Archive for the ‘The Journey to Parenthood’ Category
March 3, 2011 | By: Liz | Filed under: adoption,Faith and Infertility,Peace to Parenthood,Personal Musings,The Journey to Parenthood,Thinking Out Loud
Today is a day on which I usually hide under the covers. Fortunately, I have the flu and have an excuse to hide from the world. Although for the first time in many years I don’t think I really need or want to hide. Progress and peace do come, although sometimes long after we experience a loss or a setback on our path to parenthood.
Today is the birthday of one of my children. For privacy reasons I am going to call him James, but that isn’t the name we gave him.
On this day several years ago my husband and I, and our son, were racing in our car to meet a birth mother who was in labor. I had been talking with this birth mother for many months and we had a solid and even loving relationship. I felt a special bond with her and I was thrilled when she invited me to attend her baby’s birth. Unfortunately, my husband and I just missed James’s birth, but we were there with his birth mother within hours of his arrival in this world.
While nurses frantically attended to James’s birth mother due to complications from his birth, my husband and I sat on a couch in the family area of the maternity center and held our new son. Aware of my plans to breast feed James, a breast feeding specialist came by to help me get James settled and contentedly nursing. Later that evening the social worker from our adoption agency arrived and after getting checked out by the attending pediatrician and approved for discharge, the social worker went in to sit with James’s birth mother and discuss whether she was ready to sign her relinquishment forms.
Every state law varies as to when a birth mother can sign these documents — most states require that birth parents have to wait a day or even more after the baby’s birth before the birth parents can sign the appropriate legal documents. Under the laws of the state that was governing our adoption, James’s birth mother could sign her relinquishment papers at any time after he was born. She had a relatively short period of time after signing them in which she could choose to parent and after that period of time her parental rights (and those of James’s birth father) would automatically be terminated. She could also choose to appear in court before the time period had ended and relinquish her parental rights even earlier. We had discussed it many times and she had decided to appear in court; she didn’t want to feel the pressure of waiting for the days to pass before the adoption was irrevocable.
After what seemed like an endless visit, our social worker came out and told us that James’s birth mother had signed the papers and we could go home with James that night! We were told his birth father had already signed the papers earlier that day. Elated but still nervous, my husband packed up our things and collected our older son’s toys off of the floor where he was playing, while I finished breast feeding. I visited with James’s birth mother and we said a very tearful goodbye.
Exhausted from a long drive and a very emotional day, we drove to our hotel now a family of four. The next several days were a blur while we waited for ICPC approval to drive home. When you adopt a child from a state that is different from where you live, The Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) requires that both the state in which the child is born and the state where you live approve the adoption; each state reviews all of the requisite paperwork to ensure that it complies with the law and once you have approval from both states you can travel home. It seemed like we were in a state that had a very slow ICPC office.
Anyone who has gone through it knows that living in a hotel with a newborn while waiting for ICPC approval is excruciating. We filled the days with a visit to a local pediatrician, introducing our older son (still an infant himself) to his new brother, meeting James’s birth grand parents, and with me learning to juggle breast feeding two babies. Several days after bringing James home, while we were getting up in the morning and getting organized for another day of waiting for ICPC approval, the phone rang. My husband and I both jumped for the phone assuming it was our social worker calling to tell us we had received approval to go home. We were not so lucky.
She was instead calling to say that James’s birth mother had changed her mind and chosen to parent. She wanted James. His birth father still supported the adoption plan but wanted to support the mother of his son. He thus advised our adoption agency that he too was choosing to parent.
Devastated and frightened, we spoke with the attorney from our adoption agency to review our legal options. The good news was that the laws of the state governing our adoption were very favorable to adoptive parents. Some states automatically return a baby to its birth mother or father when she/he chooses to parent and the adoptive parents face an uphill battle to regain custody and adopt the baby. It was the reverse for us. If we chose to fight to keep James, his birth parents were facing an uphill battle to prove that they would provide a safe and loving home for James.
