There's a lot I want to write about but don't know where to start. I want to write about the birthmothers we've talked to and why things haven't worked out with them, but I'm completely paranoid that one will find this blog. I need this blog to stay anonymous for my sanity, and because so much of this is very private. So I will talk in vague terms.
Adoption has been hard. Our website has now been up for several months and I've started a Fac.ebook page, which makes me feel like I constantly have homework. Do I need to advertise more? Or differently? How can I present us as the awesomely fun couple that we are?
When you're forced to come up with photos on a weekly basis (my self-imposed requirement) for how awesome you are, you realize that you are not 100% fun. You're also grocery shopping and cleaning the garage and working 40+ hours a week. I think pursuing adoption has gotten us to do some activities we otherwise wouldn't have done, just for the photo ops, which all in all is good. We're getting out a little more.
How do you capture the day-to-day goodness that goes on in your life, though? The moments where you and your spouse crack each other up for an hour drinking coffee on a Saturday morning (sedate, somewhat boring photo)? Or you take the day off of work and manage to see a baby bluebird leave its nest (happened today and would just be another photo of a bird that anyone could grab off the internet. Plus I wouldn't have been able to get the shot when it happened.)? Or how you and your spouse give your 15-year-old dog pills 6 times a day and fancy prescription dog food just because you're that awesome as caregivers? How do you convey that stuff? I think we're really good people who will be really good parents. We have a ton of energy and love that is waiting, YEARNING, to be shared with a kid.
I'm speaking a little bit out of defensiveness this week because we were dumped by someone we'd talked to for quite some time. We had never matched but it was the longest time we'd talked to anyone, and it's a big blow. Our egos are bruised and all we can say is typical insecure dumped sentiments like "I never really liked her, anyway." Which isn't true.
Getting contacted is immensely stressful. Agonizing over everything you say or write, triple-checking your emails for anything that might not sound awesomely maternal/paternal/parent-of-the-year-esque. Thinking she's the one or that she's not and you will have to reject her.
We're recovering from the blow and will survive. Worse things have happened. (Miscarriages. If I can make it through two of those, I can do this.)
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Pain update. It's interesting to look back at older posts to see exactly where I was. The current status is not so hot. My PT and I feel like I've hit a plateau and am not making improvements, or that the improvements I'm making are so incremental as to be, well, not rapid enough. PT is trying to get me to see her less often. I go every 2 weeks now and feel like she's my lifeline. If I don't see her, how will I improve at all? But I'm going to try to wean myself.
Today is a good pain day but they don't come often. I had a complete meltdown on the phone with my dad last Saturday, wherein I cursed every aspect of my life. Ok, mostly my job. It is awful lately, way too busy, emails constantly and I'm barely staying afloat. So that cannot be helping my pain.
The good news is that the pain is mostly gone from my head. My overall pain level is still pretty bad, but I've got to acknowledge the tiny victories. Pain is in my abdomen now from the bottom of my ribcage downward. Still, I'm unable to describe it. Sometimes it is burning, but other times it's just diffuse pain that feels related to the burning type. Which I realize doesn't help you imagine it at all.
I'll see my pelvic pain doc in a couple of weeks and ensure for the 50th time that I'm maxed out on Lyrica (for neuropathic pain), there's nothing else really for me to try other than implanting nerve blocks. They will sometimes try to make it sound like we still have treatment options but it's kind of BS. All they can really do is watch me suffer and hope time will heal me.
I did read a wonderful memoir of someone with chronic pain. Book is Chocolate and Vicodin. Been meaning to email the author because her writing really touched me. Although her pain is all in her head, literally, because it's a chronic headache, and mine is abdominal, everything she said resonated. Reading it started a little shift in my perception of myself, and how I see this pain. I'm owning it more. For the longest time I expected to wake up one day and be pain-free, but I now really, REALLY know that is not in the cards for me. I have a problem with chronic pain, and will likely have it for some time. It's a disease; it's related to my endometriosis and the way my body's reacted to my surgeries/IF saga, and I'm not alone. My hospital has an entire department related to obscure women's health problems like mine. Obscure in that most people know nothing about them, but apparently they touch many women.
I'm trying to see the gifts this pain has given me. Before you puke at how O.prah self-helpy that sounds, bear with me for a second. I've spent a lot of time feeling robbed of my previous healthy life, when I could (gasp) run half marathons and do triathlons. Sure, I wasn't doing that right before my the end-all-be-all surgery—it was more in my 20's—but I could have done it. I had planned to run again. And not weigh every decision about how it will affect my pain, and should I skip such-an-such social event because I'm just not feeling well.
Back to gifts—it's similar to the "gifts" of infertility/miscarriage (again, gag about them being called gifts, but lacking a better word at the moment :) ). I feel like I've gained compassion. And that I realize even more, I'm reminded every day, that our bodies are fragile and we will all die someday. So carpe diem and all that. :P
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To end on a lighter note, just a shout-out that I hope everyone's doing well. I'm taking today off and really loving it, even though my car is in the shop getting major repairs. It's just me and my old doggie and I'm loving it. :)
