A sea of questions about adoption.

It's Patriot's Day here in Massachusetts, quite possibly my favorite random statewide holiday (aka, freebie day off). Happy start of the American Revolution! It's also the running of the Boston Marathon. I can totally see a relevant metaphor between marathons and adoption, but seeing as I know next to nothing about running culture, I'll just let that metaphor pass me by...

Anywho, we've dived deep into adoption literature and websites, talking more with our families this weekend. Ari needed an eye checkup (his father is an eye doctor), so we spent the weekend with our families; I had the chance to do some serious baby shower shopping for my sister. Our parents are so excited for us. It's wonderful to have their support, and I feel constantly blessed with the amount of support we have in our lives. And I wasn't a blubbering mess picking out shower decorations- in fact, I am freakin' PUMPED to be an aunt in just a couple of months. I think now that since we're solid on our decision to adopt, so much of the uncertainty and doubt about having kids has been washed away. I've moved from pain to excitement.

You may have noticed the large new column of adoption-themed blogs to the left. Thanks to everyone and their suggestions in my last post: I found so many great resources and stories out there. With this influx of information, Ari and I are trying to stay afloat, treading uncertain and overwhelming waters. We have so many questions. Just when we think we have an answer... more questions! It's a lot to digest at once. We've been doing so much of our own soul searching, asking questions of each other and having conversations we never thought we'd have.

Here's just a small snippet of what's running through our heads:

• Race. Wow, this has been an amazing, confusing, refreshing conversation at any given point. It gets interesting because I'm half-Japanese, half-Irish(ish), so I have perhaps a more open attitude toward race. At the end of the day, our preferences are our business, but it's a mind-blowing conversation to be having just the same.
• Religion. Not knocking any Christian organizations out there, but there's a TON of support for Christian couples... haven't seen so much for Jewish couples. Obviously, we'd need to disclose our religion and in what faith our adopted child would be raised. I worry that this is actually going to limit the kind of reception we'll get from birthparents. 
• Cost. Sweet jiminy crickets. Since IF treatment is mandated in Massachusetts, the cost of treating our infertility was a lot more doable than the cost of coping with childlessness (an important distinction). Thankfully, Ari's new job is allowing us to save for the first time in a year, but we still have a lot more to go. I've been researching grants, and sadly, neither of our employers provide any adoption assistance benefits. I've also been toying with the idea of setting up an Etsy shop for some of my crafts, and of course, monetizing this blog. Our parents have also volunteered to help... I wonder is it tacky to ask our friends and family fundraiser-style? Is a PayPal "Donate Here" button on this blog too far? This arena of etiquette is completely foreign to me.
• How open? "Open" adoption can mean a lot of things. Are we a "Come over for lunch on Tuesdays" kind of family or pictures every birthday or are we just "please let us know about any medical issues as they arise for you and your family" when it comes to openness? How open is too open? How will this limit our chances to be picked by birthparents?
• Blogging. Don't worry, I'm not planning on closing this blog any time soon, but as I've browsed other adoption blogs, there are pictures of the adoptive couple, full names, contact information, detailed personal profiles with sidebar badges like "Considering adoption? Consider us!" I wonder if I'm ready to do that when the time comes, or perhaps I just create a separate blog entirely. Do I really want to share all of this with our future agency, birthparents, or even future child? I also wonder if a sidebar request like that isn't also in violation of Massachusetts law (no private advertising may be done by the couple, as independent adoptions are illegal in the state). 
• Stuff. Um, do adoptive parents get baby showers? Do we need to buy a crib before we have a home study? How does one- better yet, WHEN does one get the future child all the stuff they need?
• Cost. Did I mention we're still scrambling to figure out how we're going to afford this?

We're trying not to get too overwhelmed, but all these questions just keep coming. I'm hoping to tread water just long enough to get us to the RESOLVE of the Bay State's Adoption Conference in June. Until then, anyone have some answers or thoughts to our questions?

Calling All Adoption Bloggers!

Ari and I just keep getting more and more excited the more we think about adopting. In fact, we're downright giddy. We are also c l u e l e s s. Right now we're reading the two books below- Ari's reading the first one, I'm reading the second one. We'll swap when we're done.

