Lessons from a night runner

Five days of the week, my alarm goes off at 3:50 am. I am usually out the door by 4:05 am running.

I remember those first few runs where it felt awkward to be running in pitch darkness. I wear a headlamp around my waist but even still, it was disconcerting to only see a few feet around me.

But now.

Now I love that intense darkness. The solitude. The stillness. The fact that most of the world around me is still sleeping but I am running.

Night running reminds me of our journey to parenthood.

During our infertility struggles and treatment I could only see the immediate ground in front of me: get pregnant. Get pregnant get pregnant get pregnant. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other even though you feel like you're blind and don't know what lurks in the darkness, keep going. Keep focused on the goal. Stumble. Fall down. Skin your knees, bruise your shins, but by God get back up and keep going. One foot in front of the other no matter what.

I ran a million miles in the darkness, sometimes it felt like I didn't have a headlamp. Sometimes I was gasping for air. Sometimes I could only walk. Sometimes I could barely crawl. The darkness of infertility threatened to bring me down. But I was determined to keep going on that path, looking down down down at the ground, at the few feet in front of me, focused on the very next step always.

Until.

One day I decided to look up.

And I saw the stars.

The brilliant stars--millions and millions of them--across the dark sky.

Where we live there no streetlights. Obviously there is no traffic during my night/early morning runs. It is me and sky and God.

And the occasional deer.

It took me a few weeks of running in the dark to get comfortable enough to look up and notice the stars. And now I see them constantly; now I run with my eyes turned upward, sure-footed and confident.

And nearly every time I go I see a shooting star.

Ah, my babies are my shooting stars.

I was so focused on looking at the ground for so many years I nearly missed them.

Sometimes you have to look up and see the stars guys.

I know there are many reasons people give for staying on the most common path to parenthood, for not considering adoption, but having been through it I will say that barring simply no interest in adoption or perhaps a criminal background, there really are pathways for most to adoption if your heart is ready. The adoption tax credit makes financing an adoption far easier than financing fertility treatments. It's not an easy journey and it most definitely doesn't end when the adoption paperwork is complete ( do not want oversimplify this incredibly complex emotional journey for all parties involved, most importantly, the adoptees who had no say in their adoption), it's an unconventional journey, but in the proper cirumstances, it can build a family.

I can't change my infertility road. But one day, I anticipate some painful conversations when I might have to explain why it took me so long to see my stars. Because I never want them to think they weren't the best choice I could have ever made, because they are.

My beautiful shooting stars. H&H.

I'm so, so glad I looked up.

EDITED: I re-read this post after it published and don't want to sound like I'm pushing adoption. I'm not. Of course I think it is under-considered because it stings to be told to consider adoption when you're not ready. I get that. I was there. But I want to be a light for anyone seeking this option, and maybe even open some hearts to it. That is all. Motives pure. Promise.

Also edited to sadly add: We were lucky with the adoption tax credit. With current legislation it won't be as good for adoptions completed in 2012 and 2013. At all. I need to figure out what is being done to extend it. Man, were we lucky.

On March 23, 2011 we stood in a waiting room of an Ethiopian court.

It was crowded. There was no room to sit. It was hot; no air conditioning.

There was no specific appointed time, just a time that the court opened that we were told to arrive.

We rode over in the back of an old Toyota, through streets crowded with cars and livestock and people, over horrible roads that jangled us about in our seatbeltless back seat. The air was full of smog and burned our lungs as the windows were down. When we first arrived our car was immediately surrounded by school aged boys who weren't in school because instead, they begged for the chance to polish our shoes for money to feed their families. Women approached with babies on their backs who looked at us with malnourished and hollow eyes as they signed hunger, bringing their tiny hands to their open mouths.

We went before the judge as she sternly asked us questions. We were nervous. It was over quickly.

Today, exactly one year later, we went before a judge again.

