So, the last couple days have been a bit of a slump, as in nothing is going on in our process of moving closer to fostering. I know this will resolve soon and I am sure the next couple of months will be gone in a flash. For now, we are just waiting.
The night before our almost homestudy, Paul and I had a wonderful talk about fostering. What will our lives be like with another child in the house? How will H react? Paul tossed around the ways he can be more present at home (while I assured him how much the 2nd job is needed right now). We are back in that "how do you prepare for the unknown" phase. At least, having had an infant a few short years ago, we are good on the gear and basic necessities.
The monthly financial commitment to fertility medications is starting to become a little much. So we face the prospect of letting go of that journey for a bit. To be honest, I am always quick to volunteer shedding the shots and pills. It is disappointing that the birth of our first child did not miraculously resolve our infertility, as many first births often do. However, we trust in God's greater plan. As of now, the difference from our first adoption attempt, is if we are so blessed to conceive in the process of fostering, we won't be forced to quit the process.
Next week we start training classes. Two weeks from that, we will prepare for the home visit again. I was blessed to speak to someone yesterday who adopted three before miraculously conceiving two. They are a beautiful family and adoption advocates. She lifted my spirits by sharing stories of several friends blessed by the foster to adopt program. My prayer is 6 to 12 months from now I will be looking back at the beginning of the year and seeing how much has changed.
1 comment:
Hello, I'm the misfit, from justbeinginfertile.blogspot.com. I wanted to respond to your comment via email, but I see you don't have an email address linked on your profile. Please feel free to delete this comment if you would like to continue this discussion in another forum.
First of all, the discussion you suggest strikes me as valuable (from the point of view of your retreatants. I don't live in your area). I don't think my blog is the appropriate venue for it, but if FJIEJ wants to host it, of course that is up to her.
I should first clarify my original comment(s). I'm not sure I think that pregnant IFers should not ATTEND an IF retreat. Possibly they should not, but I'd have to think about that more. I was more concerned with the idea that a retreat would be FACILITATED - i.e., retreat leader - by a pregnant woman (infertile or otherwise). While I agree that health and normalcy are sound goals for infertiles (and for an infertility retreat), they strike me as considerably less appropriate for an entrance requirement for said retreat. I have read the memoir/story of at least one IFer who was diagnosed as clinically PTSD upon exposure to babies. The severity of that reaction is obviously rare, but for how many women does it induce anxiety or depression? Don't know, but I know it's some. I would imagine that could be even more of an issue for those recovering from a miscarriage. And those people may be the ones who need the retreat the most, and need it to be free of pregnant women. Whether they should be excluded (de facto) in favor of the pregnant women or vice versa is not my decision, naturally.
I will say that I personally experienced recently how very difficult it can be to go to an environment that is supposed to be supportive of infertility (where we all had our guard down) and to be confronted with a lot of the same stressors that we have to manage in the outside world in our daily lives, but in an environment in which we weren't prepared to deal with that kind of adversity (none of us is regularly sheltered from it, I must add). Since I'm the psycho one, you should ask Jeremiah 29:11 more about this. (BTW, there were no pregnant women in attendance - this was dumb comments, i.e., "You shouldn't mourn yet, there are clinical trials of new drugs in Europe..." etc. I think this sort of thing is approximately as difficult to take as dealing with pregnant women, depending on the infertile, depending on the day.)
I would have a more serious issue with a pregnant woman attending in the capacity of a retreat leader. Everything from the medical community to the popular culture to the Church that deals with infertiles tells them to be patient. Eventually, we'll get pregnant, and then we'll stop complaining and they won't have to deal with us! Not how it works. Some infertiles will never get pregnant. The thing I would find MOST valuable right now, and am actively looking for in my life, is hope and guidance on how to live a good, happy, and full life with no children EVER. A retreat led by women who are pregnant or have children might overlook this entirely. Even if it weren't overlooked, only an example of women who are actually happy with "never" (and the wise folk who counsel them) would be a source of hope. I've had this discussion with IF "graduates" before - if the hope comes from the idea of getting pregnant, the implication is that no pregnancy (ever) correlates with despair. Hope for pregnancy is not enough.
I do think that having any IF retreat at all is a great start. If there were people who felt they were excluded or underserved, they could always follow your example and start their own.
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