Miranda

Today we visited our friends Phillip and Susan, and met their new daughter, Miranda. She's almost 3 weeks old now, and so precious. Lots of strawberry blond hair and deep blue eyes. She's their 1st baby, and she was a welcome surprise for them. They've been married for almost 15 years. This was the first time I've held a baby that small in my arms since Madison. I just held her for hours, and it felt so good. This was Rob's first time holding a small baby since Maddie too. It warmed my heart and kind of hurt it to see him holding a little baby. I never saw him hold Madison except for in a picture. I'm looking forward to babysitting for Phil and Susan just to spend more time with little Miranda. Today just adds to my desire to have babies in our house as soon as possible. My empty arms are aching again.

Cycle Day 1

It's not like I expected it, but it's also not like I wanted it to show up either. So my 3rd cycle on clomid was a failure. The "miracle drug" fails again. I've decided to continue trying on our own for a while. I'm just so tired of going to the doctor. I'll keep my main focus on getting ready for our home study and preparing for a placement. We only have a little over 2 weeks left until our "graduation class" or our final session. The final session will be a discussion panel with lots of people involved in the whole foster/adopt process that we can invite our families to attend. I hope that my parents will be able to make it that night, but it all depends on how my mom is feeling.

We worked on decorating the walls in the nursery today, and I hope to finish them tomorrow. We're waiting for payday this week to go purchase the mattress, gun safe, and a few more small things. I can't wait to get the mattress so we can finally see how the crib bedding looks in the room. I pray we don't do all this work on a nursery and end up not getting an infant.

Other People's Snatchers

Last night I found out that a former friend of ours had a daughter on May 13 of this year. It hurt me so much because he's one of those idiots that hasn't done anything to deserve a gift like that. I hate when babies are born on Maddie's birth/angel day. Because I know that people will remember that day as that babies' birthday, but soon if not already people will forget why May 13 means anything to me. Why is it so easy for everyone else? Everywhere I look there's a pregnant woman, a new baby, or a pregnancy announcement. I really wish I knew what was wrong with me.

Back when we started
We didn't know how hard it was
Living on nothing
But what the wind would bring to us
Now we've got something
I can imagine fighting for
So why is fighting all that we're good at anymore

And sometimes I don't have the energy
To prove everybody wrong
And I try my best to be strong
But you know it's so hard
It's so hard

It's so hard when it doesn't come easy
It's so hard when it doesn't come fast
It's so hard when it doesn't come easy
It's so hard

It felt like a given
Something a woman's born to do
A natural ambition
To see a reflection of me and you

And I'd feel so guilty
If that was a gift I couldn't give
And could you be happy
If life wasn't how we pictured it

And sometimes I just want to wait it out
To prove everybody wrong
And I need your help to move on
Cause you know it's so hard
It's so hard

It's so hard when it doesn't come easy
It's so hard when it doesn't come fast
It's so hard when it doesn't come easy
So hard

I can live for the moment
When all these clouds open up for me to see
And show me a vision
Of you and me swimming peacefully

Last night you told me
That you can't remember
How to feel free

It's so hard when it doesn't come easy
It's so hard when it doesn't come fast
It's so hard when it doesn't come easy, easy

It's so hard

-Dixie Chicks "So Hard"

I Flunked Again

Another cycle down the drain and more tears shed for an illusive dream. I tried not to get my hopes up this cycle. I kept my mind on other things as long as I could. I actually made it to 11 days after ovulation before I started to wonder if this may be our month. My temperatures were looking so good, but that can be deceiving. I tested at 13 dpo and got my usual results. And it's like my body needed a cue because my temps have dropped steadily since then. So I'm just waiting on aunt flow to show up to officially close this month's chapter. We've been spending a lot of time getting the house together for the home study the past several days, and last night I was organizing the closet. I came across the dress we bought Madison the day we confirmed that we were having a little girl. It's a little white and pink onesie with a pink jumper over it. It meets the girly requirements with ruffles and a little lace. She would have looked so beautiful in it. But she probably would have been too big for it by the time she was full term. She was already a good 15 inches long at almost 24 weeks! I still think about what our lives would be like now with her. I miss her all the time. But I have to accept the fact that the baby things we bought with her in mind will be used by someone else. When does it start to hurt less? When will I be able to type about her without the tears welling up in my eyes and falling on my keyboard?

