What I learned - Microblog Monday

Sorry for the radio silence.

I was trying like crazy to finish my book before the writing conference this weekend.
I didn't.
I'm about 6000 words out--a little more because the conference made me see a glaring error that I did two chapters ago and I have to fix now.

One of the breakout sessions I took was about storytelling--oral and written.

We were to write about times in our life when we needed help.

This is what I wrote.

My goddaughter turned one.

A year after her mother's four-day labor. A year after my eyes caught my husband's as I held her. We went home and cheerily threw out the birth control pills We joyfully went about the business of adding to our family. It would be easy, right, I mean I'd spent so long hearing that it only takes one time. It had been a year full of periods that were always on-time. I wasn't worried-much.

My goddaughter turned three.

Three years of hearing "great news!" from my friends until we were the only ones of our group who wanted a chid and were without. Three years of worry and once a month depression. Two years after sitting in a doctor's office answering aseptic intimate questions and hormone shots that made me question my sanity and reason for living.

My goddaughter turned six.

A year after we started the process to "Just Adopt." Social worker--a lovely one who would become our advocate--came to our house to decide if we were worthy to parent. We had to ask our friends to write us recommendations. We had to ask other people to help us become parents. No one else seemed to have this trouble. I had been losing friends who told me horrible things. Some forever.

My goddaughter turned eight.

No one invites us to baby showers anymore--nor should they. Mother's Day has become a landmine of epic proportions. After waiting to adopt for three years and realizing it could be another three we decide to try IVF. It doesn't work.

My goddaughter turned ten.

People tell us to get out of the line for China. We say no--that's where she is.  We've been waiting for five years, We see ourselves getting closer. But the wait is still so long. We renew our paperwork and pray.

My goddaughter turned thirteen.

She joyfully swings my daughter in her arms. My goddaughter laughed and my beautiful little girl giggles the way only a one-year-old can with her whole body.  After the laughter my daughter reaches for me.
My goddaughter gives me boxes of her old clothes, that her mother saved for me. Her mother, my heart-sister never doubted that we would watch our two children playing together.
Our child lights up our world and, even today, I don't know that the joy would be as much without the struggle and the help.

Dear China Mommy - Year 5

Dear China Mommy,

Our daughter will be turning six in a few weeks. She decided she wants a bowling party and put her foot down about who will be invited.

Her whole fricking kindergarten class.

I had said, you have one person more than you are old, but she talked me around. She said she wanted these people and then Hilly.

"Who is Hilly?" I asked.

"You know her, she's the one who doesn't sit and she wanders around the room and hums a lot."

Oh. I thought. The autistic girl. I looked at her face.

"I don't think she gets invited to a lot of birthday parties, mommy. I think it makes her sad. She doesn't hurt anyone and she's not mean and I want to invite her, even if her mommy says no." I nodded. I couldn't speak, you see, because I had this lump in my throat.

Did she get this compassion from you? Did she get it from me? Did it mingle together from both of us?

So why are we inviting the whole class when she wants to invite Hilly?  So she doesn't feel singled out. Or that's what I think she was trying to tell me. Sometimes I don't understand what she's trying to communicate, but most of the time I do.

Our daughter is about three and a half feet tall. She is so graceful -- definitely your influence. Her smile can light a world.
She's lost her first tooth and the permanent one has come in crooked. Orthodontia is in our future.

She's learning to read and she says how "Words just pop out at her." as she looks around.

She asked why you left her to be found. She asked if she was bad. I was driving and I pulled over so I could stare into her eyes and tell her that it was not at all because she was bad. I told her that we would likely never know the full reasons but I had some guesses.

I think it was because she was premature. I think you were scared as hell that her lungs were underdeveloped and took her to where she could be treated. Even if it meant never seeing her again. I sometimes wonder if it was not you who took her to that place, if it was a family member who you have yet to forgive.

Her school is far more white than the daycare and pre-K she attended. She notices that. I think she's been made fun of, but if she has it's rolled off her back as our daughter does not start fights. She does tend to finish them.

Our daughter takes stalling to go to bed to an Olympic sport. But she knows that if she asks for more hugs we will give them.

Our daughter has an incredible capacity to love. She has an empathetic quality that is rare in 60 year olds, not only 6 year olds. But she has it. I believe it was put there by you, nurtured by me and her father.

Today she asked, for the n-teenth time, for me to tell her the story of when we first met. I told her again. But today she asked, Why did I stop crying when I heard you sing.

I gave a few suggestions and she kept shaking her head.

"Okay, Lotus, Why did you stop crying?"

"Because I recognized you. You weren't China Mommy, you were my mommy." She sighed as she saw my eyes fill. "Happy tears?" She asked--she's used to this by now. I nodded. We cuddled. Then she asked to send some love to you. And we hugged and sent some of our love to you.

