Blue

Okay...unhappy day. I can't fully pinpoint exactly what triggered it as I haven't felt "depressed" like this in a while...a pregnant colleague at work got heaps of comments this morning, and then I started thinking about my career path again while being a panel member interviewing for our manager position. All five interviews these past two weeks have been bad or lacklustre. I chose not to apply because I want the work-life balance right now and the timing for another change is not good.

I'm also getting prepped for IVF #2 so I'm on week 3 of the birth control pill to quiet down my ovaries before the main event....so Gerry asked me if it was the meds. I said I don't think so.

More later....

19 hours

I got a text from Gerry yesterday: call your mom – there is a baby for adoption in India. My heart stopped for a few seconds and I finally got a hold of her after a few tries. In India, they have apparently banned gender screening due to the high number of abortions of baby girls so now more girls are being put forward for adoption – reasons due to poverty and traditional views of dowries, gender roles and sons providing for their elders.

My uncle in India told us a family who has known our family for over 40 years just had their third baby girl. She is one day old. The family is quite poor and cannot even pay for the cesarean section. They were not selling their baby, only wanting her to be with Gerry and I so that she is provided with all the opportunities they could not give her. My aunt said the elder sisters were completely healthy, and very cute and fair skinned with slightly Asian eyes. It seemed perfect yet I knew there could be some huge obstacles.

Thoughts were going back and forth in my head about whether we are ready…this could take 6 months or maybe a year for the process to complete. I’m finishing my Master’s degree, we are doing the “last round” of treatment soon (albeit you never know what is the last round until you get there). This news was sudden but I needed to look into the process.

I inquired with the agency in BC who rejected us earlier this year to start the regular adoption process because our infertility treatments were not completed yet, and we needed to “mourn” our childlessness.  They said relative adoptions are possible but I needed to contact the agency out of Toronto that they work with for all adoptions in India. Immigration looks at these adoptions carefully to ensure there is no child trafficking of older kids, and that they are brought over under the applied circumstances i.e. not to sponsor a child for their education where they should be applying for immigration under a different route. She said that our case for a newborn adoption would be less bureaucratic.

I then called a social worker in Toronto and I spoke to someone very briefly. She said she would call me back in 10 minutes but did not. With the time difference it was likely too late in the day.

At dinner, Gerry and I both admitted we were starting to feel a bit excited, We felt ready. I googled and googled and found out that the current guidelines for relative adoptions were in revisions, and have been for a while – uh oh. I knew how Indian bureaucracy works and even though they said it will be done in a couple months from now I had my doubts. We knew that relative adoption would be scrutinized and thought private adoption could be possible. We did not want to be blacklisted for any reason if our application got rejected, but knew we got screwed over before in the adoption process for being too honest about our infertility treatments. Knowing this may not be possible in either route, I still started to visualize what this baby girl looked like. I thought of a possible name. 

The social worker called me back this morning. I asked them how relative adoptions work and how much of a distance the relation can be, and if there needs to be a biological/blood connection or if the relation could be through an in-law. I also asked if the relation was too distant, can the birthparents simply choose us as the adoptive parents. Finally, where does the child get placed during this process as I was worried about the birthparents changing their minds and if the child is placed in an orphanage how long would it be. She said there are a number of issues in play:

• ·    India’s guidelines have been under review for the past 18 months and their assurances to have them complete month after month keeps getting delayed. They currently have forty families who have been waiting to adopt relatives, including newborns, for the past 3-5 years. Their applications are completely on hold until these guidelines, which are ironically intended to speed up adoptions for children under the age of three, are completed.
• ·    They would like to see a severance with the birthparents, otherwise questions arise as to why the child cannot be cared for.  The child should ideally be placed with another family member in the interim. A local orphanage may not take them due to the circumstances and their resources, and if the child is abandoned there without a legal agreement, the child is available to any domestic or international couple on the waitlist.
• ·    The more distance the relation, the more it will be scrutinized and viewed as a private adoption. Private adoptions are prohibited internationally for those countries under the Hague Treaty. I didn’t ask why but suspect it is to avoid the selling of children.
• ·    They are willing to review if this relation would hold up to standards established under the Hague Treaty but forewarns with all the other obstacles, the regular adoption process, even though at a minimum of $40,000 and 2-3 year wait, may be a better route.

