Seriously, calling people names doesn’t usually accomplish anything. I also try to live by the rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

But in this case, the people said something so ignorant, it makes me angrier every time I think about it. I must get that anger out.

These people stated that they would rather be blind than infertile.

The blog post at Creating a Family, begins with a story of a woman stating that she would:

rather be blind because at least then treatment would be covered and people would understand what she was going through.

Then one person commented:

Yes, I would rather be blind. It is a terrible disability, but nothing compared to the despair that our infertility journey has taken us.

I never use this phrase, but never have I believed it to be so justified – Get your head out of your ass!

Being blind is nothing compared to the despair of not being able to bear children?

Nothing?

I am not now, nor have I ever been, blind. I’ve never been infertile either. Because of my CRPS, I shouldn’t have biological children, but I never wanted biological children to begin with. I admit that I don’t understand what drives people to incredible lengths to conceive, bear, and birth a child. (On the flip side, I know a lot of people who don’t understand what drives people to go through the rigorous roller coaster ride of adoption.) Because of my CRPS, I do know what it’s like to have a disability that no one sees and no one understands.

At Oracle, one of our group’s main goals was to create software that would enable other technical writers to create documentation that was accessible to blind readers. During this time, I learned a lot about the blind. For example, the blind are chronically un- and underemployed. I learned about some of the barriers blind people face every day. I heard the discrimination they face. I cannot tell you the number of times our group was told, “Well, it’s not like there are that many blind database administrators anyway.” Perhaps if the technology was more accessible, there would be more blind database administrators!

Being infertile is never going to stop a person from getting a job. Being blind will. There are many professions and career paths that are closed to blind people – anything in the graphic arts, many medical professions (would you want a blind surgeon?), anything involving driving, and how many blind actors do you know? Dancers?

What happens when an infertile person realizes she’s out of her favorite cereal? She gets in her car, drives to the supermarket. She sees that there’s construction in front of the usual entrance, so she goes to the further one. Once inside, she sees that the store has been reorganized. She goes to the new cereal aisle. She finds her cereal. She goes to the front of the store, buys it, and goes back to her car. She drives home.

What happens when a blind person realizes she’s out of her favorite cereal? Obviously, she can’t drive. She has someone who helps her with errands, but today’s not his usual day. So, she seeks out the bus schedule on her computer. (Let’s assume that the public transit people have complied with Section 508 guidelines and have made their web site accessible to people who use screen reading software.) The next bus comes in 20 minutes. She can just make it. She gets to the bus stop, gets on the bus. She asks someone nearby to tell her when the supermarket stop is coming. She gets off of the bus. She starts for the store entrance. “Hey lady!,” someone yells. She’s almost walked through the “Caution” tape and into a gaping hole in the pavement. A bit shaken, she asks for some help in going to the other entrance. Once inside, she heads for Aisle 13 and finds… pickles? She goes back up to the front of the store to ask, “Where’s the cereal?”. Now it’s on Aisle 3. She asks another shopper for assistance. He hands her the cereal. She goes back to the front of the store and pays for her cereal. She then waits for the bus.

What happens when an infertile person gives birth to a baby? It’s heralded as a miracle. Everyone cheers.

What happens when a blind person gives birth to a baby? She’s met with constant questions about whether a blind person can successfully parent a child.

Society is set up for the sighted. Being blind makes a lot of things harder. A blind person can’t do everything a sighted person can, and there’s nothing wrong with admitting that.

There are options for infertile people. Some people who experience infertility are able to pursue treatments and do have children. Jackson’s godparents are an example of such a couple. Some people pursue surrogacy or adoption. Ultimately, anyone with the drive to become a parent can find a way to become one. It may cost a lot of money. They may need to be creative. The process is not fun. It’s frustrating, disheartening, depressing. No one understands what they’re going through. There is a lot of loss and grief.

At this time, there aren’t a lot of options for blind people. Many people who are blind will never see. They will never get the privileges that the sighted take for granted. Example: If they have children, they will never really know what those children look like.

