Two-timing

Some of you have asked how we're handling the adoption at the same time as TTC thing. From my perspective, it is the only thing I could handle. Once we learned how long the average "home study" process takes at the agency we're using, before you get placed in the available pool of adoptive families (and then wait longer for a placement), I knew that I couldn't do this as a linear process. The home study alone takes an average of 6 months. Then you could wait in the pool of adoptive families for one day, or two years. Who knows. So, wait for the end of TTC before starting the home study? No way. We're too old. And too determined to have kids. And luckily for us, we both truly feel that we'll be blessed either way, whatever baby comes first. So we're two-timing, gaming the system, going all out, etc. 

I imagine there will come a time when this won't be possible. I can't imagine, for instance, being in the pool of adoptive parents, considering matches with birth moms, and also simultaneously doing IVF. Can't imagine it emotionally. (Not now anyway, though if TTC and progressive levels of intervention have taught me anything, it's that things do change, and what we thought was impossible can become just the next destination on the crazy train.) So we may have to slow or stop one or the other of the processes down the road. I actually think there is a point in the adoption process when the agency asks couples to stop fertility treatments so that they can be fully, emotionally prepared for adoption. (In my humble opinion, though, it's a pretty heterosexual model, because they certainly don't ask straight people to stop having sex. They just want people to give up the dream of a child that is a perfect combination of mom and dad, put aside last-ditch medical intervention, and fully embrace the child who is coming to them in a non-traditional way. My sweetie and I have already done a lot of that work. We already know that our child isn't going to be a perfect version of the two of us. We don't feel that adoption is second best (once upon a time, it was my first choice, but that's another story). We already know that we're going to be a conspicuous family, etc. And if they don't ask straight people to stop having sex, can they really ask lesbians to stop insemming? Now that I think about it, the agency hasn't even asked us if infertility is part of our journey, but I know that they ask the straight couples that. But I digress.) 

The point is, when either our TTC or adoption process becomes more intense, I doubt we'll move forward simultaneously. But for right now we're still doing IUIs (which I sincerely doubt will work), jumping through hoops to qualify for IVF. And we're only in the paperwork/home study stage for adoption, so we haven't even been approved yet. So both TTC and adoption still seem like very loooooong timelines. And given the choice, I prefer to serve my sentences concurrently, rather than consecutively. Hah.