National Infertility Awareness Week

The accidentally pregnant woman at work lost the baby on Friday. She posted it on Facebook. I feel so sorry for her because I know she was excited. It sucks when biology lets us down. The pregnant woman at work had her baby yesterday. Everyone is healthy. Life is strange like that, isn’t it? People who desperately want children and would be good parents, are unable to conceive or carry a pregnancy to term and those who couldn’t give a dam pop out baby after baby.  After we got home from the run-in with the kids father last night, he was upset and declared he was parent-less because his dad ignored him and his mom is moving to Philly. Trying to calm him down I said he does not know for sure what his mother’s plans are, that perhaps she was just frustrated when she said she was moving to Philly and didn’t really mean it. Then I told him it’s a good thing he has a foster mother who loves him and gave him a hug. With his head bent on my shoulder (he’s taller than me) he declared, “you feel like more of a mother to me than my own mom.” It just breaks my heart. How do his parents not see what a great kid they have and move heaven and earth to be with him? According to the kid, his father has 15 kids (he assured me he was not exaggerating) and doesn’t know when any of their birthdays are (apparently his litmus test for determining if someone cares about a child or not). I know his mom cares about him, which is why it bugs me that she can’t get her shit together for him. I guess I should just be grateful I don’t have her demons hounding me. I’m glad that the kid at least has one stable adult in his life (me) and I can only hope and pray it will be enough.

 

I’ve been having such horrific cramps this month. I think every month my period gets worse – heavier bleeding, more painful cramps, more PMS. When I was a teenager my mom assured me that her period got better after having children – until she was in her 50’s and it got much worse until she had a hysterectomy. Just one more gift from my delinquent reproductive system – no babies means nasty periods apparently. I found out that it’s National Infertility Awareness week. I guess it’s supposed to help those who struggle with infertility open up and share their deepest pain to an unforgiving world who doesn’t understand. I really don’t think about infertility as much as I used to because there really is no point. In less than six months I will be 33 years old and fast approaching the age when fertility starts to drop (roughly 35). With no potential mate in sight, the possibility of a planned or spontaneous pregnancy is all but gone. Yes, of course women in their 40s have babies but the percentage of women able to get pregnant and grow a baby to term is much, much lower. And yes, since my crystal ball is cloudy, I cannot see the future to be certain I won’t meet someone in the next couple of years, but I believe it requires some level of effort on my part and I think I’ve used that all up by now. I’m not actively seeking a boyfriend, I closed all my on-line accounts and I’ve come to terms with being just me, single me. I still hope to adopt but I’m beginning to doubt I have the fortitude necessary to keep waiting and wondering and hoping and praying. Life is what it is. There is very little I can do to change the direction things have taken and when I do try I find more pain and heartache than anything else. I think when this current foster kid leaves I will need to go on a hiatus. I will get a second job and concentrate on getting out of debt and then perhaps I will begin saving money for a private adoption. Maybe. Or maybe I will just buy a plot of land and fill it with furry babies and forget about everything else. Next week my  church is having a Mother’s Day dinner and I don’t think I will be going. Last year when all the mom’s lined the front of the church for a special Mother’s Day prayer, the Pastora called me up front as I shrunk down in my seat trying to avoid the holiday I hate most in the world. “I’m just a foster mom, I don’t count.” That’s what I told the Pastora. With her hand on my midsection she told me that one day I would give birth, I just needed to believe. She also thought I was getting back together with Flaco. It’s all nonsense. And I hate Mother’s Day. Hate It. I feel like vomiting just thinking about it. I’m just a foster mom, not a real mom.