So to anyone who really believes that he or she would rather be blind than infertile, I say, “Stop your pity party.” You have got to be in a pretty sad, self-absorbed place to believe that being blind is nothing compared to being unable to bear a child. I really hope you find the help you need. I also hope you never find out that being blind is worse than being infertile.

I’ll let you be the judge.

At three months, Cassie can hold her head up at about 45 degrees when we put her on her tummy. But we don’t put her on her tummy too often. She likes it more than Jackson did, but she still doesn’t like it that much. I don’t use a protractor, but it looks like she can hold her head up between 45 and 90 degrees. We’ll try to do more tummy time this month.

Cassie laughed for the first time today! I was giving her kisses, and I think my hair tickled her face, and she laughed! Jackson says she laughed at him before, but this was the first time I heard her. She makes delighted noises that are sort of like squeals. She is incredibly smiley! Except when I get the camera out. I can rarely catch her smiling. I got her in the photo shoot, but the cat (Sassy) got in the way:

She can follow objects with her eyes. In fact, she seems to enjoy doing so. She looks at everything! Especially light and colorful objects. She’s interested in Sassy cat, but not so much in the other two cats. Firefly is very interested in Cassie. Sassy is only interested in Cassie when I’m holding Cassie, because then I can pet Sassy with my other hand. She looks for the source of voices, especially mine, Daddy’s, and Big Brother’s.

She can hold her head very steady. She’s beginning to try to roll over. She kind of heaves her body up, but lacks the momentum to actually roll over. She can also keep her head level with her body when we pull her up to sit. She likes to be held sitting up these days.

She can grasp items, but seems to prefer not to. For example, she can hold her rattle and her teething toy, but doesn’t do so for very long. Yes, I said “teething toy.” I think she’s teething. Two of her siblings got their first teeth at around four months. She doesn’t care very much for toys and won’t try to grasp things yet. She prefers to suck on her fists.

She can totally bear weight on her legs. I wouldn’t be surprised if this child is an early walker. I keep forgetting she can’t actually stand.

Cassie coos and even babbles now, but not nearly as much as Jackson did. She does say “ah goo” but it’s not her favorite combination. She likes “ooo” and “uh”.

She’s almost grown out of her small gDiapers, which go up to 14 pounds. She’s almost out of her 0-3 month outfits that have feet. I predict she’ll be totally out of them by four months. She can wear medium gDiapers, though they’re a tad big on her. She’ll have her check up next month, so we’ll know how much she weighs and how tall (long) she is.

And while we’re on the topic… remember Jackson at three months?

I nominated you for the Liebster Blog Award. http://www.adoptivemommydiaries.com/2012/01/liebster-blog-award.html

I had no idea where this started, but the description from Adoptive Mommy Diaries seemed very much in keeping with the spirit of this blog. So, I looked it up. The best description I found states:

[the word] Liebster meaning “favorite” or “dearest,” to showcase bloggers with fewer than 200 followers. Upon accepting the award the recipient must then pass it on to five more blogs of note.

The Liebster Award is for “little blogs” with fewer than 200 followers and is a way to spread the word about your great finds.

The rules of this award are:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who nominated you by linking back to their blog. Thanks Adoptive Mommy Diaries!
2. Nominate five other blogs with 200 followers or fewer by posting a comment on their blogs.
3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Check out what the other up-and-coming blogs have to offer.

Five blogs I’ve nominated:

• Carrying a Cat By the Tail: A birthmother blog. I’ve always admired the author’s honesty and openness.
• God Will Fill This Nest: A blog that was, until recently, a waiting to adopt blog. The author’s son was born a few days after Cassie.
• Mama’s Always On Stage: The only non-adoption blog. This one belongs to my friend Paula who writes about insane stupidity on a national level. And her life. And sometimes theatre.
• They’re All My Own: An enjoyable adoption blog.
• TTA Baby: A prospective adoptive parent blog. Again, I admire the author’s honesty and openness.

