The Quest for Non-Existant Hypothetical Baby Number Two

This is not one of those laugh at my crazy ass life posts. This is the real deal, my life raw and uncensored. Maybe its because its been a crazy tornadic day, maybe its bad pizza talking, I don't know. But I can't sleep because I need to get this out to the world.

Now you know that Bubs and I have been married for 10 years. For the first six and 1/2 years we actively tried to have a baby naturally. Now I know that its really hard to get knocked up, you have like to hit this 18 hour window exactly or it doesn't happen. But after trying for six plus years, we really couldn't chalk it up to "bad timing". My period became my enemy. I would break out sobbing everytime I saw that tell tale red streak. I had failed yet again. Something had to be wrong with me.

Everyone offered advice. And let me tell you, when you are in the Shit, you don't want people giving you advice. Seriously, I can't tell you how many times I wanted to strangle someone when they said "Just relax and it will happen." Not at all helpful.

And then it seemed like all my friends were getting pregnant. There was something in the water. And they had only been trying for like 10 minutes, not 6 years. I really wanted to be happy for them, and I guess I was. But I was also crying inside because I was a complete failure. Not good.

So we had to do something about it or I would have been more of an emotional wreck than I usually am. I had some tests done and Bubs had some tests done. Everything was normal, or at least did not prevent us from conceiving. But we hadn't, so something was up.

Next on the list of things to do was a referral to a fertility specialist. I don't know why but this really freaked me out. I didn't want to know that there was something wrong with me that prevented me from having that much wanted child. I was a mother and nothing anyone could say would tell me otherwise. Plus I knew if I tried in vitro and it didn't work, I would be wrecked, a quivering mass of jelly on the floor. I didn't think I could recover from that. So needless to say we didn't pursue that option.

So we plunged headfirst into the world of adoption. After considering all of our options, we chose to adopt from China. When we began the process, we had no idea what was going to happen. At the time the wait was 6 to 9 months for a child. Great, we thought we'd have a baby by Christmas. But that is not how it happens for me, it is never that easy.

The paperwork took longer than we thought and the wait time increased. This constant state of not knowing what was going on really got to me. I knew I was going to have a baby and I talked about it a lot. However, no one else could tell. There were no outward signs, no tell tale bump. I got a lot of strange looks when I discussed having a baby while drinking a cocktail. "Hmm maybe we better call Social Services on this one" type looks. But the baby really was coming, eventually, just not out of me.

Finally 18 months after starting the process, I got the phone call that forever changed my life. I was the mother of a beautiful little girl halfway around the world. I had to wait another two months to meet her, but it was well worth the wait. And ever since I met her, my life has been a crazy, unpredictable mess and I wouldn't change a thing.

So lately I've been feeling like its time for baby number two. Except as we now know its not just as easy as getting knocked up. There is a lot of shit involved. Its not up to me when we have our next child, its up to a lot of other people half way around the world. They've never met me. They don't know that now would be a great time for Bunny to have a sibling. They don't really care. And that is a hard pill to swallow sometimes.

In fact, wait times in China have increased to 30 months from the time your paperwork is logged in the Chinese system (we waited 13). That's almost 2 1/2 years. And there are rumors that the wait will go up to 5 years. 5 years! That is not acceptable to me. I'll be 44 and Bunny will be 7, no way Jose.

So now that we are ready to begin our quest for Non-Existant Hypothetical Baby Number Two, it seems that we are back at the drawing board.