Archive for the ‘Thinking Out Loud’ Category

How do we learn to let go and trust (again)?

February 25, 2009 | By: Elizabeth

It’s been an interesting week.  I’ve had a bunch of clients with major and/or unusual problems (I think there is something definitely wrong with the planetary alignment this month) and some clients who’ve “opted -out” altogether, choosing different routes to parenthood that don’t involve my office.  The universal sentiment I am hearing from everyone, however, is pain, despair . . . a sense of overwhelming hopelessness in their quest to become a parent.  I feel awful for them and I don’t know how to help.  I can commisserate, but is that enough?

I remember it well.  I still feel it sometimes.  Someone responded to one of my blogs asking me not to be angry that I am infertile.  I think she missed the point of my blog; my infertility and my anger has become an empowerment for me.  I have a new career and a new life that I never would have been blessed with but for the fact that my body cannot carry a baby.  But with the anger are little pieces of sadness that never go away.  Memories of miscarriages, anniversaries of a baby that went back to his birth mother (next week, can I hide under the covers and not come into work? Years later it still hurts that badly!).  Those things never go away.  How do we get past that and learn to let go of the pain and sadness and trust again?

Because good things do happen.  Egg donation and surrogacy are hugely succesful avenues toward parenthood.  Success rates for egg donation are astronomical when compared to the average fertile myrtile’s ability to conceive.  Adoption is guaranteed.  As long as you keep putting one foot in front of the other you will get a baby.  I know.  7 attempted IVF cycles, 9 miscarriages, 2 failed adoptions including one disrupted adoption, but I am the proud mother of two beautiful children.

But what happens when we can’t put one foot in front of another?  What about those days where we want to hide under the covers?  I am wrestling with this one myself.  I understand the pain my clients are feeling.  Next week is going to be a tough week for me.  It’s only memories now though . . . I got through it . . . something got me through all the ups and downs until I brought my babies home forever.  Somehow I managed to find enough faith in one minute, faith to get me to the next minute and to the next and the next . . . I wish I knew what it was that got me through . . . I wish I had a magic pill or a secret that I could share that would get us through the really god-awful, why-is-this-happening (or why did this happen) to me days? But I don’t have any secrets. 

All I can do is listen and remember, or as the case may be, re-live the memories.  But I don’t know if that’s enough.  With all I can do as a lawyer (and a writer), sometimes I feel completely helpless to help . . . .

Filed under: Thinking Out Loud

The Perfection Of It

January 7, 2009 | By: Elizabeth

I have frequently told this story — and heard others tell it as well (and perhaps better than I do) — about how the journey through infertility and adoption “perfects” itself.  I must talk to at least one client each week and share this story.  Someone suggested a long time ago that I should blog about it.  I haven’t been able to because it seems like such an emotional and private story.  I share it with people who are going through trying times; my way of giving them a pep-talk.  One that I know has worked from the letters people have sent me after they finally got their baby and realized the perfection story isn’t just a pep talk.  But I seriously have been blocked about writing this blog.  Maybe I am afraid I can’t do it justice in print?  There is something intangible in the story that needs to be adapted to each person’s own journey which I can do when I know what YOU are going through; and I hope that as you read this that you can find that piece that resonates for you, as I do not know what each of you are going through or what your friends or family members may be experiencing.

I am a spiritual person.  Of that I am certain, and I have always believed that everything happens in the perfect time and the perfect way.  I didn’t like the time and the way my motherhood came to be, at first.  But then things started happening that made me realize it all really does have meaning, and that the process of going through infertility treatment or adoption does “perfect itself.”  That is, at the end of the day when you are pacing the floor of your home holding your beautiful, screaming baby, you realize in a moment of complete and utter clarity, that everything you went through . . . every needle, every sonogram, every miscarriage, every failed donor cycle, every failed donor or surrogate or birth mother match, needed to happen for you to be holding

THIS child in YOUR arms in THIS moment. 

And you realize that you wouldn’t change one needle, one miscarriage, or one failed match if it meant that you wouldn’t be holding

THIS child in YOUR arms in THIS moment.

The process isn’t fun. Understatement of the century.  It is often frought with too many setbacks, financial hardships, lengthy and unwanted delays.  And for each and every one of you wrestling with the process of trying to become a parent you have my heart and soul there with you.  I KNOW.  I really know.  7 attempted IVF cycles, 5 IVF miscarriages, 3 miscarriages on my own, two failed adoption placements (one of which occurred several days after we brought our son home).  But I also wouldn’t trade any of that, or re-do a single moment or a single injection (and I am beyond horrified of needles) because without everyone of those awful moments I wouldn’t have my two beautiful babies.  I wouldn’t have my daughter if my second son hadn’t gone back to his birth mother.  A day without my daughter in it . . . is NOT what the Universe intended for me.  I don’t understand why it had to be so hard.  I know I have an amazing new career (from which I am gradually digging my family out of the debt we incurred from all those attempts at becoming a family) and I get to help people have babies and build families every day.  That is perfection at work too. 

