’s appropriate or not to share. Friends and family read this blog, and I worry about being offensive. However, I am amazed by how infertility is such a mind £€%+ that I have to share my honest and unfiltered thoughts and opinions.

The only one in the world that gets my feelings and thoughts is my husband. The last 6 years…it seems like a blur and a trip through a desert. Two years of marriage, then that ‘let’s stop birth control and try to get pregnant.’ I remember we were actively trying to get pregnant in 05 when I started with my current company. I remember sharing with someone in the same group of new hires when she asked when we were having kids–the dreaded question. I shared a little bit of what we were going through, and we didn’t talk about it very much after that.

Fast forward to 2008 when I brought our baby into work for a visit. That same co-worker told my son “you are so loved, they waited a long time for you”. Wow; I had put our conversation in the back of my mind, just another ‘when are you having kids’ hurtful question that I had to endure.

The reason I’m telling this small story is that my life is full of these hurtful and sweet moments that are all tied together by red string. If you imagine the moments like photos tied to this string, and you twist the string one way or another, it looks like a sad and terrible life, or it looks hopeful and amazing.

When Donald and I got married, pastor bill told us “in your vows, you will hear ‘health’, ‘richer’, ‘forever’, ‘happiness’ But, you’re promising for the sickness, poor, dragging through when you don’t think you’re going to make it another moment. I had no idea what those vows meant, but I find myself reflecting back on them when life is tough. It makes the memories and promises sweeter. I married a man I had known less than a year, but I knew his character and his heart were true and could be trusted. If someone told me on our wedding day “you will be tested by money troubles, depression, family issues, death, infertility, health problems” and countless other issues that we haven’t seen yet. I still would have promised forever, because I trusted the God who put us together and that man in the tux waiting for me at the end of the aisle. I knew there was the strength of a lion partnered with a smart and gentle soul, I bet my life on it.

Watching ‘the Jane Austen book club’ last night with Donald hit a nerve. There is a marriage in the movie that’s in trouble. Well, at the end of the movie, the screenwriter demonstrated the couple was back together and happy by showing her very pregnant belly. Now, natural progression, you see it in movies and books all the time. Marriage & pregnancy and children.

Now if you look in on the movie or book of our life, there is no natural progression. There will be 9 years of marriage in January 2010. In these 9 years there’s been no mansion, no pregnant belly, no worry free lives. I had our house painted bright green in rebellion against being a normal house, normal family, predictable easiness.

You may look in at the end of the movie; she was thinking riches, health, happiness – in many ways she got the exact opposite of what she signed up for. You would expect to see a family nearly torn apart, nails scratched to the quick from climbing out of the darkness, from sliding down the rocky sides of dissapointment.

The darkness of our infertility is snuffed out by the glowing face of our Joshua. The longsuffering trials of our marriage are dull compared to being married to my best friend. You may look at us, odds against us surviving, but you don’t know God, and you don’t know us.

Tilt the images just a little to the left, & there’s the happiness, joy, & forever we promised. Even in the darkness & anguish, it’s there, even if it doesn’t look like what you thought it was supposed to be.

We’re in the middle of consolidating our debt in an effort to prepare for adoption #2. Not sure when we’ll actually START the process, but we need to save more money to get prepared for it.  Joshua’s adoption was fairly straightforward without any bumps in the process, but we could always have a difficult adoption process similar to what our work friends are going through. We also could have an adoption start and then not complete because the biological family changes their mind at the last minute. Whenever you adopt domestically, there is always a chance of things not going through, and it’s just sometimes expected, sadly, through the process. I’ve thought some about foster care adoption and international adoption but I really think that we want to adopt private domestic again the second time around. Originally, we wanted to adopt a total of 3 children, but I don’t know if that is going to be financially possible.

We are currently enjoying Joshua very much. It is fun to watch him develop into his own person and see his likes and dislikes. He is in the middle of learning the art of the full blown temper tantrum – head banging, feet kicking and all. I’ve found the best thing to do is to either ignore him but it’s better to distract him into doing something else. We’re working on a solid night time routine – bath, playtime, putting away toys, reading a book, then bed time. Last night we tried this and used a lot of songs and it worked very well – this was a great suggestion by Aunt Julie. His vocabulary is slowly expanding, he is definitely making a lot of new noises and trying out new songs, but a lot of it I cannot figure out what he’s talking about. He loves to point and say in a sing-song voice ‘Aa-oo’ which could mean ‘look at that’ or ‘I want that’ or ‘I’m sick of this.’

We can understand clearly a few words. Josh says “hi”  “bye-bye”  “Mama”  “dada”  “dog”  and some things that I can’t quite pick out that sound like “huh” or “argh.” He likes to feed Luna her food every morning and night; he’ll go to the pantry, fill up a little plastic cup one handful at a time, then carry it over to her bowl. If we let him, he would do this all day long, but we stop it when she’s had enough food in her bowl.

This always makes me laugh – Whenever there is applause on TV, Josh will start to clap as well. Josh will wave if you wave to him, normally he works his arm in a big up and down motion. When I tell him “no”, he will shake his head back and forth.

He will take his toys and hold them out to you to take, and he gets a big giggle out of taking the toy back and holding it to his chest. During the academy awards when Drew, Andrea, and Jaxon were over, Drew, Josh and Jaxon made up a new game. Donald had bought these little “Sonic tot” toys a long time ago, before Josh, but Josh just loves them because they’re the perfect size to hold. Jaxon was passing the tot toy to Drew, who would give it to Josh, then Josh would pass it to Jaxon. It was very cute and hilarious to watch them interact and play with each other.