Solo Selfie!

Yup, I'm about to post a self portrait.  Sorry, couldn't do the duck face.

I did it because I thought this biological side of things was interesting. Prepare yourself, it's all about hair, so skip this post now if that's boring to you!

Back in 2008:  I started growing my hair in January for our wedding in October.  It was the first time I'd ever had longish hair.  I started by cutting it short and just let it go with trims to shape it and keep it healthy.  Come October, I had "mermaid" hair that was just past my shoulders.

Early 2009: This is when we started to try and get pregnant.  I stopped the pill and had stopped thinking about my hair.  I just pulled it into a pony tail and went to work.  It was easy and it kept getting longer.  Now, when I stopped the pill I also stopped getting a period.  Enter the hormones!  First I was on hormones just to help me get a period.  After a few months, when it was clear it wasn't going to work, I started on the heavier hormones.  This was the summer of the best hair of my life!  It was the perfect smoothness, and thick and healthy.  It was a good length, mid-back, for mermaid curls and I almost always liked what it looked like.  I kept letting it grow.  (I would also like to interject that my nails began to grow crazy fast too.  This is all very similar to what I hear pregnant people say about their hair and nails). 

Summer 2010:  This is nearing the end of my hormones, after it's clear that they aren't working.  I am pissed that it didn't work and have totally forgotten about the good hair.  Again, up into the pony tail and throw myself into work. 

Now:  This is the first time I've had anytime to notice my hair.  I have recently been trying to wear my hair down again but it never felt like it did in 2009/2010.  I kept trying different products, different ways of styling and drying, but it always felt "gross" to me.

It hit me today that it was because the last time it was this long and felt good I was on the hormones!

Solution?  Go shorter!  I would say 7-8 inches came off today.  I still wanted to be able to pull it back so that I look familiar when I visit Dania - I don't want to be a stranger again!  (But, I bet the teeth will be enough of a reminder!)  Either way, this is the first time, since January 2008, I've seen space above my shoulders when my hair was down.  I can still pull it into a pony tail (with some bobby pin help) which was how Dania saw me everyday.  It feels better, still not as nice as it did when I was on the hormones, but it feels a lot healthier. 

I just thought it was neat to look at some of the biological differences of this process, as opposed to the sociological ones!

Getting My Groove Back

I have forced myself to sing and dance around the kitchen everyday.  It feels good.  I can't believe how I had stopped singing!  I had even stopped in the backroom at work... it is so obvious now that I am forcing it.  It will become natural soon enough though. 

I still get angry at least once a day.  It is becoming anger at things beyond what just happened.  I am getting angry at things that our attempt to have a kid had created ages ago.  I am starting to feel more anger at the fact that I couldn't get pregnant and what that means now.  If I go off the pill I essentially go into a menopausal state.  I didn't ovulate naturally for 11 months before forcing it with hormones.  Why?  No one can tell me.  Tell me I don't have a uterus but tell me something!  And now, after the months and months of hormones and the most painful, and fascinatingly disgusting, cycles I have not had a day where my ovaries haven't hurt.  I feel like I have noticed it more since I've been more sullen and still.  I can normally ignore things like this because I am moving around but I often feel sharp stabs of pain where my ovaries are.  I think it's the ovaries because that specific area was heated up by the radioactive liquid in one of my many tests.  It is the same place inside of me.  I can't sleep on my stomach anymore because that is when they really hurt; it's like the weight of my body presses down on them and hurts.  I never experienced this before all the tests and hormones.  Again, why do I have to live with it now?  What is wrong with my insides?

Ok, I could really go on and on.  Needless to say, I have spiraled in my "poor me" outlook - and that makes me mad too.  Keep forcing the normalcy from before and it WILL return. 

Jessa 3.0

30th birthday today.

It's just a number... but I find myself sad.  I think it's because I truly expected to be a mother by this age.  Especially because I met Mike at 23 and KNEW with all my heart that this was a man I wanted to marry and have kids with him. It didn't turn out that way... it's ok, I'm just bummed.

