More frustrations

So I have been wanting to get started with the adoption process these last few weeks.  We already met with one agency and had learned a lot more about a few others.  We had pretty much narrowed it down to two. 

The agency we actually met with was our local Catholic Agency.  They are pretty small but also don’t have too many waiting couples.  When the women at the agency said that they primarily have Caucasian birth mothers,  M asked about the different nationalities, specifically Italian.  She mentioned they have had some Italian birthmothers.  From that moment on, my husband was like “this is our agency.”

Needless to say, my husband is half Italian.  He is very proud of this despite the fact that his mother is the Italian one and therefore he doesn’t even get the Italian name out of the deal.  You could “almost” say that he is an Italian snob.  He never tells people he’s Irish (he’s half Irish too) but he frequently tells people he’s Italian.  He is in love with the Godfather movies and anything Italian.  He thinks he is pretty bad-ass because he is Italian…um…half Italian.  

I guess I can understand this to a certain extent.  His mom (who I love) has been a big influence in His life and definitely raised him to be proud of his Italian roots.  His grandparents on his mother’s side were actually born in Italy (I’m fairly certain).  His father on the other hand, doesn’t talk much about being Irish.   I get it…to a point.

So the second the agency worker said that they do get Italian birthmothers, he was sold.  He didn’t seem to care that this agency required most of their $12,000 fee up front leaving only a small percentage for after the adoption was finalized.   Since I have always been of the opinion that we should maybe get going on the adoption thing, even while still pursuing a few last IUI’s, this was not good news.  I knew there was no way we could risk losing $10,000 if our treatments ended up working and we got pregnant.

So the past few weeks I have tried getting in touch with the second agency we were considering.  This is the agency we already filled out all the preliminary paperwork (only a couple pages of questions).  “We” (but obviously only I) had delayed sending in the application until we officially decided on an agency.  I still needed to hear more about this second agency’s fee schedule before making that decision.  Up until today, I had been playing phone tag with the social worker but I got around to calling her again today and she was there.

Apparently, this agency only charges $200 for the initial application and then $1500 to start the homestudy process.  Then another $1500 is due at the final home visit.  The balance is due closer to when you get matched.  So this was good news to me. I thought that it was great that we’d only have to pay $1700 to get the ball rolling. 

Since I know it can take 3-4 months to complete the homestudy, I figured it would be great to get started just in case these IF treatments don’t end up working for us.  It would help take the pressure off of me during these next few months since we would have a “Plan B” waiting in the wings.  This is especially important to me considering that if we do end up going with adoption, we have a somewhat limited time (about 11 months) to finish the whole process and get matched before I have to start school.  If that 11 months passes and we don’t have a match, we will have to pull our names off the list for a year or so until I finish my nursing degree.  I could possibly postpone school for another 4 months but that would only be if we had a potential match situation near the end of that 11 months.  I don’t want to put off school forever.  I am ready to be done with this job.

So I called M, to tell him the good news.  I thought the fact that we would only have to risk about $1700 was perfect.  Apparently I was wrong.  He was not thrilled with the idea at all.  He is all about waiting until we are completely done trying IF treatments.   He doesn’t seem to care that if we don’t start this now, chances are we wont start the process for at least another year and a half or so, once I’m almost done with nursing school.   

If we wait to start the adoption process until we are done with treatments, which is what he wants to do, we will only have 6 months or so to complete it.  What would the point of that be?  It is quite unlikely that could finish the whole home study and be matched within that short of time frame.  So we would probably just wait until I was almost done with nursing school which is 2+ years.  It’s just so hard to think that my baby is still so far away!  The thought just makes me want to cry all over again. 

Just when I was feeling better, I got my hopes up without consulting M first.  So now they are dashed again.  I really thought he would be ok with this.  I didn’t realize $1700 was so important to him.  I also feel like he is still convinced that “Italiano Catholic Agency” (kidding here) is the best one for us, even though I’m sure the number of Italian birthmothers they actually have are about 1%!   If we stick with his line of thinking and wait for an Italian child, we will probably not be matched for another 5 -10 years.  But hey, what’s the rush? (eyes rolling)

It’s just frustrating.  M doesn’t seem to mind the thought of waiting 2+ years to get our child.  I obviously don’t feel the same.  In my opinion, I have been waiting 4-1/2 years for a child already.  He was the one that wanted to wait a few years to start trying.  I agree that I went along with it because I saw the value of allowing our marriage to strengthen, but I was still waiting!  Now I am tired of waiting.  Every month that goes by just hurts so much.  I don’t think I can handle that for another 2 years!  It makes me sick just thinking about it.

I don’t understand why we can’t do both.  We know we’re not going to try too many more IUI’s, but when you have to take a cycle off between each try, we’re talking at least 4 more months until we’ll give up, possibly longer if we end up having to cancel a cycle which is a good possibility.  

I know he would prefer our own biological child and he hates the thought of spending unnecessary money on something that we may not need.  I think he sees that money as being just one more IUI we could possibly use to try for a biological child.  But with our current track record, we have to be realistic and know that our chances are not that good.    

We will talk about it more tonight but I have no reason to believe he will feel any differently then.  And I am quite familiar with who wins when it comes to making decisions about us having children.

I just can’t stand the thought of waiting two more years.  A lot can, and will, happen in two more years.

Two more years that our friends and family will continue having more babies…

Two more years of frequent reminders that I am not a mother…

Two more Mother’s Days I will be sitting instead of standing…

Two more Christmas Days without having any exciting reason to get out of bed…

Two more years of baby showers that I just can’t feel 100% joyful about…

And if two years doesn’t sound like much in the grand scheme of life, that’s at least 730 more days of pain and heartache I will have to struggle to handle with grace.

I think I need to spend some serious time in prayer tonight.