I hope you feel the love that our daughter feels for you.

I hope you know the love and unspeakable gratitude that I feel for you.

God be with you, wherever and whatever you need,
Love
Your daughter's mommy.

Seeing the future

My grandmother had a gift. Maybe a curse.

She could attend a wedding, engagement party, even watch a couple who were dating and know, know as an undeniable truth that they would not work out.

I remember going to a cousin's wedding. Big fancy wedding. Bride and groom made lovey-dovey faces at each other. When we came home my mom said what a nice wedding it was. I said that it would have been nicer if I thought for even ten minutes that the happy couple would work out. I watched my mother's face pale. It seemed that I said my grandmother's exact words with the exact tone that she had used about this cousin's parents. My grandmother had been proven correct seven years later. My cousin's marriage didn't even last that long.

I haven't always been able to predict it. Some friends split up and I really thought they were going the long haul. But right now, I'm watching my niece start on the road to the wedding and I know, I know, she's going down the road for heartache. Other people have told her and she just doesn't care.

I don't get this.

Her "fiancé" asked her to marry him, with a ring and everything, at the end of 2017. But--she's not allowed to tell anyone on social media. He wanted to wait to tell his family. Then he wanted to wait to tell someone else. It's March now, and she's still not allowed to tell people on social media. This means most of her friends don't know.

When her father got engaged, I remember that he was so proud and happy that he stopped the mailman and pointed out my soon to be sister in law.  "Isn't she beautiful! She's the most amazing woman inside and out and she is marrying me!" They've been married over 30 years. Not without bumps,  but still.

My niece has been dating this guy for a while. about six years or so. They broke up when she wanted to become engaged and he didn't. Then he charmed and wheedled and she took him back and she told him that if she didn't have a ring by the time 2018 came she'd be gone. So he got her a ring and forbid her to tell anyone about it.

When it comes to wedding planning he refuses to get married near where her parents live and where she wants to be married. There is an elderly aunt who can't travel and my niece wants her there, but he refuses so that's it.

He insists that she must formally convert to Judaism. Her father is Jewish, her mother is not. She was raised Jewish. She teaches Hebrew School. But it isn't Jewish enough and he belittles her hard-won Jewish knowledge. Their relationship is filled with his micro-agressions towards her.

Yet when anyone tells her that this is not the way a loving man treats his bride-to-be, she dismisses it. She loves him. She wants him.

So I wait with my heart hurting. I know that at some point she will see him for what he is. Maybe he'll change, but I'm not holding my breath. I wish so much that she could see him the way we do. I wish that she would stand her ground. She's a strong woman.  Or she was.

But her biological clock is ticking. She's worried she'll have problems getting pregnant. She wants to be a mother and she thinks that this guy is the only way that can happen. I worry that if she has problems getting pregnant he will blame her and come down on her. I worry.

I wonder if she really doesn't see it, or if she's using her heart to override her head. Has anyone ever dealt with this kind of thing--if so what did you do?

Microblog Monday - Though I have been silent, I shall not be still

I refuse to give in to despair.

I have to hug a four-year-old and help her to make sense of the world around her. I have to do it with a smile. She is watching me, you see, to see how to deal with disappointments.

I scared her a little bit. I was crying. I was actively planning to grab her and leave the country. I started research, where could we live, make a living and then yet return.

This weekend we took her to a movie about Trolls who sing. It was her first movie in a theater and she's glommed onto this song.

That's what we do, we get back up again.
I had practice during infertility. After a failed cycle, I cried and cycled again. After roadblock to roadblock in our adoption of Lotus we did it.

Now she needs to watch me do it. Life is full of disappointments--big and small. Lotus will watch me and see how I act. She has to see me get up. She has to see me go on. She has to see me listen to things that make me physically ill and still defend people's right to say them. She has to see me watch a protest and explain that people have the right to do it. They don't have the right to hurt people.

My daughter is watching. Therefore sometimes I am silent. But I am not still.

This is worse than disappointment. No one has to tell me this is worse. I am viscerally scared--not as scared as some, more than others, but I do know this is worse.

And yet, I calmed down. I'm not saying I don't have an exit plan, but I'm waiting. I'm being quiet and listening. I'm reading what my friends on both sides of debate say. YES, I have friends who voted for Trump. I imagine if they had a blog they would say, of me, YES I have friends who voted for Clinton.

But I will not be still.

I am contacting my state representatives.  I didn't know who they were until two days ago. I am going to see how to make my state house blue.

I am signing up to email with the people running for New Jersey governor in 2017. I will help on the campaign. I will work.