I feel that I should mention that I would nominate Adoptive Mommy Diaries if she hadn’t been the one to nominate me. Her blog is a new find of mine, and I’ve really enjoyed her writing and perspective.

* OK… almost a week ago now. I started writing this post and got busy with Jackson’s birthday party prep.

I actually like parties – well, I like throwing parties. But my house is not made for indoor parties. We have a weird floor plan. Outdoor parties, we can do – we have a huge backyard, especially by California standards. But we do not have much contiguous space inside. Therefore, Jackson’s birthday parties cannot be at home.

I don’t abide by the “invite as many children as the birthday boy is old” crap. My son has friends. He should be able to invite them to his party. For his 3rd, 4th, and 5th birthdays, we invited everyone in his class at preschool, which pretty much meant we invited the preschool, plus a few friends we had outside of preschool. This year, we’re having his party at “The Lego Place” (not its real name), which comes with a limit on how many children can attend.

Now, I practically begged the boy to choose to go to Safari West and get his picture taken with a cheetah. But he didn’t want to, especially after we learned that at least two organizations enable a person to adopt, or sponsor, a cheetah. Upon learning that, Jackson wanted to adopt a cheetah (more on that in another post) and I suggested that we ask people who would normally get him a present to contribute to the adoption fund, and that lead him to decide he wanted a party.

For months, Jackson talked about who would be invited. I told him not to talk about it at school, and he says he didn’t. There were more and more names popping up. In the last days of Christmas break, we made the list. He came up with 10 people without breaking a sweat. Then he stopped. Now, I know my son had mentioned other kids, so I looked at his class picture.

Me: “Didn’t you say you work with This Boy all the time?”

Jackson: “Oh yeah. Invite him. And then we have to invite This Other Boy, because they’re friends.”

Me: “And didn’t you say you wanted This Guy?”

Jackson: “Yeah, This Guy. And His Sibling, because His Sibling is in my group.”

I did the prompting because, a) I didn’t want him to get back to school and say, “Oh yeah, we should have invited So-and-So”, and b) because I didn’t want him to leave anyone out if he didn’t have to. We had a number of people we could invite, and I wanted to go with that.

Then we realized we forgot 2 people we play with on a regular basis. One of my high school friends still lives in the Bay Area and she has 2 daughters, and it seems the only time we get to see each other is at birthday parties, so…  Jackson chose to invite them, though. I didn’t force him to invite anyone.

Which brings me to the most stressful part. There’s a boy that Jackson has a love/hate relationship with. Sometimes they get along famously, sometimes they fight like only 5-year old boys can. (As far as I can tell, it’s just because of their personalities. One boy isn’t to blame.) In our most recent encounters, they fought. Jackson preferred not to invite him. I’m friends with his mom. Other people she knows are being invited. I tried to explain this to Jackson as best I could without using guilt. (My mother was the master of the guilt trip and I do not want to lay that on my kids.) He didn’t particularly care.

And the second most stressful part: There’s an age limit. I mean, we’re playing with Legos and they have planned activities. The Lego Place said we could invite younger children, but they’d be in a different area. So we decided not to invite children under age 4, which omits a couple of newer friends who I hope don’t feel too slighted.

Cassie’s birthday is in October, and around mid-October, it’s still warm in the Bay Area. She’ll be having the suburbs’ largest 1st birthday party at our local park. Hopefully, there won’t be too much stress associated with the guest list.

So S changed her induction day to Monday, January 16th. I wrote extensively about Jackson’s birth:

• How It All Went (Abridged)
• How It All Went, Part II (Abridged)
• How It All Went, Part III (Abridged)

This year, Monday, January 16th was again Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. My son turns six on a Tuesday, the day he was born.  The poem says, “Tuesday’s child is full of grace.”*

My son may not always be the easiest child, but he is certainly the best son a mother could ask for. I love him, and I thank God every day for him and for his birthmother.

Happy Birthday Jackson!