We rode over in our comfortable car, on a super highway, with food in our bellies and clean air in our lungs. As we got out we were met by my sister and mother in the parking lot. No one was begging. No one was hungry. We went into a comfortable building, air conditioned to the point of being uncomfortably cold, and waited our turn. We carried our well fed twenty-six pound toddlers in front of the judge and sought her approval of our adoption.

I am happy.
I am sad.
I have so many mixed emotions as our so many of our 'moments' have been literally presided over by a stranger.

But that's minor. It's just part of the nature of adoption.

We have full bellies. We have access to health care. My children have the chance to frolic in the bluebonnets versus begging someone for a few coins for polishing their shoes.

Some days it all hurts so much, the reality of the direction our lives have taken. Because once you know, you cannot un-know.

Tonight I have a grateful heart. I want my heart to always be bursting with gratitude.

Today the State of Texas recognized my children as my children. But they are the world's children, and there are literally millions more who do not have any luxuries in life, not a single one. And we can't forget them.

I don't want to end on a sad note, so I'll share some photos of the day.

Earlier this week I saw a patient that I have been seeing for six years. I only see her yearly and I must admit, I don't immediately recall details of patients by a name on my schedule alone. But her face.

The second I saw her face I remembered.

She's a sister in this fight.
Only she never won.

She's 50 now.

I had to go through her electronic chart trying to find some information and as I clicked entry after entry the 'chief complaints' zipped by. I went back to the beginning, when she was 40.

I felt sick as I watched those years go by, literally clicking through them with my simple mouse clicks.

"A 40 year old female presents for..."
"A 41 year old female presents for..."
"A 42 year old female presents for..."

and so on and so on until now.

"Are those your babies?" she asked, gesturing towards my two small photos of the babies on my bookshelf in my office. I will not plaster the place with baby photos. I would hope I am more sensitive than that.

"Yes."

She knows I know her history. We've discussed it as it has related to the reason she sees me.

But she doesn't know mine.

She might have an inkling now, seeing the faces of my two adopted babies, but she might not.

Oh but my heart broke.
Her social history will always say: Number of children: zero.

I worked hard. I fought through so much. Year after year I hurt, a pain so raw and ragged there were days it threatened to take me right under. And she waged a war, too. For reasons unknown to me she stopped at medical treatment. I have no idea if she had any interest in adoption. If her mind wasn't open to it I wished it had been. But I"ll never know.

Life is not fair.
It will never be fair.
Everyone has pain.

"A 44 year old woman presents for..."
"A 45 year old woman present for..."
"A 46 year old woman presents for..."

Damn the years just keep ticking by and some are no closer to their dreams of being a parent.

It is a simple dream. A simple dream. The simplest, when you think about it, to be a parent. Most people take it for granted.

And I will never understand why it is denied to so many good souls out there.

Keep fighting ladies. Do not give up. Remember there are many paths to parenthood, and each one of them is beautiful and unique and none is better than the other.

Different--sure. But not better.

Hugs to you all, my fellow ladies in the battle. I haven't forgotten, even though I don't hurt so much anymore. For what it's worth, I promise I haven't forgotten.

Confessions, stolen from Claudia.

OK I didn't steal her actual confessions, I have plenty of my own.

But I loved her post and like the idea of purging here, laying it all out there for you guys.

So here goes:

I live for their nap in the afternoon. Don't get me wrong-- we have a great time partying down from 6:00 am to 12:30 pm but man, when 12:30 rolls around and I lay them down so gingerly in their cribs I have to stop myself from doing a little heel click on my way out the door. Ahhh, the sounds of silence (which is really the sounds of their soundspa white noise maker and their lullaby music) for two to three hours in the afternoon while they rest and rejuvenate is truly magical.

I eat all of their Pirate's Booty every week. True, they get some of it (when I feel like sharing) but I eat the bulk of it. I am addicted to it. I guess I feel like it is a chip but not quite as bad for me or as high in calories. Anyway, I hoover it right up but buy it for 'the babies.'