I will stand beside my friends of color. I will stand beside my LGBTQ friends. I will stand besides my sisters. I hope they will stand beside my Jewish self.

I will not be still.

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

I still remain. I will not be still.

SaveSaveSaveSave

What Alice Forgot

It's been a bit since I've talked about the Pages part of the blog.

I've been rereading a lot. I tend to do that when I'm under stress and this election is stressing me out.

However when a librarian puts a book in my hand I at least read the first ten pages.

The librarian shoved the book What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty into my hands and told me to read it.  I trust this librarian. She introduced me to The Black Dagger Brotherhood and likes a lot of the same books I do.

So I brought it home. I didn't plan to read it.

Then I thought I would go ten pages, and I was caught up.

The premise is deceptively simple. Alice, a 39 year old woman with three kids who is separated from her husband falls at the gym and hits her head. She wakes up thinking that she is 29, pregnant with her first child and still deliriously happy with her husband.

It forces the reader to ask a question--if you met yourself 10 years ago--what would that younger person think of you? What would she think of the choices you have made?

I also have to praise it for being one of the most realistic portrayals of infertility I have ever read. Alice's sister, Elizabeth, you see, has had recurrent miscarriages. A decade ago they were close, now infertility has separated them.  There were times when I read Elizabeth's story that I wanted to shriek that someone had read my diary.  It is brilliant.

This is a good one and I wonder if any of my blog -readers have read it, if so I would like to discuss it.

If you haven't--pick this one up. It is wonderful!

Microblog Mondays - Assumptions about choice

We are finally in the last stages of this interminable election. There are quite a few women I know who are voting for Trump or a third party candidate.

The women who are voting for Trump--all of them that I have spoken to which is in no way a scientific survey--cite the Supreme Court and anti-choice views as their reason.

When life begins--at conception, at sometime in utero, at birth--I don't know, I don't pretend to know.

When I did IVF and I saw those little dots on the screen--they were real to me. I was overwhelmed at how protective I was of those little dots. They were mine. When the IVF failed I was so despondent I can't put it into words.

That being said, I can't and won't use my beliefs and how I felt to say how others can and should feel.

I should say this. Pro-life is not the right term.
Anti choice is.

If you are voting for someone so that he will put forth justices that will force women to have babies that they don't want, and it doesn't bother you that he has no problem sexually molesting these self-same women--you are not pro-life, you are anti-choice.

If you do not see that there should be mandatory maternity and family leave, you are not pro-life you are anti-choice.

Please understand that, according to the Jewish religion, when the health (physical or mental)  of the mother is in danger the pregnancy must be terminated. Not should, not can, must.  If you can't embrace that because of your religion, you are not pro-life, you are anti-choice.

Do understand, if abortion is outlawed--there will still be abortion. It will just be unsafe.

Towards the end of her life my mom opened up about her college friend, Julie. She died because she had an unsafe abortion. My mom said that Julie was her best friend in college. Had she lived, I would have called her Aunt Julie. She was taken away from me because men in the 1940s didn't want to trust women with their own bodies. I would have liked her, my mom said. When I think of mom in the afterlife I like thinking of her with Aunt Julie, eating chocolate and drinking wine. She died horribly.

If you want to force women into this situation, don't you dare call yourself pro-life. You are anti-choice.

Microblog Monday - The sins of the mother

When I think of being Jewish, of the High Holidays, I always think about the Al-Chet. I allude to it, I think about it.

For the sins which we have committed.

Most of the time I go to synagogue alone. D isn't Jewish and Lotus isn't old enough to get much out of it. It is easier to let her stay home with D.

So I'm standing on Yom Kippur thinking about my own sins.

I think about Lotus.  She is wonderful. She fills my arms with hugs and lets me show her the world. She listens when I talk, and I try to explain the world to it as I see it.

I wish for the current year that I can be the mother that my little girl deserves.

There are sometimes I don't want to watch Elena of Avelor for the ntheenth time. I want to watch something adult.

There are times I don't want to cuddle, or play. I want to sleep.

There are times that as much as I love her little voice I just want quiet.

There are times I think I am totally fucking up this motherhood deal and maybe that's why I don't have a biological child.

There are times I think, What right do I have to be annoyed or discontented when I prayed and wished and waited every single day for nearly a dozen years for this? How dare I not be smiling and happy every single day.

I want so badly to talk to my mother to see if she felt this too. While I could, and I'd be fairly sure she'd hear me, I won't get an answer. i miss her when I think I'm fucking up this motherhood thing.

For all these sins, God of atonement, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.

Schuyler Sister--IF Sister

Yesterday was the Tony Awards.

