On The Edge Of Sanity

What a week. It seems the grief of SIF ebbs and flows. Sometimes I get caught under a very big wave and it seems to take forever to come up for air. Other times living with the grief of SIF is like treading water - I'm okay but it's hard work to stay afloat. Sometimes it's even as gentle as paddling in the shallow waters.

This week a tidal wave came my way. I went way, way under and really wondered if I was going to survive. The pain was so incredibly overwhelming I even questioned whether I could take it any more.

I have wondered if I have been going a bit mad as I have certainly felt on the edge of sanity. Am I just a depressed person? Bi-polar, even? What the f**k do these mood swings mean? Is it menopause or am I in emotional overwhelm? When will I be on an even keel again? Should I just surrender myself as a mad woman?

I don't know the answers. But what I do know is I am just going to go with where I am at emotionally/physically/spiritually. Phooey to the health professionals who have declared that I am not in menopause. My body and mind certainly think so so I am choosing to go with that for now.

Thinking I had a hormonal imbalance that was caused by something other than menopause only gave me false-hope. No wonder I have been deep in despair at the loss of my periods all over again. I am sick of thinking I have done something wrong - that I am not positive enough etc because my damned periods have stopped! They have stopped because I am in perimenopause or I have POF (premature ovarian failure). It's as simple as that.

I believe I have never allowed myself to really grieve my loss - losing my fertility. I may have written about it - a lot. But I haven't drowned completely in my pain because if I did then it would make it all more real - I would have to face reality. Believe me, I don't want this to be my reality but it is. It just makes it so much easier for me to face it rather than deny it's happening.

Interestingly, as I've shifted to this space this week I have felt myself let go of my second biological child on a deep level. Or at least, I've started to let go. Yesterday morning during my Bodybalance class during the meditation I had a visualisation which explains SIF really well:
Me, my husband, and my daughter were standing in a row next to an open grave as a small casket was lowered into the ground. It was covered in a black blanket that gently flapped in the slight Autumn breeze. There were other people present, but we were the only ones right by the coffin. It was a bright sunny day yet there was a chill in the air. We were all suitably dressed in black and the mood was very somber. I had a black veil across my face and the tears were streaming and I attempted to brush them away. I stepped forward first and dropped a long-stemmed red rose on to the coffin. Next my husband stepped forward and did the same. His heaviness was apparent just in a couple of foot-steps. Finally our daughter stepped forward and hestitated before also dropping a rose and looking right into the deep hole in front of her. I had a sense my Mum was there behind us, but she didn't move. She was there, supporting us in our loss. We were saying goodbye to the daughter/sister and grand-daughter that we will never know. And I believe there is a part of me that will grieve for this much-wanted child for the rest of my life.

However I know now the pain will lessen at some points of my life - and will be more profound at other points. I guess I had my own personal expectations around my own grief this week and expected that I was close to being "over it" - since it has been over two and a half years since we started TTC for child number two.

I have been thinking how I am ready to sell off some of our baby gear now. Except the high-chair - I am a bit sentimental about that. But just say it works out, and we do adopt a child - then I'm sure we can buy back everything we need. Somehow the baby gear that is stored in the garage feels like dead wood. It feels quite timely to start letting go of it now.

My daughter has been asking where her sister is this week. She is quite curious about cousins and sisters and is trying to work out who is who. She has a good friend without a sibling so I am able to say "Not everyone has a sister". She seems to think we can just create one for her out of thin air (oh I wish I could!).

We - our little family have all been affected by SIF. It's not just my pain, my loss or my tragedy. My husband shed a tear when I shared my funeral visualisation with him. It is a very real grief that I guess we are giving ourselves permission to acknowledge fully as a couple now we are in counselling together.

I just want to feel good again. But perhaps for now I am in a grieving phase all over again. I have my mornings free while my daughter is at Morning Kindy - more time to think - and feel. I do feel God by my side. I haven't been abandoned. It's a heck of a long tunnel - but I will come out of it one day. The light is there - sometimes it just feels a little further away than I'd like it to be.

In Deep Despair

It has been a very hard few days of SIF hell. What do I mean by SIF hell? Being stuck in my grief - the rawness of it all, the feeling that I will never feel okay that I lost my fertility, and feeling as though time is standing still.

My hormones are all over the place. The lows are unbearable. I got a couple of books out of the library this week about early menopause. For so long health professionals have tried to deny that I'm in perimenopause and have tried to explain my hormonal imbalance as a result of extreme stress. I'm not sure I buy that. That puts too much pressure on me - like it's my fault that my body is not doing what it's meant to be doing.