I'm enjoying the Idiot's Guide; it's a great overview. But I am always desperate for more material. I've been trolling the Adoption Blogroll over at Stirrup Queens, but I'm looking to connect with other bloggers who are in the initial, pre-home study stages of their adoption process or at the very least, those who have not yet been matched or finalized.

So I'm putting the call out there, because I trust this community more than I trust Google:

What adoption blogs should I be reading and following?

Also what websites, books, videos, YouTube channels, etc. should I be looking out for?

Which resources should I stay away from?

Thank you in advance, oh wonderful and resourceful and connected ALI community!

#ProjectIF

I've had the button up on the right since my site redesign, but I wanted to make sure I blasted this out as a post, too. Mel over at Stirrup Queens is collaborating with RESOLVE for a truly unique online event in conjunction with National Infertility Awareness Week, April 24 - May 1, 2010.

Phase One of the project is currently live on her site. Click the button to the right to be taken there for all the details. Essentially, leave a comment to Mel's blog post asking the question "What IF..." and then fill in the rest from there, relating it to infertility. Mel will select 10 "What IF" questions to be used in Phase Two of the project. Phase Two will begin next week, which is currently a mystery... I'm excited to find out what the next phase is.

I gotta warn you: reading through the 300+ comments and even more What IF questions already posted, it is extremely humbling and moving. Tissues are a must.

This is a pretty amazing project to be a part of, so spread the word, via your blog or Twitter, with hashtag term #ProjectIF. There's still two days left to join in on Phase One, so if you haven't submitted your What IF's yet, get 'em in now!

A long lost relative returns...

Aunt Flo, it's been a year and a half. Well, specifically it's been 1 year, 3 months, and 16 days since you last came to visit. Yesterday was CD470. I guess I'm at CD1 again. Not that it really matters now, but I kind of forgot what you look like. In fact, going to the bathroom this evening, I thought something was horribly amiss in my pants and then had that slow, dawning realization, a giant cartoon lightbulb slowly appearing over my head.

I'm assuming this is normal. True, it's not a "real" period per se, as this is just withdrawal bleeding from the birth control. I'm wondering if this in fact, full on AF or just spotting. I'm going to place a call into my Dr tomorrow just to be sure. I also need to follow up with some scary stuff last week - I had swollen feet so bad I could hardly walk. I stopped taking the birth control for three days and in 24 hours, my feet were fine. I started taking them again a couple of nights ago, and everything seems to be fine. I'm thinking that my stopping for a couple of days, especially during the 4th week of pills, has triggered my yoot into this crazy AF action.

Just a day after the new moon, the first new moon of spring - it seems fitting. Either way, in a weird way... I'm glad to see her. I've missed her these past 471 days.

The Big Decision: Building Our Family

I call it the "Tofu Baby Revelation." As you may remember, I had a really bizarre dream last week about my sweet dream baby turning into a block of burning tofu on the stove. Freud, eat your heart out. While it's not exactly Moses and the burning bush, after a few days of stewing it over I think I got it (with a little help from WiseGuy)...

Nursing the baby and having liquid gold instead of breastmilk represents a Golden Ideal, all I could have hoped for and more. The block of tofu could represent a lot of things. In Freemasonry (my husband's a Mason) a carved block of stone represents moral perfection (as opposed to a rough, uncut rock).  In Taoism, perhaps the tofu is representative of the Uncarved Block- the potential for creation, discovery, growth. I walked away with this interpretation: in my dream, the tofu was *still* my baby, but obviously in a very different form. The distress and grief upon realizing this transformation was not only warranted, but vital. Essentially, Ari and I will have our baby- just not in any way that we could have ever imagined, and mourning that change was necessary. 

In the days following this dream, as I rolled around interpretations in my head, my decision just hit me- it was like I just knew this was the path we would take all along. I say my decision because Ari was on board for anything, and it's been up to me for about the last 4 months.

Over the past week, I've been becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of how we plan to build our family. We've teased it out to our families and one friend: everyone is supportive and excited for us.  And in reaching this decision, I feel like a HUGE weight has lifted off my shoulders. For once in this crazy journey, things feel like they're in focus and with clarity comes relief and excitement.

