What a strange time this SIF journey has been. I guess for so long it just didn't make sense to me - why the f**k I couldn't just have another damn baby! But patience and perservance with this path that has had me in the dark for quite some time is perhaps beginning to pay off.
I believe it is God's Will that I increase my work hours right now. It's necessary - but also timely. And I can't help but think, well we aren't obviously going to be blessed with another baby in the near future if entering the workforce in a "proper" job is on the cards for me. But baby number two could be on the cards in the not-so-distant future.
Perhaps I've known all along and didn't want to face the fact that our finances, work-life balance and some TLC on the marriage front were necessary before bringing another child into our lives.
It feels healthier this way. Essentially we are shuffling things around so that with the help of a respite carer or nanny, I can work more and will be at home more when my husband is - in the evenings and that I won't be working so much in the weekends.
My dream of being at home with a second child while my first was at Kindy feels like it belongs in the past somewhere. It was a lost dream. Clearly not my path. Yet, with the information evening coming up for adoption next week I am still hopeful and excited that an addition to our family is a possibility. We will be scrutinised anyway in the application process so best we get our shit sorted out now!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Accepting my lot
So life is a bit full-on right now. But I'm just taking it all One Day At A Time. It seems to be a time of emotional growth and healing - a time of getting things in perspective.
The green-eyed monster struck at work on Sunday when a Dr from the medical centre I go to came in with her two little girls. I just felt so envious of this Mum and angry with God that my dream didn't happen easily for me. I still get jealous of MOTs, still have SIF grief but I am no longer consumed by what I don't have. God has made sure there is so much going on right now that my mind doesn't have time to go there too much at all. So it was interesting that those SIF feelings flared up in the weekend.
SIF has led me to some pastures I wasn't expecting to be in. I thought accepting my SIF would mean these new pastures would be greener - but they aren't. It is more obvious as time goes how my desire for a second child was hiding a multitude of sins as such. I am digging deep and know things will be brighter in the future. I still have some hard yards to go.
I just started reading this book A Small Part Of Me by Noelle Harrison. It's a nice light read. Just a few chapters into the book the character Greta says:
I can see a red fox darting across the field, a flash of colour against the white sky. Last night I heard her howl, making her love call. I could recognise that desperation, its piercing shrill, the need to create, to be a mother again.
I had begun to think that we would never have another child.
It was so nice to read it documented in a book. That that pining for another child is so real, and so natural. Us SI's should never undermine what a traumatic experience SIF is.
Where I'm at is my lot in life looks quite different to what I might had hoped. The SIF deal was just part of it. However there is the opportunity to improve some of these other aspects of my life. That's the thing - no matter how hard I tried and pined - my yearning for another child wasn't something I could change. Yet I can change elements of my life. I am not completely powerless over it all.
I'm tired, quite highly-strung and a bit all over the place at the moment. I'm week three coming off the happy pills and am experiencing the same symptoms I had when I first went on them - headaches, dizziness and a bit of nausea.
There have been a lot of tears and when I think about it, there weren't many tears for a few months when I was on the happy pills. So I suppose they worked. Yet a good cry is cleansing and a good release so I'm not sure suppressing my feelings for all those months was that good. Sure being on the happy pills while having some counselling did set me free somehow - free to start sifting through some more issues!
It might all sound a bit morbid but I am okay. I am feeling stronger and more in tune with myself and my needs and desires. There is some good stuff churning away.
The green-eyed monster struck at work on Sunday when a Dr from the medical centre I go to came in with her two little girls. I just felt so envious of this Mum and angry with God that my dream didn't happen easily for me. I still get jealous of MOTs, still have SIF grief but I am no longer consumed by what I don't have. God has made sure there is so much going on right now that my mind doesn't have time to go there too much at all. So it was interesting that those SIF feelings flared up in the weekend.
SIF has led me to some pastures I wasn't expecting to be in. I thought accepting my SIF would mean these new pastures would be greener - but they aren't. It is more obvious as time goes how my desire for a second child was hiding a multitude of sins as such. I am digging deep and know things will be brighter in the future. I still have some hard yards to go.
I just started reading this book A Small Part Of Me by Noelle Harrison. It's a nice light read. Just a few chapters into the book the character Greta says:
I can see a red fox darting across the field, a flash of colour against the white sky. Last night I heard her howl, making her love call. I could recognise that desperation, its piercing shrill, the need to create, to be a mother again.
I had begun to think that we would never have another child.
It was so nice to read it documented in a book. That that pining for another child is so real, and so natural. Us SI's should never undermine what a traumatic experience SIF is.