Getting Closer and closer

I'm excited I just a call from our home development worker that will be handling our home study. She wanted to know if we would be able to meet with her a few minutes before class tonight to set up when she will start her visits. She sounded very nice on the phone, and I'm looking forward to meeting her tonight. Tonight will be our 4th out of 7 classes. I can finally see an end in sight!

We had our physicals and TB tests yesterday morning. We have to go back tomorrow to have the TB test read, and pick up our completed forms from the nurse. We shopped for a small gun safe, and found a good deal on one that we will get soon. Also we have finished painting in the nursery!!! Yay! We decided to take off the closet doors in there, and have an open closet set up instead. I've got several cute sage colored organizers that we will put in there. The open closet just makes the whole room look bigger which is a good thing when you have a room that's 10x11. Rob has this afternoon off to get his fingerprints done, and he will work on the closet some more. I'm so happy that we are really close to putting the crib together and the changing table so we can really see how the room looks with furniture. I will post pictures of the before and after once we're closer to completion. But trust me it looks like a totally different room from that nasty little circus theme room it was when we bought the house.

Still not 100%

But I am feeling better today. I took some meds and crashed on Friday evening. I made sure to force myself to eat some soup and drink some gatoraide to keep from becoming completely dehydrated. Today I went to help my mom do some housework even though I was exhausted. My mom had a pacemaker put in on Wednesday even though I didn't find out until Thursday. She didn't want my brother and I to know so we wouldn't worry. WTF? I'm still angry about that. How can you hide something like that from your family? She would have been beyond pissed at me if I had done something like that to her. Ughhhhhhh! I'm still going to worry so hiding it didn't stop the worrying. It just makes me worry more because I don't know if there's more she's hiding. I love my mama, and I can't imagine life without her. I need her around for as long as possible. I want so badly to make her a grandma again.

We've started working on the nursery again. We vacuum sealed a bunch of clothes, sheets, and a feather bed that we're not using anymore so we can put it all away in the attic instead of in the nursery. Rob primed the walls while I was at my parents' house, and tomorrow we will take off the baseboards and paint. I'm excited to paint and finally see the room in a nice color instead of the radioactive puke green it's been since we painted back in 2006. We've been putting off painting until we finally had a good prospect of filling that room with a baby. After we finish painting we will steam clean the carpet with the new carpet steamer I ordered last night from QVC. Hey just because I'm sick doesn't mean I will miss out on the anniversary of Easy Pay! Five easy payments with no interest or fees, how much better can you get! It's great to be able to budget for things.

Oh yeah, I also bought a bouncer on my latest trip to Wally World. I've been looking for an inexpensive one, and this one goes so well with the whole turtle duckie theme I've got going for the nursery. And it was on sale for only $19!

My fingerprinting is done. It was cool the way they do then printing without ink now. They print your 4 fingers as a set then your thumbs. And the computer tells them that they all match and came from the same person. Tomorrow I will go through our stuff and pull our birth certificates, social security cards, car registrations, and other items on our checklist to make copies to turn into our home study worker on Tuesday. I'm excited to finally meet them. They are the person that hopefully help us toward our future son or daughter.

So sick

I've been sick since yesterday morning and it's gotten worse and worse as I go on. I won't go into too many details. Just know that I am spending a lot of time in the bathroom, and when I'm not in there for 30+ minutes at a time I feel like I need to be in there. We're completely out of anything that would help me at home and at work. I have no appetite at all and even the smell of food is making me nauseous. I'm counting down my hours until I get off early today and I can go stock up on some pepto or something like that. I have to remember that I have an appointment at 3 to get my fingerprinting done for my foster care background check. And Rob and I have our physicals and TB tests scheduled for Monday morning. I need to call my health insurance to see if they will cover the exams and tests because my doc's office said that they have been getting denied for exams and TB tests for some reason. I will be beyond angry if my company doesn't cover it. They can at least cover that since they don't cover hardly anything that may help me get pregnant!

On a happier note, we got a great deal on a convertible car seat Wednesday night. We got the Evenflo Tribute 5 one for only $49.99.
So we're one step closer to having all the basics covered for a baby to be placed with us. I'm still looking for a good deal on a swing and a bouncer since Dream Mommy suggested that those would be good things to have since a large majority of babies in foster care are on breathing treatments. Well, time for me to make another run from my desk to the bathroom. Please pray for me that I get over this soon.

