Surprisingly Thinking my Family is Complete

While I've talked about having three children for as long as I can remember, and taken action to prepare for my 3rd attempt at trying to conceive, I've surprisingly found myself thinking that maybe I'm really done. That thinking doesn't actually sit well with me because it's such a radical shift, and that makes me question it, but I keep coming back to the same place.

Maybe it would be nice to stick with two, two who are close enough in age that they will be able to go to the same school until my daughter starts middle school, allowing me, when she starts K and he starts pre-K, to live the life I've always dreamed of; working part-time, being the one that gets to pick my children up and take them to their activities, having their friends over after school and really getting to know them, being the primary one to help with their homework, etc. But the cut in work hours needed to do those things wouldn't be possible if I needed to pay for child care for 3, at least not until the littlest one could go to pre-K, when my oldest, best case scenario, would be in 3rd grade.

It just doesn't feel right, knowing that I have a choice to be more available to my children sooner. That, and the fact that I really want to make a change professionally, and that the direction I'm leaning is one that will require a couple of years of schooling. I will be meeting with a career counselor to make sure that it's really likely to be the best path for me, but I simply can't make the changes I think I need to be happy in my career if I am still paying for full-time care for one kid, in addition to the summer camps, after-school care, and the like, which I will need for my older two.

I'm not closing the door to another, but right now I'm thinking that my family works the way it is (ironically, at a time when my daughter is telling me nightly that we need another baby) but I wonder, for those who also found themselves
surprisingly thinking their family was complete, who had previously thought they would like to expand it, what was it that brought about that shift and did you stay
there?

Karen, 39y5m, Annie, 4y2m, and Mitchell, 2y4m

The Adoption "Gestational Period"?

I’ve spent over a year participating in and listening to the SMC-Trying to Conceive (TTC) forum. I even had my own failed attempt at TTC in March 2009. Then work, school, and dating postponed my plans until a year later. In March 2010, I began to consider adoption, an option I had explored before but ignored once I found Mr. Perfect Anonymous Donor and built up the courage (and money) to TTC. But once I really delved into the adoption choice again, it seemed very feasible and appropriate for where I am in my life. Plus, I thought it might be "easier"than TTC.

On the SMC-TTC board, I had read other women’s journeys through infertility and fertility treatments and miscarriages to finally bringing home a newborn sometimes years later. Well, now that I’m pursuing adoption, I realize the adoption journey isn’t exactly "easier", just different than TTC. There are many preparations and hurdles along the way. These unique challenges don’t involve reproductive endocrinologists (REs), but they do involve social workers, wire nuts, and a lawn crew. I’ll explain....

What I’ve found unique to the adoption process are the REQUIREMENTS that your home, emotional well-being, and finances be in order. Women who are trying to conceive are not scrutinized in this way. For example, women who conceive through reproductive technologies are not required to submit their driving record and proof of homeowners insurance. It’s not that their challenges are any easier, just different from the SMC-Adopters. However, the parities still exist. I liken the adoption waiting period to a gestational period. A pregnant woman might wonder if her baby will have her blue eyes, while I’m wondering which race my future adoptive children will be. A pregnant woman may be attending birthing classes while I’m going to CPR training.

So, I have decided to pursue foster-to-adopt through the U.S. Child Welfare System. In April 2010, I took two weeks of pre-service parenting classes. I loved it! I think all moms-to-be, including those TTC and Adopters, should consider parenting classes. But here’s the kicker; adopters who receive children through the foster care system must promise to discipline by the system’s standards. This includes no spanking. This is not a problem for me since I’m a staunch opponent to spanking; but for a few others in my class, it made them feel like they are being told how to parent. And well, they are.

Another challenge unique to adoption is the home environment requirements. Each state in the U.S. is different, but here are some of the things I’ve had to fix/change/BUY for my house to be compliant in Texas: fire extinguisher, new smoke detectors, lock boxes for medication, moved all cleaning supplies to upper cabinets, outlet covers, waterproof mattress covers, anti-siphoning devices for the outside spigots, "re-homed" one of my dogs because I had one too many for the city limit, pet vaccines, CPR training, first aid training, home health inspection, home fire inspection, post daily schedules, post house rules, post evacuation plan, trash cans with tight fitting lids, replaced a piece of rotten siding, hired lawn guys to mow on a regular basis, covered up tree roots in the backyard, replaced a ceiling fan that would have interfered with the bunk bed I erected (this is where I learned about wiring and wire nuts), researched daycares that accept state reimbursements, and I just bought an SUV to replace my two-door coupe. (OK, that last one wasn’t a necessity for adoption, but fun anyway!)

