Accepting my powerlessness

My secondary infertility experience has affected me deeply in so many ways. It has taken me to some deep, dark places as well as to some places where there has been hope and light.

I am praying to God a lot at the moment to help me accept my body and the fact I feel so let down by it. The bottom-line is - I don't want to be heading towards menopause! I don't like the menopausal symptoms I am experiencing. I wasn't expecting hot flushes/night-sweats/mood swings and a low libido at what feels like what should be the prime of my life. There are many causes of infertility and if I had a choice on why I was infertile, I'm not sure I would have chosen perimenopause. Obviously I didn't get a choice and this is just where my body is at so I will do my best to make peace with my body and expect it might take me a while to get there.

The thing is, none of my peers are in perimenopause. So even if I hadn't been hoping for another biological child; I am pretty sure that I would still be grieving the end of my fertile years. Fertility is about being about to conceive but it is about other things too. Vitality and youth are linked to fertility. I feel like I have been given a trump card that reads You are old. Your youth is gone!

I have a BA (Hons) in Psychology and Education. I get the whole human development thing. Sooner or later we all have to face the fact that we are getting older and life is changing for us. I suppose for me SIF is my mid-life crisis. SIF empathises all the hopes and dreams that I have lost -the loss of another biological child is perhaps symbolic of deeper losses that I haven't quite tapped into yet.

Anyway, I have decided I need to up the ante and be a little more self-nurturing. Early nights, adding yoga/pilates to my week again and lots of time with God are things I know will help me. I want to get to a place where I can forgive and love my body again. But it is a long hard road. I only have to see a woman with a baby-bump and I am reminded of my biological imperfections.

My anger and hurt towards my body causes me to doubt or to worry a bit about adoption. I guess I fear I might on some level expect an adopted child to come in and "fix" the pain that SIF has inflicted on our family. But adoption is a separate issue - it is about inviting a child to join our family. It is not about healing the wounds caused by SIF. Sure, my maternal urges would be satisfied by a child joining our family - but my SIF scars will remain. I can only hope they fade eventually into the background.

This whole SIF deal has matured me. Life does dish out some pretty big lemons and I'd say most people would have been through something quite significant by the time they reach middle-age. These things rock us, change us and sometimes define us. But I guess we all have to learn how to reconcile painful and unwanted events in our lives with the present somehow because life isn't perfect. There is a kind of gentleness and grace when people do manage to pick themselves up and carry on again with life - just when I thought I was getting there, it turns out there was a bit more work for me to do in that department!;)

I have a strong connection with the God of my understanding. Perhaps there are some more spiritual lessons to be learnt as I begin the process of making peace with my body. I do feel as though I have entered a new chapter with SIF. The first was about TTC, then finding answers when things didn't look good - and then accepting the finality of it all. But now, post-SIF I have to try and find peace all over again and learn to love my body as it is today. I am thinking of changing of my work hours during the week (as there is some flexibility to do that) which might open up a few slots in my week to do Bodybalance - the pilates/yoga/tai chai class at my gym. I did it twice a week when going through some dark times with SIF when grieving not being able to have another biological child so I know it'll help me. My aim is to be feeling in a better space body-wise when we resume our adoption plans in June. Until then I am going to work hard to heal myself.

Learning to accept my imperfect body

For me the grief and pain of secondary infertility has been two-fold. Firstly, there was the heartbreaking and unbelievable reality to face that I could not bear any more children. Believe me, it was a long hard road to find acceptance in what often felt like my worst nightmare. I only just got there recently and am so glad to be out of what was the darkest period of my life.

Now I have the acceptance that I cannot conceive again; it seems the second part of my SIF tragedy is rearing it's ugly-head - making peace with a body I feel very cheated by. I have touched on finding body-acceptance before - but it feels right up there right now as I cannot hide behind the grief of not being able to have any more children.

I have to accept that I am in perimenopause and although I've had to accept that partly to get my head around the fact I cannot have another biological child - I am still a big work-in-progress. With losing my fertility my femininity, my sexuality and my self-esteem has been greatly affected. The fact that there is something biologically wrong with me causes me to feel less-than the average fertile woman. The way I view myself affects my relationships with fertile women - and with my husband. Until I make peace with my imperfect biological-self; my relationships will suffer, even if it is in a very subtle way.

It makes me mad when former secondary infertiles, who managed to conceive, tell me to look for the blessings in my life. Have they forgotten what it was like to long for a child? The bottom-line is secondary infertility was a bloody awful thing to go through - especially when the fear that is part of SIF comes to be the truth - that another biological child isn't on the cards. The women who end up in this category - the ones who truly cannot have another child - have to deal with two personal tragedies, I believe - the fact they cannot conceive and the fact there is something wrong with them. It's not like oh well, I cannot have another child - I'll just carry on with my life then. It's more like Oh my God I can't have another child and now I have to live with this body of mine that didn't do what I desperately wanted it to do.

