Reader Question: What's Harder?? (Part II - The Answer)

Reader Question: 

What's Harder....

Trying to Conceive and Fertility Treatments

OR

Foster Care?

It was great to see all of your responses.

 For me both are emotionally draining and anxiety ridden.  And with both you can never seem to anticipate anything because once you think you have it figured out.. it changes, for better or worse... it changes.

With TTC and FT's time ticks by at the pace of a cycle.. everything is defined in terms of your ovulation.  You have the fertile time leading up to ovulation, and then the dreaded Two Week Wait to find out if you conceived.. only in our case that TWW never gave us the desired and hoped for BFP.  In the beginning the signs of AF weren't so depressing.. it was "oh well there's next month, we are still young" outlook and adage.  Then you start realizing.. SH*T this just isn't working.. and you seek medical help.. you take medication and are told that "it wont be a problem for you to conceive".. only there is still a problem.. you still aren't conceiving.  So you move further into the treatment process and continue to struggle with conception.. until there is a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.  A time when decide to grieve the loss of your biological child and either live a child-free life or pursue other means create a family.

Then we have the Foster Care side of the equation... time ticks by at the pace of a court date (every 3 months).  And information isn't freely passed between parties.  Foster Parents can "see" how the case is going by their foster children's behaviour, but that can be misleading.  We aren't even always told what circumstances brought the children into care... we can surmise based on comments or attending court hearings (which I never attended.. working in the legal field, I never wanted the court to ask me a question without having been fully prepped on how to answer it -- the big thing with courts is that everything has to be facts not opinions and so mixing your feelings into the fold, won't always bring about your desired outcome).  And I can tell you, this past case was emotionally exhausting for me.  I always felt as thought I couldn't truly determine whether or not I was being selfish or if I was truly thinking of the children's best interest.  Sadly, there are times (in parenting not just foster parenting) where being selfish and having the child's best interest at are are one in the same... and yet you feel guilty because of that simple truth.

So for me.. although they were both riddled with anxiety and heartache, being a Foster Parent was much harder.  Solely because there are lives at stake.  With TTC & FT's YES I grieved, and yes there are days when I still continue to grieve, but it was in the abstract.  Whereas with Foster Parenting, I see .. daily .. the toll it takes on the children and on their families.

For me.. being a Foster Parent is much harder than TTC'ing or injecting myself with needles and being jabbed by the U/S tech every other day to see if things are "ripening" properly.

Reader Question: What's Harder Trying to Conceive and Fertility Treatments OR Foster Care? (Part I)

Reader Question: 

What's Harder....

Trying to Conceive and Fertility Treatments

OR

Foster Care?

Well, that is a tough one to answer.

So let me open this up to my Readers... What are your thoughts, questions, answers?  And then I will share mine.

How full is it?

Half-empty or Half-full?

For me it depends on the topic. Adoption/Foster = Half-full. Whereas, TTC/Charting = Half-empty.

For whatever reason, I can't get excited over a TTC Cycle or Chart. Maybe its the years of trying and the failed fertility treatments that have jaded me. But I just can't see the positive side of my chart this cycle. I don't know, maybe its because everything feels "normal" or because I am so tired of being dissapointed. I want to see something truly different from my prior cycles. At first I was leaning towards an average post Ovulation temp of one full degree higher than may coverline (the horizontal line in the chart), but now I want to raise the bar, so to speak. I want to see something higher than that one full degree, maybe even one and a half full degrees higher than my coverline. Uhhh... is it Valentine's Day yet? I know I'll have a better idea of what's going on then.

And then there is the Foster Care/Adoption subject. So much hope and optimism that I think it might actually sicken people. We start our training on Saturday and I couldn't be happier about it! I feel like we have so much to give and receive from a child, even if it isn't biologically ours. I know that TPR (Termination of Parental Rights) can take some time through the childrens services, because the goal is always reunification with the biological parents (BP's). I mean it can honestly be years, before a judge grants a TPR, and it is typically after multiple failures by the BP's to follow the established course of action demanded by the CW (case worker). Sometimes, it falls apart at the final step in the path... something that most people would deem as being the easiest step of all. But for whatever reason the BP faulters and a TPR is issued. I feel as though we are going into the process with our minds and hearts in the right place. Reuinifcation with the BP's, but I can't say that I won't get attached to a child who is in long term care. It would be naive of me to even suggest that. I just have to remind myself.. over and over, that we are here to help the BP's, but temporarily caring for the child. I still feel optimistic about adopting through foster care though.

Stands up... Bows head...

"Hi, I'm Maddie.. And last night I slept with a stuffed animal"



I had a talk with one my dear friends, O., that I met on the WTE boards, who recently under went her first IVF cycle. The story is quite similar to mine... all the hope in the world, but a few days before the blood test the spotting begins. And we were both told by our RE's "We've see this plenty of times before and women still get a BFP". Although, my cycle didn't turn out that way.. I truly hope she is one of those wonders!!!

Anyway, I went to bed feeling sad, for both of us. If my FET cycle had worked I would have been due on March 1st. Yup, I'd be 34 weeks pregnant, almost read to pop. So what do I do to comfort myself? I grabbed my penguin and cuddle with it and softly cried. I cried about my failed cycles, I cried about the potential failed cycle of O and I cried for all the women who have suffered the same sort of loss or failed fertility treatment. Infertility blows!! There I said it.. and yes I throwing a big "F U" to the TTC Gods, too!!

And to top it all off.. I woke up this morning to AWFUL cramps!! Yup, 5:30 this morning my cycle began.. woke me up from a sound sleep and all!! So my questions about when I ovulated have been answered, it was earlier than I had thought. Which means that when I rolled the dice this morning, I landed on another chute and down I slid back to the beginning of another cycle. Another chance at praising the TTC Gods and hoping they bless me with a BFP.

Why does it matter?

Sometimes I wonder, why we are even bothering continuing our TTC efforts. I am fairly convinced that we won't conceive.. EVER. But we are still trying, and I am still addicted to be obsessed with my FF chart.

So here is this month's chart... it shows my Ovulation on Cycle Day 13.. my temps are bit higher than normal this cycle, but I assume it's because of the weather:

Now we have this month's chart with a different setting (FF's Advanced setting .. the "suggested setting"), but it pushes out my Ovulation to CD14, and I have compared it using my Coverline and Ovulation date with my only cycle that went Triphasic (2nd higher thermal shift during the Luteal Phase, which can, but doesn't always, indicate pregnancy):

And finally, I have changed my settings to Research, which puts Ovulation on CD10 (a bit closer to my normal O date) and again it is compared to the Triphasic Cycle:

So here I am obsessing over when I may have ovulated.. not because I might be pregnant (although that would be nice), but because I can't stand not knowing when the heck the witch will make her appearance!

Anyone out there have any insight?