Oh, but I am being coy, aren't I? ^_^

So... we've decided we're going to adopt!

*happy dance*

This is not at all how I would have imagined building a family. And I'm okay with that; this past year has been highly instrospective and I'm at a place of peace when it comes to grieving my infertility. From darkness, light: from despair- hope, commitment, action.

Like any family planning decision, especially one frought with the context of IF, there are a lot of reasons why we've chosen adoption. As much as I'd desperately like to experience pregnancy and childbirth, I've come to terms with this fact that I've got the deck stacked against me. While donor egg/IVF could potentially be successful, my Hashimoto's puts me at greater risk for miscarriage. Ari raised an excellent point, even as far back as the RESOLVE Conference we went to in November: could I really survive the mental trauma of a loss after interfility treatments?  Survive yes, but I could be irrevocably damaged in some way. I'm not saying this is the standard, I'm just saying in my experience with my own mental health, I don't think I could cope well with a loss.

And honestly? After the hormonal roller coaster I have been on for the last year, and literally seeing a balanced thryoid issue just resting on the horizon- I just don't know if I'm up for the hormonal challenge that is DE/IVF cycling. It scares me, it intimidates me, and I just don't feel connected to the idea of it anymore. Adoption is by no means any easier- but there's a whole medical element that is removed from the situation with which I am infinitely more comfortable. That being said, for those of you who are planning to or have cycled using ART: I am humbled by your courage and grace.

Adoption is for us, a guarantee. Yes, we'll have to wait. Yes, we've heard some of the horror stories. But at the end of the day, we get to come home with a child. DE/IVF was just too much of a financial and emotional gamble for us. Ari and I are poker players. Since we haven't put any money into the pot, we're not pot committed, so it's okay if we fold our hand on ART. Adoption has always been our ace in the hole. Adopting a child is also really attractive to us in that we get to help someone out. We get to add such a unique dynamic to our family story.

We still have TONS of details to figure out. Like, yanno... how the heck we actually do this!  We also need to sort out a timeline and start looking into financial planning. I think we'll probably start the ball rolling by next year, if not early 2011. Everytime I think about it, I get excited; I get this big grin to myself. Talking about it with Ari just gets me more excited.

I never once in my dreams imagined I'd adopt. And now the idea is the most exciting notion to me- I cannot wait for the adventure ahead of us.

Full disclosure to my readers.

I am simply buzzing with things to write about lately: big things are happening for Ari and I and here at this blog. We've made some concrete decisions about family planning, and I've been doing lots of rearranging and coding and redecorating around the old blog. I'll save the big family planning news for its own post. For now, I want to fully disclose some pretty big changes here at Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed.

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Disclosure Policy
(version valid from June 6, 2011)

1. The blog Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed is a personal blog written and edited by me, Keiko Zoll. This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.
2. This blog abides by word of mouth marketing standards. We believe in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post will be clearly identified as paid or sponsored content.
3. The owner of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner of this blog receives compensation for her posts or advertisements, she always give her honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products.
4. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.
5. The owner of this blog would like to disclose the following existing relationships. (These are companies, organizations or individuals that may have a significant impact on the content of this blog.) I serve on the following 501(3)(c) non-profit boards: RESOLVE of New England. I am an Amazon Affiliate and earn a referral fee for any books or other items linked on my site purchased through Amazon.com. I participate in affiliate marketing programs with the following companies/products: Circle+Bloom, Natural Fertility Breakthrough, Attain Fertility.

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

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Basically, I don't want there to be any doubts about what I'm doing here on this blog and who I'm working with. At the end of the day, I love writing, I love being an advocate and resource, and I'm passionate about sharing my experiences with the "Internet with a capital I" - but if I'm going to start pumping a little more effort into this blog, I need to make sure I'm getting a little something back too. I hope you'll continue to read and follow- a lot of this is just some cosmetic changes, but the content and vision of this blog remain the same.

Stay tuned for big news re: decisions on what's next with regard to building our family! Ari and I have been just brimming with excitement to blast the news here, but it's almost 3:30am, and I'm in no state to craft something of quality just yet.