But what really shows me that everything that happens in the perfect time and the perfect way and that the journey is truly perfect . . . is that my husband and I were blessed with the unexpected gift of knowledge that our oldest child, whom we adopted, was conceived on THE day that I chose to become an adoptive mother.  I am not kidding or exaggerating.  There are details I cannot share because they are private pieces of my son’s life (and I think we’ll all agree that I have “outed” my family in my books, so you’ll understand that I want to preserve sacred pieces of his adoption story for my son), but there was a very specific day in time that I chose to adopt.  The world shifted on its axis that day and I realized I wanted to be a mother more than I needed to be pregnant and so when my husband came home that night, I told him I would follow him on his desired path, to become an adoptive father.  The following day I submitted our application to an adoption agency.  

A little over a year later, we learned rather coincidentally (thank god for science) that our son was conceived on the day I agreed to become an adoptive mother.   That information showed me, with scientific proof, that everything does happen for a reason and that everything that comes before isn’t meaningless.  It is perfect.

You may not have your baby yet (you may choose not to have a baby), and I can’t promise you what will happen today or tomorrow.  I can’t promise you that you’re donor is going to pass her screening, or your carrier will get pregnant, that your birth mother will sign her relinquishment forms, or that you will make peace and move on to something different.  But I can promise you that when you get there, you too will know in your heart that “but for” everything that came before, you wouldn’t be in this wonderful place now. 

And you wouldn’t change a thing.

Filed under: Thinking Out Loud

Tags: hope

Brooke Shields what r u thinking?

October 7, 2008 | By: Elizabeth

Okay, I am huge fan of Brooke Shields.  Never mind the fact that she’s gorgeous or that I knew her as a tween in NYC, never mind the fact that she’s one of the few celebrities that was honest about her infertility.  I am a huge fan of a hugely talented, beautiful, working mother of two children conceived after a very long battle with infertility.  But this new advertising campaign she has going for VW is pissing me off. 

Having babies just to get German engineering?  Having Babies so you can buy a Minivan.  PULEASE.

Now let me clarify that today I pointed to my own minivan and proudly declared it my badge of motherhood.  I drive a minivan because I worked damn hard to become a mother.  And if I have my way, all of those 8 seats in my minivan will be filled with children or paraphanalia related to children.  My Minivan is My Status Symbol that I am a MOM.  So don’t mess with me when it comes to minivans.  I think they are way cool (and it does have 260 hp, put that up against most cars and see who’s got the ova?). 

Which brings me back to Brooke Shields person promoting VW’s new minivan. How insensitive can she be to her own people?  Really, like I am going to go out and have another baby to buy a VW minivan (which looks amazingly like my Honda Odyssey)?  Like I can JUST GO OUT AND GET PREGNANT FOR ANY OL’ REASON?  LIKE I HAVE A CHOICE OF WHEN AND HOW I MIGHT PROCREATE?

And more to the point, like I am going to be able to afford a new car anytime soon if I do undergo tens of thousands of dollars of assisted reproductive technologies or adoption expenses to have another child?  I guess Brooke never had to consider how expensive her IVF cost?  Maybe I should change the title of my book that even millionaires think this stuff is expensive.  Apparently the Shields family is rolling in it and doesn’t realize that in this economy, most of us are worried about our mortgage payments and the next IVF bill and not so much concerned about driving a fancy new minivan. I know I’ll be driving that Honda for a very long time  . . . and I’ll bet Brooke that my Honda outlasts her VW. 

But more to the point, I am tired, so tired of the hypocricy in Hollywood.  For once, I had a celebrity that I adored from childhood, that I had a personal connection to on so many different levels.  And I hate, loathe and despise the fact that she put her name on an ad that is so hurtful to millions of Americans trying to conceive or adopt everyday.  She sold out.  on us.  on me. 

And shame on VW.  I hope that the the millions of Americans struggling to have a baby boycott a company that equates baby-making with going on a little shopping spree.  My god, the analogy is appalling.

Buy a VW (and I used to own one) . . . never, ever again.  Watch Lipstick Jungle.  Not really sure about that, then again, I live in a cave and don’t get a lot of t.v. time anyway. 

and yeah, I’m back and I’m blogging!  Thanks for your patience.

Filed under: Thinking Out Loud