After talking about it with our attorney and our social worker, and having a long heart to heart conversation, my husband and I agreed that we wanted to honor James’s birth mother’s decision. Although we were heartbroken beyond measure, we knew in our hearts that this was what was best for James. I packed up a small bag of things that James liked and that would smell familiar to him. I breast fed him one last time and told him how much we loved him and that he would always be a part of my heart. Crying, I tucked him into his car seat and my husband handed the bag and the car seat to our social worker. She too was crying.
And James went back to his birth family.
No longer restricted by ICPC laws, we immediately packed up the car. The drive home seemed endless. I sat in the back seat with our other son, unable to think. The entire car ride I don’t think my husband or I said a word to each other. We weren’t angry, we were just very, very sad. I saved a small photo album of pictures of all of us, and a box with some of the clothes he wore when he was with us. When I got home and walked through the front door carrying an empty car seat instead of two full car seats, it hit me and it hit me hard. I started grieving at a depth I didn’t even know existed. There were a few days that I don’t know how I survived. I think that had we not already had a child I wouldn’t have been able to deal with the loss of James. It didn’t matter that I knew we made the right decision, it still felt like he had died. That is, and was, the only way I could deal with my feelings. For me, James died several days after he was born and every year on his birthday and on the day “he went back” I have hidden under the covers and grieved.
A few years ago I accidentally found out through our adoption agency that “James” is doing well and is living with his birth mother. But that wasn’t MY James. It was someone else’s child they were talking about. My husband asked me if it made me feel better to know that he was safe and loved, and to be honest, it didn’t. It didn’t make it better. Sure I was glad he was healthy and happy but it wasn’t MY child who was healthy and happy. MY child had died. Even though we never regretted our decision, it still felt like he had died; and a piece of me died with him.
This year, however, for reasons I am at a loss to explain, it isn’t as painful as it used to be. I woke up knowing exactly what day it is but the grief was not overwhelming. I didn’t want to hide under the covers. In fact, I wanted to go straight into my office and help someone have a baby, TODAY. People have been telling me for years that it would get easier and I never believed them. But they were right, finally the day has come when it is easier to bear his loss.
I sent my husband a text message a little while ago wishing James a happy birthday and then I kissed my daughter and my other son. And I went on with my day trying to help someone get closer to being a mother or father.
I did not know much about relinquishment and revocation rights when I started pursuing adoption with my husband. I knew that there was always a risk a birth mother could choose to parent — and for what it is worth, I have since learned that more than 98% of birth mothers and fathers who choose to parent, do so before the adoptive parent takes the baby home. But I didn’t know that then and it wouldn’t have stopped us from taking James home from the hospital. At the time, his birth mother seemed resolute in her decision to place James for adoption and that is all that I thought mattered.
I also didn’t know the importance or nuances of the laws regarding revocation of consent. I am glad our adoption agency found such a good attorney for us, one who advised us regarding the advantages of using the laws of the state where we lived to govern the adoption rather than the laws of the state where James was born. Although the outcome would have been the same, we would not have had any choice to fight for James had we used the laws of the state where he was born. (For reasons other than those surrounding relinquishment and revocation, James’s birth mother elected to use the laws of the state where we lived rather than where she planned on delivering. Typically it is the birth mother’s choice as to what law will apply to your adoption plan).
I never thought I would need to take advantage of those laws, but when faced with the enormous decision of whether or not to fight for James it was comforting and important for us to know that while prospective legal proceedings would be taking place, James would live with us (his birth mother and father would be given regular visitation), and unless they had a very compelling case we were told we had a very good chance that a Judge would determine that James would stay with us, forever.
Do I recommend going into your adoption with a contingency plan for what would happen if you were in my shoes? Absolutely not! Statistics and my own experience as an adoption attorney all indicate that what happened to us won’t happen to the vast, vast majority of adoptive parents. But I did do something stupid in not knowing more about adoption and how the laws in various states would impact potential adoption plans. It is really important to know when and under what circumstances a birth family can choose to parent, when the adoption becomes irrevocable and even more important for many prospective adoptive parents, how long it is before a birth parent can even sign the documents necessary to relinquish their parental rights. If you know this information in advance, you might choose not to advertise in a state where the laws require you to wait a longer period of time for the relinquishment documents to become irrevocable, or choose to advertise in a state where relinquishment documents are irrevocable upon signing.