Baubo, The Belly Laugh, and Spring Awakenings

It's been officially spring for a couple of weeks and I've been loving this warm weather across much of MA this week. It's been nearly three years since Ari and I moved to Boston, and these New England winters have made me appreciate the first signs of spring that much more so. I've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of thinking lately... I've felt as though I'm poised on the edge of decision-making with regards to family building, and I think I'm just about there. In these last couple of days of Passover, I've also been drawn closer to my faith. It's a holy season for everyone, really. Whether it's the pull of faith or perhaps the buzzing of the birds and the bees this time of year, there is certainly this feeling of energy, this vibrational hum pulsing just beneath the surface of things. Perhaps it's merely our skin delighting in all that sunshine, turning light into some much needed vitamin D.

I just finished Ellen Frankel's The Five Books of Miriam. This is a must-read for any Jewish woman (just short of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent- in fact, I call that required reading for every woman, Jewish or otherwise). It bills itself as a woman's commentary on the Torah. With it's highly conversational structure not unlike you might find in the margins of Torah midrashim, it is both feminist and traditional, forging new patterns of thought and interpretation while contextualizing the Torah into a feminist modernity from the lenses of our daughters, mothers, bubbes, and the women prophets and stars of the Bible itself. It is an incredibly empowering read for any Jewish woman coping with infertility, as it speaks so beautifully and painfully honest from the perspectives of so many barren Matriarchs.

In this rather empowered mindset, as I tap into that spring hum that seems to be buzzing all around me, I am reminded of a story that my dear friend Honeybee shared at one of the Red Tent Temples from a few months back. It's the legend of Baubo, a little known tale in the greater story of Demetre and her daughter Persephone's dark descent into Hades.

Demetre, the Greek goddess of the harvest and fertility of the soil, had a daughter, Persephone, who was wickedly abducted by Hades, the Lord of the Underworld. He tricks Persephone into eating the seeds of a pomegranate, and by consuming any food or drink while in the Underworld, she has sealed her fate for eternity: she may never leave. Demetre is understandably distraught, in fact, so much so, her grief plunges her into a dark, cold despair. She retreats from the World: the earth cannot bear crops, the land stricken with barrenness as she grieves the loss of her precious Persephone.

So much of Demetre's pain resonates within the ALI community.

Enter Baubo: descriptions vary from a woman with voluminous skirts to a talking vulva. Baubo sits in front of Demetre and lifts her skirts before her, telling raucous, bawdy jokes, inspiring a fountain of joy in the form of the deepest belly laugh, from our solar plexus and radiating outward. Baubo is the only one who ends Demetre's grieving, whose tears dry and face contorts into laughter. Through her bawdy jokes and brazen presentation, Baubo encourages Demetre to return to the World and to once again bear fertile fields. Baubo gives Demetre the courage to recover, to move on, to find joy and laughter in life again. And with that, the World awakens from the darkest Winter into the first Spring.

What can we in the ALI community learn from the legend of Baubo?

That after darkness, after pain, after loss: there is joy again. That we must encourage ourselves to laugh fully and completely, to laugh from the bottoms of our bellies, and by laughing we truly live in the moment. Even in our journeys to parenthood frought with worries, needles, tests, inconsiderate remarks and daily reminders of our struggles: there is still laughter to be found- there will always be a Spring to follow the Winter.

I have been feeling my own Spring Awakening as our path to family building comes into focus, and I wanted to share this energy, this inspiration: to laugh, to give ourselves permission to laugh, to feel joy, and to live in the moment. Here are some places I'd like to point folks in their IF journey, to take a moment to pause and laugh a deep belly laugh with Baubo herself:

Infertile Naomi is finding 999 Reasons to Laugh at Infertility. In addition to her blog, she has a Facebook page of the same name. Always hilarious, painfully honest - she is worth a read when you need to laugh at the absurdity of IF.

In the same vein as Infertile Naomi's blog, there's the YouTube video "Aunt Jane Knows More Than My RE."

WiseGuy over at Woman Anyone? is now on CD2 after "Agendy Fugnimimi" showed up. Always an interesting read, WiseGuy has a myriad of names she calls our dear Aunt Flo. Her post reminded me of a site I stumbled upon with a list of international phrases for good ol' AF - I make no vouchers if these are in fact true colloquialisms, but they are hilarious just the same.

