One door shuts and another one opens

It has been a very busy week tying things up on the house-buying front. But we got there in the end - in two weeks we will be moving into our new home! :)

It is very exciting. It has been exhausting and a bit of a roller-coaster ride but just so, so nice to have a dream come true and to have a new focus in life.

The other day, just an hour or so after signing off our sales and purchase agreement I received a call from the nurse with the blood test results from the infertility specialist I went to see. She said she thought I knew that it was bad news - but that she hated making these calls all the same. My FSH levels were 78 which is the highest they have ever been. Next week I should get some more blood test results back that will reveal where my ovarian reserve is at.

I have a lot of acceptance right now around my SIF. I do feel as though it was a terrible period of time that I went through in life and that now it is in the past. I am so looking forward to moving into a new house - having na ew start with my family of three and leaving the angst and grief of my SIF years behind in this house. I don't want to look back - I only want to go forward.

I have been thinking a bit about adoption and do feel ready to start the process again. But we still might wait til June - give ourselves three months to settle into our new home before going there again. My daughter starts school in three weeks so there are some big changes going on. I am not sure how things will work out financially adopting a child given we will be taking on a mortgage soon. I may not have the luxury of being a full-time at-home Mum the second time round and will explore child-care options just to see what is around.

My daughter was talking about "when the baby arrives" the other day. So I said she might get a brother or a sister one day. Normally I wouldn't encourage these kinds of chats but I thought why not talk about it, since she's asked and so I asked her if she'd like a brother or a sister and she said both!

Now that I know for sure that I really am infertile, I feel okay sharing that with people if it comes up. I feel in a good space with it all and in a healthy place to pursue adoption. I guess it is a blessing that with my dwindling periods and lack of ovulation that I don't get a chance to do the could I be...? thing with my monthly cycle - because I don't have a monthly cycle! Somehow finding out I am completely powerless over my infertility has given me more power.

I feel as though this is the beginning of a very positive chapter for us all family-wise. My three and a half years of SIF has caused my husband and I to feel very stuck in life. It was as though we couldn't move anywhere, no matter how much we wanted to be somewhere else. It goes to show God really does have the plan and the time-table as a good friend of mine often says. I feel as though I have come a long, long way in my SIF journey in the last three and a half years. I spent a good two years of that time struggling with depression and mood swings. The grief I felt was so very, very deep and all I could do was hang in there, hoping brighter days were ahead.

I just could never imagine coming out on the other side of it all - but now I'm here! It feels amazing, it feels like I deserve it and it gives me hope. Hope that things do work out in the end - perhaps not always exactly in the way we wanted it to - but happy endings can happen all the same. But this isn't quite my ending people! - this is Part Two in my SIF journey. Part One was living and facing my SIF - but I am through that bit! And Part Three will be when our family is complete - be it with another child or as we are today. After all I've been through of late I trust that should it be God's will that we don't adopt; then I will be okay.

A new start

What an interesting week the last week has been. This time a week ago I had my appointment with the infertility specialist - the "closure" appointment. It was what I wanted and didn't want to hear all at the same time On one hand hearing my reality from an IF specialist was necessary for me to move on; and on the other hand it brought me to my knees for a few days as I processed the immense grief that came with the news.

Then Monday night we had a call from the owner from the house we are interested in asking if we'd like to negotiate our original offer - we did - we agreed on a price and we have been full swing into house-buying proceedings all week. Our loan has been approved, the builder gave us a thumbs up for the house - we are just waiting for the sales and purchase agreement to be signed by the other party and for the valuation to take place on Monday.

It seems the house is pretty much ours! But we will know for sure hopefully mid next week.

This house couldn't have come along at a better time. Three and a half years of SIF had caused us to feel as if we were operating in a rut that we just couldn't get out of. Yet somehow having that IF specialist appointment helped me make peace with my SIF and that combined with a house on the horizon has really enabled me to shift my focus to something else.

It has been very good for my husband and I to have a shared goal again. A big goal, a big dream - and especially one that looks like it has come true! :) We had many highs and lows over the last week and have shared them together. It truly feels like a new start for us on so many levels.

