I can’t sleep

Tomorrow is a big day. I’m not feeling ready for it. Our 16mo foster daughter has a permanency hearing tomorrow (meaning the judge could decide she should go back with her mom). That’s the big happening of the day and the subtle anxiety that won’t let me sleep. One way or another it’s going to be a long, draining day.

Somehow I coincidentally signed up for a parent teacher conference slot for tomorrow morning at 8am. Yes, a PRESCHOOL parent teacher conference. It’s a thing apparently.

Our foster daughter will also have a visit in the afternoon with her mom, so she’ll be off her usual routine and maybe a little wound up in the evening and hubby has an exam in his class tomorrow evening. And I need to clean and pull some food together for dinner guests for the day after tomorrow.

So, I sat in my swirl of emotions and tiredness watching Netflix for a little while. Made a list. And then I figured I make sure we start the day right tomorrow and prep’d 2 cups with smoothie ingredients for a quick breakfast and wrote out the labels for her sippy cups and got her lunch box ready.

Sometimes all you can do is try to eat better tomorrow and pray the most recent “ring around the rosy” giggle fest wasn’t your last with this sweet girl.

Back in it… and fostering!

I love baking cookies. It’s a big undertaking. Usually a 2-3 day process to make the dough, chill it, roll, cut and bake the cookies, time for them to cool, frosting and another night for the royal icing to dry, and then on to pretty packaging. They are a great way to share a little love! But I only make them so often because the ratio of how many I create to how many I consume needs to be high!

And it’s that same desire for balance and self awareness that brings me back to this blog. Overconsumption of information and other peoples’ stories and opinions cloud the mind.  I’ve been too busy taking things in, pushing things away, and not saying what I need to say. Or even processing my own thoughts, learnings and emotions externally to be able to look at them with a few inches of distance and see what is reflected back.

All that is to say, I’m back. Back to bake some love into this blog. For me and all three of you who read this blog!

I’m also back with a new perspective on seeking to be “fertile grounded” as a foster mom!

Hubby and I have a baby (almost toddler) who has been living with us for the past 5 months. We are 100% in love with this child and so grateful to be parents after 8+ years of trying, struggling and praying that we would be able to build a family of our own.

Lots more to say about what I’m learning about foster care,  but suffice it to say I am still deeply in need of tilling fertile ground where hearts can grow stronger and roots become more grounded and where we recharge to resist opressive systems!

Let me count the ways…

Today the U.S. Supreme Court hears testimony on DAPA and extended DACA, President Obama’s executive action to extend protection from deportation to over 5 million immigrant families who are already part of our community. This is such a critical moment for our country, Houston, and many in my extended family.

I’m all in for DAPA/ DACA+, but when* implemented, so many immigrants will still be left out because they don’t have children. To qualify for DAPA, you must have children, which seems another echo of a pattern of placing value on people based on their value and relationship to others. Intentional or not, the message is you are only worth protecting from deportation if a child depends on you. If you’re infertile, lost a child, you’re gay or transgender, if you came to the U.S. to work to provide for your children who live in your home country, or maybe you’re just single and not ready for kids yet… well, America wants your labor, your tax dollars, but not you. You’re not worth protecting and fighting for. That’s messed up, y’all.

And how many other ways to we hear, tell, repeat a similar message?

 

Visual Journaling, Infertility, and Twitter

In July I was lucky enough to go on a retreat with my mom to Ghost Ranch just northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico for a week. It’s a beautiful place to be both because of the scenery and the intentionality that Ghost Ranch staff create for visitors to access spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical renewal. Georgia O’Keefe lived there and painted many of her most famous pieces in the red desert. If it wasn’t clear already – I highly recommend you check it out if you’re interested in retreats.

My mom and I chose a course called “Cultivating Creativity for Emotional Resilience” (check out our instructor’s website) and while there were upwards of 300 folks on the ranch that week, our class was 5 plus the instructor. We did different activities with mixed media and went home with a journal we could keep adding to.

The unique and liberating element of keeping a visual journal for me is that the format helps lift my self-imposed pressure to create some gallery-worth single piece of art, and encourages building a regular practice of creativity to process emotions on paper and stay grounded. So important with the roller coaster ride of infertility.

There are lots of resources to help you get started if this sounds interesting. One classic resource is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, and I will likely be sharing others. I’ve started to talk to some friends about gathering with some music, snacks and art supplies to build in some social time with creating art.

So, on a day like this….

… I can cry and punch a pillow and go for AND maybe throw some paint and angry scribbles in my journal. Helps the emotions not to get stuck in my heart… to move out onto the page.

Do you journal or create art as a way of coping through infertility?

Oh, right. And I just learned how to tweet (or so I think). You can follow me at @FertileGrounded.

Off the hook?

I was talking to a co-worker about this yesterday hoping to verify that I wasn’t the only person not understanding what this add was trying to say. I have seen some super-cute and inspiring TV adds around national adoption month encouraging folks that there are no perfect parents and trying your best is enough. And I like the way this one is drawn, it’s simplicity, just confused by the message and problematic analogy.