First Skating Lesson Complete

Practicing Ice Skating

Family Dinner

Speaking of full of grace… here is Jackson’s third time on roller blades, with cousins Eliana and Eden pulling him along.

Up

Down

Lifted Up

* Coincidentally, Cassie is a Tuesday’s child too. Max and I are both Friday’s children (“loving and giving”).

I’ve had several people, including Cassie’s birthmother, tell me that I have to put the baby down and let her cry for awhile.

No, actually, I don’t.

Now, I don’t have a problem with cry-it-out. I could write more about that, but it really is another post. However, Cassie is too young for a cry-it-out approach. Says who? Well, in addition to me, Dr. Marc Weissbluth, author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, the best sleep book available (at least in 2006). I’ve been rereading the book. He says that you could let a baby this young cry for up to 20 minutes if you want to. However, it may not make sense for a baby this young, so you should do what works for you and the baby.

That, of course, is the key – what works for us. Just because Cassie’s a baby doesn’t mean her feelings aren’t valid. She needs some more time to feel secure? OK. She doesn’t like lying down during the day yet? OK. Sure, it’s a pain, but as one mom at Jackson’s school (and one of my new friends) said, “This time is so short.”

Yesterday, Cassie took one 45-minute nap in her crib and another 1-hour nap in her crib. Baby steps. I’m sure it will all work out.

On New Year’s Day night, around 11 pm, she started coughing. Then, she started coughing so much, Max went up to hold her. She kept coughing. She had a hard time catching her breath. It sounded like she was wheezing.

I tend to underreact to these things. My mom was very into the emergency room. We were regulars there. I don’t think it did me any good, frankly. Max tends to overreact. So, we called the pediatrician’s recommended advice nurse. She couldn’t hear anything on the phone, but said we should take Cassie to the ER.

Off I went. The ER was packed. There were easily 14,000 people there. OK, I exaggerate, but not by much.

The incredibly nice man at the registration desk said we’d be triaged immediately, but that the wait for a doctor was 1-1/2 to 3 hours.

We were, in fact, triaged immediately. A lovely nurse named Theresa took Cassie’s temperature (99.7) and oxygen level (100%), then listed to her breathe. She couldn’t hear wheezing. Truly, Cassie’s breathing had improved quite a bit since we got out of the car and calmed her down. I said I’d be happier staying up with her all night and keeping her upright on me than sitting in an ER full of sick people. The nurse essentially concurred.

We came home. I stayed up with her until 6 am, reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I’m embarrassed to say that I only read about 230 pages in 3.5 hours. Anyway, at 5:30 am, Cassie ate and immediately fell back asleep. In 4 hours, she coughed 3 times. It sounded a little croupy, but it passed pretty quick.

Cassie is still congested from her cold. She hasn’t coughed an insane amount since that one bout on New Year’s Day.

Any bets on how much that ER visit’s going to cost?

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

The complete report.

My favorite part? A lot of visitors got here by searching for “messy house” and “messy room.” Many also searched for “Gilmore Girls.” Maybe I should write more about them so as not to disappoint people. Of course, I don’t think they ever had an adoption story line. Hmm…

I also had a goal of posting once per week. As I posted 112 times this year, I actually posted an average of twice per week. Go me! Wonder if I can keep it up with two kids?

The two most popular posts are So Many Agencies And Yet and How the Gilmore Girls Should Have Ended.

I’m really happy that so many people are reading my blog. I’m trying to put more effort into it, and it’s nice to see the stats go up.

Thanks everyone!

What did you learn about open adoption in 2011?

I started out with a very cynical “what I learned about open adoption in 2011″ idea, then realized that it was really a “what I learned about the adoption process in 2011″. I’ll still probably write that, but it didn’t answer the question at hand.

So I really started thinking: What did I learn about open adoption in 2011?

I finally realized that 2011 wasn’t an epiphany year as past years have been. In the past, I’ve learned (in no particular order): not all birthmothers are the same, relationships change, open adoption is hard, and open adoption is important to my son.