Not alone

I've found a couple of internet friends in the past few days that are also fostering to adopt. Some of them even have experience with my state and how the system works here. It's great to know we're not alone in this, and that I know someone who has "been there and done that." She's renewed my hopes that we can truly get a baby through this process. Now I can't wait to get these classes done and get our home study out of the way! Check out one the ladies' blogs, Dream Mommy, it's a great one. I've been reading it all weekend from the beginning back in 2005.

Still Mad

Last night Rob and I went out to dinner like we try to do at least once a week. We were supposed to be going to a nice sit down meal at a local seafood restaurant, Cypress Inn, that we love. As soon as we walk in the host tells us that they are completely out of catfish for the day. This was fine we could find something else on the menu. We sit down and the waitress comes over and tells us the same thing. "You can order anything on the menu except catfish." Ok, no problem I order the all you can eat shrimp and Rob orders a fried crawfish and fried crab claws plate. Both meals were supposed to have french fries. About 10-15 minutes after she took our order, she came by to tell me that she changed my order since they were closing at 8 and the chef wouldn't be doing any all you can eat meals. She didn't ask me to change my order. No, she took it upon herself to change my order for me. Maybe I didn't want just a shrimp plate. But she walked away as soon as she said that. Then I notice another 2 groups of people come in and be seated about 20 minutes after they claimed to be closing. One family sits by us and they order catfish. They get catfish. WTF? You tell us you have no catfish, but now all of sudden you have whole catfish. If you had whole catfish the whole time you could have said that. All you had to do was say we don't have any catfish fillets, but we do have whole catfish. I HATE being lied to.

Then she brings our meals and one of them has a baked potato. I'm fuming at this point. I couldn't even speak. I had to have Rob tell her our problems because I probably would have cussed her out. We ate our meal in silence and left as soon as we had our ticket. Robert voiced our problems to the cashier and all she had to say was "I'm sorry. She shouldn't have told you we were closing early since you were here before 8." That's not the only freaking problem. We did find out that the previous owner that I know and is a member of our church sold the place. So now it makes sense. I know I wouldn't have gotten such crappy service if Bob was still the owner. He cared about his customers, and it's obvious that the new owner just cares about the all mighty dollar. So this event marks another restaurant off of our list. I just hate it when local restaurants go down the tubes. But I work too hard for my money to waste it on crappy service.

Anime Fan Girl

Last night Rob and I went to see the movie, Bleach- Memories of Nobody. It's yet another one of my favorite anime brought to the big screen. It came out in 2006 in Japan, and just debuted in US theaters last night. It will only play for 2 showings in 2 days all over the country. I literally screamed when I saw the ads for it a a few weeks ago. I will rearrange my whole schedule to see certain movies. So I skipped drama rehearsal last night. A girl has got to keep her priorities in line.

I am very happy that anime has really taken off in popularity in the US in the past couple of years. Now it's much easier to find the dvds or watch the English translations on TV or find copies of mangas in the bookstore here in little ole Monroe. I can now walk in my local Books a Million and choose from hundreds of manga books. I don't have to buy them online from some other country anymore. I still have to do a lot of my anime shopping online because the selection is amazing, and I'll never find a lot of these things in a brick and mortar store.

Back to the movie. This movie was SO SO SO SOOOOOOO Good. I cried at the end. There was a much better group of movie goers there last night than the group we had to watch the Naruto movie with. I think it helped that most of them we not 13 years old and dropped off by their mommy with their friends. I found this great video that really captures the feel of the movie without the dialog that would lose most people that haven't been keeping up with the series.

Why Am I Here?

I guess it's time to change my little paragraph into my soul that used to be posted on the header of my blog, but has since been moved to the sidebar. Right now it says:

This is a journal about my life after losing the most precious person to me, my daughter, Madison. I was forced to give birth to her 16 weeks before she was due. Our little fighter stayed with us for 10 hours. She got her wings, May 13, 2006. Now a year later I'm ready to explore myself and my life as the mother of an angel. These are my raw emotions, thoughts, fears, and dreams as I try to figure out where do I go from here.

What's changed:

1. It's been 2 years since Madison was born/died.
2. I'm dealing with more raw emotions besides my grief and anger at losing my daughter. I have the bitch called Infertility laughing in my face every month. I'd like to rip her heart out and stomp on it like she does mine every few weeks now for the last 2 years.