Knowledge and information are power. If you are pursuing a domestic newborn adoption, find out about the laws of the states in which you are advertising or those of the states in which you live and where the birth parents live. Talk to your adoption professional about what your options are at various points in time and think about what you can handle emotionally. For most prospective adoptive parents, there has already been a period of infertility treatment and loss that has taken place before their adoption journey starts. You may need to factor in what you’ve already been through when you are thinking about this stuff. And please keep in mind that sometimes you don’t have a choice and you have to use a particular state’s laws. But most adoptive parents don’t think about this first and don’t know what their rights are or what they could be if they made certain decisions.
I am always saddened by stories I hear of people being involved in adoptions where they had no awareness of the legal issues presented by the location of the birth parents, or of the legal implications presented by a birth father situation or the existence of multiple potential birth fathers. Do your research before you start out or while you are going through the process. Initiate conversations with the adoption professionals you are using as you are making decisions and taking steps along the path toward adoptive parenthood.
My husband and I were very lucky that our agency had selected such a good attorney who made some very good and practical decisions that benefited both James’s birth mother and us as we embarked on our adoption plan together. It probably wouldn’t have changed anything had we not been so well-informed but I am glad that we did have all the information to make an educated decision.
James is where he belongs, safe in my husband’s and my heart and a very special scrapbook. And there is a very happy little boy somewhere celebrating his birthday with his mother, just as it was, and is meant to be. Happy birthday baby!
September 23, 2010 | By: Liz | Filed under: Age and Infertility,Egg Donation,IVF,The Journey to Parenthood,Thinking Out Loud,Third-Party Assisted Reproduction,Treatment
Most people who know me, know that I am in my mid-early 40’s. Turning 40 wasn’t a big deal for me. I have such a baby face that sometimes I have a hard time getting people to take me seriously. Turning 40 for me was a milestone of maturity I had long waited for. You have to take a woman in her 40’s seriously. If for no other reason than you’ve got the mileage to deserve it. And yes, thanks to amazing strides in modern medicine (not to mention Botox® and Viagra®), people are living longer and are taking the time to enjoy their life; people are doing things later in life and enjoying them with the vigor and spirit of someone fifteen to twenties years younger. No longer are we rushing ala “Mad Men” into marriage and childbearing in our 20’s. Women are taking the time to establish themselves and find the right mate. Forty has thus become to the former Twenty-Somethings, what 30 was to our parents’ generation.
There is a lot more fun to be had and work to be accomplished, praise to be garnished and shopping for hot “Jeggings” (well maybe not for me) to be done in one’s 40’s. The “not your mom’s kind of jeans” have given way to a new look for those of us who are fabulous and 40: long hair and tight jeans are acceptable on a 40 year old woman’s body. No longer are these considered unacceptable for a woman of a “certain age”! No longer does turning 40 qualify you as a “woman of a certain age” and for that matter, neither does turning 50!! As a dear friend of mine recently turned 40 and all her friends gave her a shout-out on Facebook (and yes, someone not yet 40 begged my friend to confirm that 40 is the new 30), it was generally considered among her already 40 friends that turning 40 was a cause for celebration. So yes, my friends, your 40’s are a decade to be embraced and not dreaded.
Except for one small, “eensy weensy” factor of which no woman should ignore and most women to my surprise are unaware of . . . have you met
The NOvary?
Who or What is the NOvary? Well, let me fill you in! The NOvary is the any-woman’s ovary who has decided not to cooperate with her plans to become a mother. The NOvary does not care if you’re 30, 35 or 40. She can and does reside in all women of all ages. However, she tends to emerge with more Attitude at or around the time you turn 35. And by the time you turn 40, the NOvary has almost universally decided to take over your reproductive system and your Plan. The NOvary defies what medical science and a good cosmetic dermatologist have allowed us to enjoy — another decade of productivity and passion for all things, most especially those career, clothing or relationship related. Because let’s face it, not every woman is ready to, or wants to have a child, in her 30’s. Indeed, we have been taught to wait and enjoy, and to relish life! And we should!! But then as we turn 40 and we’ve lined all our nice little ducks in a row, or decided we don’t need our ducks to be in a row, and we consider parenting, we come face to face with the not-so-new but seemingly unknown nemesis to pregnancy and motherhood:
The NOvary.
