Sad face

I wake up everyday and put one foot in front of the other...and every day it seems to get easier. 

Then there are days like today.  Days that seem to start ok and then come up from behind and bite you in the ass.  Days that even outlet shopping and Diet Coke and chocolate and kitty snuggles can't fix.  

(This isn't our kitty...but I wish he was...isn't he beautiful?  Winnie would love him)

Memory Lane Monday: Fish CPR

When I was younger (like 7 or 8?) I went on a camping trip with my family.   I feel like I should mention that my family is an outdoorsy family.  Three seasons of the year we would be camping, fishing, hiking, hunting, etc.  I believe we were camping in Logan canyon on this particular trip and I was fishing on a bridge over the Logan River.  Somehow I never connected that if you caught a fish it died.  Not sure how I missed that tiny detail.  Anywhoo..I caught a fish and watched as it stopped breathing and I freaked out.  So I tried to give the fish CPR.  I think there is a picture somewhere in my mom's house of me bent over the fish, and then a family photo of me teary eyes holding the fish who didn't make it.  (Mom...you should find that pic and email it to me)
 
No one can say I don't have a soft spot for animals.

Trip Photos

I put a bunch of pics from our camping trip up on my photo blog. 
I got some good shots...if I do say so myself.  :)

To everything a season

...and this season seems like baby making/having season. 

I feel like everyday I hear ANOTHER friend or family member announcing their bundle(s) of joy.  I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I have over 20 friends/family/aquaintences that are currently knocked up or have recently evicted said child from their womb. 

Yay for being infertile.

With a little help from our friends

While Nathan and I are off on our week of quiet and healing there is something you can do for us.  As heartbroken as we are over this loss...we know our baby (or babies...who knows) are still out there and we need to find them.  Remember back here when I told you that 70% of adoptions occur because someone knew someone?  Well, that stat is still true.  Even though our adoption didn't go through, we were introduced to C through a friend.

So how can you help?  

1. If you haven't already...put our button on your blog.  If you need instructions, they are here. 
2. Join our facebook group.
3. Invite all your friends to join our facebook group.  You never know who may know someone that will be facing an unplanned pregnancy.   Our group has all our contact info on it, so if someone was considering adoption they'd know how to get in touch with us.  

Our facebook group is currently at 522 members.  It would be so awesome if we could get over a thousand.  Are you brave enough to help us out and invite all your friends?

Our week

Will be spent here:

(picture borrowed from here)

There will be camping, picture taking, cycling, reading, campfire building, hiking, canoeing, s'more-ing, hammock napping...but hopefully, and most importantly...some healing.

I can't wait.

The need to heal

I don't think the finality of all this has really hit us.  At least it hasn't really hit me.  There is this tiny piece of me that hopes this is just a (freaking huge) bump in the road and everything will work out.  The rational side of my brain is trying to talk some sense into that tiny piece of me...but it doesn't want to listen.
I get up every morning and try not to think about it all.  If I do, then it starts to get ugly...and the hour drive to work where I carry on a full-on monologues with myself does little to bring my level of insanity down.  By the time I get to work I am wound up so tight...it's only a matter of time until the stress of work pushes me over the edge.  I have wound up crying at work more than a few times over the last two weeks...most the time over something insignificant, like the printer being out of paper. 
I haven't been back in the nursery since I piled everything in and shut the door.  I know I have to deal with it, but I feel like opening that door would open the floodgates and I'm not in the mood to dig myself out of that pit. 
Nathan and I are taking next week off and going away together.  We're going somewhere away from phones and internet and TV and twin parenting books and quilts and a rooms full of matching twin stuff.  I am hoping we can use the trip to let our hurts hurt and begin to heal. 

Cruel

Laying in bed in the darkness the phone ringing wakes me from my slumber.  I stumble in the darkness, wondering who could possibly be calling at this hour.  The words on the other side come quickly..."babies born...I've made a mistake...all consents have been signed...hurry."  I quickly wake Nathan and we pack in a fury.  We set out in the darkness, full of excitement.  All the pain of the previous week melts away.  With each state border we cross our anticipation grows.  We make the 23 hour drive to my parent's place in Utah with no overnight stops.  We sleep for a few hours, drop off the dog, gas up the car and we're off again.  Eleven hours later we're at the hospital in California.  We see our babies for the first time through the glass.  The nurses realize who we are and let us back to hold them.  Tears are shed, prayers are said.  Later in the day they are released and we make our way back to our hotel.  Their cries do nothing to deflate our swollen hearts.  Sometime in the darkness of night, when both the babies are fed, changed and asleep we drift to sleep as well.  This morning when I see the first morning light creep in the room I am confused.  "Where am I?"  as the room comes into focus I realize I am not in a hotel in California.  I am in my bed.  In my apartment.  In Chicago.  The tears sting as I realize we are alone in our apartment.  There are no babies.  There was no phone call, no 23 hour drive, no hospital.  I feel my heart sink lower in my chest and I feel powerless against the oppressive darkness I know is coming.

