Heaving a Huge Sigh of Relief

The first interview is over and it really wasn't bad at all. As predicted, early the morning of the interview I did start to get nervous. Just before she was due to arrive I was really feeling sick to my stomach. But she was as nice in person as she'd seemed on the phone and again I had the feeling that her job is as much to help us as it is to scrutinize us. I think we spent about an hour talking and answering questions. Then we took her on a tour of the house and scheduled the rest of the sessions. We have to do 4 total so we have 3 more. Fortunately, we were able to schedule them for the next three weekends, so we'll be done on Feb 2. After she left we went through all our paperwork and made a list of things to do and questions we have for the agency. We're pretty close and except for making some copies and faxing some forms to the agency, and finishing the home study, we're basically now at the mercy of USCIS and the state government to process paperwork. All in all, I was feeling pretty good. Then twice in the last two days I've heard about how Chinese adoptions are taking even longer than they've been. I've been prepared for a 2 year wait, but the notion of 3 to 4 years definitely has me freaking out a bit!

In other news, I realized something yesterday. Shopping as therapy at the mall isn't really very effective when you are having trouble trying to build a family. I know my antennae are tuned to detect pregnant women and large families, but at large suburban malls they are EVERYWHERE. And of course they are all skinny and georgous too. ;)

19 Hours 'Till the Interview!

Well, I did finally touch base with the housecleaners and they came yesterday. What a treat to get home from work to a clean house! There's still plenty I should do to make this place seem more child friendly, but I feel so much better having had the cleaners here. In a surprise twist, I'm not feeling too nervous right now. I'm sure a full blown panic will hit around 4AM, but for now I'm pretty calm. Not sure why, but I'm going to enjoy it for now. The social worker is scheduled to arrive here at 9am, so anything we want done has to be done tonight. I think I'm going to try to talk hubby in going out to dinner, that way we can have a more relaxing evening and not worry about cooking or dishes. Right now I'm avoiding going through all the paperwork to make sure we have enough copies of everything - soooo tedious. I am a little annoyed at the pediatrician's office. The home study requires a health form about our daughter be completed by her doctor. I dropped it off last week and just got it in the mail. But they didn't stamp it or include any identifying information like the practice name or address. ????? This is pretty standard and I know if I just walk in their office I can probably get it stamped, but it's just stupid that they didn't do it. Oh well.

In other news, well not much news really, but I just got off the phone with the financial coordinator from my RE's office. I'm still nervous about the new insurance and since I haven't been through a cycle here before I'm just trying to make sure I understand how everything works. But I feel sort of odd about it all right now. I'm due to get my period in just over two weeks, soon after that I'll have a few tests and then my RE is expecting (barring any big surprises) that we'll move right on to an IVF cycle. Meaning, it's not that far off. I can't come up with a good way to describe how I feel about it. Nothings quite right, but detached might be closest. It's not really much time to wait, but I don't FEEL like we're about to step back on that rollercoaster. Perhaps it's because we've been focusing on adoption stuff and we haven't been talking about IVF at all. Also, while I want to get started again, I don't think I'll ever have that feeling of excitement that I had with my previous cycles. Yes, you read that correctly, I did feel excited. IVF was supposed to be the answer to my problem. While I won't recap my whole history here and all the reasons, it wasn't until the fourth and last IVF that I lost the sense of excitement and hope. I guess I'm in that place that so many IF veterans find themselves in. Not ready to give up, but also too much history not to be scared. Because we used to think that our problem was getting pregnant, but now it seems like staying that way is just as big a problem. I guess I haven't been thinking much about this lately, because as I write I realize my initial enthusiasm with the new RE and clinic has worn off and now I'm just flat scared that it won't work or that it will and it won't last. Hope has not disappeared, because I know I need to give it a try again, at least one more, but my old friend fear is lurking, and while I'm not really focused on it now, I know that once we jump back on the IVF path he's going to grab hold tightly.

I realize that's not a very cheery note for a Friday. Nevertheless, hope everyone out there has a nice weekend.