I'm still not sure how to summarize me and my life in a nice little nutshell...yep nutshell really is the perfect word to describe my life. What am I? I'm an angel mommy that is still grieving for her children while simultaneously grieving for the dreams that so far out reach while being drugged, poked and prodded in the hopes that she will get pregnant, and bring home a living baby plus working towards becoming a foster/adoptive parent. Holy Run-on sentence, Batman!

Back to the drawing board.

Blogs

I've wondered for a while what makes a good blog? Is it the person's writing style or the person's story? Is it just being able to get a glimpse into someone else's life from their perspective? Why do some people have tons of comments for each and every post they make while others have none? Do people not comment because they feel like they don't "know" the person well enough to comment? I know people are reading my blog, and I read a lot of other people's blogs. I don't care for blogs about famous people even if they are done by that person. If I hear all your business on TV or see you on the cover a tabloid then I don't really care to read more about you. I prefer every day, run of the mill people, people that you might pass on the street or walk by in the grocery store. Those are the interesting stories to me. I read a lot of infertility blogs and blogs about people who have lost babies too. I feel a connection with them. But I still wonder what makes a truly good blog.

Edited June 11, 2008:

I just wanted to make it clear that this post was not to whine, complain, or troll for more comments. It was simply me wondering what other people like to read on a blog. I read a lot of different blogs, and it just got me to thinking about what makes one blog more popular than another. Also I know that I don't comment on every blog I read so I don't expect everyone that reads my blog to leave a comment.

Foster/Adopt

We started the certification classes to foster/adopt through the state last week as many of you already know. But the past few days I've found myself considering adopting an older child. I know right now our state alone as some 5,173 children waiting to be placed in a loving home. These children range from babies to older teenagers. I know that the chance of us getting a keeping a healthy baby is low. So I expanded my search criteria from under 3 to age 10. This increased the number of children I was looking at from 5 to 147. Out of that 147, we found 9 that we would like to find out more information on. There are 2 boys and 7 girls in that set ranging from a 5 year old up to a 9 year old. They all sound like really great kids, and only 1 of them sounds like he may have more problems than we are ready to take on right now. One of them loves cartoons and just spending time with her foster parents. One is an 3rd grade honor roll student that just wants a permanent home to call her own. One loves math and wants to be a doctor when she grows up. We really feel like we can make a difference in some child's life and that they are still young enough for us to do that.

Rob likes to mess with me and tell me that I'm window shopping for kids since I go to the Adopt Us Kids website at least once a week and just look around. I chose to potentially foster/adopt through the state because I didn't want to feel like I was buying someone's kid. I just can't wrap my mind around paying some lawyer or agency $12,000 to $30,000 to get a baby. Do you realize what I can do with that much money? There is no way it truly costs that much to handle an adoption. People are lining their pockets on the backs of other people and their desire to have a child. It just makes me sick to think about it. So while we continue to try to conceive another baby we will continue on this path towards adoption also. And just wait to see what God has planned for us next.

Odd thoughts

Yesterday on my way home from my aunt's funeral, I sat in the passenger seat as Rob drove. I held 2 carnations, one pink and one white, in my hands as I let my mind wander. And I thought about Madison's funeral. I wondered why we only had 1 flower arrangement there, a small spray of pink daisies with a little pink ribbon topped with a little girl cherub. I just remember sitting there looking at that little white casket and wondering why there was only 1 flower arrangement. My hospital room had been full of flowers and plants. Why didn't anyone think to bring those? Why didn't anyone think to get more flowers, maybe some roses or sunflowers or something live. I needed something alive. I didn't feel alive and I damn sure knew my daughter wasn't alive so I needed something to be there that was alive. But I didn't say anything about. I never said anything about it until yesterday. I think I upset Rob asking him about it. I wish that I had been in the right frame of mind to handle her funeral arrangements. But while everything was being arranged I was still in the hospital. I gave the go ahead for the funeral to proceed on the day after I expected to be released from the hospital. I couldn't bear the thought of her being in some cold, dark room all alone anymore. I needed to put her and my heart to rest. I just assumed that people would know that there should be lots of flowers. She's a girl. What little girl doesn't like lots of flowers? Since she didn't get a lot of flowers that day I make sure to always bring her something pretty every time I go visit her. I try to keep her grave pretty. It's all I have now.

Where do I belong?

