Some actual China adoption stuff

We've been asked a bit lately about how the adoption process is going. Honestly, all we can do right now is make improvements on our home and work on our Mandarin. Not terribly exciting, I'm afraid.
I have, of course, been doing a bunch of research and reading up on other people's experiences. In the process of which I came across two very interesting websites:
No Hands But Ours
and
Love Without Boundaries
If you are interested in some heartwarming stories of how people have helped Chinese orphans, check them out.

Anger, my old friend

Ah...there it is. That oh so common sinking feeling of dread, anger, disbelief, and nausea in the pit of my stomach that happens when someone else I know announces a pregnancy. The person in question is the husband of the pregnant one and a guy I used to hang out with fairly regularly. We're friends, as we have always been, and I don't begrudge him an ounce of happiness. I just don't know how to respond to the inevitable question of when it will be my turn. We're enough alike that I could, no doubt, use the sarcasm that I only threaten to use on people. I'll probably do that.

It's been a summer of babies for most of the people I know. One sister, two cousins, two friends, and several acquaintances all within 2 months of each other.
I don't feel as much rage and bitterness as I once did. In fact, the idea of not being pregnant or going through labor is appealing enough to me that I'm quite excited about adopting. I don't regret having a genetic link to my future child at all. She'll be much better off not having to deal with the rotten genes on both sides, if you ask me. What I do mind is the wait. And the questions (i.e. "So when are you going to have kids?"). And the people sending me IMs on facebook saying "I heard you were pregnant!" yeah...not so much. Oh, and the waiting. People all around us are having first, second, even third babies as we wait to even start the long, even more wait-filled process.

In other news, it looks like my quest for relief from the endo pain is at an end for now. The doctor wanted to put me on Lupron to see if it helped any more. After the supply company informed me that one injection would be over $1300 I told them thanks but no thanks. I can think of a hell of a lot more things I'd rather do with that sort of money than get a shot in the ass. Sheesh, I can get some seriously entertaining shots of illegal substances for less than that. Not that I would, of course. Hey, what's that on your shoulder? *runs away*

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.

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.

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.

And a cherry on top!

If by cherry you mean a gush of blood, and by top you mean my toe. I stepped on a sewing pin while barefoot (happens quite often cause I am a moron). Ow! When I went to check and see if it was still stuck I say that only about 1 cm of pin was still showing...because it had gone all the way through my toe!!!! EFFING EFF OF AN EFF OOOOOWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!! Yup, in a true manifestation of how my life is going these days, I skewered my toe like a tasty shish kabob of pain. FAIL.

Oh, and my car is dead again. Double FAIL.

The universe just hates me, doesn't it?

I have been delaying for a bit, but I guess I should post about my oh-so-delightful Mothers Day (heretofore known as Barren Reminder Day). Here's basically how it went down.

I opted to not attend church. I know, I should have sucked it up and just gone, but I didn't and I think it was for the best. Much as I want to have to dash out before they say "Would all the women 18 and over please stand." And much as I would love to hear endlessly about the miracle that is motherhood and the token, "But everyone can be a mother, even without children." I just thought it would be better to spend the time with the ones I love. I went on a hike/picnic with The Boy and our spazzy dogs and it was lovely. We practiced our Mandarin (Are the dogs American? A little. Would they like something to drink? Yes.) and talked about how someday we'd be able to come do this with our little girl. We speculated about what she would be like and how, somehow, it would all be worth it. If not for this, I don't think I would have been able to go to my parents house and be around my sister's new baby.

I was all relaxed and prepared to deal with it. After all, there will be plenty of people around to hold the kid, so I wont have to. I can show my mom the awesome book The Boy got us on basic Chinese characters (she speaks some Japanese and loves to see the similarities). As our therapist said, "What's the worst thing that can happen? You cry? So what...they know what's going on and will understand, and if they don't understand then screw them." (Yes, he did say that, he is magical as well). I would get through it. Oh how naive I was.

Upon arriving at my parents, my mom asks me if I got her message. Crap. No. What's going on? Apparently, a relative of mine has invited herself to dinner. no big deal, right? Dead wrong. This relative is the same one who said I was too pretty to adopt. She is notorious about saying horrible things (hence why her kids didn't want to do something with her) and she doesn't know we have even been trying to have a kid, let alone the whole story. Hoo boy, this should be interesting.

One by one, family members arrived. My SIL and I chatted a bit about things (she is incredibly supportive of us and actually shows an interest in our plans). The new baby arrived in all pomp and glory, encircled about in layers upon layers of pink, lest we forget that this is the first female grandchild. The horribly, overbearingly, powerfully spermed proud father informed everyone that if we wanted to touch the delicate flower of his loins, we would have to immerse ourselves in antibacterial gel, lest our lowly human germs disturb his heavenly creation.

Dinner was served and my relative proceeded to talk about the many injuries her kids have caused her, and how they don't love her, and how she's basically childless and she hates Mothers Day. Then she wondered why her co-worker, who had just adopted a baby, didn't appreciate the "joke" she made in telling him he had just "bought" a kid. Can't imagine why that didn't make him chuckle. Lord, beer me patience. At least it would be better after dinner, right? Sure.

Unfortunately, my new meds are not helping the pain, in fact, they are increasing it by quite a lot. Near the end of the meal, I had to ask The Boy to help me away from the table so I could lay down. My plan of making it to a spare room failed, since I about passed out trying to stand up and only made it as far as a nearby couch. I lay there trying to control my breathing and not scream, all the while my relative is sitting not ten feet from me, holding the golden one and going on and on to my sister about how she can't believe how beautiful she is, and how is such a miracle she has carried inside her, and how she must be so happy to have been able to create such a wondrous creature in her womb. If I was about to scream before, I am near to pulling the house down on myself and everyone else a la Sampson-style.

Finally, the pain subsides enough for my to put it back in it's little jar, and act like nothing is wrong. Then, my relative says the following: "You know, I would be a surrogate for you, if that is what you guys needed." No. You. Did. Not. Just. Say. That. Oh, but she did. My response? "No thanks. I don't know where your uterus has been." She was shocked that I would say something so rude, and didn't bug me about my lack of offspring for the rest of the night. Win.

It wasn't the worst day of my life, but it sucked. I thought about it alot, and I think I understand why it was so crappy (besides the obvious). Not only did I have to be around a new baby while we are having to wait so long to even start the process, but I couldn't even act like anything was wrong. I couldn't cry, because then someone who has NO business in my personal life, would find out and blab around to everyone she sees that I am barren and bitter and it's just so tragic cause I would make such beautiful babies. I had to put on my best don't-like-kids act so that I didn't have to give any indication that just being around this perfect newborn was enough to shatter every ounce of strength I had stored up. I had to lie through my teeth to everyone around me, while all but one knew what a lie it was. But hey, at least she didn't have to sit at home and wonder why none of her kids wanted to have her over for dinner.