Small Steps

Well, I'm feeling a bit better today. I actually called my nurse and now I know what's coming next. I was a tiny bit annoyed, because instead of the hysteroscopy that we'd discussed with the RE back at the end of Oct (before the surprising and short-lived pregnancy), she said I'll need to start on birth control pills and then have a mock embryo transfer. HUH? Depending on the results of that, then he'll decide whether to go forward with the hysterscopy. I had her explain it all about three times, but I confess I'm still not 100% getting it. She did say that he had changed the game plan after we got pregnant, but didn't want to discuss it while we were going through everything. I guess I can understand that, but personally I wish we'd just had the discussion since I was in the office many times while the miscarriage played out. On the bright side, I called the new insurance company and registered for the infertility program. I know anything can happen once the clinic starts calling for authorizations, but the woman I spoke to seemed pretty optimistic about my coverage and said there shouldn't be any problems with any of the tests I will hopefully be undergoing in about 3 weeks!

So, I did NOT get much done on the house front last night and then husband woke up at 3am having some sort of panic attack! I have a feeling it's going to be a relatively sleepless week in our house. I feel awful that I'm clearly not capable of giving him the kind of comfort that he needs right now. To be honest, I was so tired that I actually was annoyed and now I feel very guilty. The weird thing is when he's depressed or stressed he can't sleep and wants to talk. When I'm depressed or stressed all I want to do is sleep and I prefer to hash things out in my own head. Since our coping mechanisms are basically the opposite, when we're both stressed and depressed it's not a pretty scene. I'm really, really hoping that Saturday's interview goes well. As much as I'm nervous, I think hubby is tens times so, and I think a good meeting will go a long way to making him feel better.

And, now it's time to go call the house cleaners again!

Off to the Races

Yikes, I finally caught up with the social worker last Thursday and now the first of 4 interviews for our home study is schedule for next Saturday!!! On the one hand I'm glad she wanted to get started right away because I'm already tired of the waiting and we probably have a good two years to go. However, the house is a complete wreck and my husband and I haven't been getting along very well lately. I'm nervous that it'll come through during the interview. The stress of work (for both of us), almost 3 years of TTC, the recent miscarriage, the adoption, all the uncertainty, and frankly, raising a very tempermental 5-year old has really taken a toll on us. Basically, we've been snapping at each other alot and I'm pretty sure that I'm annoying him as much as he's annoying me lately. Aside from the face that we're both unhappy, it hasn't gone unnoticed by our daughter. Plus, we're both so irritable that we have less patience with her. No one ever said life or relationships would be easy, but I'm getting a little sick of feeling like everything is such a struggle all the time.

So, you may ask, what is she going to do about it?!

Well, first things first, I put in a call to the housecleaning company we used until about a year ago and I am really hoping they can come sometime this week before Saturday's interview, that would go a long way to making me feel better. I also got hubby to agree to schedule them to come once a month. I'd prefer every two weeks, which is what we used to do, but this seems like a good compromise between trying to save money and not having the house get too dirty. Also, I think the trip to Florida next month will be good for all of us. I plan to spend my evenings this week trying to make the house look somewhat less of a disaster area. Fortunately, I did manage to get the Christmas decorations put away last night and my husband is going to take down the tree today -- getting all the furniture back in place should help a bit. While the impetus for this is Saturday's interview, getting the house in order is something that we've needed to do for a long time, so it'll feel good to get it done. And, once again, I'm going to start wei.ght watc.hers. Because I do realize that while there are many things in life that I can't control, what I eat is not one of them. So, I'm trying to be hopeful that I'll get my shit together in 2008, but I'm also trying to be realistic. I know that my weight won't fall off overnight, my marriage won't be fully repaired overnight, and my house won't turn into my dream home anytime soon, but it can be neater. So, I'm going to try and take things one step at a time and focus on the positive. In that vein, I am happy to report that I'm pretty sure we are actually done with all the adoption paperwork, for now. PHEW! That was no small feat.