Since Lotus came home we have watched the beginning of the Tony Awards together.  The first time, when Neil Patrick Harris hosted, she adored. We kept it on our DVR for ages because she would love to watch the first number over and over. Then, when Hugh Jackman hosted the Tonys and began it by bouncing around Lotus jumped instead of walked for weeks. Last year she was getting over being sick, so I watched the Tonys after she went to sleep. Because Lotus loves some of the Hamilton soundtrack ("Play the shot song, mommy!" )  I was looking forward to watching some of the Tonys with her.

She liked the opening song, then got bored and played by herself for a bit. She's four, she does that now. But she crawled back on my lap when I started to cry listening to Renee Elise Goldsberry's acceptance speech.

Renee Elise Goldsberry played Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton. She won their first award of the night.  But the part of her speech that made me cry was this.

"and lastly I would just love to say that if you know anything about me, I've spent the last 10 years of my life what some would consider the life blood of a woman's career just trying to have children, and I can testify in front of all of you that the Lord gave me Benjamin and Brielle and then he still gave me this! Thank you!" 

I cried because there, at the pinnacle of her career, a woman spoke about infertility. I cried because there was someone who knew what I had gone through.  There was a woman who had spent time with a sore ass because of the meds and a battered heart as she cried after a failed cycle. 

She played a Schuyler sister, but she is my IF sister. She took the time out of her triumph to claim her kinship. I held my much-prayed-for child on my lap and cried tears of happiness for her triumph. 

When you are dealing with infertility and fighting the battle of your body you have comrades in arms. People you would never have imagined understand you and have been where you are. God bless you Renee Elise Goldsberry, and give you all the luck and craziness of your children. You have a sister here--in me. And if you wanted to get your sister tickets to Hamilton...I would't mind.

The Cave 2005

Heeding Mel's oft repeated bit to make backups I went back to my first IF blog. I reread the posts about possible pregnancies, fertility treatments, a hailstorm of friend pregnancies and some bad stuff that my family said about adoption.  

Then I read this post. 
When I think of the post I wrote yesterday, I know it might seem like I have never been there. Now I'm happy but I never suffered. 

I suffered. 

Here is the proof that I know whereof I speak. Here is the proof that I walked the path some of you are now on and I get it. I grok it. I know. 

2005

I've heard infertilty compared to islands and once a cave.  

Today I think the cave metaphor is more accurate. Sometimes everything just hurts. It generally happens around the time I get my period, but still I have these times where I just need to go into my cave.  

It's dark in the cave. But that's okay. I don't deserve sunshine. Sunshine is for people who's bodies work the way they are supposed to. Sunshine is for babies, not women who can't have them.  

It is wet in the cave. Tears, blood make for a wet atmosphere. Maybe it's the blood of a miscarriage or chemical pregnancy. The blood of countless periods that came even though I was sure this time that I actually was pregnant. The tears that happened during doctors visits. During tests while nurses berate me for crying. Telling me that this doesn't hurt when it felt like I was being raped with chemicals. Tests that are embarrasing, humiliating. I have to make a joke just to get through the day. Going to a second RE to be told that everything the first RE did was wrong and I spent money, time, and pain doing a treatment that was never going to work anyway. Tears when everything around you is breaking into little pieces. Friendships, marriage, sex.  

Sometimes I have company in the cave. Sometimes my husband is there with me, but more often I am alone. Reaching out across a sea of computers to touch others who have their own caves. Others who know that the cave is lonely but you can't be alone. You ache to be with others but only others who know what it is. They know what you want and how you are hurting.  

It has to be a cave because only stone can absorb the anger. And I get so angry. I try not to. I try to be okay, but when I need to go into the cave I bang my hands on the rock until they bleed. I am furious. I am furious at every woman who ever harmed her child. I am furious at everyone who ever gave me assvice.
"Just Relax."
"Have you ever thought about lifting your legs in the air after sex?"
"Why don't you just adopt?"  
"You aren't meant to have children until you recognize Jesus Christ as your personal savior."  
"You won't have children until your husband converts to Judaism."
"A low-carb diet helped a friend." 
"Become a vegetarian."
"You're just too fat to have children."
"Well of COURSE she doesn't have kids, her husband would have to sleep with her to do that and can you imagine anyone being that hard up?" (Overheard at one of my jobs from hell)

The cave is filled with every doubt I have ever had about myself. If I gave more to charity, If I was a better person, If I was a better wife, if I SOMETHING it would happen.  

There are days I can stand the sunlight. Days I can leave the cave behind me. I send away to adoption agencies. I look at countries, at children. I realize that I can be a mother and my parenting will be just as valid. Days I see a child in my arms and she has almond eyes, not the blue of me or my husband. But she laughs in my arms and calls me mama. She takes my hand and says 'Mama come see.' And I know, I do know, that she will keep me too busy to go back into the cave.  