I use my toddlers as tiny masseuses. Some days I go for these long runs by myself. On Saturday I got to run eight miles all alone and it was a thrill. My muscles were sore. So later when we were 'playing' in their room I laid on my stomach on the floor and they crawled all over me and banged into me repeatedly with their tiny little fists, laughing and howling the whole time and I felt like I was getting a mini-massage. It's free, they love it, and I'm desperate.

I eat M&Ms every day. Really. It's another addiction. And I eat them by color in the following order: brown, orange, yellow, green, blue, then red. I line them up in pairs by colors too and eat them two at a time. If there is an uneven number of colors it really throws me off, but I certainly don't discard any M&Ms over it.  I really only do this with the plain ones, and these are the ones I eat the most often. I buy the little mini-packs or otherwise there could be big trouble. Does anyone else have to eat them in color order?

Every single week at work I vow to read journals and the like at home on my off days. And every single week I fail. I show back up at work on Monday and think: Oh yeah, I have a job and I see patients for a living and therefore I need to keep up with the latest research. And the cycle continues.

I love getting the mail-->the old school in-the- physical- mailbox mail. Lately I share this love with our son, who also gets a real kick out of walking with me to the mailbox (he often wakes up half an hour earlier than his sister so it's his special thing to do alone with me) and I have to be nice and let him open the mailbox door and pull everything out. Hmph.

We still have not made their video montage of when we met them, brought them home, etc. I have a million video clips and it's all too daunting. I just want someone else to do it for me.

On that note the other day my iPhone ran out of storage space for my photos. Because there are over 2,700 of them plus videos on it. Egads. I backed them up but I don't know how to/want to eliminate them from the actual phone in an easy way. I want it to magically organize into folders by date for me. Whine.

I like reality TV fashion shows. We watch Project Runway (and Allstars!) and I'm kind of secretly (not anymore) hoping for good things with that new fashion show with Jessica Simpson and Nicole Ritchie. And yes, I am still sad about Jessica and Nick. Do we really think they'll never get back together?

Many nights I am in bed at 8:45 pm. I read for twenty minutes and then fall sound asleep. It's because I get up in the middle of the night to run but still...at 8:45 I feel like an old granny when I crawl into the bed. And yet I want to do another heel click (under the covers) because bed.is.so.nice.

I am tempted to buy some Five Fingers running 'shoes'. I just read "Born to Run" and wonder if my chronic toe problems when I run more than four or five miles a day have to do with a need to be in completely different footwear. My toes are hideous. It's the understatement of the century. I'm ashamed of them and I live in a town where flip-flops are footwear of choice for 7-8 months out of the year. I have said I need to see a podiatrist for years but I've done that in the past and guess what? They pulled out several of my toenails. Um yeah. Painful and attractive, how could I go wrong? It's not a fungus. I repeat: it's not a fungus. It's trauma and now they don't grow right. Or something. They're funky and I have to put fake toenails on them. Yes, I just confessed to putting fake toenails on my toes.

We still don't eat dinner as a family and I suffer guilt over this. We feed them at 5:45 pm and I am just not ready to eat yet. We relish our dinner time, you know, where we can have stimulating conversation and the like. Oh wait--confession part two: we really eat in front of the TV.  And yet...I know we should be modeling good dinner behavior, yadda yadda yadda BLAH BLAH BLAH. So sue me. They know how to use a spoon. They eat great. Our son wolfed down lima beans yesterday and our daughter inhaled (not literally) some chickpeas. So I choose to let myself off the hook on this one.

I'm addicted to Instagram. It makes photos look much better and I'm not a talented photographer to begin with, I just take a lot of pictures (see above).

OK that's enough don't you think? Confession is good for the soul. Indeed.

So are photos.
Enjoy.



OMG she is growing up so fast...and yes, her flip flops are huge but I wanted to
see them on her.