I had my last counselling appointment this week - I only had three all up this time round. But they were quite timely as I sat on the edge of SIF wondering where I was going next and examined my life and what it all meant. I feel like I have come round full circle. It has been a loooooong time coming but I do feel confident enough to say at this point that I am over SIF. I mean over SIF in a it doesn't consume me kind of a way. In a - there is life afterall - post-SIF kind of a way. In a there are other dreams that I have kind of a way. Sure, I lost one dream. A very, very big dream that destroyed me in mind, body and soul for quite some time. But I'm okay now. I survived. Not only that; I think I will be happy again.

My husband said the other night that we could start up our adoption plans again. I said to him let's wait til June as planned. That gives us about three months to settle into our new home before we start looking into the adoption side of things again. I feel pretty hopeful about adoption - as though we are preparing our new nest with a house with three bedrooms in it. For now the third room will be a spare room/office. But one day - perhaps another little person will be in there.

Although I have had my biological clock ticking for so long, I do feel as though it might be slowing down. I do think there will come a point for me where it will feel too late to add to our family. So if a baby doesn't come to us over the next two years or so; I think I will be okay with that. In two years our daughter will be seven years old and I think we would have pretty much established ourselves as a family of three by then.

This SIF experience over the last three and a half years has taught me so much. I have learnt what it feels like to be completely powerless over something in the long-term - no matter what I did, there was no way I could control my infertility. And I tried many things over the last few years to feel as if I could control my SIF. I feel a new acceptance emerging that is allowing me to embrace my infertile-self. I'm imperfect. But I'm still me. I lost a big part of myself for a while there - but I don't feel so broken now. I had to go to some really dark places to rediscover myself.

I guess the world makes sense again. We went to a family picnic at the local model trains for our daughter's Kindy tonight. There were families of all sorts of sizes. There were lots of siblings and for the first time in a long time; I didn't feel like the odd Mum out.

Heart-broken on Valentine's Day

I have been in a SIF slump ever since my appointment with the IF specialist on Friday. My heart is well and truly broken; it feels as though it has been torn into a million pieces. I'm now questioning whether seeking closure was the best thing to do since all it's done is open up my SIF wounds. I feel so sad and devastated. It was one thing I suppose to know it was highly likely I couldn't have any more children because of my biological history; but to be told, from an IF specialist - not a nice experience. Very, very sobering.

I feel quite lost which is quite typical when faced with grief. I still feel raw with emotion but numb at the same time. I feel thankful that tomorrow is Monday and I have a weekly routine to immerse myself in. I have today off my Sunday job - which is good and bad. Good to be at home yet it feels like a waste of a day as I am not in a space to give my family much today. It is very hard to fight the urge to go back to bed and sleep the day away - or to lie in bed reading a book. If I wasn't a mother, I would do that. But I have to keep myself going for the sake of my daughter.

I guess I am just going to have to take this all one day at a time - again. I have had a great year up until this point - I have felt very positive and optimistic. Now I just feel as if the rug has been pulled from beneath me.

My daughter and I went to the grocery store this morning and I saw a MOF (mother of four) I know at the next check-out. She didn't see me and I ignored her. I couldn't face her today. She is the same age as me and her second child is the same age as my daughter - so she has conceived twice in the last five years. So although some of us are affected by a loss in our infertility quite dramatically as we age - others aren't. Physically I look younger than that MOF. I'm not saying that to be a bitch - just telling it like it is. But on the inside she is the younger woman. It's hard to reconcile the fact that I've always looked younger than my age with the fact that my eggs are old.

The IF specialist mentioned my age several times during my appointment on Friday. Sure, I'm old - but I started TTC my second child at 38 which isn't that old. It is hard to not to do the what-ifs. How I wish I'd TTC our second child just a little earlier - and that I went to an IF specialist immediately. I'd lost an ovary afterall. If ever I meet a woman who has lost an ovary I would say go straight to a specialist - just in case time isn't on your side.

I guess God wants me to heal and to feel all this SIF grief one more time before focusing on the next step for us. I thought the house around the corner might be ours but when I drove past before a couple of cars were in the driveway - it's pretty clear that they're sealed the deal with the better offer they got. I know good things are in store for us but I do feel a bit like sour grapes around the house. Surely it is time that something good happened to us - and I thought that particular house was our next good thing.

