Dinner & Solar Frog: Last Thursday some very good friends brought dinner over to my sister's house in honor of Oliver's arrival and they invited us as well. It was nice to hang out with them and enjoy the delicious chicken chili that they brought. So fun to watch their daughter, Jenna, running around with Wendel back and forth between the sandbox and the garden. Their little son, Jack, who just turned 1 - eventually warmed up to me, but he REALLY loves his mama (which I don't blame at all). They also got us a cute card of encouragement and an adorable frog/ladybug decoration for our yard - thank you!! We love it. It's perfect in our front yard - watching out for us. :)
Golf & Errands: On Friday my hubby went golfing, so I ran some errands to get ready for my cousin's baby shower that's coming up on the 11th. I went to Party City, Hallmark, Barnes & Noble, Costco, & Babies 'R Us - quite the shopping experience! Can't wait to see her and the rest of the family this weekend - it's going to be so fun!! We are having everyone bring a children's book to the shower for Baby Polikoff - picking out the perfect book(s) took the longest. It's so tough to decide!! :) I stopped by my sister's that night to visit with the family.
Facebook Connection: Since last week, an upperclassmen friend from high school had this posted as her Facebook status, "Being someone who struggles with unexplained secondary infertility, I find it heart wrenching to sit in the waiting room at the doctors office filled with pregnant teenagers. Life just doesn't make sense sometimes." Of course I immediately reached out to her by sending a message via Facebook and shared our story with her. We've been writing back/forth updating each other on our baby struggles. She and her husband have been trying for Baby # 2 for almost 10 years. I'm sure it's especially frustrating since she was able to get pregnant so quickly with her son. It's been nice to talk with her though - I'm glad that she was strong enough to post something on Facebook. Otherwise I never would've known. Even though I have this blog, I don't post anything on Facebook about our baby quest. Hoping for good news for us both sooner than later.
Adoption: Even though I think we will eventually try at least one more cycle of in-vitro, we have been talking about our other options like adoption. I don't think I've ever mentioned adoption on this blog yet, but it is something that has been on my mind since last year around this time. At the end of the day, we just want a family. My husband wasn't quite there yet - so I didn't push the issue. It is a big decision and I think we both have to be onboard for it. When we were driving down to our transfer on May 13th (when we weren't sure if we'd have any embryos to even transfer), we talked about getting the adoption ball rolling if things didn't work out. So since the negative test results, I've been googling adoption agencies in the area and reading up on the process. I've also requested material from a few adoption agencies in the area. I've looked at a few sites with listings of "waiting families" - where couples wanting to adopt have written a letter to the potential birthmother explaining why they'd be a good fit for their baby. It's kind of overwhelming to think about what we would write in our letter. Personally, I think we'd look good on paper - but it's just weird to think that we'll have to sell or prove ourselves to people to make them want to pick us. Anyway, a very close family friend of ours (my other big sister) that used to be a social worker in Columbus recommended "Caring for Kids" in Cuyahoga Falls. She knows people that work there and said she would use their Columbus worker if she were looking to adopt. She did mention that we'd have to do the trainings/sessions up in Cuyahoga Falls. I was looking at their site and found that they have an info session on the 18th of this month - I was all excited to sign-up for it, but when I talked to my hubby about it last night - that's when I realized that he's still not quite ready and that we had different definitions of break. I was thinking it was a break from just the cycle/treatments. And he was thinking it was a break from everything - including officially starting the adoption ball.
We were talking about it last night in bed and I started crying in the middle of our conversation. He apologized and said he felt like he was letting me down or disappointing me by not being ready. I explained that there was no need to apologize and that he wasn't letting me down and definitely wasn't disappointing me. This is an important decision, so I appreciate his honesty and don't want to pressure him into anything. I think I was crying more because I hate that we have to be in this position where we even have to have such conversations! Who would've guessed that starting our family would take so long and be so hard? Part of me feels like we're wasting precious time - but he reminded me that we are still young and have plenty of time. He also pointed out that we've been on an emotional rollercoaster ride since Christmas and that we could use a break from everything for a little while and I think he is right.
Our Summer Plan: So last night was a little rough emotionally, but I think we had a lot of good conversation that got us back on the same page about things. We are going to schedule our follow-up appointment with Dr. Williams to review our FET cycle and see if he has any guidance. We're guessing that we know what he's going to say (that our chances would go back up with a fresh IVF cycle and that there's no way to tell what happened this time around) - but we'd still like to hear it from him. Even if we don't want to do another cycle right away, it doesn't hurt to meet with him. We're also going to continue reading up on adoption and re-evaluate where we are in August to figure out if we really want to get the paperwork started. In the meantime, we're just going to enjoy the summer and plan a little get-away trip for a nice, long weekend. We'll probably keep it in the USA and I'd like to go somewhere we haven't been yet. Since we're only planning on leaving on a Friday and coming back on Tuesday - the less travel time, the more time we have to enjoy wherever it is we're going. Let me know if anyone has any good suggestions!
In closing, I'd like to thank Hi Puppy for the CDs that continue to show up in my mailbox. I love them all! I'd also like to share a quote that my cousin shared with me a couple weeks ago - it's a good one. Good night!!
"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."