To add to the list of requirements, I had to provide three personal references, a break-down of my monthly expenses, TB test, auto insurance, homeowners insurance, transcripts, proof of income, pictures of my house and neighborhood, driving records, fingerprints for FBI criminal background check, and a child abuse background check. And then there’s the dreaded HOME STUDY. I had heard horror stories about probing questions you’d never be prepared to answer. For me it actually wasn’t bad, but some people really stress over it. Sometimes it seems like having a doctor inseminate me might be a lot less work! It’s not like your ER is going to make sure your smoke detectors have batteries before your IUI! I jest, of course!

The point of all this is that I have developed an appreciation for the adoption process and the people who have succeeded in adopting. Despite the mountain of paperwork, I feel that all the requirements are necessary. And in a way, the time spent fulfilling those requirements parallels the gestational period of women who conceive. The adoption process forces people to consider and prepare for all the things one needs to consider and prepare for when a new child is brought into a family. I think that sometimes the adoption process is minimalized in comparison to pregnancy. However, it doesn’t have to be that way; and for those of us going through it and those who made it through know it is an important time. I hope that years down the road, I’ll look back on this time and reflect on it like a woman who conceives might remember her pregnancy...except I don’t have to buy expandable pants and shea butter!

Allison, 30, Texas, waiting.....

My Only Regret is that I Waited so Long

I've always wanted to have children, always wanted to mother. I've been an au pair to other families, spent time with all of the kids of friends and family. I hoped and assumed, of course, that I would have a family of my own when the time came.

I suppose that's the tricky part - that time thing. Like many, I've been in a series of long relationships that have not withstood the tests of time. A long medical training that I started when I was twenty-eight ended ten years later. And there I was, at thirty-eight, for the first time seriously thinking of having a child on my own.

So many questions came to mind - how could I do it? How could I make it work in time and money and love? And most importantly, would it be, could it be fair to bring in child into the world who would not know his or her biological father? These are tough questions, and every SMC I know has struggled with them. But at the time, now almost nine years ago, I was just plain sad that I did not have a partner to undertake this endeavor. What I had always imagined - love, marriage, baby - hadn't happened for me yet, and there was a melancholy quality to my view of single motherhood. I knew that a heavy heart could not care for a infant or child, could not offer the kind of life I would want to give to my child. So I waited. Threw more baby showers. Held more babies. More time went by, another relationship developed and sadly faltered around the issue of having children.

Single again and now pretty secure in my career as a psychiatrist, I asked those tough questions again, and decided to move. It took about a year from the time of my decision to try to have a child to pregnancy. A long, scary year filled with the statistics I knew about, somewhere in the back of my brain (after all, I was in medicine) but had really avoided. After some tough sessions with a wonderful reproductive endocrine group, I decided to jump right in and try IVF. The chances of having a healthy baby using my own, 43 year-old eggs, they told me, were about 7% (who knows where that number came from, but I swear that's what I remember).

There is much I could say about the decision to proceed given the tremendous cost IVF and low odds of success, about the process of two rounds of IVF; these can be tough, tough times for women and couples. But there was a meaningfulness in it for me, because I was finally doing something that I had wanted for so long.

Pregnancy was easy, and that was just plain good fortune - those hormones were just right for me! I received warm and enthusiastic support from friends, family and professional colleagues. My daughter was almost born on the Bay Bridge, because, the obstetrician announced admiringly, I had the uterus of a twenty-year old.

I have the warmest memories of pregnancy and delivery, which is probably both a statement about dumb luck and the distortion inherent to memory. My daughter is now two and a half years old, and my only regret is that I waited so long. Life is very, very full.

There is much I could say about the experience of parenting, and parenting without a partner. I am incredibly fortunate to be so supported in my professional life as well as my personal world. My professional life is very, very busy: days and nights seem to fly by. But every parent of babies and toddlers struggles to fit everything in. I had years in which time was spent on myself - this very different time is filled with a joy and a wonder that all the night life, swell San Francisco cuisine and great culture couldn't really bring me.

To do it all again - I'd still prefer to have had a partner, I struggle with how my daughter and I will discuss and understand her biological father (an anonymous sperm donor). But this is absolutely the sweetest time of my life. And this little girl - her own kind of miracle.

Pamela S

Did You Feel That?

Just when I think I am a absolute freak of nature, defying all sorts of social standards and practices (usually by going under, and not over, the bar) something transpires that speaks to me, saying “Tara, you are *not* so bizarre or unique after all.” So, there. I cannot promise I’ll share anything like that with you today, but I’m just saying…

Being a member of SMC has been one of the most valuable and meaningful aspects of my life. Although I am awkward to connect and put out disjointed, sporadic posts on the email lists, the generous, informative women who share a listserve help to alleviate my seemingly irrational feelings or quell the ridiculous tsunamis of fear in which I try to keep above the water. Some of the concerns I see on the listserve are internally referred to as “Standard Issue Issues”- pretty much every SMC, thinking, trying or otherwise, seems to have some feelings about them, though responses may vary from the passionate, frothing types, to the wispy, lighthearted jesting of women who seem to take most things in perfect stride.