We're going to look at a couple of other open homes this afternoon. Just trying to keep an open mind about things.

Last night my husband and I had went to Opera in The Park - which was just down the road, in our neighbourhood. We bought hot-dogs and had a beer each. I felt a bit tearful during some of the moving songs. As the fireworks went off on the eve of The Year of The Tiger, I did wonder what the rest of the year has in store for us. Once I've accepted my SIF fate; I'm sure things will look brighter once again.

Closure sought and closure found

Well I finally had my appointment yesterday with the infertility specialist. I got the closure I sought and have been wanting for quite some time. I'm not sure how I thought I'd feel once I got the answers - but I don't feel good at this point in time! I feel quite raw upon receiving the confirmation that I cannot conceive again. My emotions are turbulent, my grief is open wide and my despair at not being able to have another biological child is right up there.

Basically all that I have feared, all my gut instincts, and all my research has been right on over the last (almost) three and a half years. The removal of my right ovary almost five years ago when my daughter was born, has basically caused me to head towards early menopause. If I had seen the infertility specialist before the age of 40: I would have been diagnosed with ovarian failure. But because I am over 40; it is peri-menopause that he informally diagnosed. Not menopause, as I am still having periods. (You need to not have bled for at least nine months to be in menopause). Ironically I've had two periods in a row these last two months. Good healthy bleeds that make me feel like a proper woman again. Not a shrivelled up old prune who is slowly drying up.

I'm not sure if it was because I had indictated with all the paperwork that I sent in that I wanted closure that the specialist delivered the news in a very matter-of-fact way; or if it that was just his professional style. Either way there was no sympathy or empathy. He said even if I wanted to go down the medical route; there was nothing he could do for me. With my soaring FSH levels; I am not a candidate for IVF. He said ED - egg donor was all he could suggest and he didn't paint a very pretty picture of that option either (in this country), saying it would take around two years to find a donor and that my chances would be about fifty percent of it even working (what this was based on; I'm not sure).

I'm having some blood tests next week to see where my ovarian reserve is at - to help finalise things even more. He said I probably was still experiencing some fertile periods given I am still having periods. But I'm running out of eggs - or perhaps have run out already - I'm not quite clear on that. I will have another appointment with him in May to further clarify things.

I think it will take me a few days to unravel my feelings around this closure appointment. There is certainly a lot of anger up there right now. Anger that I didn't get to an infertility specialist sooner, that my FSH levels weren't monitored from the start - especially since I was warned by the gyno who delivered my daughter that I could go into early menopause. She had the foresight so why weren't Dr's etc involved along the way in tune with this? I wasn't able to see her again because she works at the hospital and doesn't practice privately. But if I'd had her on side from the moment we TTC our second child; I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have wasted a whole heap of time in limbo land, not knowing what was going on.

I feel angry about all the growing families around me right now. I am very pissed off in particular that I had to hear the news yestreday straight after my appointment that a Mum from the playgroup that I used to take my daughter to has just had another child. She has had three children in the time I've been praying for another shot at motherhood! It seems so, so unfair that some women get a whole litter of kids and us SIs get one. Yet once again I feel immense guilt that I am not satisfied with my one child when I know infertiles out there who won't have any children. I hate that our pain as SIs is forever minimised - by ourselves at times and by others.

I want to kick and scream and express my anger somehow - but I don't know how. I went and did a spin class this am at the gym. But I felt numb. I have a feeling my anger is boiling beneath the surface and hasn't yet come out properly. I cried in the car all the way back from the specialist appointment to my MOT friends house who was looking after my daughter yesterday. I cried in my husband's arms last night but couldn't verbalise my feelings. We both agree it's like a death - now we know for sure. My husband also said it's like finding a missing person when the person has been missing for so long. In some ways there is the relief that we have the answers; in other ways it is just as painful as if the news was brand new.

I offered the specialist some flyers for the infertility support group I have started up. He suggested I contact someone from the infertility organisation in New Zealand to link in with them. The reason I haven't in the past is because there was a cost involved and I didn't want to go down that route. I felt annoyed that he didn't congratulate me for starting such a group. I guess I felt I left that appointment quite deflated, with my tail between my legs. There was a trainee Dr in the room too when I arrived and he asked if it was okay she observe and I said no! I said it was too personal - I did not want a fertile young twenty-something in the room hearing my dreadful news. Afterwards I think I was meant to check in with a nurse but as she was nowhere in sight; I scrurried off. I felt shame and disgrace when I walked out of that appointment and just wanted to get the hell out of there.

