Parental control.

I will admit that I'm one of those annoying people who does not have children, but likes to think she knows a few things about raising them. Now, to clarify, I realize that what you think you would do in a certain situation can go completely out the window when you actually have children. Because you just don't know what the particular circumstances will be or what the temperament of your child will be and the best way to handle them. BUT, I am nearly 32 years old. I have watched other people's parenting (or lack thereof) for quite some time. When you don't have kids of your own, what else can you do but be judmental of everyone else?

Recently, my husband and mother-in-law and I went to an outdoor concert. We took our two Dachshunds. One of them, Jake, is generally very well-behaved. His biggest problem is that he loves EVERYONE and wants to kiss them on the mouth. Brody is also generally pretty good, but he sometimes has an issue with barking. He's pretty loud for such a small guy and he doesn't just bark, he howls. We think it's pretty cute, but I can see how it would be annoying to someone else, particularly to someone who's not a dog person.

Anyway, so we were at this concert and the boys were behaving pretty well. Brody would start barking if he saw another dog (or sometimes some other object, but it mostly seemed to be dogs). But I was able to get him to be quiet pretty quickly (we had food with us...the great silencer). Some kids had come by or had been looking at the dogs, but nothing to get them terribly upset. But then several kids were there at one time. All boys, I think. They were all pretty young. Young enough that their parents or whoever was in charge of them should have had more control over them. At first they were just trying to pet the dogs. I think Brody was already barking some at this point. But then this one little boy, who was maybe two or three, started squealing at Brody, which made him bark more. He did this several times before someone came over and made him stop. I was trying to have a friendly look on my face, all the while wishing someone would come get these kids so my dog would stop freaking out. (I'm just glad he didn't pee on me, as he sometimes does when he's excited.)

I certainly don't mind if a kid wants to pet my dogs. In fact, I get a bit offended at those parents who, when their child sees our dogs and wants to come over, won't let them. But it bothers me when parents are on the other end of the spectrum and basically let their kids harrass my animals. If the dog is upset and barking, then doesn't it occur to them that maybe they need to get their kid out of the dog's face? Not because the dog's going to hurt them, but because it's frustrating to me, the owner. Not to mention we were out in a public place...so between the screaming and yelling little boys and the barking dog...it was kind of embarrassing.

I don't claim to know everything about being a parent or know how I'll handle every situation. But I think it's safe to say that if those had been my kids, they would NOT have been allowed to act like that.

Life was almost so different.

If things had turned out differently, we probably would've been celebrating our four-year-old's birthday this weekend.

I would know what it's like to have someone call me "mommy".

I would be an expert at bandaging boo-boos and kissing skinned knees.

I would enjoy celebrating the holidays again because I'd have someone little to share them with.

I would read more children's books and fewer books written for adults.

Our living room floor would be strewn with the toys of a child instead of the toys of our dogs. (Well, there would still be dog toys!)

I wouldn't feel left out when people around me talk about their children.

I wouldn't still long to see my husband be a daddy.

I wouldn't wonder if I would ever have a child.

I wouldn't have to wonder if our child was a boy or a girl, what color their hair and eyes were, if they favored me or my husband or what kind of person they would grow up to be.

Our baby was due around June 6, 2007. It's hard to imagine how different our life would be if the baby had made it. We would be such different people because we'd be someone's parents. Our choices, our priorities, our plans...they would all take into consideration the child that was in our lives.

But we go on, without a child at the moment and not knowing what the future holds. We don't know if we'll ever have a biological child, although we hope we will. We don't know if we'll move on to adoption at some point. All I know is that losing the baby shaped our current life in the same way a living child would've shaped it. When you're a parent, it becomes the center of who you are. Every decision you make is made with your child in mind. Every action you take will take into consideration the consequences on this little person who means so much to you. When you don't have children, you're more free to do what you want. You can travel and stay up late and watch whatever you want to on television. You can spend your free time however you want, instead of having to cater to the needs of a little kid. Whether or not you're a parent affects so many things about your life and lifestyle.