Stuff them, I am acting and thinking as if I am in perimenopause/early menopause as everything I read supports this idea. I have all the symptoms. The latest scary symptom is suicidal thoughts. I think when you've hit so many lows, over such a long period of time, it is just where you might possibly end up. The books I have out of the library support the fact that some women do go through a deep depression when in early menopause or perimenopause. It's a combination of dealing with raging hormones and in some cases (like mine) grief around losing ones fertility and also womanhood.

We had our fourth marriage counselling session last night. Some healing is taking place between us. I had an enormous cry. There is so, so much grief around not being able to have another biological child. I think I should be - and want to be - much further along in my grief than I actually am. The truth is I will be living with this grief for the rest of my life - it is a very, very deep wound. It is always nice to be met in your grief like I was with the counsellor last night. The last counsellor I had wanted to propel me into a place where I could manage my grief. Which I did for quite some time, with the help of anti-depressants (for six months).

Now the rawness of my grief is right on top right again. It frustrates the hell out of me that I cannot explain or share the extent of my grief with others. It would have to be one of the biggest forms of grief I have dealt with in my whole life.

I continue to try to be as gentle and kind to myself as possible. This week the gym work-outs don't seem to be taking the edge off. I feel as though I just want to hide in bed and cry and cry. I don't want to be in this space - faced with the intensity of my grief but it's just where I'm at.

Struggling with a hormonal imbalance

It's been a good two or three months since AF last arrived and I am very much feeling the effects of my imbalanced hormones. I am anxious/irritable/suspectible to mood swings/experiencing night sweats and hot flushes and have no libido. It's like permanent PMS and it sucks! Gym work-outs are about the only thing that make these menopausal symptoms manageable.

I had a phone consult with my herbalist last week and have a new script for the next lot of herbs. I hadn't talked to her since we moved into the next step around adoption (the assessment stage) and talked with her a bit about how I don't want to be a new Mum much past the age of forty. I certainly don't want to be nursing a newborn at forty-five. My herbalist said she doesn't normally say this to her clients, but personally believed that once a woman hit menopause she really was meant to be finished with her child-raising years - be that with biological or adopted children. She didn't mean it in a bad way and I know exactly what she meant. My head space is in a different place to where it was when I first became a Mum. It isn't all about motherhood anymore for me - I have been fighting this internal change for quite some time.

I never got the concrete proof around what is happening for me but emotionally/spiritually/physically I am experiencing the "change of life" - menopause or not. My take on menopause is it's a time of starting over on many levels - a time to reflect/regroup/reclaim. The reason I've been grieving baby number two for the last couple of years so intensely is because I have known on a very deep level that my time was running out to conceive again - physically/emotionally/spiritually. I haven't read much about the emotional and spiritual side of menopause but know for me the process has been huge. Talks with my herbalist and with post-menopausal women have validated this for me. I am forty years old and I am going through a life-change that on average happens at the age of fifty-one. It's no wonder I feel worlds apart from my same-aged peers a lot of the time. The average menopausal woman has had her family and is dealing with teenagers or even grappling the empty nest syndrome. I started my family late in life (at the age of thirty-five) and didn't get to finish it because of POF/premature menopause.

We had our third marriage counselling session last week - there are two more to go (these are free sessions - normally there'd be six but our counsellor is off on extended leave soon). Things are coming out in the open more and I am getting to the bottom of what has felt wrong/missing in our marriage. I can see why I so desperately wanted another baby to come along to fill the emotional gap that lies in the root of our marriage. I didn't notice it was there so much when my daughter was a baby and then a toddler. But once past those intense first couple of years of motherhood, my discontentment started to show. Yet I wasn't fully in touch with it myself. I have had to chip away slowly but surely to see what truly lies beneath the pain of SIF.

I feel as though I am faced with making a choice. I am in no rush to make it and will trust in God's timing with it. But basically it's about choosing whether I want to stay in a marriage where there is going to be a lot of hard work to meet a very basic yet necessary need of mine - a strong emotional connection or simply moving on. If baby number two had come along I would no doubt not be looking at all this right now - maybe a little later down the track, who knows. All I know is it feels quite wrong to consider bringing another child into our family when I am feeling so unsettled and unsure about my marriage. Yet we are proceeding forward down the adoption path as this could all turn around - you never know. And we are working on our marriage - even if it means facing up to some of the unpleasant stuff.

I guess SIF has broken our marriage somewhat. Perhaps we weren't the best communicators to begin with so the tragedy that was SIF only caused us to grow apart. Why? Because we grieved differently and separately. Add a daughter with ASD to the mix and it is not hard to see why we haven't connected deeply for quite some time. Now is a time of rebuilding. The debris of the last couple of years has been exposed - it very much feels like a time of healing.

Having a hormonal imbalance only confuses me as I'm not sure what feelings are real - and what ones are exaggerated or reactionary. I'm hoping going back on the herbs will swing things back into balance again. I have read that hormonal imbalances themselves can shake a marriage and so I am careful to not blame all that is right now on SIF (though it is ironically because of SIF that I have a hormonal imbalance - or vice versa!)