Where I'm at is my lot in life looks quite different to what I might had hoped. The SIF deal was just part of it. However there is the opportunity to improve some of these other aspects of my life. That's the thing - no matter how hard I tried and pined - my yearning for another child wasn't something I could change. Yet I can change elements of my life. I am not completely powerless over it all.
I'm tired, quite highly-strung and a bit all over the place at the moment. I'm week three coming off the happy pills and am experiencing the same symptoms I had when I first went on them - headaches, dizziness and a bit of nausea.
There have been a lot of tears and when I think about it, there weren't many tears for a few months when I was on the happy pills. So I suppose they worked. Yet a good cry is cleansing and a good release so I'm not sure suppressing my feelings for all those months was that good. Sure being on the happy pills while having some counselling did set me free somehow - free to start sifting through some more issues!
It might all sound a bit morbid but I am okay. I am feeling stronger and more in tune with myself and my needs and desires. There is some good stuff churning away.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Money, money, money!
I suppose it's quite nice to have a new crisis on hand - that been a financial one rather than SIF woes. A lot of my time and energy of late has gone into applying for work. I am looking at jobs that are somewhere between fifteen and twenty hours a week.
I resisted looking for work at first. It wasn't in my plan to be working much at this point. I wanted to wait til our daughter started school. But, it seems to be the way things are heading - that I work a bit more than I am now. God is indeed giving me a quiet nudge.
Our daughter starts morning Kindy late April so at least during the school term I won't have to have her "in care" too much outside of Kindy. With her ASD I think a nanny-type person would suit her best. She has been going through a phase of struggling at Kindy the last few weeks. But hopefully she will get a teachers aide next term which will take the load off myself and Kindy.
We had our daughter's fourth birthday party in the weekend. It went really well. It was a Wiggles theme and I was quite proud of the way everything came together. I hired a hall for $50NZ and it was more like half a hall - not too big. We set up a party table, had a face-painter, an activities table, a story corner, a present table, food and drink areas for the parents and a dance-floor. It went for two hours and the kids had their faces painted, coloured in Wiggles pictures, sat down and had party food and cake, danced for a bit to the Wiggles, made a feathersword and then sat down for some stories at the end. The parents were impressed and I was quite pleased too that it all flowed so well - though admittedly I was a little strung out to enjoy it properly.
Although there are some jobs out there I am interested in, I feel like I am once again letting go of my baby number two dreams - on another level. My daughter will start morning Kindy soon - which I'm already kinda sad about - and then I will be in a "real" job in the near future - not just my Sunday job. My life feels like it's going down quite a different path to the one I had hoped.
Still, I am following God's lead here and I know it's all for the best. We have an Information Meeting coming up for prospective adoptive parents. It's on Tuesday 7th April and goes for three hours. It covers the application process, legal matters, open adoption and a question and answer session. I am looking forward to it.
I'm pretty tired these days. A lot of emotional stuff has been going on with the financial worries and ASD concerns with my daughter. I haven't been sleeping so well some nights. But I'm still going to the gym, and trying to just take it all One Day At A Time. Once again I don't understand my path yet I feel I am facing my reality - all of it - and dealing with things the best I can.
I resisted looking for work at first. It wasn't in my plan to be working much at this point. I wanted to wait til our daughter started school. But, it seems to be the way things are heading - that I work a bit more than I am now. God is indeed giving me a quiet nudge.
Our daughter starts morning Kindy late April so at least during the school term I won't have to have her "in care" too much outside of Kindy. With her ASD I think a nanny-type person would suit her best. She has been going through a phase of struggling at Kindy the last few weeks. But hopefully she will get a teachers aide next term which will take the load off myself and Kindy.
We had our daughter's fourth birthday party in the weekend. It went really well. It was a Wiggles theme and I was quite proud of the way everything came together. I hired a hall for $50NZ and it was more like half a hall - not too big. We set up a party table, had a face-painter, an activities table, a story corner, a present table, food and drink areas for the parents and a dance-floor. It went for two hours and the kids had their faces painted, coloured in Wiggles pictures, sat down and had party food and cake, danced for a bit to the Wiggles, made a feathersword and then sat down for some stories at the end. The parents were impressed and I was quite pleased too that it all flowed so well - though admittedly I was a little strung out to enjoy it properly.
Although there are some jobs out there I am interested in, I feel like I am once again letting go of my baby number two dreams - on another level. My daughter will start morning Kindy soon - which I'm already kinda sad about - and then I will be in a "real" job in the near future - not just my Sunday job. My life feels like it's going down quite a different path to the one I had hoped.