I'm not completely sorry for where we are now. I'm glad we moved from where we last lived (where we were when we lost the baby). I don't like where we live now, but we'll probably be moving within the next year or so for law school. I'm glad I have the opportunity to go back to school and thankful for a husband who is willing to support us while I do that. I'm glad I get to sleep in occasionally. It's nice to eat meals in peace and to only have to get myself ready in the morning. But I still wonder what things would've been like if we'd been able to take our baby home from the hospital and raise it...something so many people take for granted, but many other people don't get to experience.

I'm so ready to experience that. I'm ready to give up the freedom to experience motherhood. After all, I'm not getting any younger here. It would be nice if I had a child before my friends start becoming grandmothers, you know? But I'm trying to be patient (sort of). I'm trying not to spend too much time focusing on it because, at the moment, there isn't much I can do. But when it finally happens, whether through my own pregnancy or through an adoption...I am SO ready.

The boys.

My husband and I really love our dogs. They are most definitely an important part of our family. I don't think I can ever have another type of dog other than a miniature Dachshund. They are just awesome! Here are some pictures of the boys, Jake and Brody.

                                                                 Jake, looking serious.

                                    Brody, looking more grown-up than I think he does in person.

                                                                They love each other!

Jake in his Snuggie that doesn't quite fit.

                                                                        Baby Brody.

Love them!

I had a dream...

Today did not start out too well. I had a nice dream that J and I had found out I was pregnant. I should have realized it was a dream, since I think I was maybe five or six weeks along and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take me that long to figure it out if it really happened. Anyway, we were excited and it was all quite pleasant...until I woke up. It took me a moment to get oriented and realize that I am not, in fact, pregnant. I felt sad when I realized this and it wasn't a good way to start the day.

As I've mentioned before, I've been thinking about adoption lately. But this dream just brought back to the forefront of my mind and emotions how much I really want to have biological children. I want to experience pregnancy. I want to go through that with my husband. And I wonder if it's ever going to happen. One minute I'm okay (more or less) with adoption and the next (right now) I just want to find a way to make a baby grow in my own body. A baby made up of me and J.

In other news (or, rather, non-news) things are still up in the air about law school and they will be for a few more months. I started studying for the LSAT again last night. Uggghhhh. It is so boring. It makes my brain hurt. But I will do it and I'm determined to score several points higher than I did the first time I took it. Admittedly, I could have studied much harder for it that time. But, as I said, it is so boring. I'll take it in October and will get my scores about three weeks after the test. Then I'll apply to a few different schools I'm interested and, as I get offers for admission (and hopefully scholarships), we'll make a decision about where we want to go. This is assuming I get more than one offer, of course!

I'm looking forward to moving out of the area we live in now and making a life somewhere else (even if it's only for the three years I'm in school). Then, when I'm done with school, maybe we'll finally be able to live somewhere we actually want to live. And be able to afford to do some things we want to do. (Buy a house, HAVE SOME BABIES, etc.) My dream of moving to South Carolina and my dream of babies will keep me going through law school when it gets tough. (That and my dogs. I envision many evenings of studying with both of them right there with me.) May of 2015 can't get here fast enough. Of course, I intend to enjoy life between now and then and don't want to wish the years away. But I feel like the dreams I have for the future can really start to come to fruition when I graduate. I can't wait!

TTC v. Adoption: Some Thoughts

As a woman who has been TTC for over two years, with no known problems, I think it's only natural to start wondering if starting our family the "normal" way is ever going to happen. We have done very little in the way of fertility treatments. I took progesterone for two or three cycles because my doctor thought mine wasn't quite as high as he wanted it to be (although it was still within the normal range). I took Femara for one cycle, but it made me feel pretty icky toward the end of the cycle. And that's really it. Our RE says the next step is an IUI with injectable medications. And I am trying to figure out if it's worth it to go that route or if we should move on to adoption.

It actually doesn't matter much right now which way I'm leaning because it's going to be a little while, at least, before we can pursue anything. As I said in my last post, we have some debt we want to get taken care of and any money put toward trying to expand our family, regardless of how we choose to do it, will come after those other things are paid off. But I think about it a lot. About how we'll proceed and how our family will eventually grow.

And right now, I'm leaning toward adoption. Well, I'm hoping we can get pregnant naturally, but I'm open to adopting some day, even if we end up having a biological child or children. I'm just not convinced that spending money on fertility treatments is the best use of the money we've been blessed with.