The NOvary is the Ovary that says NO to all your carefully defined and created plans. In the world of fertility, or rather infertility, 40 is from the reproductive endocrinologist’s standpoint, the death of your childbearing years. The NOvary has not run a slick social media champagne – in fact it’s quite the opposite – she has been enjoying our ride along with us all the while knowing her little secret, and enjoying her secret power. The NOvary is the Ovary that no longer makes healthy eggs and she is so stealthy and sophisticated that you can actually conceive on your own for a few years as she gains her power and comes into her prime. But even though she hasn’t hit her full capabilities to destroy your dreams (or so you think) her influence over the eggs she releases on your behalf will cause you to miscarry, and miscarry again. Lulled into a false sense of security that your eggs are working because you are getting pregnant, she continues to work her evil spell, pushing you farther and farther into her control.
So powerful is the NOvary that she can continue to elude you into believing that you are still fertile even though you’re 40. So powerful is the NOvary that she can fool even the smartest of reproductive endocrinologists who will look at all your Day-3 data, manage to retrieve some very “healthy” looking eggs from your ovaries, only to find that those fertilized eggs and “beautiful” preembryos don’t turn into the baby you are longing for. The NOvary can place the cleverest of masks on eggs that are on the verge of retiring, and making them look as fabulous as you do in your 40 something glory. But the NOvary knows: your eggs have long since passed their expiration date.
How do I know this? How did I meet the dreaded and feared NOvary? Over hundreds (and I unfortunately mean hundreds) of my clients have battled her, failed to defeat her, and then faced the reality that (whether they are Thirty-Somethings or Forty-Somethings, married, career in place, or otherwise just determined to become a mom), if they want to realize their dreams of becoming pregnant and having a baby that they would need to bypass the NOvary altogether.
Yes, we can defeat the NOvary. You still have options and a powerful weapon to defeat the NOvary; one of those options is donor eggs and your success rate using donor eggs is about 50 to 60 times higher (perhaps more than that) than your chances are of defeating the NOvary. Yes, you read that correctly, success rates for using donor eggs are (at some fertility clinics) close to a 60% live birth rate!
Just as medical science has preserved your beauty and created a body that does not look, act or feel anywhere near 40, it has created a technology that can put the NOvary out of business! But be warned, while 40 is truly the new 30 . . . the NOvary has no intention of catching up with the rest of us, and if you want to have a baby and you haven’t yet decided to TTC or the TTCing isn’t going anywhere, consider the fact that she may be up to her devilish deeds.
Celebrate your age and enjoy your life . . . but please don’t forget she’s out there . . . looming in the shadows and finding new ways to avoid detection by physicians and scientists alike . . . and her name is the NOvary!
Liz
p.s. up next, another option for defeating the NOvary . . . stay tuned!
Tags: biological clock, Egg Donation, Facebook, IVF, miscarriage, premature ovarian failure
August 19, 2010 | By: Liz | Filed under: Current Affairs,Egg Donation,Faith and Infertility,In the News,Infertility In The Movies etc.,Peace to Parenthood,Personal Musings,The Journey to Parenthood,Thinking Out Loud,Uncategorized,visualization
Everyone knows that I am fan of Jennifer’s. I actually probably wouldn’t be married to my DH if it wasn’t for some advice her mom gave me a long time ago. But seriously, Jennifer is an extraordinary woman in all respects, and from my perspective even more so for the way she is approaching her quest to be a mom.
At 41, most of know that Jennifer is likely to be facing some fertility issues (although with her health conscious lifestyle and yoga-bod maybe she’s found the way to turn back time, she sure looks it anyway!). While most of us would be doing a little freak-out dance now, and panicking about the ticking time bomb that are our ovaries, Ms. Aniston seems anything but panicked. In fact, she seems rather Zen about it all. And that is exactly my point and what inspires me.
