For what it's worth...

Adoption isn't something I decided to do because of my infertility issues.

I have always wanted to adopt.

From a very young age...I dreamt of adopting.

It was actually having children that I wasn't so sure I wanted to do.

In my idealistic teenage years and even throughout my early twenties, I was known to say things like:

"Having biological children is selfish when there are so many children out there that need a loving home."

"Why bring more children into this world..."

For what it's worth I was a fucking idiot!

Those sentiments were declared by someone who thought they had a choice...

Ahhh what power there is in choice...

And even though I declared those things perched on top of my high horse I always pictured myself pregnant and having children.

I dreamed of one big melded family of love...

I still dream of that but just like the other part of the dream that I had to let go of...you know that part that included the man of my dreams in this big, melded, crazy family of love...I must now release the part about having a baby...

It is not going to happen...

Because after 3 1/2 years, 13 cycles and over $50,000 trying to have a baby...I have come out empty handed or should I say empty "wombed"!

So what was it worth?

What have the last 3 1/2 years of my life been worth?

For what it's worth thinking about my adoption fills my soul with light. But it will always do that...

And I do not think of it as 2nd best...I know I will love my child more than life itself...I know that I will love them as ferociously as any mother could...because I already do...

But in the same breath thinking about never having a successful pregnancy, about never carrying a baby, never giving birth takes away a part of me that can never be replaced.  I will never be the same. I will always carry this sadness...

Why? Why can't I be the type of person who doesn't care one way or the other.

Why is this loss trumping everything else?

Because it is not my choice...

So what has all this been worth...

After every failed cycle I would take the picture of my embryos, you know the one they give you on transfer day and I would write something on it...something to my potential babies that didn't make it.

I would write something like:

"I love you more than you will ever know. I wish you could have stayed with me...Love Mom"

And I would put those pictures in my dragonfly keepsake box that I keep hidden away in my closet.

The dragonfly keepsake box I bought  as a little memorial after my first miscarriage.

The box that I put my pregnancy tests and a pregnancy journal in...

A journal whose purpose was to capture all the amazing milestones of my pregnancy but instead captured my despair as I lost my baby.

When I got pregnant the second time I was so certain that this was it...I took a pregnancy test every day until my beta watching with pure joy as that beautiful line grew darker and darker.

Those too now rest in my dragonfly keepsake box.

This time last year I was devastated over my 2nd miscarriage...

I have spent the last year doing cycle after cycle trying to get pregnant again...and I can't...and I don't know why...

It would only take a couple of days after one of my numerous transfers before I would know that it didn't work...I would know I wasn't pregnant...and I would write my little note to my precious embryos and tuck them away in that little box in my closet.

Except after this last (my final) cycle...I wasn't sure after a couple of days...and then a couple more days past and I knew...I knew I was pregnant.

I took a test...there was a line...faint but definitely a line...the next day I took another test...expecting the line to be darker...it wasn't...and my beta came back too low...too low to be a viable pregnancy...it's a chemical pregnancy...another lost baby...

I was pregnant for a day...for one day I was beyond happy...it's not enough...

I took the pictures of my beautiful embryos, wrote a little note telling them how much I wish that we could be together and put them along with my pregnancy test with that faint little line on it into my dragonfly box and tucked it away in my closet...

It's over...

My last cycle...

3 1/2 years...13 cycles...2 1/2 pregnancies...no baby...

So what has it all been worth?

The $50,000 I've spent?

The 35 extra pounds I've gained?

The endless nights of crying?

The over 500 shots I have given myself?

Or the keepsake box in my closet filled with pictures of embryos and positive pregnancy tests that never resulted in a baby...