7

Hi baby!

Well, sometimes in the darkness, there shines a light!

After my sad breakdown this week, I emailed our friends Ch & Te.  They adopted two beautiful little girls through the FL state adoption system a couple of years ago.  When we were first experiencing the infertility, Te was a HUGE help to me.  As a fellow woman, she gave me that parental advice and guidance I so desperately craved.  She’s a wonderful mom to Na & Li, she is funny and down-to-earth and makes me significantly less scared to be a parent.  She & Ch are in plans to adopt a third soon which makes me bubble over with joy!

Anyways, my baby, the four of us are meeting for general debauchery on Friday night and I think I am looking more forward to this than to a trip to DisneyWorld!  She said she’d be more than happy to talk to me endlessly about my fears, mentor us through the system, and act as a reference if we needed one.  I think this is the first time I have been happy about the prospect of parenting without it being tinged by the sadness of more negative pregnancy tests, more doctor’s appointments and bad labwork.

It gives me hope that although I may not be able to have you in the way that I thought, I will get to meet you nonetheless!

<3, Eden

6

Hey baby!

We got your dad’s labwork back yesterday.  Some stuff got better, some stuff was the exact same as last time.  They’ve put me on pills now to start me cycling regularly.  I should start taking those in a week or two, but they don’t think it will do any good.  The special doctor doesn’t want to see me before I got on these pills though.  I was frustrated last night.  I’m tired of hearing bad news go to worse when your dad is trying so hard to lose weight, to take his medications, to stay alive for so long for you & me.  I feel conflicted on whether to seek medical treatment for our difficulties or just adopt, knowing we can give our love to any child, not just our own biological one.

I got mad after painting the spare room.  I took out my little hope chest of baby clothes and toys, and even the blank baby book we bought last Christmas (as a talisman for trying to concieve) and stuffed it in a bag.  I wanted to throw it off of a hill and watch it tumble and cascade.  I thought about the little language caterpillar Tom & I bought when we were shopping for your cousin and then kept because we were giddy.  I thought about the alien onesie we saw on sale at Target and the kitty hat we bought from the discount bins.  We talked late into the nights about cloth diapering and making our own baby food and taking you to the park.

I thought about those toys, those books, those clothes, stained with dirt.  How sad my dreams would look if I threw them off of a hill.  I cried.  I felt like I couldn’t move.  I missed you, more than I ever have before.  Your dad hugged me and we cried together and then I remembered how much love he and I have.  We talked about you, how much you’d be firey like your gross-oma since you’d be named Anneliese after her.  We talked about taking you pottery painting and lunches at the beach.  We talked that if you were Ehren, how dad would run with you in the backyard, playing catch and tag.

We decided to stay positive in spite of the pills that they think won’t help.  We decided how far we want the doctor to help us to meet you, just 3 rounds of a special procedure called IUI.  After that, we’ll adopt through the state.  Maya, Ehren: you have to know how much we think of you.  We think of you all the time.

<3, Eden

5

Hi Ehren,

Yesterday was part two of your dad’s lab work. I know our fertility journey is a lot of “hurry up and wait”, so we’re getting ready to wait for a week for the results. After this, they’re starting me on some medication that regulates my ovulation and hoping that it will yield enough good results for us to have you!

This weekend, your dad & I were getting our haircuts in town and there were some other kids waiting on their parents to finish up with their hair cuts, so we made friends with them. There was a 3-year old boy who played like we had a store, and he was selling me the straightening irons they had on display. I’d “pay” him in his leftover lollipop wrappers and then pretend to come back for a part or something. When he had to go, a 3-year old girl named Kara came up and told me her name and age and smiled! She grabbed a wedding hairstyle book and we sat down and “read” it together where I’d make up princess stories about the ladies in all of their pretty dresses. Later, we saw Kara & her family at Target and she recognized me and said hi. We compared haircuts and then went our separate ways.

I think about how happy those families are and I smile when I think of you.

Tonight, your dad & I are having our “babydate”! We’re going to sit down and make a plan about how much time, money, & effort we want to put into our fertility journey. I am going to make my great taco bake casserole over at your Oma & Opa’s (they’re out of town on a lovely Canadian cruise!) and we’re going to make a final plan on all of our options and what we’re willing to do (IUI is still up in the air?) and what we are not willing to do (IVF is out for us, definitely). Hopefully, this will make the little setbacks and disappointments along the way much easier to bear!

Since my craft shop is based on baby things, it can be a real joy (or very frightening!) trip to buy supplies like onesies and yarn for little blankets. Tom & I lingered hand in hand at Target’s baby section feeling elated and sad all at once. Ehren, he’s going to make a great dad. I hope that I will be a good mom.