I went to a Tupperware evening this week with a few MOTs present. It really is like a stake to the heart when Mums of Two start comparing their children physically or personality-wise. I can take the MOT talk more than I used to. Yet I think I will always have a twinge of sadness for what wasn't meant to be for me. There will undoubtedly always be reminders of that.

A close friend who has been struggling with IF for around four years phoned me to reveal she was twelve weeks pregnant earlier this week. I am so rapt for her as I had fears for her not ever been able to conceive. It was IVF number six at the age of forty-one that was the jackpot for her. Hearing her news just gave me goosebumps - it felt so right, so timely. Proof to me that God is the one orchestrating all of this. My answer will come. I am not so naive anymore to believe that it will come in the form of a baby either.

With all my internal changes going on, I have been trying to be really gentle with myself. For a while there I was out looking for work to improve our financial situation. Yet for now I've decided to stick with the status quo - to just relax and to just "be" a bit in my week while my daughter's at Kindy. God is figuring some big stuff out for me right now and all I can do is my bit and trust that things will unfold clearly when they are meant to.

A big emotional backlash

I feel okay today but boy did I feel like shite yesterday. A lot of my SIF stuff was right up there after our trip up North last week in which we saw several MOTs.

We had our second marriage counselling session on Tuesday night. The counsellor draw up a very basic model around grief illustrating how it lessons over time, but that it is always there, and that it's a process - a case of reverting to deeper grief at times because of triggers etc. I know our trip up North was a big trigger for me. Yesterday all those feelings of hopelessness, anger, resentment, disappointment, and despair flooded my being. When this happens I feel so annoyed with myself - I think I've made so much progress - only to feel consumed by my SIF pain all over again.

But I'm okay today. It's kind of like I came, I saw, I conquered with our visit to MOTsville last week. It wasn't easy, but I was able to put my pain aside so that I could catch-up with friends and family.

Last night I went to a meeting for prospective pupils at the local primary school. Even though my daughter is a year away (or more) from starting school, I wanted to check it out and start building relationships with the teachers there. Yet the thought of my daughter trotting off to school in a years time had me on the verge of tears. A Mum next to me did cry - and this was at the thought of her sixth child going to school! So naturally a MOO like myself would feel a bit emotional around the thought of her only off-spring going to school.

I've been thinking how the adoption process has caused me to feel like I have to prove I am the perfect parent - a good Mum etc on paper - and then in person (if we get that far). I feel like we perhaps do fall short in a few areas (my critical perspective only) and that brings up feelings of not feeling good enough to parent another child all over again. Yet I have to keep reminding myself that we are doing the best that we can as parents - we are who we are - I/we shouldn't have to bend over backwards to prove our worth as prospective adoptive parents.

Another concern of mine has been that adopting another child probably won't wipe away my SIF grief completely. I can imagine how wonderful it would be to add to our family and know that it could be a joyful experience. Yet I think I would be fooling myself if I thought I would never feel any emotional pain ever again around not being able to conceive a second biological child. Perhaps over time the desire will fade.

My pregnant neighbour basically apologised for being pregnant yesterday which makes me feel pretty bad. She said she felt guilty that she was pregnant and I wasn't. I certainly don't want anyone to feel bad that they are fertile and I'm not. But I can see why she felt like that. All I ever wanted was some compassion yet my desperate attempts to seek empathy have no doubt come across as resentment and jealousy a lot of the time.

I'm not sure where my body is at these days. No AF for a couple of months and emotionally I've struggled to keep myself on an even keel. I have a phone consult with my herbalist tomorrow which I'm looking forward to as I ran out of my herbs about a month ago.

I still feel a bit like we are in this groundhog stage in our lives. Yet going away up North confirmed one thing at least - that Nelson is a pretty amazing place to live. I so love the sunny weather and am appreciating it immensely after a week of pretty bad weather up North.

MOT overload

I survived a week in MOTSville. It went exactly how I thought it might - there were tears, the SIF grief did come up as did the green-eyed monster. However I wasn't riddled with jealousy or paralysed in my grief. I was still able to enjoy the company of my MOT friend and relatives.

What broke the straw on the camel's back I think was when I bought two size 0000 bodysuits for my expectant neighbour as a thanks for looking after our cat. One morning as I packed up our things in the motel I felt overcome with emotion at the sight of my daughter's size five clothes next to these teeny tiny pink bodysuits. That haunting feeling that I should have been packing up clothes for my other child was there as I folded the baby clothes into a suitcase. The feeling that something went terribly wrong on the TTC front is hard to shake at times.