In the meantime we have made an offer on a house in a private sale and it looks like we aren't in the running as another offer was made and they are pursuing that one. They have been quite unprofessional about it; not really keeping us in the loop. Perhaps God wants us to walk away from that house - it is the one we've had our eye on for the last four months.

Today I am trusting in God's plan even though I am feeling quite grief-stricken. I am well aware and scared in the knowledge that adoption is our only way to add to our family. If we don't get picked then this is it for us. I feel simultaneous grief going on with my daughter starting school in six weeks. It's like goodbye to the preschool years and I possibly won't get to do those again.

I opened up my SF wounds to gain closure and I trust in time the wounds will heal and I won't have to look at this period in my life ever again. It has been horrific and I hate how invisible my pain is to everyone. I cannot post on Facebook "Have just found out for sure that I cannot have any more children" in my world of acquaintainces and casual contacts yet if I share this news with friends and family; most will fob it off as old news and will undoubtedly pull out the "Be grateful for the one you've got" line.

I'm not working this Sunday so think a quiet weekend, lying low is on order. This too shall pass. But I will never forget SIF and how it has affected and changed me. It will be with me for the rest of my life.

The only way is up

So far, 2010 has felt like the most positive year I've experienced for quite some time. It really does feel like SIF is finally becoming part of my past. I guess I don't feel dragged down by SIF. Life feels like it is about more than SIF and what couldn't be in my life - it's now about what could be.

Last weekend we gave our neighbour our cot for her five month old daughter. That was quite a momenteous occasion and it happened in a very natural way. It wasn't at all planned - our neighbour needed a cot rather urgently as her baby had grown out of her bassinette - and we simply had one in the garage. Also, another set of neighbours passed that cot on to us. So it wasn't like it was something we had brought. Still, my daughter slept in that cot for the first two years of her life and putting it together again brought back a lot of memories of those early days - especially when I was pregnant and decorated the cot with some Peter Rabbit stickers. Of course for a long time I had hoped that one day our second child would have also slept in that cot. If and when we do have a new addition to the family; then I'm sure another cot will come our way when we need it.

Every now and then it seems timely to let go of a bit more of my fertile past- and I have never pushed myself with doing this. I gave away my maternity gear a while back and at the time it was freeing thing to do just like passing on the cot was. Sometimes you have to let go of things - even physical things to the universe before they come back to you. I guess I have loosened my grip on desperately wanting another child. I fought for so long to add to our family that I ran out of fight. Now I am just trusting that another addition may or may not come to us - it is completely in God's hands.

A close friend lost her baby this week which has been just horrific. She was fifteen weeks pregnant. Her baby's heart stopped so she had an induced miscarriage. The loss I experienced was at just six weeks - and that loss will always be with me. But to lose a baby further down the track; that is a loss that would take a long, long time to get over, I am sure.

I have my appointment with the infertility specialist on Friday - the one that hopefully leads me on to the path of seeking closure around my SIF. It feels good and right to be seeking answers at this time. I am very interested to hear what he will have to say - especially after I sent him copies of bloodwork and medical documentation over the last three years.

I'm still seeing my counsellor and sorting out some things post-SIF. It feels as though I am tidying up the loose ends of SIF in a quite a few ways.

We had an infertility support group meeting this week. It was our fourth meeting - excluding an informal catch-up we had at a cafe in January. It was good. There were just three of us but conversation was lively and I felt connected to the women in the room. Starting that group would be the one of the things I am proud of doing during this SIF journey.

We had a visit with a mortgage broker but our house buying plans are up in the air for a little bit as there is a third party involved. In some ways, I've had a bit of a tough week, but not in a SIF kind of a way. It is more to do with work and house plans and some other stuff not going according to plan. It is so nice to not feel dominated by SIF. For so long I felt as though I lived and breathed SIF. There seemed to be no escaping it. It goes to show sometimes we just go through processes in our own time; even if they take months or years. We will always come out on the other side - we just don't get to choose when exactly that will be.