Most Likely

Endrit and I are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  With this comes the Holy Ghost and the blessings of the Temple.  We have placed our journey to parenthood into His hands.

We went to the Bountiful Temple this past weekend.  It was peaceful.  I always love being in the House of The Lord.  We specifically went with our journey into parenthood in our minds, hearts, and prayers.  Like every time, we came with the same answer; we are doing right in postponing our biological child journey.  But, at the same time, we didn't get the impression to seriously start our adoptive child journey.

So, we are resting.  We are becoming at peace with being just us again.  We both have some good goals.  Endrit started P90x again.  I got a personal trainer (1x a week for 30 minutes at the gym) and a membership to the gym.  I also plan on running in the Salt Lake City marathon.

Endrit got the go ahead to walk in graduation in May.  This means his degree could be finalized by the end of summer.  He will start the lovely job hunt in a few months.  This might be just the money blessing that we are looking for and we just need to be patient until that time.  

We are completely at peace with this decision.  It has been a long hard journey; especially for me.  My emotions have gone all over the place in wanting to become a mother.  My return to fulfilling my marathon goal will help with the wait this time around.

Issues

I have tried to keep this to myself.  I still would like to have any conversations as you read this as if you don't know the things that I am going to write.  This is hard for me to write out, so bare with me if it doesn't sound coherent.

The reason why I have not updated this blog in almost 2 months is because we switched gears.  We decided to try for a biological child.  This could be because 4 months ago we had a surprise pregnancy with an equally surprising miscarriage.  This wasn't our first miscarriage.  And as it has happened, wasn't our last either.

Endrit and I tried for a baby the first time in our married life in my August/September cycle.  We found out I was pregnant just to start miscarrying the next day.  It really hurt.  It did.  I can't even express how much it hurt.  It was my 3rd pregnancy with the same result.  But, children are important.  We want children.  It isn't that we feel bullied into children, we WANT them.

So, on to the September/October cycle.  I was happy to feel pregnant.  I was placed on progesterone after ovulation so that if that was the cause of the early miscarriages I would have something to prevent it.  Boy, I thought that this one was going to stick.  I was feeling horrid...well, I guess the better way to put it is pregnant.  I was happy with the morning sickness, the heartburn, the tender breasts, all of it that pointed to I might actually stay pregnant.  Then, my temperature dropped at the same time as my symptoms.  Just.Like.Last.Time.  I started spotting and I knew it was over.  Our 4th early pregnancy loss.  Hurt from the last time turned to devastation this time.

Through tears I asked Endrit if we could please not try again.  The only reason why we even started trying was because of money.  It is a lot less to have a child biologically than adopt from Albania.  I don't feel any less strong about adoption.  It is what we need to do.

I am so emotionally drained by our 4 miscarriages that since I feel so strongly about adoption I don't want to continue on trying.  It would be different if I just couldn't get pregnant.  But loosing a pregnancy is much harder than the thought of infertility.  At least with not being able to get pregnant you don't loose a potential life/child.  But this comes from a woman with repeat pregnancy loss and no infertility.

We are in limbo.  We are unsure where to go from here.  He would like to seek medical council.  I would like to get a home study.  Both of which cost a lot of money that we don't have.  We might just stay put until Endrit graduates.  It breaks my heart, but sometimes life is hard.  We will do what we need to do and that is all that I can ask of myself and Endrit.

been a while

I know that it has been a while since I have written a blog either here or my regular blog but that is because I don't really have an update.  Endrit and I are currently not working on adoption paperwork.  We haven't filed anything.  We are still in the research stage because of the requirements that we need to adhere to after the adoption takes place.  So, that is the update.  Sorry it isn't that great of an update.

So much to do so little time...

There is a constant nagging in the back of my head that I NEED to get the adoption paperwork done that I have to do.  I am going to try and catch up on that this weekend.  I will have Endrit fill out the things that he needs to do. It has been interesting to find out the amount of time I will be spending as a teacher.  I am not complaining, it is just a little bit eye opening.  I am excited to embark on a year of teaching.  Adoption is still right there in my mind.  The reason why I am working is because I need to pay for adoption.  It seems to be one in the same to me right now.  Endrit passed his proposal so he should be graduating in a year or so.  Things seem to be working out well enough.  It is definitely not a dull time in our lives.  

OH...and I have a question...I think I know everyone that has looked at my blog except one.  Who is at Buena Park California?

I know

I know that I said that we would be filling out our paperwork and everything before the end of August.  Well, I don't think that we will be done in that amount of time.  It takes a lot longer to gather some of the financial information when you are working full time and trying to do a proposal for a doctorate and teaching when a week ago I didn't know that I would be teaching.  So, it is kind of a non update today.  I have all of the paper work printed out.  I just have to fill them out.  And Endrit needs to print things out.

Adopting While Fertile

There are a few things that take place when you adopt and know that you are fertile.  One of those things is a regular cycle.  I know that it may sound a little off for some people, but when you know that you are supposed to do something and you have a pure desire to do that, it isn't crazy to you.

Just FYI for some readers, I have been off all forms of hormonal birth control for 3 years.  We use the Fertility Awareness Method as outlined in the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler MPH as our form of birth control.  The 2 times that we have gotten pregnant we knew that there was a direct possibility that it could happen and were not at all surprised.

There are a couple of complications that I have found to adopting and charting my fertility on a daily basis.  We are adopting because we would like to have children.  There are multiple ways to have children when you are in a situation like mine.  Every cycle around ovulation I think to myself that I could have my first baby approximately 9 months from now.  Not the 1-2 years from now that adoption would take.  But then I think about all of the spiritual experiences that I have had that lead me to adoption and it makes it a lot easier to get through the time of peak fertility.

I talk about this because it is a constant reminder to the title of this blog.  It is our choice to adopt.  We were not forced into this as a last resort.  We want to bring children into our lives in this manner.  It is special to us to do this.  It has brought us closer together than we could have expected.

No clue

I have been counting on getting a job.  How hard would it be for a Science teacher to get a job?  Really hard in this economy.  I am not getting a contract.  I have been told no by every school in every district that interviewed me.  At this point, I don't think that we will be able to start the process this month.  We are not able to pay the fee to apply let alone adopt.  Since there is a chance that I am fertile regardless of my losses in the past, there might be an option there.  There is nothing set in stone.  We may not adopt our first.  We may.  It is all up to Heavenly Father.