The numbers vary considerably on what the success rate for IUI with injectables is, but even the highest rates are a reason for pause. Can I justify spending, say, $3000 on ONE cycle with only a 15 or 20 percent chance that it will work? Not to mention that just because you get pregnant doesn't mean you will deliver a baby. It seems like an awful lot of money to pin on some not-so-good prospects. Sure, it'd be worth it if it worked. But I can't imagine how bad we'd feel if we saved up that money and spent it on one cycle and had a BFN at the end.

As of right now, we don't have insurance coverage for treatment, thus the estimate of $3000 for an injectable IUI cycle. If J's future job while I'm in school ends up having some coverage (particularly for the medications), I might be more willing to consider going that route. It just depends on how much we'd have to pay out of pocket and where we are financially.

J still thinks we can get pregnant on our own. He thinks that, for whatever reason, it just hasn't happened yet. And I'll admit that I harbor this same thought. After all, we have been pregnant before, even though it didn't last long. And if there is nothing really wrong with us after all the testing we've had, maybe it will happen eventually. I certainly haven't given up hope that it will. But after over two years of trying, I've stopped worrying so much about it and have begun to consider other options.

One thing that is not an option for us, in case you were wondering why I haven't mentioned it, is IVF. For personal and religious reasons, it's not something we're comfortable with.

So adoption is on my mind. I've been reading some adoption blogs and that's been interesting. Especially the ones that start sometime at the beginning of an adoption journey and go on through the actual adoption. It's nice to see it all come together.

When I first started thinking about expanding our family in this manner, I didn't feel comfortable with it. Like most women, I'd imagine, I've always thought I'd have my kids the old-fashioned way. So it takes a shift in perspective to wrap your head around doing things differently. But the more time that has passed, the more comfortable I am with it. I feel more of a kinship reading the blogs of adoptive moms than I do reading those who have biological children. When I think of meeting our baby for the first time, it's more likely I'll think of meeting the birthmother at the hospital than of being the mother giving birth.

I really really want to be someone's mom. I really want to experience being a parent with my husband. If I sit around all day and think about how my own body is betraying me and denying me this experience, it's just sad. But if I think about adopting, it gives me hope. It reminds me that eventually, I will be a mom. Even if it doesn't happen quite the way I used to think it would. And that is very comforting.

Change of plans.

Just when I thought we were finally heading in the right direction (or just in a direction, really) we changed our minds. J and I decided that I will not be starting law school this year. It will be at least August of 2012 before I start. (I say "at least" because who know what'll happen between now and then to cause another change of plans.) We simply don't feel we have enough time to do everything we need to do to make a major move before August. Even if J found a job right away, there is still so much to do. Also, we have some debt we'd like to get paid off before I start. We are fortunate that we don't have a mortgage and both of our cars are paid for. But we do have some other things that it would be nice not to have to worry about before we temporarily become a one income family. (I will not be working while I'm in school.)

I'm totally fine with putting it off. I may retake the LSAT and try to raise my score and then apply this fall to some other schools I'm interested in. We certainly are not married to the idea of attending the school I was planning to attend this fall or of living in that particular city. So this is really a chance to expand our options. Hopefully, anyway. If I get accepted anywhere else! I'm not too worried about that, though. I won't be applying anywhere that is out of reach for my LSAT score and GPA. Maybe I can manage to have at least two or three choices.

Maybe, at some point, this will finally all come together and work out. We can make a move, set up our lives in another place, make new friends...but, for the next year or so, I'm afraid it's still going to feel like we're just treading water. I'm okay with the wait (because who wouldn't want to put off the terror that is law school?). But, on the other hand, I feel like we're getting another year behind. Behind in what? The "game of life", I guess. I'm not sorry that we don't have what everyone else has. I'm thankful we're still renting a house because it means we don't have a mortgage to pay every month (and we don't have a house to try to sell or rent out before we move somewhere else). I'm thankful we're driving cars that are paid for so we don't have car payments to make. (Although lately it seems we've had to fix a lot of things.)

