Friday, June 26, 2009

Taking some time off

So, I realize it's been a while since I posted. Frankly, work has been extremely hectic and I don't have many amusing anecdotes lately. The baby influx continues as my cousin had her baby last week (on my birthday no less! How rude!) and my other cousin is due to pop any time.
Then endo continues to be a struggle and I don't know that my meds are doing much to help it. Guess I should make another appointment soon. Bah to my messed up insides!
An interesting thing has happened with our study of Mandarin. We have learned enough that The Boy can ask me if I'm ok and if I want to go home while we are at a family gathering. It may not sound like much, but it's nice to be able to talk "openly" about not being able to handle staying around the happy parents any longer. I'm sure it will be nicer still when we can have full conversations where we talk crap about people while they stand right there. I'm sure this makes me a horrible person, but I have to take what victories I can, right?
Aside from being busy, I'm not really sure what to do with this blog anymore. It's not really in "infertile" blog in the traditional sense. We are adopting, but not any time soon. It just seems we've slipped through the cracks of relevancy with all that has happened this last year. I'll still post occasionally about anything that seems interesting/amusing/horrible, but not as often as I once did, I guess.
Last interesting anecdote:
The night of my birthday I dreamed that The Boy and I were watching a cute little Chinese girl who wasn't ours, but sort of was. I can't remember what her name was (I'm sure it was random Chinese sounds my brain tossed together to invent a name) but she was roughly 13 months old and was completely and utterly gorgeous, as well as being a bit of a goofball. Course, then I woke up realizing how long we have before we will ever be picking up our daughter and was all bummed out for the rest of the week.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Highlights of a baby shower

Well, I survived the baby shower, but not without some damage to my fine shiny exterior. I really didn't want to go, but figured if I didn't I could kiss my already rocky relationship with my sister goodbye. I was in the middle of deciding which would be the lesser evil when my mom called and told me I basically had to come.

Anyway, without boring you too much, here are the highlights from the blessed event.

-Standing around, waiting for sis to show up and being surrounded by friends and family, all but 2 of whom had/brought their kids to the event (the other two who have no kids are neither married, nor old enough to drink). Talk about being the misfit elf!

-My cousin who is ,most definitely NOT old enough to drink carrying her one year old around, while 2 weeks shy of birthing the second child. Good holy hell!

-Sister's husband being at the otherwise all-woman shower. Since when is this allowed? Bah, he just annoys me anyway, shower attending or not.

-And of course, priceless gems from a crazy aunt including the hits "My boss doesn't think it's funny that I tell him he bought a baby" (he recently adopted), "Could a make a onesie that says 'My mom was a crack head, but I'm not being raised by her anymore'?", and "I guess I shouldn't say this stuff out loud, huh?"

Between the cooing, the awwing over the baby, the endless sea of pink clothes (let no other color touch the precious one lest she be "turned gay"), and my crazy aunt deciding that I was the one who wanted to hear the madness that springs forth from her mind, it was a bit much. So anyone out there have some amusing stories of baby showers? I could use a laugh at someone else's expense for once.

Edit:In deleting a spam comment about alternative treatments, I accidentally got rid of a genuine comment. Oops! Yes, my aunt is crazy.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

I'm the jerk in the restaurant

So apparently a sister who is "understanding" of not coming to the hospital to see a new baby, becomes less understanding as each day goes by. It continues thus until my mom is calling me to tell me that the aforementioned sister is mad at me for not calling. "I mean, I understood her not wanting to be at the hospital, but she hasn't called me at all!"

Admittedly, it would seem like a rather jerk move if I hadn't EMAILED HER AT LEAST 3 TIMES!!! Yes, written words are not the same as a phone call. An email allows me to show my happiness for her without having to make sure my voice doesn't show any of the hurt or anger I feel. Sorry for trying to make it easier for both of us. I guess I didn't realize that her "understanding" had an expiration date on it. Should have checked the label.

She is having a baby shower tomorrow and while I was originally not planning on going, it now appears that if I don't go I have mooned the Pope or something. This fact is made more dismal by the knowledge that my sister-in-law will not be there due to prior engagements. An evening of pretending to be all squishy happy for my sister with no one there to make quiet snide remarks to? Sign me up!

The whole family got together a couple night ago for dinner. I was planning on pulling my sister aside for a minute and telling her that I'm sorry if she thinks I hate her, but I don't. As touching as that moment would undoubtedly be, I opted to not. I have a hard time being around her baby, and that's ok. I am not expecting myself to be magically over the hurt, and if other people think that I should be, then too damn bad. Obviously, they don't get it. I can be (and have been) civil, but I am not going to feign excitement that I would likely not have experienced anyway.

On a side note, it was very odd/irritating to me that every time her husband carried the baby into the room where other people were he had to point out some new amazing feature about his child (her toes are all long...like a monkey's! She's still so beautiful though!). It happened no less than 5 times, and each time was more strange than the last. I know, Dude, you're all excited because your sperm worked. Her hands are tiny? What a shocking thing for a newborn to have. News flash: your magical miracle is a daily occurence around the world. Your daughter is a baby, like all the others, not some Platonic ideal of the word.

I realize that parents are all beside themselves with the magical marvel that is the life they have created. I realize that in 20-30 years when we finally have a child of our own, we will be just as annoying. I just can't handle it right now. I'm sick of pretending to be ok with something I'm not. I'm sick of being put in a position where I have to pretend because not everyone there knows our situation. I'm sick of people asking, "So when will it be your turn?" and having to decide which story to give them. I hate knowing that my nieces and nephews will be nearly teenagers by the time we can provide them a cousin. I'm sick of having to bring up our adoption in order for anyone in our family to talk to us about it. I realize it's a long way off, but it's still a big deal to us, and when it gets shoved under the table by everyone it feels like we are providing them something less than a "real" baby.

Mandarin is coming slowly but surely. I'm confident that by the time we are traveling to China we will at least be passable, if not close to fluent. Ironically, in learning the calligraphy, I now know how to write "I am not a mother." The Boy's family doesn't really understand why we are bothering to spend so much time and effort learning a language when our child will be coming to America and learning English. I think we finally got them to a point to at least leave us alone about it, if not understand it. We told them a large portion of it was that we have to wait so long for all of this, even just to begin the waiting process, that this feels like something we can genuinely make progress with. It feels like we're getting closer. Aside from that, I also realize that things are different for different birth parents, and that those in China would, by and large, prefer to keep their children. In a way, it feels like spending years struggling to learn the language and culture is our way of "earning" this adoption. I don't think it should be a requirement of all adoptive parents, but for us it feels important.

I suppose I will have to dust off my happy face, go to the shower, not eat cake (eating restrictions...stupid endo), deal with stupid questions, and try to avoid saying something rude. At least I'll get some good stories to blog about, I guess.