And I always recommend People of Walmart when you need to feel better about yourself. Ok, so maybe it's not exactly politically correct to laugh at others' expense to feel better about yourself, but at least click over and check out the hilarity. Other photo blogs good for a laugh: This is Why You're Fat, LATFH (nsfw), Awkward Family Photos, Cake Wrecks, and Lamebook (occasionally nsfw). Honorable mention, for all you LOST fans: Never Seen Lost, a blog recapping each episode of Season 6 by someone who's never watched a second of the show prior to this season.

The moral of today's post: take a moment to pause and laugh, to laugh so hard and so deep from within your belly and womb that your tears are out of joy, of being fully in the moment. Let Spring awaken within each of you.

"At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities." 

~ Jean Houston

Two very strange dreams

As I've mentioned before, I've journaled my dreams ever since I was quite young; during high school, college, and right after college, I would have these vivid, sprawling epic dreams, often playing upon recurring dream symbols of mine: water (oceans), bridges, tornadoes, being chased, my childhood neighborhood, schools, driving. I had two rather intense dreams this morning, one that kept me in bed for easily an extra half-hour just so I could keep replaying the first half of that dream, in that amorphous semi-aware state before fully waking.

Dream 1. I dreamt I was cradling the most perfect newborn baby. He couldn't have weighed more than 7 pounds, and fit perfectly as I held him in both of my hands. (I say "he" b/c I'm not really sure what gender he was, and it's better than calling it an "it" from here on out.) He was swaddled in white linen, his cheeks rosy and his face switching from tightly scrunched to peacefully serene. A light layer of down covered his scalp. Everything about him was perfect: a tiny nub nose, and the most delicate, beautiful fingers that, like his face, both clenched and released these Lilliputian fists. I was entranced by his fingers, the way you might find miniatures for doll houses both adorable and astonishing in their detail and scale. He reached for my breast and I happily let him suckle there. The warmth of skin to skin, that perfect newborn baby smell: it was intoxicating. Every now and then he would dribble a bit of milk, or I'd have to adjust slightly, and the milk was this thick texture not unlike oil paint, except it was this beautiful shade of milky gold, opalescent and sparkling gold in the light. After he had finished, I laid him down in a bassinet and wrote down the time I fed him on a white board on my fridge. I remarked at the bright white-gold residue on my fingers and hands.

This is the part of the dream that gets really weird. So I go to check on the bassinet sometime later, and I smell something burning in the kitchen. The baby is no longer in the bassinet, and I run to the kitchen. In a large saucier is- I know what you're thinking, but it's not- a large brick of tofu, cooking in some broth. It is roughly the same size as my baby, and I recognize instantly that a) my baby has turned into tofu and b) my tofu baby is now cooking on the stove. I cut through the tofu with a spatula and it's tofu through and through- I know there is no hope of getting the baby back now that it has completely transmogrified. I start wailing and screaming, feeling this utter sense of emptiness within my breast.

Dream 2. I'm at some cooking school, and I've arrived late to my class. My instructors include a woman (let's call her H) with whom I've actually taken two cooking classes from in waking life, and Anthony Bourdain. They've already begun to shut down for the night: not just the kitchen, but the whole school. I'm scrambling to put together some kind of salmon with curry and lavender (which, salmon and curry = tasty; salmon and lavender honey = tasty; not so sure about this mix). I'm freaking out b/c they're literally shutting the lights off around me in the kitchen, and somehow, I manage to dismantle the entire stove as I'm trying to cook. I start freaking out, asking for help, and Anthony and H are exasperated with me at this point. Anthony reminds me to calm down, shows me how to reinstall and turn the burners back on, but it's just a mess. Somehow, in the process of putting the stove back together, I've crammed dirty dishes underneath the stove top and I can secure it down to cook. I'm on the verge of a total emotional breakdown when I wake up suddenly, breathing fast and feeling quite disoriented.