These standard issue issues come up, one in particular, year after year, in one form or another, and quite frankly, when I see it, I get that “freak factor” feeling all over again. When I say this, I feel I should be locked away in a garden shed, possibly with a beard, drawing up a handwritten 200 page manifesto, but I never, really, could picture myself having a child or a family in any type of relationship. I remember that even as a young child, the idea of being married or partnered with kids, just felt, well, yucky. I tried, oh how I tried, but it just never “clicked” for me. I was never opposed to the idea of marriage, I just never felt I had what it took to pull one off.

I always loved kids, though I didn’t think about them in a maternal way until I was about 24.While sitting in my mom and dad’s kitchen one day, chatting on the phone, I heard a little girl’s agonizing, dramatic scream. I found the girl, maybe about 6 or 7 years old, splayed out on the sidewalk, tightly gripping her Polly Pockets which had left angry, red indentations in the palm of one of her hands. I casually asked if she was okay, and through the tears she nodded. I then casually asked if she needed help getting up and again she nodded as I nonchalantly held out a hand for her to grab and pull herself up. She looked at it as though it was some mutant alien she saw in a horror movie. Uh-uh. She didn’t want a hand or arm, she wanted a ‘bear hug-lift me gently’ type of job. So I obliged. As I lifted her, arms encircling this child, I can only describe what transpired as a heavenly, divine intervention. Maybe it was a rush of blood to the head or out of control hormones, but I felt a hot, searing rush of joy, lightness and purpose. I cannot say what it was, but it was something big. And I was never the same. My mother chuckled and snorted when I told her, but I knew it was BIG.

I never grieved the loss of a dream- the white dress, the vows, the passionate love- I never *had* that dream. My parents, though deeply and passionately in love now, had one hell of a marriage- it was a twisted wreck of tears, control, abuse and constant fights. I can easily say that had nothing to do with my choice, but maybe on some deep, cleverly disguised level, it did. I honor those horrible years of my life by working against the principal of a miserable home filled with fearful, exhausted occupants.

I was 28 when I decided to have a baby a la carte. My mom and dad, in a word, went ballistic. They were scared, frantic, and desperate for me, and I didn’t blame them. I was scared for me, too. I remember the process of deciding was excruciating, though- could I pay for diapers, daycare, formula, clothes and a million other things while working full time with a high powered publisher?

I remember the fear covering me like a heavy, wet blanket at first. As I learned more, that ‘blanket’ got lighter and lighter, finally ‘drying’ out and lifting away. My turning point came when I called a local daycare and discovered that I could, indeed, afford to send my baby there. Thankfully, I was pregnant shortly after beginning the TTC process and celebrated my 30th birthday knocked up.

I am young by SMC standards, I know. My pieces fell into place at a young age- a house at 27, a great career and then, well, a baby by 30. I have all sorts of strange, quirky regrets in life, but having a child is not one of them. She is 8 now, sometimes gets wound up over not having a daddy, but we get by. Sometimes I want to pack up my cats and go live under a quiet bridge with no responsibility, but I like to think that the rush of blood to my head that long ago day did lead to something good.

Tara

It's Just a Date

How pursuing my dream of having a child made dating more fun.

I had often assumed that some women, unlike me, were able to date lightheartedly. Unconcerned with a hoped-for long-term outcome, these women could treat a date as just a date. They found a way to relax and have a good time. These women, I further suspected, were free to be themselves with their dates and so were the ones finding the right partner.

As these musings might indicate, my single dating life was often riddled with worry. When dating a man, I was rarely fully present. My mind ran the back story. I’d size him up, then rocket mentally into an imagined future. Is he the right fit for me, and I for him? Is he commitment-phobic? Am I? Are we wasting our time?

Of course, sometimes, there was true hope and love. But the stifling “what-ifs” commanded my attention. Revelations. Then about a year ago, a crossroads moment appeared. My father was in the hospital, in what would turn out to be the last month of his life. I was about six months past the most painful breakup of my life, and about six months away from 40. While chatting with a friend during a business trip to New York, I blurted out to her, apropos of nothing, “I think I’m going to become a mom on my own. Do you know anyone in our field who’s done this and how on earth they did it??” She grinned at me. The biggest, most joyful grin I have ever seen. I knew in that moment—we were in a bar, but I’ll take revelation where I can get it—that motherhood was where I was headed. That I was going to do this.

For many women, the decision to become an SMC comes with intense mourning for “the dream,” that happy imagining most little girls grow up with of a traditional marriage and family—or whatever version fires one’s personal aspirations. Giving up the dream was one of my roadblocks. I tried to focus on letting go only of the order in which the dream would take shape, but it was hard. In my pained and somewhat perfectionist heart, I was letting go of ever finding love, before or after motherhood.