First, the woman KNOWS she is going to be a mom. One way or another the woman has total and complete faith that she will become a mom. Rather than spiraling into depression (as I did and many of us do), Jennifer has seemed to have found a way to let go and TRUST. This is, I think, the gateway to success.
I really truly believe that it is when you completely accept and embrace the concept that you will be a mother, no matter what and no matter how (IUI, IVF, IVF donor egg, gestational surrogacy, adoption, whatever is your path), that fertility treatments have the highest success rates. Study after study shows that the mind-body connection cannot and should not be ignored. Women who are able to be in the place that Jennifer Aniston seems to be in, are the women who are more likely to succeed with fertility treatments. It’s fact not fiction. I know — as does JA — that she’s got an edge on success that I wish more of my friends and clients had: The inner-knowingness of the inevitability of their impending state of motherhood.
Another thing that I think sets her apart from many of us (and I include myself in this group when I was in the first 4 or 5 years of treatment), is that by all media accounts, she seems fairly open to many different paths to parenthood. I am not privy to her conversations with her BFF’s but I am guessing that there isn’t much she isn’t considering about how she’s going to become a mom. That too puts her on the fast track to “mommydom”. Not all of us can be as enlightened and confident as she is, and I am not saying that she doesn’t have her moments of . . . doubt . . . but I really think that the confidence and openness that Jennifer Aniston is talking about whenever she is interviewed about becoming a mom is something that tells me it ain’t gonna be long before she’s announcing the arrival or the impending arrival of a little baby Aniston.
And for what its worth, I think she’s a fantastic role model for every woman, single or married, over the age of 35 who’s trying to become a mom.
ASSUME IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN, AND IT WILL.
p.s. and when you can’t totally assume it will happen, fake it, fake it until you make-it . . . because that’s another sure fire way to get your mommy-Zen fire burning.
Tags: actresses, adoption, biological clock, Egg Donation, hollywood, hope, infertility, Inspiration, intent, movies, Peace to Parenthood, visualization
May 4, 2010 | By: Liz | Filed under: Faith and Infertility,Peace to Parenthood,Personal Musings,The Journey to Parenthood,Thinking Out Loud
Today I saw a pregnant woman on my way home from dropping off my son at school. I had been in this really amazing place of feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for my life and my children. I was literally weeping at this vision of a train of school buses leaving his elementary school. I had him in the back seat. This was my dream for years and now I am among those whom I envied. I am a MOM. It was the most beautiful moment and I stopped myself to “appreciate” the appreciation in my heart. I stopped myself to thank the Universe. I looked in the rear view mirror and told my son I loved him. Life was full, rich and I was blessed.
I dropped him off and debated which way to drive home. I opted for the way I came so I might catch a glimpse of those school buses again. I could have chosen a faster route home, and a stop at Starbucks, but I wanted to see those buses and feel that wonderful sense of perfection and rightness again. I wanted to hold onto it for as long as I could. Soon, I knew, the day would interrupt and I would be struggling to find that sense of peace and joy. Maybe I should have taken a right instead of the left and gone to Starbucks. My day sure as hell would have been easier.
Because whammo there she was. She was hugely pregnant. She was wearing a white shirt that barely stretched across her belly. She was big and beautiful and I could see her belly button sticking out from a 1/4 of a mile away. With a sudden intake of breath I went crashing from an emotional space of rightness and calm, free falling my way to the depths of despair. Choose the profane word you like most and insert it here. Mine begins with an “F”.
WHY???? Why does this continue to bug me. Why cannot I get past my need to be pregnant. My life is full and rich, and challenging and amazing and hard and beautiful . . . just as it is intended to be. And yet one siting of a woman filled with the life that I have yet to bear and I turned into a weeping mass of depression. I pulled the car over to watch her for a few moments, turned on the Dixie Chics’ song about infertility, and had a good cry.