But she's a dream right now. And my other dreams have turned to shit. I can't believe with the innocence that I had that I will have that child. I can't believe that everything will work out all right, because I believed that once, and I wound up here, in this cave.  

I sometimes think that the worst part of the cave is that I am the only one who is able to crawl out of it. No one can come and lift me out of the depression. I have to decide that I want to leave the cave. I have to pull myself to my feet and walk my bruised and battered soul out into the sunlight. But the cave is safe, and I am safe from the slings and barbs of my own psyche and society that decides that a child's face can sell anything. A society that values the children far more than they do the parents is painful to me. Hiding in the cave is good. But I don't want to be here. And I inch myself to the mouth of the cave and it is dark and the stars shine down on me. I once believed my child was up there, waiting for the right moment to have me hold him or her. But now they are stars, and the night air smells sweet. And I can stay at the mouth of the cave for a bit, and wait for the sun to rise.

The View from the Continent - Microblog Monday

A long time ago--and by that I mean about a decade or so--when the blogosphere was young, someone coined the term Infertility Island.  Don't know who did, but the term was apt.  Infertility Island is where you stopped until you had your positive pregnancy test, adoption referral, or decided that it was enough.

I have Lotus. She got me off the island. 

This past week, I met up with a friend who I met on the Island.  We clicked in that way people do when you are in the same situation.  We actually clicked more.  I get her. She gets me. 

Our log-in dates were close to each other and we thought that we would be if not traveling together, then we would have our children close together.  For reasons that are not mine to tell, she had to drop out of the China Adoption program.  I cried when I heard that. I cried for our dreams coming to a halt.  

Then I got Lotus and all of my priorities shifted. I left Infertility Island for the parenting continent. Instead of shots and peeing on sticks I was talking my child to playgrounds.  Instead of crying myself to sleep because I didn't have a child, I would listen to her sleep and fight becoming a helicopter parent. 

I can't say I've never looked back to the Island. I have too many friends there who took the path that led off of it without children. I ache for them. My sister left Infertility Island for life without parenting. Other friends chose different paths.

Sometimes I see people look at Lotus and I see the hunger.  I get it. I grok it. I fear it. I worry that something will happen to Lotus.  I wish I could wave a magic wand and let my friends and sister be the wonderful parents they were meant to be. I can't though so I brush my sadness for them off and hold my daughter's hand. I'm fine when she reaches her other hand to them because then my Lotus has someone else to love her.

Microblog Monday--Why you were cut

My sister's sister-in-law, H,  was let go after 20 years at her job.

To be totally honest, we have never been close, but she's machatunim and that's family. What's more she spent the better part of this past year undergoing major chemo and radiation therapy for (I forget the stage--but it was higher than 1) breast cancer. 

Oh yeah, her insurance went with the job--she's trying to see what she's supposed to do now. Thank heaven for Obamacare. 

She was assured that her health had nothing to do with the reason she was cut. 

And to this I say, bullshit. 


A friend just lost her job. She had been there for a dozen years.  It came three days after she finally got a positive pregnancy test after years of dealing with infertility, and is the result of her successful IVF.  As many readers know, IVF can lead to absences at work. She asked if this had something to do with it. 

She was told it did not. 

Again to this I say, bullshit. 


Almost two years ago I lost my job of ten years. I lost it shortly after I got back from FMLA leave. Three months to be exact. I insisted on taking the full FMLA leave I had a right to, instead of just the 5 week adoption leave which I acknowledge my former company was generous enough to give. 

If I had given birth to Lotus, I'd have been entitled to 3 months leave, but I'm not going there now. 

Three months after my return I was cut. I was told it had nothing to do with my new parental status. 

Again, to this I say, bullshit. 


I think that this is happening a great deal and I am fairly sure it is underreported. I think this is happening primarily to women who have health issues. If you know someone who had something like this happen, please comment and let me know. 

If you think I'm wrong, also please let me know. 

Thanks.

Walking in the shoes

Mel had a great post about how when you are dealing with Infertility you are more empathetic to someone else who is going through it.

And I kind of agree.
Kind of.

Because there comes a point where it isn't true. When one leaves IF island on a boat (pregnancy) or a plane (adoption). Someone is now calling you Mommy. You are now dealing with all the stuff with parenting and they aren't. It can't help but cause something to happen, a distance if you will. If you're still on that island, it hurts to see someone off of it. If you're leaving that island...sometimes you don't want to look back.

I can speak of this from both sides now.