When the year began, I wanted to learn more about the experiences of people who aren’t adoptive parents. I ended up focusing on birth parents. I almost wrote “birthmothers” but I did find and follow two birthfather blogs as well. (They seem to be the only two in existence, which is too bad, but that’s another post.)

I learned quite a bit from reading birth parent blogs. Although many of their situations are different, they all seem to share a distinct feeling of loss for their placed children. None of the birth parents I follow regret their decisions, exactly, though they do sometimes regret the actions or circumstances that led them to their decisions. None of these people regretted having their children, and all of them are fiercely protective of their children.

I find it interesting that people from very different backgrounds and situations who may have very different individual experiences so often relate the same feelings. I think I’ll have to look at adoptive parent blogs and see if we exhibit a similar trend, but I’m not sure that we do.

So, what did I learn about open adoption in 2011? I guess I learned more about what open adoption is like through other people’s eyes. Nothing earth shattering, no epiphanies, but a lesson learned nonetheless.

I was woken up just before 8:00 am. I drove over to Starbucks, where I somehow managed to order the proper coffee for the grandparents and for myself. I returned home, where Jackson was chomping at the bit to open his first present of the day, and Sissy’s. Sissy could not have cared less, which disappointed Jackson.

Jackson got to open one present, then wanted to open another. Fortunately, the grandparents arrived and brought more presents! Jackson and Max distributed the presents. We each got to open one – in age order, per Jackson’s instructions – then Jackson opened all of his. He was so excited to play with his presents, and upset that Cassie didn’t care about hers, that he said I could open her presents. I did, which was kind of odd since I had bought most of them. But we did get some very lovely surprises from friends and family.

Jackson received $45, the Kreo Starscream, the smaller Hogwarts Lego set, 2 stuffed animals, 7 or 8 books, 3 pairs of pjs, candy, clay, a Transformers shirt, a calculator, Phineas and Ferb Band-Aids, pin art, foam, a parachute man, models to build, a Star Wars Lego set, and a new sports-themed bed set.

Cassie received $45, 2 new dresses, 1 new pair of pjs, a Steelers outfit, a Gymboree outfit, a Gymboree tutu set (in 18-24 months – my aunt just wanted to buy tutus so she called and asked when our clothes “ran out”), a seahorse that plays music and lights up, 6 books, 2 stuffed animals, a swaddle blanket, a stacker toy, 2 new binkys and a binky purse, new burpcloths, 2 wooden toys, 2 new cloth gdiapers, socks that look like shoes, bottles, and 2 first Christmas ornaments.

I made the grandparents a snack of toast on English muffin bread, then called my sister, who was en route to South Carolina. I made the mistake of telling her that Jackson hadn’t opened his “big present” yet. Jackson heard me, and immediately started asking what the “big present” was. After Max was done prepping something in the kitchen, we were able to get Jackson to open the last of Cassie’s presents for her, since she had woken up again. Then, I produced the “big present” in a small box.

I have a video of him opening it. When he realized it was his “very own iPod Touch” he got very happy. He looked straight at the camera and said, “This is the best present ever.” I had spent several nights loading it with his games, music, and videos. He kept it with him for the rest of the day.

Max made dinner, or lunch, depending on how you look at it. It went relatively well. Jackson continued his recent behavior of not eating anything, despite the fact that he likes the food we put in front of him. I’m hoping it’s just a phase.

After dessert, we were debating whether or not to call my Aunt Carol when she called. We had a lovely chat with her and with her daughter, my cousin Jessica, who is getting married next year! I’m so old.

Speaking of being old, you know you’re old when you ask for pajamas and a laptop battery for Christmas. I got 4 pairs of pjs and 1 battery, and they made me very happy. I also got a $30 iTunes gift card, which is now down to $9.98 as of this writing. Jackson made us ornaments in school. Max got the new Sports Night collection, an iTunes card (which is all gone now), the new Legend of Zelda game, and The Ferret Calendar.

Christmas was a success, I think. Now, on to Jackson’s Sixth Birthday.

I really am old.