Quest(ion) {Love Story}
Written by  M. D. of Glitter & Rainbows

For me, despite deep desire and prolonged effort, this remains a question: Children are the future?

My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for a few years. Sometimes this dream of ours has seemed more like a quest, in the literary sense. Our Holy Grail, our Golden Fleece is a child to love, raise and call our own. We have confronted many obstacles, if not literal dragons, in our path.

On this journey I have cried, I have blamed, I have questioned, I have prayed. I have been hopeful and depressed. I’ve done my research, and I received advice — good and bad, helpful and hurtful. I’ve been ashamed and secretive. I’ve decided to be as open as I can, and through blogs I have met many others who are trying to find their way to the same goal.

I have had my feet in stirrups, scopes through my bellybutton, dye shot through my fallopian tubes. I’ve taken Clomid, Femara, Metformin, my temperature. I’ve had five inseminations and zero positive pregnancy tests. Hubby has been checked out and shot up, all to no avail.

I’ve been fingerprinted and background-checked. I’ve frankly answered multi-page questionnaires about my upbringing and marriage. I’ve put check marks on forms asking whether I will accept a child who likes to set fires or defecates inappropriately, or whether it is OK if our child has AIDS or uses a wheelchair.

I still can’t answer whether children are our future. Being of modest means, in-vitro fertilization and private adoption seem out of our reach. We are at the mercy of a budget-friendly fertility treatment miracle or the public foster-to-adopt process, both of which we are pursuing. Both are frustratingly slow.

There is a chance our child has already been born, or perhaps not born but conceived. There is still a chance for a pregnancy of our own. I can’t know what is to come; on faith I just keep moving forward, keep fighting. Our quest continues. I can only hope the last chapter tells of a little child being tucked in to sleep in a bright-green bedroom.

 

M. D. is married with two fur-babies. She writes about trying to add to her family at Glitter & Rainbows.