I've had a couple of different online homes over the past couple of years, and I've left them for any number of reasons. But the most common reason was feeling like I wasn't a part of the group anymore. It seemed like everyone moved on to bigger and better things and I was still here in a rut. I found the C.O. on my 28th birthday, and I've been there ever since. I thought I had finally found a place to stay, a place where I wouldn't get left behind. But it seems like every day I'm being left behind more and more. Every day it seems like someone is getting pregnant. I feel so bad for even saying this because I love those girls so much and I am truly happy for them. But it still hurts. I'm a 2 time loser at this point. Even when I get pregnant again, if I get pregnant again, I won't be able to breathe easy until the kid is at home with me. The whole time I will be freaking out about every twinge, ache, or headache thinking that it's the reaper come to take away me or my baby. I will never have a happy, blissful, routine pregnancy. I won't count down the days until my due date. I will count down the days until 23 weeks and 5 days. Then I will count each day after that until I reach my 3rd trimester. Some stupid people care about getting to the age of viability for a baby. But I could care less about that date. Getting past that date didn't get me anything at all.

Last night was the 1st of the 3 hour classes we will have to take over the next month and a half. We have 7 classes total before we can be certified as foster/adoptive parents. While we are taking the classes the social worker who is assigned to us will do our home study. So by the time we're done with our classes our home study will be done too. And then it's just a matter of time before we're matched with children. I will say that I'm still afraid of the whole foster to adopt process because I know it will rip my heart out to have a baby and then have to let them go if the court says they must be returned. But one of the good things that we learned last night is that we're being certified to be placed with a child that will stay with us if their parent's rights are terminated.

We have a huge stack of papers to fill out over the next couple of weeks. But I expected that, actually I expected even more forms. It was interesting to see the wide range of people that were there last night. There were some couples there that are younger than we are, a middle aged couple that's getting married in a few weeks, several school teachers, and even a single young man that's getting ready to graduate college next week. I'm looking forward to continuing this process, and seeing where it takes us.

More Goodbyes

My aunt Ethel, my mom's sister, passed away last Thursday after a lengthy illness. She's been sick for so long. I know in my heart that it's a blessing that she won't have to suffer any more, but it doesn't make me any less saddened by her passing. I remember when I was little girl she would let me brush her hair. I loved it because it felt just like one of my baby dolls. I used to love being around her all the time until I was about 10. She went crazy around that time. She would talk to herself and scream at the voices she was hearing in her head. I was 10 and I didn't know she was sick. None of us knew that she wasn't just mentally ill. No one found out until years later that she had lupus, and that was what was causing the mental illness. Once she got on medicine she was much better, but never ever the same as she was when I was little girl. She and her son moved in with my grandparents around the time she lost it, and she stayed there until earlier this year. Her siblings, my mom and uncle, took care of her finances and things. When I started to drive it was my responsibility to do her grocery shopping or take her shopping when she could still walk around the store on her own. So about once a month I would go to her and get her grocery list and some cash, and spend an afternoon shopping for her. She liked for me to do the shopping because I would get the brands she wanted instead of just getting the cheapest brand I could find like my mom would do. High school kids are not the best bargain hunters when it comes to groceries.

Even when I stopped shopping for her I would still visit on holidays and sometimes when I was at my parents' house. She always asked my mom about me. She always wanted to know how I was doing like I was her own child. But over the years the lupus took it's toll on her body. She had to use a walker for the last few years, and some days she couldn't even stand. But despite it all she managed to show up at my wedding. She really wanted to see me get married.

Things just got worse and worse after that. This year she got to the point where she couldn't do anything for herself, not walk or even sit up. My mom and uncle had to make the hard decision to put their younger sister in a nursing home earlier this year. In the past few months, she had a stroke and several other problems that left her permanently disabled. I'm not even sure if she would have known who I was near the end, but I regret not going to see her. I should have gone anyway, but now it's too late. I know she knows how much I loved her, and I'm glad that she's out of pain now.

Moving Forward

I went in to see Dr. L today to check my ovaries to make sure they weren't enlarged, and to check for any cysts. I had to do this in order to start another round of clomid. Luckily Rob was able to go with me because that place was crawling with preggos and new babies. I don't feel like I'm alone when he's there with me even though he just sits there with me. Doc checked me out and everything looked good. He was concerned that I never got a definite positive ovulation test on my 2nd cycle of clomid. So he upped my dosage from 50 mg to 100 mg this cycle, and they will do blood work to confirm ovulation. I really hoping and praying that the increase in clomid and the metformin will be the key this cycle. I also got my HSG results back and everything looks good and open and clear. So I'm excited and ready to get started on my meds. Let the games begin!