My thoughts on these? I'm not really sure yet. I'm still waking up for the day, so I haven't had a chance to really analyze them. But they have certainly left a vivid impact on me: they felt so real. I should also note that this is the first baby dream I've had since high school. And even then, that was the only other baby dream I've ever remembered having. In high school I dreamt I went through a full pregnancy and labor in the course of about 48 hours, and had a beautiful little blonde-haired blue-eyed boy (which is nigh impossible what with the half-Japanese in me). Last night was the first dream in over a decade that I'd had about someone I perceived as my child, even throughout this whole ordeal of diagnosis and coping in the last year.

Strange. I've got a little soul-searching and pondering to do today, for as it says in the Talmud: "A dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read."

Busted Plumbing's Infertility Blog Hop

Kate over at Busted Plumbing is hosting an Infertility Blog Hop. It's a great opportunity to find new blogs and bring a little exposure to your own as well. Check out her post here for more details and have fun finding new blogs to read and support!




Hop on over and check it out- I'm blog hopping this weekend, are you?

Passover and the Infertile Jew- A Fresh Take on the Four Questions and the Four Children

In my previous post, I go into great depth about the focus of fertility at Passover and some ways to cope. In this post, I'd like to focus on two very specific parts of the Passover seder.

The Four Questions

The Four Questions are asked by the youngest at the table, and sung to a delightful melody that is often a chance for the youngest to show off their mad skills learned in Hebrew school. Essentially the questions boil down to: Why is this night different from all other nights? They each highlight unique aspects of the Passover holiday: why do we double dip our food? Why do we eat matzo instead of leavened foods? Why do we eat bitter herbs? Why do we recline while eating?

I present the Four Questions, retold in the context of infertility, to highlight the very unique aspects of our struggle: Why is our path to family building so different from all others' paths?

• On our path, why do we pay to have a child when all others are conceived for free?
• On our path, why do we choose careers and places to live based on healthcare availability and not career goals or regional interests?
• On our path, why does baby-making involve more needles and/or paperwork and less lovemaking?
• On our path, why do we still worry even after we find out we're either paper pregnant or actually pregnant?

On Passover, the Four Questions are answered with the telling of the story of Exodus. So we too must tell our stories: sharing our paths to family building, however we may get there. 

The Four Children
While the Four Questions address the uniqueness of Passover, the story of the Four Children (traditionally the Four Sons) address the meaning of Passover. The Four Children are represented as the Wise Child (what are the laws/customs of Passover?), the Wicked Child (What does Passover mean to you?), the Simple Child (What is Passover?), and the Child Who Does Not Know Enough to Ask. Think about your own journey through infertility: I'm sure you've all encountered some versions of these "Children" in trying to answer our favorite question: "So, when are you having kids?"

I offer up infertility's approach, and call it the Four Friends:

The Compassionate Friend asks: "What can I do to help?" We tell them to let us cry, to provide us with plenty of distractions as we wait for test results, to get us out of the house when we are mopey, to be respectful of our need for space or when we don't want to hear about their children, that we don't always want advice and sometimes we just want an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. Most of all, we want them to know we're not contagious and we don't want them to cut us off b/c infertility is isolating enough.

The Inconsiderate Friend asks: "What did you do wrong to deserve being punished?" We tell them that cancer patients don't deserve cancer, that the Haitians and Chileans didn't deserve an earthquake, that infertility is just as random as any other disease or disaster and they are both comparable in the scope of emotional crises. We tell them we don't deserve to be treated or spoken to in this matter, and that we will exclude their negativity from our social circles.

The Naive Friend asks: "Why don't you just adopt? Why don't you just relax?" We tell them that if infertility was indeed so simple to cure, it wouldn't affect one out of every eight couples. We also tell them that adoption is not a simple decision, and turn the question back to them: why don't they just adopt if it's so easy?

And what do we tell the Friend That Doesn't Know Enough to Ask? We tell them that we have a prior commitment the same day as that baby shower, we congratulate them on their news but would you excuse us- we have to run to the bathroom, and that we don't have kids yet because we're just having so much fun "practicing" right now. Or we tell them simply that we're going through a hard time and it's just too complicated to get into the details, but we'd still love your support and if you'd check in on us once in a while.

. . .

A good Shabbos and a wonderful Pesach to you this coming week.