The Wait.

Now rumors have been swirling on Rumor Queen that the wait has been “confirmed” at 18 months and will grow past that. We are looking at a Summer 2008 Metcha Day, when I was hoping to have our daughter home by Christmas 2006. When we started we were told 6-7 months from LID to referral, then that increased to 12 months; now that we are waiting for a LID, it’s become a two-year process–or more. I know this sounds incredibly self-indulgent and self-pitying, but I am really beginning to feel jinxed, rather than just unlucky.

Last night, R. and I talked about options, including other adoption avenues, or maybe even DE. We have talked over the months about adopting a special needs kid. I was committed to going this route as our SECOND adoption, assuming that most S/N adoptions are slightly older kids and wanting the opportunity to parent an infant my first time around. It is always something that’s been in my mind, however, and it might be the way for us to go right now. It will allow us to parent a child sooner, and it will make a huge difference in a child’s life. We have the resources to provide whatever medical interventions would be necessary, and I have the time to devote completely to a child who might need speech or physical therapy or intense attention.

Using donor eggs (or donor eggs and donor sperm) is an option that I had dismissed…I didn’t want to contribute to the world population problem if we couldn’t have bio children, which is why we opted for adoption. But now it seems as if DE could actually be the best alternative to the waiting problem. These days the waiting problem seems to trump all other problems, which should demonstrate how small my world has become. After all, pregnancy is *JUST* nine months, and we could be totally done with the entire process in under a year, and still have a year to go on the adoption. That means a DE birth wouldn’t interfere with the Chinese adoption requirements of waiting a year between children. We’d have to update the homestudy, but we’d have to do that anyway given that the I-171H will run out way before Summer 2008. And, obviously, if we’re already committed to adopting, then using a donor’s DNA to create a child isn’t an obstacle for us–beyond, of course, the obstacle of getting pregnant and carrying to term. I am still not completely convinced that egg quality is our main infertility issue.

It is all very wearying. It is not clear what to do. As much as I want to be a mother and experience that relationship with a child, I am just amazed at the number of impediments I have met with. It is as if we’re being challenged to think even further outside the box, to defy convention even more than we thought we already were. I recognize that this experience could be a good thing for us, but it sure is frustrating. It’s as if these circumstances are hellbent on testing how far your mind/body/temperament/etc. is willing to go.