And for a while, I lived this out. In the initial trying months of fertility tests and treatments, dating was the last thing on my mind. Regular appointments with the vaginal ultrasound technician can do that to a girl. My thoughts were directed at my ovaries and the vials in my doctor’s deep freeze.

As difficult as my trying to conceive phase has been so far—including unexpected surgery and other things—the rebirth I first felt when I committed to becoming an SMC has remained. Out from under that pressure to find a mate, I have made space for lots of other types of fulfillment in my life. I’ve learned to better appreciate my friends, and I enjoy them more than ever before. No longer does every sighting of a traditional-appearing family cause envy and anxiety. My focus and confidence at work has improved, even as I mentally rehearse methods of fitting a child and my career together. The last thing I expected at the (previously dreaded) age of 40 was to blossom, but that is exactly what I felt. More than 20 years of dating and not quite getting what I wanted and hoped for were over. I was going to give myself what I wanted. It was a new era. Opening Up.

In addition to all this, my feelings about men have become delightfully uncomplicated—for the first time in my adult life. Obsessing over which class or volunteer cause might have the highest male/female ratio was no longer occupying my thoughts. I’ve even found that I’ve been getting a lot of male attention—without really trying. Again, not what I expected at 40, and certainly not what I expected in the pursuit of SMChood.

Pregnancy and early motherhood won’t easily accommodate dating, and, no doubt the grounding experience of parenthood will temper the near-euphoria I often feel these days. But I am, for now, while in the trying to conceive stage, enjoying an unexpected gift. I no longer look across the dinner table at a man and size him up as a future partner. I simply size him up as a person that evening. He need not meet my dreams of “the one,” although if this happened by chance, great. If he and I stay in touch, I just let those encounters add to my impression of him. Unknowns regarding his (and my) commitment potential can remain unknown unless he and I decide otherwise. This feels more natural and human than any other moment in my dating life. I can be my authentic self, “rules” be damned. Some women friends say I am finally getting to “date the way a man dates.” Whether that’s true or not, I certainly feel like I am more fun to be with. I am finally one of those women who can treat a date as just a date.

Perhaps most important, and ironically, I feel much better equipped now to recognize who is or is not a potential “keeper” (perhaps a divorced dad I meet with my child on a playground, or maybe someone I’m dating now, who knows?) than I was before I was regularly in touch with a sperm bank. I feel truly romantic on the dates that I do have. Go figure.

What seemed at times to be one of the darkest moments of my life, letting go of a life plan I had held close since childhood, may yet yield more hope than I ever would have imagined. There are so many side benefits when you give yourself what you truly want.
Joanne H.

"If I Could Turn Back Time..."

40 sucks for me at this time. I was looking forward to it; now I feel like a fool for being excited. I am sad that I have not done all I wanted to at this point. I am trying not to focus on the negative but right now I am not feeling very positive.

I joined Single Mothers by Choice (SMC) and now I am getting emails from the listserv. I purposely signed up for this because I wanted to learn from women who are in similar situations to mine and who have been through the journey I am undertaking. They have several awesome groups you can join including "Thinkers", "Community", "Trying to Conceive", "Pregnant" (or a similar title) and groups for women with children in different age groups. I guess I should have waited to join the Trying to Conceive (TTC) list though. I am hearing about women who have been through more procedures than I will ever be able to afford without successful pregnancies. I am learning that this may be more complicated than I initially thought. For years people have told me, "you have time". What a lie! We don't have time. Time, at some point, is no longer on our side when it comes to fertility. I am reading stories of single women who start TTC in their early 30s. I should have started back then...I was just waiting for "the right man" and "the right time". Gods I want to go back and do this all again!

I had a major freak out/meltdown on Sunday night. I was a complete and utter mess. I SOBBED for a hour or more - venting on FB about how terrible I felt. God/dess bless my friends and one of the women from SMC for helping me through it.

I know I am "pre-worrying" about something that I don't even know will be a problem for me, but I am SCARED!!! I am scared that I "waited" too long. I am scared that I won't get pregnant. I am scared I won't be able to carry to term. I am scared of all possible complications. I am scared I will make the wrong choice in donor (I am SO going to have to order photos!). I am scared I won't be able to afford additional procedures if I need them. I am scared that I will be single for the rest of my life.

I am trying to pull myself together and be proactive. Today I am calling to make an appointment with my primary doctor to see about a referral to a reproductive endocrinologist (if I even need a a referral), I am going to call my insurance to find what benefits (if any) I have in terms of fertility treatments/procedures, and do more research on cryobanks. I have GOT to get over being scared!

Tracie, 40, Thinker