<3, Eden

4

Hi Maya!

I had a nervous morning at the obgyn this morning! I spent my hour in the waiting room looking at an organic gardening book and flipping through pictures of babies that my obgyn has delivered. Despite my intrinsic suspicious attitude towards the US medical system, I still enjoy my obgyn as a person, even if I don’t agree with the system that she works for.

I have in my hand, my prescription for my first round of pills; the first piece of tangible evidence of the fight against this. I should be starting it towards the end of this month, since I have to have a pill to start my period, and a pill to ovulate. They don’t think my ovulation is a problem, but the RE won’t see me until we have a failed trial on these pills. So, for the next four months, it’s a wait and see sort of thing. The doctors think the problem is with your dad though, as a result of him not taking care of himself with his diabetes for the past couple of years.

Yesterday was your dad’s birthday. He is turning 38 and he is having a very difficult time with that. He gets sad because he feels that those dark years when he did not care what happened to him are hurting our chances to see you. He wants to be able to meet you, to hold you always, to teach you to ride a bike, and maybe also do photography if you’re interested. Sometimes I see his eyes well up when he’s rubbing my achy sides in bed and his hand will run over my belly and we both just need to have a good cry.

So, next week, it’s your dad’s turn to get a second test and find out if the problem is suspected to be nerve damage. They say nerve damage cannot be repaired, although we can try to have you as a test tube baby. I have mixed feelings about such a thing. There’s no romance involved in needles and catheters and hormone pills that make me sick and crazy. We won’t find out for sure about the nerve damage until he sees a special doctor if his test is not better.

We’re seeing the movie Wall-E on opening day! We hope that we can take you to some kids movies one day. Just the three of us!

<3, Eden

3

Hey Maya!

Did I ever tell you, I think you will be a boy? I think you’ll end up being Ehren, not Maya. Our lifestyle is so rough and tumble, you’ll be one heck of a tomboy if you are a girl! Your dad thinks you’ll be a girl. I tell him that he just thinks that because all of our friends have girls. Linda & Jeremy have Nicole and Rob & Blanca have Sophia. Every baby that he has held in the past year has been a girl, so I think he just has girls on the brain!

We got some great news this afternoon, Maya! Tom & I were feeling really sad because his bloodwork came back better, but his physician does not seem to really care about the fertility side of things. I was feeling further and further away from you each moment. So I spent my lunch calling doctors. First, I called the urologist and they said that they would just send us to a reproductive endocrinologist. When I called the RE, I spoke to a lovely woman named Lisa who really helped me figure out what the next step was, which is the regimen that the OB/GYN offered me in February, but said that it may not work out for us. Trying, even if it is not the successful way to you, makes me feel less stagnant.

Maya, today is the first day I’ve been excited that we might be painting that spare bedroom to be your room!

<3, Eden

2

Hey Baby!

Your dad went in for his latest bloodwork results today. He’s doing much better on the medication that he is on, so we’re both very glad for that! They say the rest of the results that are a little high can come down just with diet and exercise and he’s got some paperwork for me to help navigate that side of it. I anticipate some new meals in the future!! Now, we just have to wait 3 more months for the next round of bloodwork and hopefully at that time, he should get the all-clear!

I have been frustrated lately with waiting and seeing. I am not very patient by nature, and I hope that is something you get to be a little better at. Time seems to stand still while your dad and I are just rushing through it. Every morning that I wake up, I think that I am one day further away from meeting you. Maybe I’ll pass the last day that I will have a chance to meet you and I won’t treat it as important enough day. I’d at least like to have a nice dinner, a cry, watch movies in bed all day with Tom, or have some sort of vigil to honor you. If I am meant to grieve you, I want to grieve you properly, with all the importance that you deserve!

When Tom & I first started dating, we decided on your name. We were naive and thought you would come all on your own, that we did not need to ask for you. If you are a girl, you’ll be Maya Annaliese. If you’re a boy, you’ll be Ehren Diego. We wanted to make it important to have a German-based name (for your dad’s home country) and a Latin-American name (for my California home!).

It’s been a hard day for me today, baby, but I hope that whether or not I become your mom, that I can make this world a little better in your honor.

<3, Eden

1

Hey Baby,

I don’t know you yet; I am concerned that I may never have a chance to get to know you. But what I DO know is that it makes me feel much better to write to you, whether you are real or fictional.

So, this is a journal for you, cutie! Whether you come into this world or not, we wanted to find a way to express how much we wish to have you in our lives…

Your dad and I just want you to know how much we love you and we wanted a way to deal with our frustrations, rejoice in our accomplishments, and express our feelings for you, our baby.

<3, Eden