I imagine my heartbreak this morning was more real because I recently lost an unexpected pregnancy. I spent a little over a week of my life living in wonder at the miracle of nature and my body that I could conceive at 43 without Lovenox and without donor sperm. According to the ultrasound, I was 5w4d when I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t keep the ultrasound because I didn’t want another reminder. I knew the pregnancy wouldn’t stick. That was too much to ask for. But I did live with this beautiful secret for much longer than I expected to until the inevitable . . . .
Now I am struggling to make sense of this accident. My body is still recovering, and I am sure I am 100% normal in my response to that which I long to have, and see all around me, and all too often. It is Spring and I have always noticed that I see more pregnant women in the Spring. It sucks that so far this experience has been denied to me. I sat in the car praying that one day that the Universe will let me carry a child to term. I also accepted the fact that there is a lot of work and change that I realize I must do if I want to realize my dream (another subject in and of itself).
But what shocks me is that I/we can go from such unbelievable peace, contentment and gratitude to the depths of despair so quickly. This is what infertility brings us. I have been thinking alot about this infertility rollercoaster thing we’re on. I don’t think it’s a roller coaster anymore. I think it’s more like bungy jumping. Every attempt we make at conception or adoption is like diving off a bridge with a seemingly thin rope tethered to your ankle. Will the rope be strong enough to pull us up before we hit the ground? Is it short enough to prevent us from smashing into the ground or will we crash and burn? There is so much faith that goes into that bungy jump, so much strength and bravery that we need in order to let go and try and feel the sensation of falling safely. Or to try and feel the the glory of the wind rushing past our face and facing the risks and fears that the “velcro” won’t stick. My velcro didn’t stick this time and boy did I crash and burn.
But I learned something too. I learned that I don’t want to give up my dream of carrying a child. I’m willing to do the work and face the risks inherent in striving for this as my reality. I learned that I am willing to dive off of the bridge again. In fact, I am craving and longing for that opportunity. I am officially no longer risk adverse and have put nothing but my happiness and the desire to fill each and every one of my dreams — not just being pregnant, but all of what I need and want as a person but have been too afraid to ask for because of what it might mean to the rest of my life, or how it might impact the rest of my life. I decided that my children deserve a happy mother, not just a good mother but one who is happy and fulfilled by all aspects of her life and her being-ness. Indeed, I think now that if I hadn’t had the miscarriage I might have failed to teach my children a valuable lesson: to believe in yourself and your dreams. I discovered I am brave and strong.
I know now with a certainty that words cannot convey that my children came to me out of my faith that I would be a mother; that the events and circumstances in my life have all had meaning both in the way they came to be and because of the time at which they were realized. The Universe plays a roll in everything that happens, there is no coincidence to anything that has happened to me. All of it was part of my own divine inspiration. And with that divine inspiration I will get to a place where I am standing on top of the bridge again waiting to feel the rush of wind, the freedom in the free fall and the unknown, and the joy and terror of staring my demons in the face and waiting to feel the cord tied around my leg catch me as the velcro finally sticks. There is more to my journey through infertility. Of that I am certain. Of the outcome, I am certain in that too.
I have spoken with three clients today. All of whom feel as I do. That the journey seems too hard but that there must be purpose to it. One client left me the most beautiful voice mail last week, thanking me for being a part of her family’s journey and telling me not to give up on my own (she didn’t know about the miscarriage but she must have sensed that I have been depressed and struggling with many different issues in my life and my family). She also said that she knew one thing with certainty, that their journey was enriched by knowing me. I was moved to tears. My experience as a woman, as a lawyer, as an infertility patient are enriched by each of my clients. As I help them with their contracts, with their search for a birth parent, with the daily ups and downs that come on this path, I learn new ways of expressing hope, of finding peace in each moment, of being grateful for what I do have and in renewing my faith in what is possible. I am as grateful for each of my clients as I hope one day they will be (or are) for the work that I do for them. But no one has ever expressed their appreciation or gratitude as she did. I know I am doing exactly what I was intended to do and I would not be doing this work had I not endured 4 IUI’s, 7 attempted (six completed) IVF Cycles, 3 adoptions, and now ten miscarriages. It all had purpose.