Who is off the hook? The fish is. It looks pretty happy in its natural habitat and received not to be headed to the chopping block. I don’t see how the ‘off the hook’ could be referring to kids needing to be adopted. So, I’m kinda thinking this is referring to potential foster and adoptive parents, which is the org’s target audience anyways. If there were no fishies, I would think ‘off the hook’ refers to the colloquialism as in ‘thanks for cleaning those dishes, but you’re not off the hook quite yet – here are a few more’. So, maybe message is ‘your biological kids are grown, but you’re not off the hook yet – there are other kids that need you’? Is that it? But then even that is a problematic analogy with cute fishies. Hook = parenting responsibility, hook = painful and trip to someone else’s dinner plate, so parenting responsibility = painful and trip to someone else’s dinner plate?? Mmmmm, no.

I give up. Feel free to comment with other interpretations!

How ’bout lets try a focus group next time, DHHS and Adopt US Kids!

Check out their website anyways: www.adoptuskids.org.

Hoping?

So I went to the RESOLVE Walk of Hope for the first time in Sugarland this year. It was interesting on so many different levels.

I have a lot of respect and personal appreciation for RESOLVE‘s work on a national level fighting the good fight for awareness and sound publicly policy to expand coverage and access to fertility treatments. They also have a great website with trustworthy resources of information and social support for folks struggling with infertility and a great Pinterest account for when you need a laugh or the appropriate snarky meme to ease your mood.

As a community organizer, my experience with walks for a purpose is with marches. You have a clear message, target who has the decision-making power to get you what you want, loud upbeat crowd with creative chants, visuals, energy, and you do press turnout by leveraging some local first-person stories.  The energy at the event was quiet. No mainstream media coverage. Sunday morning in a shopping center with no audience. No politicians pledging support or ordering us off their property. I liked the quiet energy and sense of connection.

But i digress. What I was left churning on in my head after the walk concluded was one of the team names. They had t-shirts “HOPE: Have Only Positive Expectations”. My gut reaction was ‘yuck!’. Only positive expectations sounds like setting oneself up for a potentially huge letdown. I’m all about positivity, but you gotta take your head out of the clouds when your going through infertility. You just can’t pin all your hopes and plans on a falsely pre-determined destiny of getting pregnant. You might not get a clear diagnosis, might run out of money. It’s just not guaranteed, no matter how much you pray or “H.O.P.E”. And to me, if I am to hope for anything it’s that I will be transformed through this experience to know myself better, understand, feel and live-into the broader sacred meaning of what it can mean to be a momma.

But I also know I can be judgemental and maybe it was just a team name; just a t-shirt. And, hey, who am I to shoot down another’s coping mechanism if it works. But that’s the thing. “Only having positive expectations” emphatically does more harm that good in my experience.

So, I’m wondering what is your relationship to “hope”? Is there another word you cling to or identify with in your experience with infertility? How do you balance your expectations to hold both positivism and mitigate emotional roller coasters?

No Guarantees

It’s in my nature to look for the silver linings, to try to figure out how to hold in one continuous reality the disappointments, pain, oppression, growth, love, transformation; ying and yang. 

I want to honor how the challenge of infertility has transformed me as a person and my relationship with my husband. When I’m able to connect to my purpose and strength, our infertility informs my lived experience that there are no guarantees. Not only are there no guarantees, expectations of normality are at their root pretty messed up (stronger language would also be appropriate).

I saw a Pinterest post comparing infertility to cancer trying to make the point that it’s a medical condition, not just an inconvenient temporary state that one can pray themselves out of. But it made me think how we compare to gain sympathy and angrily demand respect for our suffering, rather than seeking and building understanding (though I don’t claim to know the intentions of the author of the Pinterest post). Instead of engaging in a mental game of comparisons, let’s ask how can we delve deeper into an understanding of our own pain to connect with others. 

The how isn’t quite clear to me, but I’ve noticed my awareness growing a bit to (strangely?) identify on some level with parents of children with autism and cancer (both in our extended family), and with gay and lesbian couples (two couples who are dear friends in Houston) who not only long for children but constantly are told or made to understand they don’t fit society’s expectations for what a loving couple “should” look like, for example. I don’t claim to know or understand their unique struggles, and I want to acknowledge my own privileges as a young, straight, white woman. It’s just maybe we become a little more comfortable and compassionate for, and appreciative of the diversity of life experiences and paths. Let’s cleanse ourselves of judgements AND move towards putting that compassion into action.  

“Flow”/ Wanting Kids/ Being a Kid

Ariana Maylen, our newest niece, was born on January 16th! She is the youngest of five, teeny tiny and cute as can be. I didn’t feel any pangs of sadness meeting and holding her, nor insurmountable jealousy of my sister-in-law. I’m not counting this as some emotional achievement, I think it’s just different to know you have some relationship with the child. And we LOVE being tíos!

Actually looking back (since I’ve neglected this blog for a while!), the worst was Halloween. Not what I was expecting. The family was doing other things, and we had a party invitation, but I found myself feeling super lethargic and anti-social. When I started to dig into why I was feeling what I was feeling, I realized how much I loved Halloween as a child. I remember how great my parents were helping us pick our and plan or jumble together costumes, what a significant family tradition it was to me, and how FREAKIN’ CUUUTE little kids are in costumes. I mean, they are cute to start with, then you add a pumpkin costume?! Off the charts cuteness.

