Friday, September 3, 2010

Adoption Meeting

So last night I went to the adoption/foster care orientation meeting here in Fayetteville....I still don't quite know how I feel about it other than I certainly miss our Bethany caseworker! I did not get the most welcoming and inviting feeling last night, and maybe it was because I was highly disappointed with the thoughts/actions of the other people in the meeting that colored the experience for me but it just didn't feel right. On top of that I guess the process here is equally easier and harder than back in Michigan. There are physically less children in the system here which makes the process longer. I was more intrigued by the idea of foster care though.
The process works along the same lines here as in Michigan in that we'd go through the initial application/background check/fingerprinting than move on to the classroom training and finish with the home-study. But because the system here does not get contracted out from the beginning our initial application would be done by one person, training by an outside contract, and finally home-study done by a third person. I don't really know how I feel about that, I take back everything I said about MI contracting out the whole process to BCS! I would love to have just one person who'll be there with us from start to finish like in Michigan and not feel like I'm playing hot-potato with a bunch of different caseworkers all of whom have way to high a caseload to care about us individually......like I said I was just not overcome with love for the whole thing last night.
That being said we aren't taking adoption off the table, but even if we were to jump headlong into the process again it would be up to 2 years before we could even get a placement and I don't know how I feel about that. I mean heck pregnant people only have to wait 9 months why do I have to wait 2 years! I am just feeling very discouraged about the whole thing right now. One thing I forgot to mention in my review of Hannah's Hope was the discussion of how mothering doesn't have to just mean having a child. I love to volunteer and spend time with kids anyways so does that mean God has a plan for us to make a difference in the lives of children through some other way? I don't know right now, all I know is I am not a patient person and I really have to work on that.
I do know that I am definitely re-committed to my intentions not to take fertility treatments to an extreme. Let me explain.....for Mark and I our fertility issues stem from my diagnosis with PCOS. Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome is something that causes the body, for whatever reason, to not ovulate. It is sorta a disease that doctors don't know a whole lot about. It may or may not be linked to genetics, there seems to be some connection to insulin levels though they don't know how, and women can be given a diagnosis of PCOS with or without actual cysts (I'm part of the lucky ones to actually have cysts woohoo lucky me...not). Like I've said before the irony with PCOS is that a lot of the symptoms can be managed with oral birth-control. It helps to stabilize weight, produce regular (or in my case semi-regular) ovulation, reduce mood issues, and just in general make life nicer.My doctor and I have been trying to find a weight that is best for me. If I weight to little I don't ovulate, if I weigh to much I don't ovulate. We haven't quite figured out what my ideal weight for getting pregnant is, but I know it's less than I weight now which is a whole other struggle for me. The part of the diagnosis that scares me the most is the higher chances for miscarriage. I know enough about myself to know I could not handle that physically or emotionally.

Sorry this is all a little random.....

There is more I want to talk about but right now my thoughts are kinda scattered, I think later this week I'll post a little more about what the infertility journey for Mark and I looks like, but for now I'm going to enjoy my long weekend, and try not to think about any of this.
Love you all

No comments:

Post a Comment