On the other hand, from this perspective they still seem so tiny...my two guys walking at the park...sigh.

Sarang came to visit! It's so much fun to meet a blogger in person (though the babies look grumpy in the photo, beleive me they were not: especially when given their Curious George treats from Aunt Sarang!



Our life in photos for the day...

It rained all day today here. That can make for a long day with two walking (running!) toddlers.

I had to work at the clinic for some special Saturday hours--wheee! Every one of my patients said "It's so cool you're open on Saturdays." I was all "Yeah right." Because we're not. We just have work in lists so long that our head endo asked us to come in and work through them. Somehow I was one of the only few suckers who signed up. Oh well, it was actually nice to see patients in a more quiet environment. No one complained about the lack of parking, so that was a nice bonus.

But, that's not to say we didn't have a great day after I got home.

There was reading...

And building block towers and of course knocking them down...

Daddy got in on the action, too. A rare moment where they both sort of looked at the camera and neither was wailing/squirming/fighting to get down.

We snuggled....

...and pushed our high chairs around the living room...

...and bounced balls...

And read some more.

There might have been a Dance Party*. Perhaps those huge picture windows should make me
think twice about such activities...

A tiny dog watched quietly from her perch on the couch, taking it all in.



* There might have been dancing to such songs as "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred. And "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mixalot. What can we say? We put the television on Party Mix and you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.**

** But secretly, those are the jams.

The Mom I Want to Be

I used to have labor and delivery fantasies. You know, I was going to go au naturel and be beautiful while doing it.

We all know that fantasy didn't have a chance to come true or not come true. Of course, I always joke that my labor and delivery consisted of a 16 hour flight with two sick infants who were miserable and cried 14 of those hours...and I can tell you that I most definitely was NOT beautiful while doing that. Shudder.

I guess much of life is about anticipation and maybe fantasizing about how you will carry yourself in certain roles and in certain situations. Or is that just me?

I used to swear to DH that I wouldn't gripe or complain about the angst of motherhood, that I would take it all in stride, that I would not fall apart when a certain fifteen month old needed a huge diaper change right after we arrived at the grocery store and thus I found myself unzipping sixteen layers of clothes (it was 38 degrees here this morning!) and changing said fifteen month old in the back of our car because the double carts at the grocery store certainly won't fit into the bathroom and really, I abhor those public changing plastic things anyway... but yet I found myself bitching and complaining about it to DH on the drive home from the grocery store. As if he needed/wanted to hear that story.

In the early days I felt so overwhelmed and tired and frankly, and it wouldn't have mattered how much I wanted to appear in control and not overwhelmed because to sum up our look in one word: pitiful. Pitiful, pitiful, pitiful. We both looked gaunt, dark shadowed, and stressed. Yes, we were happy! happy! happy! too but the physical toll was real. And I hated that. We couldn't hide our overwhelmedness. It was hanging out all over the place. I mean, let's get real: I started crying on that plane ride within twenty minutes of take off. Pitiful indeedio.

I wanted and fantasized about being the Mom who took care of her two long awaited and anticipated infants with ease, who didn't freak out over every little thing, who took mealtime antics in stride, who cooked and cleaned and baked and ran and wrote and read and still talked to friends on the phone and kept up with everyone else's lives and did it all with aplomb. And I wanted to be fashionable while doing it, too, just to throw that in there.

Universe? Is that you laughing?

But I'm going to rely on my old technique of faking it until making it. Because it can be done. I do not have to regurgitate every.last.detail of their naps or leaking diapers or vomit sessions or mealtime antics to anyone who will listen. That makes me exactly the Mom I did not want to be. Shudder again. I will decide to pretend to be handling it all with aplomb and eventually, as the saying goes, I will.

Wish me luck.

Am I an IF freak?--EDITED

I think I am a mutant IF victim/survivor.