We are also looking at a later timeline for our name getting to Russia.  Mike had his appointment with the base doctors and they ticked off 'yes' under mental disease on our additional forms.  The form I previously mentioned that if a 'yes' appears it won't even be a considered application... shit.  I got quite upset that day.  Mike is supposed to be the easy one for that form!  He is, of course, appealing to the doctors and telling them why we need it to say 'no.'  His appointment is at the end of August - the time when I wanted our whole dossier being sent to Russia.  Sigh.  At least CHOC is doing their job by ensuring we aren't going to pay to apply just to be denied.  God, I hope this works out.

I had some follow up appointments with some specialists in regards to trying to find out why I can't conceive.  Still no answers but I officially had the funniest/strangest comment said to my by a doctor.  The doc who did my cervical biopsy last year had me in to double check there were no changes.  It was quick and easy but as she was leaving, with one breath, she says, "well, you have a great cervix and a great purse.  Bye!"

Who says that in the same sentence?!?!

So, I can at least take heart knowing that if Russia doesn't like my head problems I have a great cervix and purse.

The Appointment

I just returned from my appointment with my GP.  He looked at the form and said he wanted to review all the details in my file so he can fill it out so it's most positive for me.  He also said that there "is obviously nothing here that will prevent [me] from being a parent."  Well, that felt good to hear! Thank you!

I did kind of wish he just ticked the boxes and signed his name and license number, assumedly so Russia can check that he's a credible doctor!  I understand that he wants to make an informed and accurate report.  He said he will call when he is completed.  Waiting?  Pshaw!  A week is nothing!

I will hopefully hear from the social worker soon to see if she has had discussions with CHOC yet.  Mike has his appointment with his doctors too... his will be be a quick tick of the boxes and he'll be done.

And we're moving forward again.

My Intention...

I was given "ohm work" at yoga.  My instructor said I had to write down my intention and see what happens.  During tonight's practice I had made my intention "acceptance."  I had been looking for help within myself for accepting my circumstances.

Let me back track just a little first...

The room we painted for kid had hardly been stepped in for the first year we lived here.  Once it was blue I kept sitting in there and wishing it had harder floors for me to practice yoga.  The want to practice yoga more lead me to join an actual yoga studio and not just take classes at the gym.  The studios are blue.  A very similar blue to what I have chosen to decorate with...

My intention is acceptance.

I already have accepted that I am inexplainably infertile.  I need to accept that if I am denied because of my mental health issues it wasn't meant to happen with this country (I just REALLY feel like Russia is where Kid is).  I accept that it is all a big "what if" right now and I need to stop looking so far into the future and focus on the next step.  I need to accept that I can't help who I am and that I am OK.

My intention is acceptance that I WILL be a mother...

I Feel Even More "Broken"

I recieved an email today, from CHOC, telling me that the mental health issues are a real concern.  We have to have additional medical forms filled out, revise our homestudy to omit any details and descriptions, and hope for the best... I don't like it.  I feel like it's another diagnosis telling me I'm not having kids.

The medical form asks the doctors if we suffer from a list of diseases.  If we have any 'yes' answers I was told Russia will not accept us.  They take the mental and physical health of the prospective parents very seriously.  I feel like yelling back, "I take MY health seriously too!"  The category that could break us is listed as Mental Disease.  Yes or No.  That's it.  I guess I have to see if my doctor considers what I have a disease or not.  Myself?  I do not.  It's a condition which is very manageable, much like acne or male patterned baldness.  I had a good bout of depression nine years ago, but I never had a "Major Depressive Episode" as described in many Government of Canada health reports (and wikipedia) - I just googled and read so much because this is so upsetting to me and I wanted to see if minor depression is repeatedly cited as a disease.  I will have to discuss this with my doctor and hope for the best outcome... because the current outcome isn't looking so hot.

And even if he does fill it out in my favour, Russia might still say 'no.'   I have emailed CHOC and asked about their experiences with couples like Mike and I being denied.  I'm scared as hell to read that answer.  I have to stay proactive though - if I don't I might actually accquire a mental disease because blind hope might drive me mad.