But it makes me feel like we're not quite grown up. At least in other people's eyes. We don't own a home, we are thinking about going back to school for new careers, we don't have kids yet. We are 31 years old and we are doing stuff a lot of people do five or ten years earlier. Sometimes it's a little frustrating to compare where we're at to where so many other people we know are. But you have to play the cards you've been dealt. We have chosen not to make buying a house a priority right now. There will be time for that later, when we're making more money (because, really, we can't afford it right now even if we wanted to) and are more sure of where we want to offically put down roots. We haven't been able to get pregnant and you only have so much control over that issue. You do the best you can with the choices and information you have. I just hope that one day we can look back over the choices we've made and be thankful for the way things happened and the way they turned out.

And, yes, I know it's not a game. I know it doesn't really matter and you can't (or shouldn't) compare yourself to anyone else. Everyone is dealing with different cards. But it's hard sometimes to look around and feel like you're the only ones who don't have it all together yet. However, I also know that just because people look like they have it all together doesn't mean they actually do. So, really, comparing yourself is just a futile exercise any way you look at it.

Coming up: TTC v. Adoption

Decisions.

We had a really nice vacation last month. I'll say more about that once I have my pictures available to post. I'm still waiting on getting the new card reader put in!

We're kind of getting down to the wire on making a decision about whether we're going to pursue moving. My seat deposit is due April 15th. We are both leaning in the direction of moving to Alabama, but I'm waiting on J to say the word and make it official. I know it's what I want to do and it's what will be the best thing for my career in the long run. (As opposed to staying here and going to the local non-ABA law school.) J believes it's the best thing, as well, but he has the added challenge of finding a job. I'm trying to help him. I send him job links. I sent messages to a couple of people I went to college with who I knew lived in that area and asked them if they could put out some feelers for jobs and places to rent. One of them came through and there are a couple of job opportunities J needs to check out. It takes him longer to work through things than it does me and I'm sorry to say I haven't been very patient with him. But you can only put things off for so long before the opportunities are gone. I'm hoping his job search will be short and we can get this show on the road. It would be nice to move and get settled in before school starts. There are so many things to do when you move to a new place other than just moving your stuff and getting settled into your new home. It would be nice to have time to find a place to worship, find a new primary care doctor, find a new vet for the dogs and find our way around the city a bit before I have to start worrying about school. School starts in four months. I think I'm starting to get a little nervous!

The beach.

This is where I'll be in five days.

I'll be going with this guy.

 

So excited!



So much to figure out...so little time.

I am happy to say that I was accepted at the law school in question in my last post! Not only that, but they offered me a 66% tuition remission scholarship! I had said that they would need to offer me at least $20,000 a year for us to even consider it and 66% of tuition works out to $20,460. So we are considering it! The stipulation to keeping the scholarship after your first year is that your GPA stay above 2.75. That doesn't sound too difficult, but then again, I have no idea how tough law school will be (other than what I've heard others say, of course). But I can work pretty hard for $20,460!

This nice scholarship offer makes things complicated, however. If they had said, "Hey, we'll give you $10,000 a year", then we would have moved on to other options. We're not interested in owing that much in student loans. But now we actually have to consider a big move. Well, "big" to us. It means moving several hours away from where we are now. It means J has to find a job and it has to pay enough to support both of us because I wouldn't be working while I'm in school. It means having to find a place to live that's decent, but not too expensive. It's certainly a good opportunity, though. I don't know how keen I am on living in the city it's located in, but it's because I've never been there (we may have driven through there before, but I'm not sure). We probably need to make a weekend visit just to look around and get an idea of how it is and if we could live there for three years. I realize you can't really make that sort of judgment about a place in a weekend, but it's better than committing to moving somewhere without checking it out at all.

I have to let them know by mid-April, I think, if I am going to go there. And I have to pay $500 of the $750 seat deposit (unrefundable, of course) by that time. So if we decide to go for it and J isn't able to find a job before then (which is the biggest hurdle to moving), I'll be out that money. We've not had much luck so far in locating jobs for him to apply for.

We have been busy lately and have had kind of a stressful week, so J and I haven't spent a whole lot of time talking about it. I'm sure we'll be discussing it on our vacation.

Speaking of vacation, this time next week, we'll be leaving (or about to leave, depending on how late we are running) for J's grandparents house, which is on the way to the beach. We'll spend the night there, then head on to South Carolina on Saturday. We are so very ready! Next week we'll be busy trying to get everything ready for the trip. It's kind of tough to pack for a week when you are going to be staying in a tent. Trying to get everything you want to take to fit into your four door sedan isn't all that fun. And when you aren't sure how the weather will be, it's hard to know what to pack to wear. (Which is my job.) But it'll be worth it once we get there and get to relax for a few days. We seriously need to unwind and we certainly have plenty to think about while we're there. We have so many decisions to make about our future! I find that making decisions is easier when you're out of your everyday element and have some space to think.