In the middle of my IF, one of my friends was going through it too. Together we mourned with every appearance of AF. Then, on my birthday, she called me. I had been having a nice birthday too. I had had a massage and was watching a marathon of crappy reality tv.  We seldom talk on the phone--doing most of our friendship online. When she called I thought something was wrong. She was over the moon as she was finally pregnant. She was doing her happy dance--and she should. I just thought she might have waited a day to tell me. I hung up the phone and cried. It was one of the worst birthdays because I  couldn't stop crying. She had other friends call me and they all wanted to share the news with me and wasn't I happy for her?

She had no empathy for me whatsoever. A few days later she emailed and said she hoped she hadn't ruined my birthday. I told her she did and she apologized. We're still friends, but I don't trust her as I did. I never will trust her to that extent again.


Fast forward a few years.
We had come back from China with our beautiful Lotus. My older sister is in agony. She and her husband had decided not to adopt from China even though they had come to realize that adoption was the only way they would grow their family.While we waited, and waited, and waited this might have felt like it was the right call. Then, after all this time I have this little adorable child and she's calling me mom. We went to a family thing and I was packing up to leave. I made a joke about the traffic going home, something like "I'm relying on a merciful Gd. We'll see how that works." I looked up and wanted to swallow my tongue. I gave my sister a hug and she turned away. I followed up, apologized again and she said that she knew it would be hard, but not this hard.

I try so hard to make my sister feel welcome. It is helping. Lotus adores her and in spite of everything I would imagine that Lotus considers my sister one of her favorite people--and her second favorite aunt. Lotus' godmother being in that first place berth. I still have to walk that line though. It was easier to be  empathetic when I was still there--but that is no excuse for me not to be once I'm not.

And then there is the dead parents club..... More on that later.

Two years ago--yesterday.

Yesterday we celebrated our 2nd family day.  I wrote this article about it and I thought I would share it here. 

It was the most important day of my life and all I could think of was, Would I make it to the toilet

My husband, Dave and I were in China in a van going to our hotel to see our child for the first time. We had been told that we would meet our baby, the day after our arrival in Nanchang. I had it all planned. I’d have a bag of Cheerios for the baby. I knew I would sing “Baby Mine.” I would wear red—the color of joy in Chinese culture.

Why I should have expected this day to go as planned when nothing whatsoever in my motherhood journey had done so, I don’t know. First we went through fertility treatments. The medical establishment has innumerable ways to take the “sex” out of “sexy”—leaving me to wonder “y?” Was I fully a woman if I couldn’t bear a child? How was my marriage to work when sex became a chore—and someone other than the two of us made the schedule? After yet another doctor’s office called to tell me that the latest procedure hadn’t worked, the decision to adopt wasn’t so much a decision, as a level of defiance: I was going to be a mother.  We chose China.

If I thought fertility treatments had been invasive, the adoption journey brought invasiveness to a whole new level. We cleaned up our messy home and prayed that a speck of dust wouldn’t take our dream away when the social worker visited. We asked our friends to write recommendations for us. How many parents today would have children if their friends had to write references for them? We were fingerprinted so many times that it might have been cheaper had we built our own crime lab. We were “Paper Pregnant” and remained so for close to seven years.

Then we got the call, an email with sporadic information, and a picture. A little girl who was born the day I had miscarried my only pregnancy, was to be our child. She was sitting, unsmiling, against an orange background. She was wearing a pink outfit with yellow socks. She was the most beautiful baby we had ever seen. Another three months of hacking through the bureaucratic red tape and we were in China, our daughter’s birthplace.

 The day before we were supposed to meet our daughter, Dave and I, and another couple that would be meeting their soon-to-be-adopted daughter got off the plane in Nanchang, China.  We were assured that our guide would find us—and it was easy to see how. We were among very few Caucasians there. Our guide, Claire, introduced herself, helped us get our luggage, and told us, almost parenthetically that our babies would be waiting at the hotel and we had to get into the van quickly.  I stared at her. Was she trying to maybe make a joke? The other soon-to-be mother smiled and made joyful sounds. She obviously processed this better. My brain was a blank. I looked at my husband and I saw he was just as scared as I was. Then, of course, my body got into the action. I needed to use the bathroom.

In most of China a toilet consists of a ceramic hole in the ground with a place to put your feet. This is supposed to be excellent for your colonic health. If you’re a Westerner needing to defecate, it is the devil itself. I had used one, but I wanted to go to a Western toilet in the hotel.  I was hoping I would make it.

I tried to imagine our baby, soon to be renamed Lotus in my head. Was she walking? Did she have a temper? The information we had was eclectic and maddening. It said that when she got sick she got well quickly—but not what she had recovered from. It said she liked music—but not who sang it to her. It had the measurements of her anus—and I had some degree of pity for the poor worker who had to record that bit. All that info and I didn’t know her. What did she like to eat? What made her smile? Laugh? What made her fist her hands? Would she like us? Would I like her? Would I make it to the hotel to use a bathroom or would I embarrass myself before I met her?

