In my opinion there are two ways of looking at the world. One fills your heart with misery, despair and hopelessness. The other with hope, faith and love. The former is to do with scarcity - the latter, abundance.
Unfortunately I tend to swing rather viciously between these two extremes. My experience with SIF has meant I have been fighting off and on with the God of my understanding around my own views of scarcity versus abundance.
When fertility is unlimited; when one's biological clock is switched off before one was ready: it is extremely hard to not slip into thinking that fertility operates in a scarce fashion. That is why I get so jealous of those who get awarded all the babies they wanted - like they somehow got the lucky lotto ticket.
And when my fertility comes with a time limit it affects they way I see other obstacles in my life. I lose trust and faith and start to think that perhaps the way things stand right now will in fact be the status quo for the rest of my life. Could this really be as good as it gets?
Sometimes, through a lot of hard work and many hours of treading water in this thing called SIF - I feel the hope, faith and love shining through and I feel abundance. I can feel it coming my way, like it's just around the corner.
I've been on the SIF block long enough (almost three years) to know that the ups and downs are a-plenty. I so hate the downs. I am so sick of them. I've been in yet another place of scarcity-thinking the last few days. Who can tell what exactly triggered it this time though I have been faced with several SIF challenges this last week:
1. Even though one of my closest friends in the world is finally pregnant after SIX IVFs - I was still in tears when I saw a photo of her with her much longed-for bump. I hate that I cannot feel true happiness for her. But then, she didn't tell me she was pregnant til the twelve week mark and doesn't want to share the sex of the baby with me - I feel as though I am very distanced from her emotionally at this time.
What bites I guess is the fact she's a year older than me, in her early 40s and able to conceive. Okay, so she needed assistance - but she got there. Me - I feel like such a shrivelled old prune. AF hasn't visited this time round for coming up to five months. I've been experiencing irregular cycles for a couple of years now - six months being the longest gap between periods. If I make it to twelve months without AF I will be declared to be in menopause. In a way I kind of hope that happens so I can just write off this last couple of years - POF or whatever it is - and just finally accept that my periods are over for good. It is not fun watching your periods fade out in a time you were hoping to conceive, I can tell you that much.
2. My neighbour, who is just eighteen years old, is due with her first child in a couple of weeks. My husband and I have a pretty good relationship with her and her partner and I can imagine that we'll be involved a bit with their new baby given they don't have family around. I am happy for them yet it did rip at the heart-strings hearing her talk about packing her bag for the hospital etc yesterday when I popped in to see her.
3. I took my daughter to a birthday party yesterday which was riddled with MOTs. I find it so, so hard to be around groups of families of four. Naturally the ones with new babies were exchanging stories along the lines of how the second child gets forgotten (because they are so busy). I tell you - if I get to be a MOT - I will not be forgetting my child!! Then there are the sleep comparisons - number two sleeping better than number one.
Sigh. Babies and bumps everywhere. I pray to God to show me the next step then. If it's not motherhood, what is it?? I don't have a flying f**k! I am absolutely confused as to what God wants me to do next. We are in this quandary where to move forward as a family to buy a house I will have to work more. But 1. I don't know what I want to do! and 2. There aren't many jobs around! I'm starting to think I may just have to get some temporary cleaning position for a bit.
Perhaps motherhood was the first and only time I felt truly valued and fulfilled. Now my daughter is almost four and a half and more independent and at Kindy; I do feel a strong sense of loss. SIF for me is like experiencing the empty nest syndrome in reverse! I quite simply am grieving my four year old growing up too fast and am in constant mourning, it would seem, because my nest is big enough for two but only one chick came along.
4. I painted a painting for a friends daughter's birthday last week - it's her second child. She turned two on Friday. Close to the same age ours would have been had it made it. (I had a chemical pregnancy at the end of '06). It's not something I dwell on - it's just this particular child is a month older than what ours would have been and lives in the same street, so I've seen her grow up. She's a gorgeous little girl and came up to me at Kindy the other day (her big sis is in the same class as my daughter) and tapped me on the shoulder and said "Hi." My heart melted. Yet at the same time it is hard to look at her and not be reminded of the loss I went through.
I am praying to God that I am out of this scarcity way of thinking sometime soon. I want to feel and think that life is abundant again. It's way more fun!
We got the official letter in the mail on Friday confirming the Education and Preparation Programme (for adoption) is going ahead at the end of this month. So that's something although I feel as though it has been taking forever between getting the first initial notification of the dates for this next step in the adoption process and actually waiting for it to happen.
One day at a time. It always comes back to that.
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