I’m also convinced some of our collective longing for children is associated with the need for an excuse to do “kid things”. Things society tells us only kids are supposed to do, or adults are “forced” to do to help their children. You know, whatever your memory and joy is. For me – jumping the waves, digging for sandcrabs and building sand castles on the beach, doing art projects, jumping on a trampoline, going to the zoo, throwing a kids birthday party. Yes, I want a mini-me, but I also want me to be a less inhibited and rational mini-me.

My mom also loves crafts, so last Christmas I bought a shrinky-dink (remember those?) ornament kit for my mom and sisters do make together, and this year she got us the supplies for making German Christmas stars. Art projects put me “in the zone”.  Kate Bratskeir of the Huffington Post wrote an article on The Habits of Supremely Happy People, that specifically mentions this concept of getting “in the zone” or “flow” as she calls it. Here’s what she writes: “When you’re immersed in an activity that is simultaneously challenging, invigorating and meaningful, you experience a joyful state called “flow.” Happy people seek this sensation of getting “caught up” or “carried away,” which diminishes self-consciousness and promotes the feelings associated with success.”

So how can we allow ourselves the grace, space and freedom to goof around. How are you doing it? What’s your “flow”? This infertility stuff, the loss, the complicated list of considerations for adoption, etc. – it’s all so serious. Maybe allowing ourselves to do “kid activities” without kids (or with your friends and family and their kids) is key in staying grounded.

Grateful for a Gift of Vulnerability and Honesty

On the way back from a conference in Chicago this summer, three of us who had flights around the same time were grabbing some lunch at the airport. One was a young mother who has an 8mo old boy, and this was the first time she had traveled without him. She was talking about how excited she was to go home and see the little goober. (I dropped her off at home and watched him squirm and squeal in joy at her sight!) So, we got on the topic of kids, I passed and we asked the other person if he had kids.

He said no and didn’t think he ever would. I made some vague comment on how it’s ok and that there are a lot of couples that can’t have kids and some that don’t want them. Working in the movment for human rights, our concept of family extends. (This is what I tell myself both because it’s true on one deep underground river level and because it makes me feel better and smooth the peanut butter over the pain on another).

I guess he took that as an opening/ freeing cue. He told us that he and his exwife couln’t have kids. Neither he or his wife were citizens, so international adoption was the only option. Happily, they found a match! A Guatemalan woman who had made the difficult decision to give up her youngest child. They had a baby shower, painted the baby’s room. They were there in the hospital when the biological mom gave birth and welcomed the tiny fingers, toes in swaddling clothes into their hearts, homes, family.

Probably I’m getting some of these details wrong, but the ending I remember clearly.

They had to give the baby back.

My jaw dropped. What? You held a new beautiful baby, which was for all intents and purposes yours for the diaper changing, loving and raising. Already imagining your lives weaving together. Mom, dad, baby. More babies? First steps, school, emotional roller coasters of risk, love, trust, imagining even grandkids.

And then you have to go back one more time to the family court to take the baby back. As you walk away, the inside bend in your arm is still warm from baby’s presence. You have to go home and figure out what to do with the empty nursery and your bulldozed heart.

I was not only blown away by the terrible depressing ending to his struggle with infertility, but totally shocked and honored to have been gifted with such a raw honest story. Can’t dip that one in chocolate.

Baggage

Well friends, here’s to a 2013 of opportunities to live life to it’s fullest and loving ourselves and others better. We had a great Christmas with my parents and sister visiting. So good to be with family. George Ranch, water wall in Galleria, Herman Park & Japanese Garden, tacos chilangos, playing Xbox Kinnect, making shrinky dinks (remember those?) and HEB (yes, the grocery store – big highlight for my dad!).

After a stressful, intense, trying end of the year at work and the exhausting journey documented here, fun distraction and family time was just what I needed. BUT turns out I also really needed some space for reflection and journaling. Been working in the new year to make drawing, writing, healthy eating, and yoga priorities.

I emailed the psychologist that hosts the infertility support group to set up an (some?) individual sessions for me and my husband. You know, it’s just I totally surprise myself busting up with tears at irrational intervals when I feel convinced I’m processing the infertility well and doing “OK”. Hm. You’re not convinced, are you?

So I’m mostly thinking if we are maybe ready to move towards adoption (for financial, biological, moral and other reasons), I should like deal with that well o’ grief that keeps rearing its ugliness. I have to figure out how to let go of my dearest dreams – to carry and give birth to children my husband and I conceived. Comparing the baby photos to see who she looks like… I won’t go on, but you get it. That deep carnal and spiritual desire to have a child of our own.

There’s something beautiful about choosing to be a family. That’s what you do when you find your partner. You CHOOSE to be together despite and because of differences. It’s a sweet narrative. No accident about it.

But that’s the thing, to be a good parent (or good person in general!) you have to deal with your own baggage.