We arrived at the hotel and I ran full-out to the Western toilets—in time! Afterwards, I walked to the ornate lobby of the hotel. The sun streamed in as I looked for Dave. I’d be lying if I said I remembered the expression on his face—all I saw was the little girl he was holding in his arms.  She still didn’t have much hair. She was wearing a long sleeved striped shirt in 95-degree weather and, her face was very red. That might also have been because she was screaming her lungs out. She didn’t seem to be afraid, more pissed off. I ran to my husband and held my arms out for our baby.

He placed a screaming weight of about 20 pounds into my arms. I started jostling, hoping to comfort her, and she screamed louder. I opened my mouth to sing and every song I’d ever learned went out of my head. I would have been hard pressed to do the ABC song.  I jostled more and her crying got even louder. I held her closer and she screamed right in my ear. Finally I heard myself singing:

“Oh stop your crying, it will be all right.

Just take my hand, hold it tight.

I will protect you from all around you.

I will be here, don’t you cry.”

As the next words of “You’ll Be in my Heart” from Tarzan came out of my mouth, my daughter stopped crying. My blue eyes met her deep brown ones, and she kept eye contact. I tried to put all the love I felt into my eyes. My voice broke as I sang about how she would be in my heart. I felt Dave’s arms come around us as we became a family of three. 

Mother's day

For the seven years we waited for Lotus Mother's day was hell.
For the five years we tried to become pregnant and failed Mother's day was hell.

Then was the year that we had our referral. The day after Mother's day we left to go to China. After much haggling Mom and Dad came and we went out for dinner. Thank Gd they did. That was the last mother's day I would have her.

I never got to be a mother and a child together on Mother's day. It hurts.

Last mother's day, the one that came a little more than a month after mom passed we spent with dad. We spent it doing things my mom would have hated. Went to a restaurant that she would't have liked.  I expected it to be a terrible day, but it was fun.

Which brings us to this year.
Sunday.

Dad doesn't want to meet this year. On Saturday my sister and I will be going out to his house and going through the kitchen. We haven't wanted to as that was mom's domain and I expect it to be a hell day. Then the next day is mother's day and we don't have plans.

That means the day is on my poor husband. And it isn't fair.

What I want for mother's day is simple and impossible.  I want to hold my mother's hand and feel her fingers running through my hair. I want to spend a day in the kitchen with her. I want to hear her say my name and tell me everything will be all right. I want my child to have real memories about her--not my memories.

I want to be my mother's child again.

But that can't happen.

Instead I will have what I wished for for so long. Little arms around my neck wishing me happy mother's day.  I will take joy in that and hope that my mom's voice inside me will be enough.

I end this with my mother's day wish.

For the mothers, I wish you a happy mothers day.
For those who have lost their mothers--I wish you comfort.
For those who are hoping to become mothers--I wish you luck and speed on your journey.
For those who are childless (not by choice)-- I wish you comfort and the knowledge you are not alone.
For those who are childfree by choice--You Go Girls! You made a decision to swim against the stream--go you!

I end this with a hope.
That next mother's day will have all the women who want to be mothers--as mothers.
That all mothers will hold their children tightly.
That all adult children will reconcile with their mothers if it is possible and comfortable to do so.
That all child-free women are made to feel empowered instead of ashamed.
And that the great mother of us all will grant us all peace.

"There are no great things, only small things with great love"--Mother Teresa (another woman who was never a mom!)  

Naptime

Lotus does not like taking naps.

She fights them with all her strength--and often wins.

But today. She's asleep. Cuddled next to her daddy who is also taking a nap.

It is beyond sweet how they are cuddled together.

All the time I waited. All the tests, the procedures, the tears. I wanted to see this, a little girl cuddled in the arms of the man I adore.

It was worth it.

Looking for my religion with a flashlight

I've been contemplating joining a temple.
I've been contemplating never joining a temple again.

I've been contemplating becoming more religious--more frum.
I've been contemplating leaving Judaism.

As you might have figured out I am conflicted about my religion. I should note that I am not conflicted about the existence of Gd. I have had enough proof to satisfy myself. Anyone who reads this who hasn't had that proof and doesn't believe in Gd--good on you! I don't have to disclose my proof--you don't have to disclose your doubts.

My religion--Conservative/Reform Judaism--that's another story. It fills me with conflicting emotions. I was raised in a Kosher home. I attended Hebrew School. I believed. I still do. Being Jewish is the way I worship. I feel clean on Yom Kippur. Lighting candles on Friday night comforts something in my soul. Going to services and saying the Mourners Kaddish for my mother is responsible for some of my healing. I know it is.

So why not join a temple?