And then 19 hours after receiving that first text message, the partially inflated balloon slowly let out all its air…. a baby girl in India will end up in someone else’s arms.

Father's Day

Thinking of all fathers who heard the heartbeat but never held their child, who held their child when the heartbeat was gone, and those fortunate enough to raise their living children. Also to those who yearn to be fathers, and to those who act as father figures such as single moms, uncles, partners, and boyfriends.

A blog from our friend about Father's Day:

My Existential Father’s Day

• June 14, 2013
• 0 Comments

Hearing your child’s heartbeat for the first time is one of the most profound moments you can have in your life.  The intense feeling brings on a rush of euphoria which can bring a tear to any grown man.  He will catapult back and forth in time and space imagining every pivotal moment between him and his child.  The first time he holds her…   his dance with her at her wedding…   encouraging her to crawl…    walking her to school…

These proud moments in time overshadow the pitfalls in my own life, the battles with self-confidence as a teenager, the lack of attention from my own father, and random failures as I discover my self worth.  I see myself as the protector.  I will teach my child how to overcome common anxieties by being an available, motivated, and attentive father, learning from what was absent from my own life.

When the birthday arrived, I anticipated this indescribable rush of euphoria to resurface.  To look into her eyes and see everything I was and everything she would make me.  I would hold her and be her strength.  I would teach her how to make it through this world.  We would be inseparable…

After my son was born, I chose to take five months of paternity leave.  For many reasons the timing worked.  My wife went back to school, one contract ended and I was assured another one when I chose to return to work, and it was a very precious time in his life.  Any uncertainties about having taken this extended leave from work vanished when I realized there is only one month remaining of my leave.  He has grown so much in my time with him and it pains me to think that work will take me away from his day to day life.

I know his sleeping rituals, how to make him laugh, the games he likes to play, the foods he has eaten and the colour of his poop.  On our walks together I have met many many people who look and smile at me as they pass.  Some commend me on my dedication to my son, others try to provoke a smile from him, which he is always ready to give.

He is a happy boy and I am very proud of him.  I am fulfilling my obligations as a father and it shows.  This is what it feels like to be a father.  We will have more days like this, I will teach him so much, and we will be best buddies.  The future looks bright…

It was moments like these that rushed through me when I heard her first heartbeats and when I saw her on our ultrasound.  But before she would say her first words and take her first steps, she would have to be born.

My daughter was born almost two years before my son.  The intense feelings of love and pride overwhelmed me at times.  I looked forward to my time with her, to teach her and learn from her.  I would walk with her until she fell asleep and support her when she stood up.

But before she could stand and before she would crawl, she died.

And before she died, she had a heartbeat.

Her heartbeat showed me my future, what kind of father I was to become, and lifted me to a level of euphoria I have never experienced.  From that moment, I waited impatiently to hold her.  When I would look into her eyes I expected to see my future and it would be awesome.  But she never opened her eyes.  I was robbed, the door was closed.  That same rush of euphoria I first felt during her first ultrasound never came.

My third Father’s Day is upon me.  Or is it my first Father’s Day.  It’s my third with Amelia, it’s my first with my son.  It will be happy, I know that much, but it will also be melancholy.  First we will go to the cemetery, then lunch, a movie and dinner.  I will enjoy my time with my son, but shield myself from the oblivious salutations from people on this very commercial day.  

For my fear is that when people look at me with my son, they will see me as a first time dad, much like they saw my wife on Mother’s Day.