Salt on the wounds

In the past I haven't always been the best at dealing with the trials of infertility.  When I got hurt I pulled away from family, friends, church and God.  Deep inside I knew it was wrong, but it is the natural reaction to pain - to pull away.  So when the light crept into my bedroom this morning signaling time to get up and get ready for church I had an internal discussion.  Go to church or not??  I wanted so much to stay home, burrow deeper within the covers and sleep off this pain.  But I knew I needed to go...if I didn't it would make next week that much harder.  I needed to face the questions that were sure to come.

We entered the building and quickly found a seat.  The opening hymn was good...a nice up-beat tune to distract me.  Then the person conducting the meeting announced that there would be three baby blessings today.  I felt my skin prickle.  I felt Nathan's arm around my shoulder tighten.  Baby blessings have always been hard and today it was just something I so. did. not. need to endure.  The first baby was blessed and my tears were already falling.  Then the second baby was announced to be the twin of the first baby.  Seriously.  Nathan's grip tightened even more and I did everything I could to stifle my sobs.

I didn't make it through the entire day of church...but I'm proud of us for making the effort.  I'm not looking forward to work tomorrow and all the questions and unknown that will come (because I was hired just as a temp until the babies were born)...but at least I know there won't be any baby blessings.

Little Chalk Numbers

We found out late Thursday night through a phone call that the adoption wasn't going to happen.  At first I didn't understand what he (ours and C's mutual friend...the one who introduced us) was trying to tell me.  It didn't even fully hit me until I hung up, went to bed and told Nathan.  As I heard the words come out of my mouth it was as if I was hearing them for the first time.  I crawled in bed and as the silence of night crept up around me, my heart broke.  I felt the tears begin to well as I lay on my back staring into the darkness.  Images begin to flash across my mind...all the ultrasound pictures we'd been given, the drawers full of tiny matching pink and blue outfits, the quilt I had finished just hours before that we planned on giving C.

Two days later it is still hard to believe.  Tonight I gathered up the quilt I'd made, the twins parenting book and a box of formula samples that had come in the mail and put them in the nursery.  I shut the door, walked out and left all that emotionally heavy stuff behind...at least for now.  I know I will have to deal with all of it, but I just can't.  Not yet.

Nathan is taking this pretty hard.  This is the first time I think he's ever gotten his hopes up.  He went shopping with me to pick out clothes and bottles.  He listened intently as I passed on what I'd read in the twin parenting books.  He was so excited that the closer it got the harder it was for him to keep it a secret.  I can't blame him for getting his hopes up...mine were up too.  Afterall, we'd been planning on this since April.  C visited us in April and we really hit it off.  Nathan and I both felt like this adoption was meant to be...there were just too many little coincidences that we took as divine intervention.  When C told me she was choosing adoption I created a countdown on the chalkboard in our entryway.  The first number was in the 130's and everyday on my way to work I'd erase the number and lower it by one...it only got into the 20's.  I went to leave for work this morning and the sight of that countdown stopped me in my tracks.  I stared tearfully at the chalk numbers that had once held so much hope and excitement.  I debated erasing them, and then decided it was best. 

It was frustrating today to think of the small..and large...ways we changed (or planned to change) our lives in preparation for (and after the arrival of) these two small miracles.  Some of these changes cannot be undone...and some of the changes that were planned but never made will haunt us everyday.  They will stand as painful reminders of what didn't happen.

Through the course of our fertility treatments I had three miscarriages.  Those losses were so painful, but this hurts just as bad.  This time we got to see their sweet faces...we were close enough to the end to think "any day now"...we had even picked out names.


Thank you for all your prayers, I know we would not be getting through this if it weren't for them.  I also know the hurt will lessen and things will work out...eventually.  I just wish I could hibernate until the pain is gone.