I feel like I'm in a better space of acceptance with where things are at today. Sometimes I guess I really fight my reality and it doesn't make me feel any better. I had a counselling session today. It was good.
I can see that I do have things in perspective SIF-wise - despite old feelings and triggers still occuring. I shared with my counsellor that my husband and I have agreed that forty two (forty for him) is our cut-off time (approx) for adding to our family. So that's around another two years. Assuming we of course get accepted as perspective adoptive parents. I think for me the older my daughter gets, the easier (?) it might be to accept she's an "only child." So she'll be around six years old when our family is deemed complete, whether or not another child joins our family.
It does feel better to have some kind of a deadline with all this. In two years time it would be around four years of trying to add to our family. I think that's enough time. My age has definitely affected my decision. If I was thirty-five I may have waited a little longer on the adoption front.
I tried to phone my gyno today to set up the appointment with Dr Xxxx - the fertility specialist who comes to Nelson every six to eight weeks. His surgery was closed but open again tomorrow. I will go for the appointment but have no expectations around it. Apparently there is a newish test that may be able to measure my ovarian reserve.
My herbalist is away on The Great Barrier Reef doing work with giant turtles so out of touch for a while. I've run out of all my herbal supplies so am sitting tight til she gets back in touch. (early Feb she said).
No-one knows what is going on with my body. There are so many theories and too many cooks in the kitchen, if you ask me! My herbalist thinks it's a hormonal imbalance or a resistant ovary, my gyno has no clue! (hence the referral to my specialist), my counsellor thinks it's stress-related, and my GP thinks maybe it's peri-menopause. So I have no idea what to think myself.
But I have been working on accepting this no-mans that I am in. That at one point, with no periods for so long, it looked as though menopause was on the way. Yet my two recent cycles after six months of AF, have put a spanner in the works medically. It is questionable as to whether I have any viable eggs.
I saw a documentary last night about a woman who had cervical cancer and had a hysterectomy without her ovaries being removed. At one point she went into menopause. She was looking into donor eggs and surrogacy and after many operations, treatments, trips overseas and many bills - they found some of her eggs were viable and so she ended up with a happy ending - the surrogate Mum fell pregnant with her egg and her husbands sperm. The story cut-off there but I assume all went well and the baby actually arrived and all. Anyway, she went through all this for around six years. They didn't really focus on her pain in the doco - just her strength. But it was very inspiring.
Sometimes our lot is our lot. No matter what I do - I cannot change the fact I am infertile. As times goes on, my acceptance of my situation deepens. I have to keep giving it back to God.
I figure the God of my understanding would tell me when it was time to give-up. And perhaps my two-year time-line came from God.
All I know is SIF robbed me of a good couple of years and I don't want 2009 to be the same. My husband and I are going to have regular dinner dates as we've appointed a neighbour to look after our daughter for respite care (because of her ASD). I am able to look at the bigger picture around buying a house. I do share that dream with my husband so am taking a look at my own personal spending habits and how I can improve them, as well as creating savings goals for ourselves.
I got an email from a friend today acknowledging my congrats email for her newborn. He is now five weeks old and she asked if I remembered the early days of parenthood with all the wonder and everything else that comes with it. Well I do. Very much so. Some people say they forget the early days but I have somehow managed to be very present and have savoured parenthood all the way through. I enjoyed the challenges - the highs and the lows - the whole journey. I have not forgotten about waking up with a full boob just a few minutes before my baby cried out for a feed. Or how I'd sit in peaceful bliss in the middle of the night as she fed, relishing "our time" when it felt like it was just me, her and God who were awake. I remember being so content with days on end at home broken up by the walks on the beach to keep the cobwebs out. I remember all of it.
Still, it is easy to look at my preschooler, just a couple of months off four and think she came out like that. I have always been so grateful to be her Mum - right from the start. Maybe on some level I knew there would be problems TTC the second time - especially when the obstertican who delivered her warned there might be. So she has always been my miracle child.Being a mother of a four year old is just as important and amazing as it was when she was a newborn, a baby, and a toddler. I don't feel like I've missed out on any stages of my daughter's development as I have been there all the way through.
I bumped into my neighbour yesterday who is ten weeks pregnant. She has been very ill with morning sickness - pretty much house-bound the last few weeks. I feel terrible that I didn't go and see her earlier but like I said in my post before this one - I haven't been in the space to see her (and I have been away too). But I felt better facing her yesterday and told her to pop round if she needs a change of scene. I want to be excited for her. But when she complained about the heat and the nausea, I could not help but think I would do anything to be in your shoes. She mentioned our adoption plans in an excited voice and I said we would start the process but it wasn't a sure thing.
I guess I want people to understand that just because we're considering adoption, it doesn't mean it'll be right for us - or it'll happen. And it does not take away the SIF pain. So telling people I'm adopting doesn't mean I've moved on completely from what probably won't be (a second biologcal child) - it means I'm keeping an open mind and trying to move forward. This chapter of my life isn't quite finished. Who knows how it's all going to turn out.
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