We saw four babies all up in a week - all at home, in their cosy settings. They were newborn age all the way through to a year. They were all children of MOTs except for one who was a first-born. The hardest thing to bear was the MOTS comparing the personalities of their two children - their babies temperaments and how different they are etc etc. That was something I so wanted to experience - two different personalities.

One MOT asked how I felt being around her two children which I thought was really considerate. I said I was okay yet that was day two into our week away. By day three I woke up during the night with tears streaming down my face. Some of the MOTs seemed to have it all sorted with two children under their wings - some were struggling. Although I can sympathise somewhat around the broken nights sleep and the lack of "me time" with two young children; I do find it so very hard to go there too much. No-one ever said parenting was easy and when MOTs complain about normal parenting issues I have to kind of detach.

It was great to go away up North and to see the in-laws and one of my good friends but I'm kind of glad that I can get back to my everyday life again in which I can monitor how often I make MOT contact. Going away was an emotional risk yet I did it and I survived.

Off to the land of MOTs

Tomorrow we're heading up North to catch up with the in-laws for a week. (our extended family live throughout NZ/Australia), hence the constant trips. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone - it's been a good eighteen months since we saw most of them. In particular it's going to be so great for our daughter to catch up with all her cousins - there are nine including her.

I am a little concerned as to how much I might be triggered by my SIF stuff. The first night we are staying with my sister-in-law who is a MOT - with two children younger than my one. We haven't met her second child before. Then the second and third nights we are staying with a very good MOT friend of mine who has two children who are also younger than my daughter. This is the MOT friend I've had a lot of jealousy around (and still do) and this trip will be the first time I will be meeting the baby that I have envied for the last nine months (eighteen if you include the pregnancy). I'm hoping it will be a time of healing and acceptance. Another sister-in-law recently had a baby which is only a month or so old. Her firstborn daughter is almost seven years old. The age difference interests me since my daughter will be five years or older if and when we adopt a child.

I think it's very brave of me to be staying with MOTs - it shows how far I've come. But I am prepared for the backlash (I think!). There are four lots of families to catch up with cousin-wise all up and all except one have siblings. (two to three). We will be mixing with them all a bit and this may or may not get to me. I'm glad that we're booked into a motel for four nights too - just the three of us. I may experience MOT overload - who knows.

I've painted paintings for three babies born recently - even personalising them with their names on. This shows me I am able to feel joy for others and their new arrivals. I'm convinced I'm not the grinch I used to be around newborns. I'm not quite as bitter as I once was - for the most part anyway!

The marriage counselling has started and it has been pretty intense. But I'm so glad I initiated it. I feel such big shifts going on within and eventually this will be reflected externally around me. It really feels like a time of just being - especially as a couple. It was so great that our counsellor was able to offer true empathy for the pain of SIF. A lot of tears were shared during the first session. It amazes me how the grief is still there. I feel like my levels of acceptance around not being able to conceive another child are improving as time goes on yet the pain is still there. I've just managed to find/create a new life out of the pain.

I haven't had AF for a couple of months. To be honest I haven't been keeping tabs. Interestingly I have run out my herbal supplies and am due to have a phone or internet consult with my herbalist within the next few weeks. I am hot-flushing like there's no tomorrow and am back to having quite severe mood swings. Yet because I don't want to enter a deep depression again I am doing everything in my power to keep me on top of things. I've been doing a few more RPM classes than usual at the gym and I think they are helping stablise my moods a bit!

Apparently the two referees I nominated for the assessment application for adoption have gone out. It is going to be so interesting isn't it seeing what happens from here. Some days the thought of a baby in my arms so feels like the right and natural thing - no matter if she or he is bological or adopted. Other times I just don't know about the adoption thing. The open adoption side of it is probably the biggest thing that scares me. It's kind of like when you get married, you take on the in-laws. When you adopt a child in New Zealand, you take on that child's family. How that relationship runs is determined by you as the adopted parents but it's still kind of bizarre to think of another family coming on board, even if contact is minimal.

I have had some into-the-future thoughts going on such as thinking I could keep going to the gym and put our baby into the creche that they now have there. Obviously I wouldn't have given birth so my fitness won't be affected! How wierd! One week doing an RPM class and coming back another week with a babe in arms (maybe!). Who knows. The creche thing never felt right with our daughter - and now it all makes sense given she has ASD. I would naturally go with what felt right with our next child - if we have one.

I did feel a bit of grief around my daughter's first week at (Morning) Kindy this week. But now I've accepted it and have decided just to make the most of this new "me time" that I have. I have certainly loved going to the gym a few mornings - instead of at night when I normally go. I feel so very proud to be a Mum of a four year old who is doing so well at Kindy. The older she gets the stranger the thought of going back to the baby years seems. It is almost as though there is some distance now between what was once a very desperate dream - and what is what I now consider an old dream, that I'm not sure fits with us or not anymore.