Still, I am following God's lead here and I know it's all for the best. We have an Information Meeting coming up for prospective adoptive parents. It's on Tuesday 7th April and goes for three hours. It covers the application process, legal matters, open adoption and a question and answer session. I am looking forward to it.
I'm pretty tired these days. A lot of emotional stuff has been going on with the financial worries and ASD concerns with my daughter. I haven't been sleeping so well some nights. But I'm still going to the gym, and trying to just take it all One Day At A Time. Once again I don't understand my path yet I feel I am facing my reality - all of it - and dealing with things the best I can.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Seeing the bigger picture
I had my last session with my counsellor yesterday and as of today am weaning myself off the happy pills (it's a four week process). It feels good to be deemed to be coping well enough to let go of this outside help I've needed for the last few months.
However, making peace with SIF as it stands in my life today has meant some other issues have surfaced in my life. (Damn!!) They have been there all along but my obsession with SIF for so long meant they got pushed aside. So now I am faced with dealing with delayed grief around my daughter's ASD diagnosis, as well as financial and martial issues. I still have a lot of work to do!
My husbands work is on shaky ground at the moment so I am on the look-out for more work. I already work Sundays and so don't want to work anymore but it's about facing our financial reality. I have been so lucky to be an at-home Mum for the last (almost) four years. I've managed to work ten hours a week or less since my daughter was six months old without putting her into care or getting a nanny/babysitter. But I am going to have to keep an open mind around work and will have to trust God that all the details will sort themselves out - as in if we need extra help, the right person will come along.
Nobody likes to talk about their marriage. I won't in detail except to say we have been affected by the last few years of SIF and our daughters ASD. Add financial worries and some communication problems to the mix and it is plain to see some work is needed on the home-front.
I think I have known for sometime that I have needed to sort out several areas in my life. Perhaps focusing on the dream for another baby was the perfect escape for a while. I dunno. All I know is I'm living in the Now and it's not easy! There are many struggles. I'm doing the best I can and trying once again to take it all ODAT (one day at a time). The bigger picture is that things are a mess! Our home is perhaps not a good environment to bring a baby into the world right now. But that will hopefully change in time. I do trust God. I am obviously going through a huge emotional growth spurt. SIF has given me the strength to face the next chapter and whatever comes with it.
However, making peace with SIF as it stands in my life today has meant some other issues have surfaced in my life. (Damn!!) They have been there all along but my obsession with SIF for so long meant they got pushed aside. So now I am faced with dealing with delayed grief around my daughter's ASD diagnosis, as well as financial and martial issues. I still have a lot of work to do!
My husbands work is on shaky ground at the moment so I am on the look-out for more work. I already work Sundays and so don't want to work anymore but it's about facing our financial reality. I have been so lucky to be an at-home Mum for the last (almost) four years. I've managed to work ten hours a week or less since my daughter was six months old without putting her into care or getting a nanny/babysitter. But I am going to have to keep an open mind around work and will have to trust God that all the details will sort themselves out - as in if we need extra help, the right person will come along.
Nobody likes to talk about their marriage. I won't in detail except to say we have been affected by the last few years of SIF and our daughters ASD. Add financial worries and some communication problems to the mix and it is plain to see some work is needed on the home-front.
I think I have known for sometime that I have needed to sort out several areas in my life. Perhaps focusing on the dream for another baby was the perfect escape for a while. I dunno. All I know is I'm living in the Now and it's not easy! There are many struggles. I'm doing the best I can and trying once again to take it all ODAT (one day at a time). The bigger picture is that things are a mess! Our home is perhaps not a good environment to bring a baby into the world right now. But that will hopefully change in time. I do trust God. I am obviously going through a huge emotional growth spurt. SIF has given me the strength to face the next chapter and whatever comes with it.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
I made a decision
I made a decision today. I cancelled the appointment with the infertility specialist for next week. This is the appointment that took many, many months to get. The appointment I waited for a very long for. The appointment that may have shed some light as to what has been going on with my body for the last two and a half years.
I discussed it with my husband last night and he wasn't so certain the appointment was going to help much. I had been thinking the same. Financially we are restricted - we cannot do IVF for example although I don't even know if I would be a candidate.
All the specialist may have offered me would have probably been some monitoring around my cycles. Yet all I would have ended up with would have been yet more results - results I wouldn't be able to do anything about i.e: my eggs are either good or bad, aren't they. Nothing can change that.
So I felt some relief today when I cancelled my appointment. The receptionist did say I could reschedule if I wanted to. AF arrived today - on day 29. This is my fourth regular cycle in a row and AFs arrival this morning kind of confirmed for me that my body is just doing what it's doing.
