Artificially Sweetened

One of the mainstays of my little corner of the internets is Calliope. She’s always there for others – celebrating with them when they achieve their dreams and mourning when those dreams come crashing to the ground. And – she’s a full time caregiver for her grandmother, who has alzheimers, which is a valiant, but decidely unremunerative occupation.

In the meantime, she’s been on her own quest for motherhood.  IUI after IUI did nothing – and still she perservered. The dream finally seemed like it was in reach when she was chosen to be a donor for a shared IVF cycle. She passed all the pre-cycle testing with flying colors. And then, today, as she sleeps on a friend’s couch in a strange city, undergoing stims and monitoring – a routine blood test for hepC came back positive.

Despite the fact that she was negative in the pre-cycle testing – and this is 99.99999% likely a false positive – the clinic has canceled the shared donor cycle even before doing a second test. They will let her continue, assuming that her repeat test is negative – if she foots the bill.

There’s no way this woman can do that. And if anyone ought to be a mom, it’s Cali.

If you possibly can, please go to her blog and donate to her paypal account. She needs to pull a lot of money together very quickly in order to be able to continue and every little bit helps.

Won’t you please donate?

If you donated… click here – and thanks.

If you didn’t donate (and you can afford to skip a latte or two and spare five bucks)… click here.

I’ve been meaning to do this for several days now, but a fabulously funny real life friend of mine has started a blog.  Please go over to Missed Conceptions and give her some looooove.

I have been known to whine about our adoption situation. But the truth is, it ain’t that bad. I’ve had the privilege of getting to know both Erin and Cheri in person, and they are both such kind and generous people – as well as great moms. They are both down in Antigua right now – fostering their babies away from their families and homes.

Erin & Azucen@	Cheri & Eliana

They are also stuck in a bureaucratic catch22 that is hard to even begin to explain. Essentially, Erin, Cheri, and their families are caught up in a war of wills between the mayor’s office in Guatemala City, and my dear friends in PGN. They just received news of a major setback that means that they will likely be living in Antigua for at least another SIX months.

The babies are quickly approaching their 1st birthdays and Cheri & Erin have NO IDEA WHEN they will be able to return home with their daughters to America.

Nu… why am I telling you this? I’m so glad you asked…

Can you imagine the financial burden these families are facing? Cheri & Erin are making major sacrifices to be apart from their husbands & families. They have accepted legal responsibility as the foster parents of their daughters and cannot leave. They’re away from their work (and Erin is her family’s primary breadwinner) and are paying rent & utilities & all monthly expenses in Guatemala – which ain’t cheap. Plus, y’know, the mortgage back home.  Yeah, that old thing.

A bunch of fellow adoptive parents have gotten together. Our goal is pretty simple: We’d love to be able to pay their rent & expenses in Guatemala for at least a month or longer. They have never asked for help of any kind, by the way… but we know they are struggling.

We’re calling this Operation LifeBoat because Azucen@ and Eliana are the babies stuck in the same crappy boat… and we’d like to help bail it out.

The fabulous Tricia has put together a raffle to encourage people to donate and help out Erin & Cheri. She has $150 in gift cards to be won. And I’m adding in a $30 TarZhay gift card as well. And… something else is in the works from a friend who works at a very nice children’s clothing store…

Leave an encouraging message for Erin & Cheri here or at Tricia’s and you’ll get one chance at winning a gift card. Click on the button below and donate what you can through paypal and you’ll get SIX CHANCES at winning. You’ll also get a boatload of good karma.

ETA: I can’t seem to get the button to work… go to Tricia’s to donate!

I have to take time away from my pityparty to thank some wonderful friends who have made me smile lately… first of all, all of your comments, which made me feel not so small and beaten down by the world. And second, some gifts which arrived in my mailbox recently and totally made my day.

My fabulouso friend Mel sent GB these hand-me-down sweaters, this sweet little lovie doll, and these fantastic rainbow leg warmer things. I’m not sure she wants the whole world peeking in on her family blog, so I won’t link to it, but she has a super cute boy who is a few months older than GB.

I got to meet up with the marvelous Menita recently, and she surprised me with the world’s softest teddybear. Oh yeah, this boy is going to be deprived.

Finally, I got two really cool books from my Secret Blog Pal. One for me – which I DEVOURED in a single night of lost sleep – and one of my absolute favorite kid books for GB. Ferdinand is such a great story showing that boys can be gentle too.

Thanks friends. You rock.

p.s. Re, pityparty: I think I just need to step away from the computer. I’m home sick with a massive snotty head cold, and frantically refreshing my email every five minutes to see if: 1) we have gotten our may photos – everyone else from our agency has! 2) my director has written back to the email letting him know that if he wants me to, I would be happy to stay on for at least another month at my current job (this one is giving me a serious case of the oh holy craps) and 3) the real estate lawyer has passed on the name of a property management company for me to contact in case we decide to rent out the cute little house in MUCDTR instead of losing the $ and screwing over our sellers by pulling out…