I want to put this delicately because in no way is this meant to harm anyone because all feelings in IF are valid.

I keep reading about people who have had success--either a spontaneous pregnancy or success with treatment--saying how badly they still hurt over IF. How the pain will never go away.

Either I am just too busy/overwhelmed or I have scarred up really really well because I don't feel acute pain anymore. I don't even feel dull pain anymore.

The other night, the babies were sleeping, and I was getting dinner ready and the song "Sea of Love" came on. I motioned quietly to the hubs to come into the kitchen.

"Listen." I said.

Ahhhh, Sea of Love. He used to sing it to me so sweetly all those years ago.

We started dancing in the kitchen and the tears started falling. We had just rocked those beautiful babies before laying them down in their cribs.

"Did you ever think we'd be here?" he asked.

I could barely reply.

We are parents. We are the parents of two beautiful African children. In my wildest dreams from childhood I would never have predicted my life would have turned out this way.

I don't hurt over IF anymore because let's be honest, I crossed over. It may not have been the way I intended to initially, but I did. I am a mother. It's not all I ever wanted to be but it was something I always wanted and was denied for many long, grueling, agonizing months. I fought hard to get here. It did not come easily, but alas, I arrived.

Yes, I sometimes feel a strange pang when I see my friends' kids and they are spitting images of their parents. But not in a vanity way, just in a "isn't that cool" kind of way. I really don't feel any need to see someone who looks like me, but I think it's natural to want to know how you and your spouses genes might combine.

But my babies are beautiful and the way they came into my life has made it much easier for me to see them as unique little souls, not any sort of extension of me, just their own little beings with their own path in life. Of course I will want things for them, of course I will try to guide them and influence them and hopefully help make their paths easier.  I always feared I would see my children as this quasi-extension of myself and even feared ways they might deviate from the things I wished and dreamed for them. I am relieved--and I think somewhat better able--to view them as their own beings because they have no genetic ties to me. I am relieved for them for a lot of reasons related to that. Yes, deeply saddened for them, too, but that goes without saying (I hope). When I cried for DH getting a vasectomy it was temporary, and as much about my inability to hold his hand through the procedure as it was for the loss of genes. And that was sadness for the loss of his genes, not mine.

So I don't hurt much anymore. Does that make me the anomaly here? I think that IF pain is unique, and awful, and excruciating, and unless you've been through it (like most pain out there) you may think you know, but you really do not. But I also like to think that it ends with parenthood. And I'm so sad to know that for many it does not, it just goes on and on and on.

Am I too tired to feel it?

I don't know, but that's entirely possibly given those 4:15 am wake times :)

And hello--I do not wake up and run simply to be able to indulge in desserts. I run because it clears my head. I run because it's time where I am one with myself, and no one is tugging on me or drooling on me or asking me to read Brown Bear for the tenth time in a row. I run because I like the sound of my breathing. I run because I like to sweat. I run because I like to feel a connection to my father, who taught me to run. (note: all of these feelings are on a good running day--on a bad running I plod along just so I can eat the dessert).

Edited to add:
Heather and Silver--Well, it's an interesting question and one I obviously can't answer with 100% honesty because we adopted two babies at once. But, I do remember saying, when I was in the most painful throes of infertility, that if I could just cross over and have one child I would forget the pain because I was sick.of.the.pain. Of course, easy to say then and easy to recall now, ha. I think the other thing I am realizing is that everyone has pain. Mine was IF. Others deal with chronic illnesses or conditions, or the loss of a spouse, or the disintegration of a marriage. And my pain was IF, and I'm done with IF. So I'm done with pain.
Oh yeah, also--my children aren't genetically related at all, yet they're full siblings to them and to us. So Silver, maybe you can give your son a non-genetic but still sibling all the way! Heather, I'm sorry the program you were using in the past is no longer available, I hope there are others you can consider.
Fellow freaks--thanks for the shout-outs :)