Where do I Start?

Warning! There will be swearing! Not excessively, but where warranted. This blog will probably appeal to those whose collective asses have battled with infertility and lost. After much thought about what I could possibly have to say about infertility that hasn't already been said by those who are more erudite than I (yes, I had to look that up), I thought... what the fuck?

Warning! There will also be sarcasm. I don't get to be sarcastic very often. I'm a Buddhist. But I'm a Buddhist with an edge. So occasionally, I revert to my 19 year old self and get snarky. And if not being able to get pregnant after years of trying to conceive (ttc) doesn't give you a license to be sarcastic every now and then, I don't know what does.

I've also started the adoption process with my dear hubby(DH). I just can't bear the thought of never being able to raise and love a child with my wonderful husband. Even if it's not my biological child. I'd like to address all the fears and anxieties of open adoption, the obstacles we will face, both external and internal.

And for those who like Canadian content, this is the place. We Canadians usually like to strap on a pair of skates and skate our troubles away, but I've found a great deal of solace and understanding through the various infertility blogs in the blogosphere. I felt less lonely, less singled out, I had a chance to reach out to grieving women who truly understood what I was going through. They made a great deal of difference to me, it was like a lifeline to all the emotions I was going through but was unable to express to anyone. There is value to that and as a Buddhist, I'm encouraged to turn poison into medicine. So right now this medicine tastes like shit and I really don't want any more, but perhaps it will cure what truly ails me.

So, where do I start? Okay. I'll try to be brief. I met my sweetie when I was 33, fell in love, and we lived together in sin for 5 years (quite begrudgingly on my part, but apparently I had nothing better to do) and then we finally got married. I had always wanted children one day, but my sweetie was just a tad ambivalent. And I was scared. But finally, I realized that one is never really 100% sure, so we really started trying - you know, with serious intent. We hadn't used birth control in years, well, just the ole ye withdrawal method which I had wrongly assumed was working as intended. But once we "pulled the goalie" and nothing happened, we went to my doctor who referred us to a clinic. I was "at that age" don't you know and then there were tests, blah, blah, blah....... 2 laparascopic surgeries, 2 HSGs, Clomid, 3 IUIs, change of clinic, thousands of dollars and 4 IVF's later, no embryo (stellar though my follicles were) decided to stick around in my fibroidy misshapen 40 + yr old uterus. BFN's month after month after month. Meh.

Oh, yeah, in the midst of all this my dotty mother moved across the country (finally, after 2 years of trying to convince her to move because my eldest sister didn't/wouldn't keep an eye on her) to be with us, had a massive stroke 6 weeks later and had to be put intermediate care (translation: nursing home) for dementia patients. Cue the movie of the week violins. Fuck. She's still kicking it as they say, I'll write more about her later.

We had always wanted to adopt, we'd talked about it, after we had our own, of course. Maybe even older kids once we moved to a bigger home. Of course, the money we had saved for a down payment for a first home evaporated with the IVF, acupuncture, and naturopathic treatments.

It takes a village to raise a child? Well, another whole village was privy to my privviest parts so I could even conceive outside of a petri dish. Alas, close, but no baby or cigar or whatever. By the way, at one point I called my uterus deathstar (see Star Wars reference) because it seemed to shoot down all my lovely embryos. Phew, phew, take that you blastocyst! I thought it was funny. I still do, in a sick kind of way.

4 years later, here we are, walking into the massively intrusive world of open adoption. Yipee!