Likeness

I got a little sad today when I realized  I won't have that seeing-the- "likeness" between Kid and our baby pictures.  That is one thing that I love seeing in kids and their parents... the genetic resemblences.  I love how quickly it changes - like when Sophie was born and how she looked so much like the women from Tori's side of the family, but now she looks so much like Eric.  It's amazing what genes can do.  I loved genetics best in biology class and learning about dominant traits and how they can be passed with recessive too.  I know that because Mike was blonde as a kid and I am blonde now any genetic kid would have had blonde hair (can only be present when two recessive genes are present, therefore we can only each pass on a recessive gene creating the recessive gene in kid), and the same goes for blue eyes.  (Yes, I probably really dumbed that down and someone like Tori, who is a genius when it comes to this stuff, could point out flaws.  Just go with it, k?)  I got sad, almost like a nostalgic sad, when I thought of how I wouldn't be able to say, "that's Mike's impish grin," or, "the shape and colour of his eyes are the same as mine."  This is part of the loss with which I have to deal.  I figure Kid will eventually look like us anway because he'll adopt our mannerisms and people can say, "look at how he stands.  That's so Jessa."  Just as long as he doesn't hand talk as much as Mike!  I just wanted to share because I said I would share as much as I can about this whole process and well, I've got nothing but time to think now.

Our Homestudy was hand delivered to the Provincial Goverment today.  Now awaiting the stamp of approval.

Spoke too soon...

Ummmm, so ALMOST completely normal feeling.  I have not stopped crying since I woke up today.  This must be my hormones finally fixing themselves.  Every cute photo of kids' valentine's to their folks has me bawling.  I watch SMASH and she reads a letter to the mother of her adoptive child and I'm a blubbering fool.  We get the phone call that our adoptive training is booked and I can hardly speak on the phone.  I go to the store to buy a small gift for Steve and Shelly's new baby and I weep at every single item in there.  The only thing that didn't make me cry was the drilling at the dentist (too nervous).  There's a lot of love being expressed today and it's hitting me to the core.

I wrote a letter to Mike... my home made valentine, if you will.   I cried while composing it (of course)

Happy Valentine’s Day.

I cannot thank you enough for your love.  Seriously, I never could finish giving you the proper gratitude for your understanding and compromising – especially over the last year.  I have a lot of love to give and share but so do you and we both deserve to share it with kids.  Unlike me, you have the ability to naturally carry and process challenges and change and that is the best gift you have given me.

If I didn’t have someone like you I wouldn’t have been able to handle my diagnosis.  I wouldn’t have been able to speak my mind, despite my gut wrenching fear of scaring you away.  I wouldn’t have the strength or means to pursue the path I want to in order to build my family.  If I didn’t have someone like you… I wouldn’t have YOU. 

I truly believe that the moment we decided to adopt our child was chosen for us – similar to the moment of conception.  Every move we make now is just leading us to that child.  Every hiccup or delay has a reason.  Every seemingly unfair situation or lack of an option is just a detour heading in his direction.  I am sorry you will not watch him grow from the beginning, but we will have more anniversaries with him and so many momentous “birthdays” to romanticize and celebrate. 

I am so grateful to have you. 

I love you. 

Overshares...

First cycle since being back on the pill.  There was a constant ache from day one of this cycle, the odd pinch, whatever, nothing like it was... and then it stopped when I was done this round of pills!  Open heavenly clouds and let the choir sing!  No more pain!  This is the first time in almost a year I haven't had to fill myself with analgesics in order to function.

BETTER YET!  I have felt so NORMAL!  It's been two months since stopping the hormones and then three weeks back on the pill.  I feel so much like I used to that I could cry with gratitude everytime I don't forget a word!  I haven't felt clumsier than normal, and those who know me know that I don't beed to be anymore clumsy than usual! HA!  I also don't get angry when I drop things and I don't jump out of my skin when the phone rings or I hear the 'click' of the PA turning on at work!

I hate that my body didn't work the way I wanted it to, but I am so thankful that with a little help I know I can feel "normal."

I am also pleased to announce, with blurry eyes, that my friend Steve and his beautiful Shelley have welcomed their son Frankie to the world this weekend!  I am so happy for them and so jealous in the best possible way!  I can't wait to meet him when I can see through the tears!!! hehehe  Yeah babies!