Another Direction?

If you're here from ICLW, welcome!  Click here to read my story in a nutshell. A more detailed timeline can be found on the sidebar.   

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Lately, I've been pondering where exactly I want to go on this TTC journey.  It should come to no surprise to anyone that, well, I'm tired.  8 years is a long roller-coaster ride, my friends, and quite frankly, I am more than ready to get off.

But I cannot picture my life "child-free."  I just can't.  It's wonderful for some, but it's not for me.  I need children, I need little people to nurture and care for.  It's what I'm here for, I know it deep within me.  It sounds ridiculous to say it out loud, but I honestly believe that my purpose in life is to be a mother.

There are still so many options available to Mo and I.  I know this.  Both our IVF's have been clinically successful.  I responded well to the drugs, our embryos were able to implant.  Why they failed to thrive and actually grow into squalling little bundles of joy we have still to determine.  But, should our tests reveal anything conclusive, there are still many methods of treatment available, from heparin to PGD to donor eggs/sperm/embryos.

I have no doubt that, given enough time and resources, I could carry a child to term.

I'm just no longer sure that I want to.

Ok, so that's not entirely true.  If a miracle happened tomorrow and I turned up pregnant, I'd be thrilled.  But I'd also be terrified and anxious and unable to enjoy any of it.  And I'm just not sure if I'm willing to put myself through all that again, in addition to the heartache and anxiety and financial drain of another IVF cycle.  Being pregnant, for me, is just no longer all that it's cracked up to be.

I'd really like to start considering adoption.

It's been weighing on me a lot lately...in fact, I can think of little else.  I know it's a long, hard journey in itself.  I know that it is by no means the "easy" way out of this.  But, it's starting to feel like it might be the path of least resistance.

God, that sounds horrible, and it's still not right.  I'm having a terrible time putting my thoughts into words, which is why I'm blogging about it.  I can't approach Mo until I'm able to verbalize how I feel, until I have a plan and numbers and all my little ducks in a row.  He's reluctant to adopt, I know that.  He has his reasons, the least of which is his own personal experience with adoption (his younger sister) and the fact that she is certifiable.  But several years ago he was willing (in theory) to pursue donor sperm. Will he make the leap to adoption, given time?  I don't know...but I also don't know if I am willing to put myself through all the medications, the hormones, the anxiety, and the heartbreak any longer.

I want my body back.  I want to be able to drink wine, sit in hot tubs, eat sushi, and do all the other things I've not done for years because I "might" be pregnant.  I'm finally free of hormones for the first time in -- what? 8 months? -- and I'll be honest: it feels great.  I'm in no hurry to go back to the emotional, anxious, frustrated, angry, crying, short-tempered mess that I've been.  

I also want my life back.  Not my old life, my early-married, childless life, but the life I've envisioned for myself for nearly a decade.  I want babies to hold, mouths to feed, stories to read and monsters to chase away.  I want to schedule parent-teacher conferences and take trips to the zoo and demand obligatory attendance at Family Game nights.

I no longer want to be pregnant, I just want to be a mom.

I want to know that, eventually, I will have children.  If it takes two or three years, so be it.  But to keep spending tens of thousands of dollars on a CHANCE that we'll conceive, along with the anxiety of whether or not we'll miscarry, is starting to seem ridiculous.  I am tired of "maybe's" and "what if's" and "someday's."  I need to know that there is an end in sight.

I've never cared about biology, about whether or not my children were carried in my womb or had my genetics.  Let's face it -- as many good qualities as I've got, I've also got plenty of genetics that I wouldn't want my children to inherit. (Sorry, Mom, but it's true).  I know that I could love any child entrusted in my care as much as any I gave birth to.  Little Miss, though my niece, is not blood-related to either Mo or myself, and I loved and cared for her immensely while she was with us.  Still, today, I miss her and think of her every single day.  Had she been given to Mo and I to raise (a possiblity at the time), she would have been mine in every sense of the word.

The problem is convincing Mo of that.

I read on an adoption website about another reluctant spouse.  He and his wife were attending counseling, and he admitted he worried about whether or not he'd be able to love a child that wasn't his biologically.  The therapist then asked him if he loved his wife.

"I love her with all of my heart," he said.

"Are you biologically-related to your wife?" the therapist questioned.

"No, of course not!"

"If you can love your wife so much, why do you think you won't be able to love a child as much?" she asked.

It took him a minute, but he got the point.

The question is, will Mo?