a whole new world of waiting
Jul 28 2006 01:43 AM filed in: on pins &
needles
"On pins and
needles" takes on an entirely different meaning once
you've given up trying to get pregnant. It was, I
thought, a poignant yet clever heading with the
requisite double meaning - on the one hand, the "pins
and needles" attendant with the endless waiting and
hoping; on the other, the quite literal needles
jabbed daily into belly, thighs, and, of course, the
"upper outer quadrant" of the backside, alternating
cheeks morning and evening.
We decided quite some time ago to forgo trying to get pregnant entirely. Dr S confirmed last September what my obsessive research had already concluded: IVF was not going to work, and our reasonable options were donor eggs and adoption.
DE seemed like a good idea at first. I didn't care as much as G about biological connection, so it seemed a no-brainer: G would have the biological connection, I'd have a gestational one, and all would be right with the world in nine months' time. Then I started to wonder what the odds were that yet another procedure would uncover yet another problem - and I started to wonder whether we were looking at the proper goal: Was the goal to get pregnant, or to become parents?
G agreed to look into adoption before we decided to proceed with anything. If we were going to try DE, I needed to know beforehand whether a failure was the end of the line. So we went to an orientation session at a local agency, started doing research, borrowed books from some friends of ours who had adopted their children, and started talking to people involved with adoption on one side of it or another. And while we're still not 100% certain this is the detour we're meant to take, we're going ahead with the classes and the homestudy required to take it. We figure whatever concerns we have will be either assuaged or heightened by the learning process - and either way, when we're done we'll know what to do.
I haven't been able to come up with a suitably clever heading for the latest portion of this unexpected detour, I think simply because once you've gotten to this point you've run out of pithy remarks intended to convince the world - and maybe yourself - that it's really not that big a deal. By this point, you've just gone all in on the belief that you will make a good parent - hell, an amazing parent - and that once you get all your ducks in a row it will happen. And you wait.
We decided quite some time ago to forgo trying to get pregnant entirely. Dr S confirmed last September what my obsessive research had already concluded: IVF was not going to work, and our reasonable options were donor eggs and adoption.
DE seemed like a good idea at first. I didn't care as much as G about biological connection, so it seemed a no-brainer: G would have the biological connection, I'd have a gestational one, and all would be right with the world in nine months' time. Then I started to wonder what the odds were that yet another procedure would uncover yet another problem - and I started to wonder whether we were looking at the proper goal: Was the goal to get pregnant, or to become parents?
G agreed to look into adoption before we decided to proceed with anything. If we were going to try DE, I needed to know beforehand whether a failure was the end of the line. So we went to an orientation session at a local agency, started doing research, borrowed books from some friends of ours who had adopted their children, and started talking to people involved with adoption on one side of it or another. And while we're still not 100% certain this is the detour we're meant to take, we're going ahead with the classes and the homestudy required to take it. We figure whatever concerns we have will be either assuaged or heightened by the learning process - and either way, when we're done we'll know what to do.
I haven't been able to come up with a suitably clever heading for the latest portion of this unexpected detour, I think simply because once you've gotten to this point you've run out of pithy remarks intended to convince the world - and maybe yourself - that it's really not that big a deal. By this point, you've just gone all in on the belief that you will make a good parent - hell, an amazing parent - and that once you get all your ducks in a row it will happen. And you wait.
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