We have come along way, my wife and I.  We survived and we have the scars to prove it.  We are closer now then ever before, it is because of our daughter and it is because of our son.  As we continue to walk the path, you see us as three, but we are four.

http://still-lifecanada.ca/01/uncategorized/existential-fathers-day

Serenity

One of my favourite Uncles passed away this week. He was the one who sponsored our whole family to emigrate from India, was a pioneer as the Executive Director of Engineering for Boeing and worked on projects for the US military and NASA that he couldn't even tell his kids about, and was such a decent and caring person. He was also an amazing father and encouraged his daughter to study mechanical engineering - a rarity at the time, and was supportive of my family when my mom divorced my dad when I was six years old - a rarity for Indian families, especially at that time.

Some of the things I wrote about him to my cousins were:

Uncle was always a role model to me as well as a father figure. I remember the advice he gave us on education, careers and family, the love he had for our family every time we came to Seattle, the visits to Vancouver where he would take our directions and draw detailed maps with specific symbols for bridges and rivers, the first good glass of wine he served me (plus the Banana Rum from the Caribbean), the speeches he gave at Sanjay and Steve’s weddings about marriage and companionship, his snoring through the bedroom and even hotel walls, the discussions about his Republican loyalty coming from a confused Canadian-US-wannabee-Democrat, and of course the airplanes – lots of airplanes. Over the years, I’ve told Gerry so much about his character and how highly respected he was personally and professionally. I have been meaning to read his books, especially his journey from India and will do so now. 

My cousin sent me this passage from the Serenity Prayer in remembrance of his Dad. My Uncle's life motto:

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

I have been thinking about this a lot over the past few days in reflection of us being unable to achieve a viable pregnancy...the looming fact that the next round of treatment and possible decision to adopt may still leave us childless. I'm trying to think of it as more courageous than defeating for couples in our situation to accept that one cannot change things that they have no control over, and to not feel embarrassed and defensive about it, but for right now, I'm not there yet ...but maybe an inch closer.

God bless you, Uncle.

Violated

I had my second operative hysteroscopy today in follow up to my blog a couple months ago Explaining the Unexplained  where I needed to remove a bit of scar tissue from my uterus before we try again.

But this time the procedure was with no full anesthesia, so I fasted just in case I got some type of weird aspiration pneumonia again from the local anesthetic only to be told when I got there at noon that I didn't need to fast.  I thought I was going to get a light sedative and painkillers. Nope! I don't exactly classify some pre-operative advil and tylenol as painkillers!!!

The procedure was only 15 minutes, and although I have a very high pain tolerance level and have had a number of procedures involving my vag-ig-i done thus far, thoughts of why the fuck didn't I get fully knocked out! and for god's sake are kids really worth this freaking pain! kept surfacing through my head. 

In the end, the doc said the scar was really minor so I didn't know if that made me feel better or not!

Baby Boom

I met with my "group" pals tonite, one of them nicknamed it "glee club" which I found funny. We no longer formally meet at the hospital on a regular basis because sometimes new people would attend and their experiences were quite raw so it was hard for us to tell them it would all be better. Plus, more than half of our group is now pregnant or just had a baby so it is hard to be visibly pregnant around women who have just lost their babies. It's also easier for us (at least me) to laugh and carry conversations on non-baby loss topics outside the formal setting.  I have to say I feel so happy for them after all they have been through even though of course I would love to have that bump too. We can still talk about OBs, carseats, and other normal things new and expecting mom's talk about, but also about their fear, anxiety, post-poning pregnancy announcements, and of course no pre-baby shower planning. They also provide the same sensitivity to the rest of us non-preggers regardless of their news and ask us sincerely how we are doing. No avoidance of asking/ fear of upsetting someone but respectful if someone doesn't wish to divulge that day. Different than some other forums I've been in. Gotta love these gals.

What to expect...

Guess they have branched out now....how about "What to expect when you don't know what the hell to expect?"


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