My blog really needs some pictures. The problem is that we bought two new cameras recently and the card reader on my computer isn't able to read the cards in them. We bought a new card reader, but J hasn't put it in yet. So hopefully soon I'll be able to make my blog less boring!

I'm back!

Despite appearances, I haven't deserted my blog. I've thought about posting something, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Life has been busy and there have been some changes recently. And there are more to come.

The main thing going on in my life right now is making a decision about law school. I was accepted at a school near where we live, but after receiving my scholarship information from them, we decided that was not the best option. It was a crummy scholarship award and this particular school is absolutely not worth getting into that much debt. No school would be, in my opinion. But especially not this one. It's a new law school (although the university it's associated with is not new) and has no reputation behind it. Plus, for a new school, they sure are asking a lot for tuition. $32,000 a year! So I withdrew from there and I'm in the process of figuring out what to do next.

Sort of on a whim, I decided to apply to a school that is around four and a half hours from where we live now. It had been on my list of possible schools previously. There were some schools on my list whose standards would make me feel the need to retake the LSAT before I applied to them. Not that I absolutely couldn't get in with what I have now, necessarily, but I would need a higher score to get a better (or any) scholarship. But at this particular school, my LSAT score and GPA are both in their 75th percentile, so I felt comfortable going ahead and applying. I'd like to start school this August and retaking the LSAT would mean waiting another year to start. Anyway, I whipped up a personal statement and got everything in order and submitted my application on February 11th. They have an application status checker, so I was (a little obsessively) checking that to see if there was any movement on my application. Finally, I decided to email the admissions director and ask him if he could give me a ballpark figure about how long it usually takes for a student to receive their decision. He said that I am scheduled to be deliberated upon by the Admissions Committee on February 24th! And he should be able to let me know something on the 25th. Also, scholarship decisions are made within one week of the admission decision and he said it might possibly be made by the 25th! I'm not worried about getting in, but I am really anxious to hear about the money. I wish it didn't have to be such an issue, but it is. We don't want to be in a lot of debt, especially when the legal market is so unpredictable right now and we don't even know if I'll be able to find a good job once I graduate. We have a figure in our head about the amount that will allow us to seriously consider this school, so we'll see what they offer me and go from there.

I think this school would be a great fit for me and I'm hoping it works out. I also think it would be good for my husband and I to live somewhere else. This school is in a city, but it's a smaller city than we live in now. I think both of us are really meant to be country people. We have dreams of one day owning a lot of land, so our neighbors aren't too close and our kids have plenty of room to run around and play outside. The only good thing about living in the city is the convenience factor and having access to so many things nearby. However, when there is so much traffic that it takes forever to get anywhere, that sort of negates any perceived convenience. I live about eight miles from my workplace and it takes about 30 minutes to get there. Crazy.

As for baby matters, those are more or less at a standstill right now. We aren't preventing (not that it matters, obviously), but we are not doing any treatment at this time. Our RE recommended injectables (I assume with IUI), but we have to pay for it all out-of-pocket and we can't afford it right now. And with all the upheaval about law school and the possibility of moving, TTC is on the back burner. Not that I don't think about it, but it's not my priority at the moment. It's actually been nice having some things to distract me from obsessing about it so much. I'm sure once I actually start law school, I'll have even less time to think about babies.

In other exciting news, we are going on vacation in March to our most favorite place! It's one of South Carolina's Sea Islands and we love it there. J has been going there with his family since he was very young and I started going when we were dating. We set up a tent very close to the beach and spend the week doing a whole lot of nothing (i.e. walking around, collecting shells, eating, riding bikes, etc.). We are just hoping the weather will be nice while we're there. I made these reservations last July and would have preferred to go in April of this year, but I think the campsites we wanted were already reserved during that time. At any rate, we are really looking forward to our trip! It will be nice to get away and take a break from our busy lives for a few days.

I'll try not to let so much time go by before I post again!