Because when I needed them the most, I was abandoned by my religion and it made me feel abandoned by Gd.

Yes, I'm talking about Infertility.

In most religious ceremonies, Jewish ceremonies included, a lot revolves around the children. So what happens when you don't have children? Are you welcome? Well--kind of. You're welcome for the children that you might someday have.

Yes, when I was looking for temples, I was told by one that I should come back when I had children.
When I was trying to find a place to pray for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur I was told about one temple that had free services for young families. I said that I didn't have children. I was told that I could come too--like an afterthought.

When I attended services at my parents temple, on Rosh Hashanah, the new rabbi's sermon was about how women ran to the doctor too quickly to try to get pregnant. They should...wait for it...relax. I should mention that this rabbi was the father of six!

I went to services on Purim one year and I was asked where my kids were. I responded that if I was very lucky they'd be here in nine months. The person was insulted that I said that.

I had attended a new shul (new for me near our new house) and the Rabbi said I could come on Yom Kippur. She told me that she would leave word that I could go in. She forgot. I didn't have a ticket, my name wasn't on a list, and I was turned away from a shul on the holiest day of the year. Because my husband loves me, he got in the car and drove me to where I have been going for the past seven years. If I had not gone back to a shul that Yom Kippur--I would never have gone back again. My husband loves me and understand that being Jewish is as much a part of me as blue eyes. He didn't want me to lose that part of myself.

By the way--as a reminder--my husband isn't Jewish. A lot of these places he is made to feel like persona non grata because he married into the faith instead of being born into it. Many temples say he may be a "full member" except for religious attributes. That means they want him to pay a full membership, but not be a full member.

I want to raise Lotus to see the beauty in Sabbath Candlelights. I want her to feel like she personally was escorted out of Egypt on Passover. I want her to be Bat Mitzvah. I don't want her to be the only Asian in the congregation. I don't want her to be the only person of color in the congregation. I don't want her to be teased because she was adopted. Moses was adopted too.

I don't really know how to resolve these issues. I'm curious if others have ideas and how they have resolved them as well. Until then I will go one place to say Mourner's Kaddish. Bring Lotus to another for Tot Shabbat, and travel nearly an hour for the High Holidays. I'll do this until I find somewhere I fit in, or until I find somewhere that fits me.

February 4, 2013

It was two years ago today. 

Because of a wonderful woman named Rumor Queen and her website I knew that our wait was coming to an end. I knew that our "date" was in the referral batch. I had been calling our agency daily--twice daily to see if there was any news. The answer was always the same, "as soon as we know something, you'll know something."  It was said with gentle patience by a wonderful person, Julie, who had a kind voice and a sweet sense of humor.  

I had waited a weekend and it was a Monday. I was at work. I had already called the agency twice. The second time Julie said that the mail had come and there was no packet from China. She was so sorry, but it was going to be another day. I was polite on the phone, I said I waited six years, what was one more day. 

I hung up and I was so furious that I couldn't stay at my desk. I went downstairs and walked around the building so I could calm down. I cried a little bit. I got back to my desk and tried to concentrate on my work when my cell phone rang. I looked at it and saw it was the agency. What could they want? It wasn't going to be today. I was less than polite when I answered the phone. 

"Hey," I said in a grumbly tone. 

"Hi," Julie said. "Can I ask, is this your first child?"

What the ever loving hell did she need to know that for? I thought. 

"Yes." I replied in a growl. 

"Well, congratulations Momma, it's a girl!"

I'm told I screamed. I don't remember screaming. I remember falling off my chair to my knees.

"She's healthy." Julie said as if I wasn't turning into a blubbering wreck. "She's nine months old and she is beautiful." I cut her off because I promised D that we would see the picture together. I called D and screamed through the phone, "It's a girl! We got the referral!"  He said "I'm on my way home right now!!"

I ran and told my boss and got on my way home. Nine months old, I counted. She was born in May--around the time I had my one and only pregnancy and miscarriage. I got in the house and D was cleaning the kitchen so he wouldn't open his email. 

Together we opened the document and saw her face. As I'm going to try to maintain her privacy, I'm not posting the whole picture here--but I'm showing one of the things that struck me. Her little hand--it needed someone to hold it. From this day forward, D and I were to be that someone. We were going to hold her hand when she needed it--and sometimes when she didn't.  I also noticed her feet--this had been taken three months before, in December, when it was probably cold--and someone had put these yellow socks on her feet, to keep her warm. Someone cared to keep her warm. Then we looked at her birthday, she had been born on the day I miscarried. 

We called grandparents and siblings and friends. We were so over the moon that the paper pregnancy of six years had come to this conclusion. There would be new dates and a trip to China, but February 4th is when I became a mom.