Yes I had hoped I was pregnant this cycle. There was fertile mucus. I had sore boobs for a good week - and still do. But it seems I can no longer read my body. I just have all these hormonal symptoms going on yet I cannot decipher them anymore. I feel out of touch with a big part of me and once I knew my body so well. It feels strange being clueless about what's going on.
I went and got some more of my herbs today. I figure the herbs are what (I believe) helped my periods start again. So I'm going to stick to those. To be honest I really wasn't keen to see a specialist and to be under pressure to do the deed around the time of ovulation. Or worse, I didn't want to find out I'm not ovulating - not the black and white proof anyway.
I have to keep trusting God. Sure I have had a little emotional backlash around cancelling the appointment with the specialist today. But the reality is we cannot afford it. My husband's hours at work are very dodgy right now. We are struggling to get by. It would have been really unfair of me to go ahead and pay for $210NZ for a consult that was no doubt the beginning of many consults.
I don't know. I don't want to upset myself too much about it. I do figure if God really wanted me to be pregnant then He would orchestrate things so that it would happen. When my daughter turns four later this month, it would have been two and a half years of yearning for a baby. Some Mums I know have had not only their second child, but their third child in the time I've been sitting in no-mans land. I just feel like I missed the boat. The older my daughter gets, the more it feels like that. I so wanted to be on the boat but for some reason I wasn't.
I'm getting better at looking at the bigger picture. SIF is just one part of our lives. Our financial situation and our daughter's ASD are the main focuses right now. I just want something good to happen! It feels like life has been serious for way too long - too many worries! I'm looking forward to our daughter's party next weekend. I love hosting parties for her. And every year she gets older and it looks like another child is unlikely; I feel so blessed and lucky for the one I have.
This post feels a bit solemn but I suppose it's been a bit of an emotional time letting go of the baby number two dream once again - and letting go of the need to know what's going on. I don't know what my body is doing, if we will be parents again and when that may possibly happen. I'm still living in the unknown. But getting better at it over time.
I discussed it with my husband last night and he wasn't so certain the appointment was going to help much. I had been thinking the same. Financially we are restricted - we cannot do IVF for example although I don't even know if I would be a candidate.
All the specialist may have offered me would have probably been some monitoring around my cycles. Yet all I would have ended up with would have been yet more results - results I wouldn't be able to do anything about i.e: my eggs are either good or bad, aren't they. Nothing can change that.
So I felt some relief today when I cancelled my appointment. The receptionist did say I could reschedule if I wanted to. AF arrived today - on day 29. This is my fourth regular cycle in a row and AFs arrival this morning kind of confirmed for me that my body is just doing what it's doing.
Yes I had hoped I was pregnant this cycle. There was fertile mucus. I had sore boobs for a good week - and still do. But it seems I can no longer read my body. I just have all these hormonal symptoms going on yet I cannot decipher them anymore. I feel out of touch with a big part of me and once I knew my body so well. It feels strange being clueless about what's going on.
I went and got some more of my herbs today. I figure the herbs are what (I believe) helped my periods start again. So I'm going to stick to those. To be honest I really wasn't keen to see a specialist and to be under pressure to do the deed around the time of ovulation. Or worse, I didn't want to find out I'm not ovulating - not the black and white proof anyway.
I have to keep trusting God. Sure I have had a little emotional backlash around cancelling the appointment with the specialist today. But the reality is we cannot afford it. My husband's hours at work are very dodgy right now. We are struggling to get by. It would have been really unfair of me to go ahead and pay for $210NZ for a consult that was no doubt the beginning of many consults.
I don't know. I don't want to upset myself too much about it. I do figure if God really wanted me to be pregnant then He would orchestrate things so that it would happen. When my daughter turns four later this month, it would have been two and a half years of yearning for a baby. Some Mums I know have had not only their second child, but their third child in the time I've been sitting in no-mans land. I just feel like I missed the boat. The older my daughter gets, the more it feels like that. I so wanted to be on the boat but for some reason I wasn't.
I'm getting better at looking at the bigger picture. SIF is just one part of our lives. Our financial situation and our daughter's ASD are the main focuses right now. I just want something good to happen! It feels like life has been serious for way too long - too many worries! I'm looking forward to our daughter's party next weekend. I love hosting parties for her. And every year she gets older and it looks like another child is unlikely; I feel so blessed and lucky for the one I have.
This post feels a bit solemn but I suppose it's been a bit of an emotional time letting go of the baby number two dream once again - and letting go of the need to know what's going on. I don't know what my body is doing, if we will be parents again and when that may possibly happen. I'm still living in the unknown. But getting better at it over time.
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