This morning as I sat in my car having my cry I wondered why it is so hard (as the Dixie Chics sang so eloquently). Is there is a reason it is so hard? And I realized that there is a reason. It is because it’s part of learning that the process doesn’t have to be hard. I can instead choose to believe in the outcome I want. What is hard is the fact that we don’t allow ourselves to believe in what is possible. And in not believing in what is possible, we prevent it from taking place.
It is not easy to go from the pain and grief I felt this morning to having total and complete faith that my dream will one day be a reality. But if I don’t hold steadfast to that dream and believe in believing, the velcro will never have a chance to stick. These last few months I have discovered a place inside me that is strong and fearless. I know without a doubt that I have the power to create my dreams. I am glad I saw that pregnant woman this morning, and I am glad that I spent time weeping for the child I just lost. But that child is a reminder that my body works, that my dream is alive, and that I am moving closer to it. We are all moving closer to it, as long as we create the vision and believe it will happen, we are moving toward its’ creation. In this case, it’s the creation of our child and/or our family.
It’s okay to have hard days. The hard days make us understand how worthwhile the journey is and make us appreciate the easy days more. Today, I am taking baby steps toward my next baby’s steps. I don’t know when, but I do know it will BE. What I can’t do is allow the hardness of the process overtake the belief in its outcome.
If you too are having a hard day, remember that you’re not alone. And remind yourself to hold onto your dream and to make it more and more vivid every day. Your baby, and mine, are coming. In their own time and their own way. As it is meant to be. I wouldn’t have met all these wonderful men and women if it wasn’t for the way it had to be. I wouldn’t change a thing. Not even the baby that I just lost. S/he taught me an incredible lesson. To have faith in myself.
It may sometimes take baby steps to get through the day, or the week or the month. But each little baby step is one GIANT step closer to the reality you envision. Believe yourself. Believe your dream. Don’t give up.
Tags: adoption, biological clock, faith, hope, infertility, Inspiration, intent, IVF, miscarriage, Peace to Parenthood, personal, pregnancy, success, visualization
September 19, 2009 | By: Emiline220 | Filed under: Check This Out,Peace to Parenthood,The Journey to Parenthood
Hi, it’s Liz again. We’re having some blog adminsitation issues and I wanted you to know it’s me . . . anyway, I blogged yesterday about being stuck and I decided to just surrender to being stuck and see if the inspiration would come. While I was watching the video that will be the subject of this blog and another video I will blog about momentarily, I received some inspiration that is helping me rediscover the joy in my business of helping people have babies. It may be that while I continue to draft egg donation and surrogacy agreements and the like, that I go back to writing books. My eBook on egg donation has been very satisfying and people have been asking me a lot about when my next book is coming out, am I doing an anniversary addition of the cult classic The Infertility Survival Handbook . . . I feel like that guy (we shall call him the dude and I mean no disrespect) in the parable where there is a giant flood and all these people come to rescue him and he keeps sending them away saying that God would rescue him. Then he dies and he is at the Gates of St. Peter facing God and God wants to know why the dude is there and the dude wants to know why God didn’t save him. God turns to the dude and says, what do you think those people were? I sent you a row boat, a police boat, and a helicopter. What the heck are you doing here?
I truly believe all the people asking me about my books and my writing is the little voice I have been trying to hear, telling me to focus on my writing and I will find my joy and bliss again. And then I saw this and another video (subject of another blog) avout Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke and her inspirational message and I got more inspiration (that almost exactly matches some ideas I had written down over a year ago and completely forgotten until today). No matter what brought you to my blog, this video clip is remarkeable and has some value for everyone. I urge you to watch it. And if you’re here to continue to talk to me about overcoming our fear of infertility and finding a more rewarding, peaceful path as we wait to become parents, this video will begin our next homework assignment.
Love and Light,
Liz (who is honored, blessed and inspired to be The Stork Lawyer)
Here is the video
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Tags: Homework, Inspiration, Jill Bolte Taylor, Peace to Parenthood, The Infertility Survival Handbook, The Stork Lawyer