I am actually overall a positive person in life. I find the good out of a bad situation. But sometimes it takes me a while to get there. I have always considered SIF to be a huge personal tragedy and have just lived it one day at a time. Trust me, there were many times when I wanted to jump ship - but I couldn't. I couldn't just not want another child - it is just something that has been in me for what has felt like forever. So I ended up fighting myself in mind, body and soul when what I hoped for didn't match what I could have.

It took me a good couple of years of SIF to accept I couldn't have another child so I am going to give myself some time to reconcile my mind with my body - to work out who I am post-SIF. There are some changes I made while trying to conceive a second child that are still part of who I am now. But I don't need to be doing them, now that the quest to have another child is over. These are little things like not drinking caffeine for over three years (for fear it caused my miscarriage at six weeks) and not eating a lot of sweet food or barely drinking any alcohol. I am not saying I should turn into a compulsive eater or drinker (!) - just that I am trying to figure out what I want to do even dietary-wise now that I'm free, you could say, to do as I please. I do have cravings for an earl-grey tea every now and then which was my daily caffeine fix before I had a miscarriage. Perhaps I will give up the herbal teas and become a regular tea drinker again! I don't know what I want to do just yet - I just feel remnants of my SIF-life around and want to make some changes.

I just phoned the infertility specialist - reception - for some blood results. They have revealed, not surprisingly that my ovarian reserve is very low which is apparently not unusual "for a woman your age." The infertility specialist has written me a letter which I haven't received yet in regards to my last appointment which will determine whether or not I see him again in May. All I wanted was closure - and some answers and don't really want to hear about DE (donor eggs) as that isn't an option for us in a doesn't-feel-like-the-right-road-for-us kind of a way.

Sigh. I just want to feel like me again - in mind, body and soul. Well, maybe the problem is I don't feel like me as far as my body goes - so my mind and soul are still reeling somewhat from SIF. Hmmm.

SIF is such a complicated issue. It just pisses me off when people see you as coping, as having some acceptance around things that they assume things are okay - especially when carrying on with life as best as you can and choosing to add to your family through alternate means. Sure, adoption is a great alternate way to add to our family if it works. But, my body is broken and I am still trying to find a way to live with the fact that there was nothing I or anybody could do about that. I feel like a fifty year old woman and I am forty-one. I feel as though I have lost my inner-zing and I wasn't ready for that. I have always been young for my age and cannot accept at this point that I feel so much older than I am.

Onwards and upwards

Well we have been in our new home for almost two weeks. We all love it. It is a 1950's character house with a few quirks! Our last home was a modern two bedroomed town-house so it has taken a bit of adjusting living in an older house. Don't get me wrong; the house is completely liveable. It just has a completely differently feel about it. It is great having three bedrooms and a bigger section. It is far easier to get personal space if wanted. Our last place was open plan and so we are all enjoying having several living spaces to hang in.

The actual shift went well.The build-up was tough on our daughter but she has come out on the other side of it all and is doing really well. She started school this week and is thriving there! I did have a few tears to shed at her Kindergarten graduation last Friday. But Monday was such a busy morning for me - her first day at school - that I didn't have time to get tearful! (I had to drop my Dad off at the airport who came to visit for the weekend/take my daughter to school and get to work - all by 9am!).

We had a small low-key fifth birthday party for our daughter on Saturday, which was her actual birthday. It was really lovely and was a classic Kiwi birthday party in many ways. I didn't do any baking as I wasn't quite settled in our new kitchen so the birthday cake was just a supermarket mudcake decorated with peebles and jellybeans! I do enjoy baking for birthday parties but had to let go of my supermum expectations at this time with so much going on. ;)

I have to admit I have had a few baby (day) dreams since being in this house. When I see all our baby gear stored in the garage, I do wonder if it will be used again. I see nappies hanging on the line, drying gently in the breeze (even though I have never even used cloth nappies!!). I see a baby crawling down the hallway, a cot in our bedroom, a highchair in the kitchen...As I have said in another post - I will let myself dream of another child again as it still a possibility for us.

As far as picking up on the adoption process goes; I am still keen to start things up in June again. It is almost April and I do think we will need a couple of months to settle into our new home and to get into the swing of paying off a mortgage. I have been thinking about visits with our social worker and a bit about our profile in the sense of developing a financial plan for raising a prospective adopted child. I am asking God for help with this as I am not sure we could manage on one income now we have a mortgage. Perhaps we could in the short-term. I need to do some research to find out what we might be entitled to as far as government assistance goes. A friend told me that there is some financial pay-out for adopted children in this country - just like there is when a child is born (around NZ $2000). I need to look into a few things so we will have a proposal as such for our profile when it comes to writing it later this year.

I am applying for another second job. I want to leave my Sunday job now that our daughter has started school. Although she is only doing mornings for now; she will be doing full-days before long and I want to have my days free in the weekend to spend time with her/time as a family. The job I am going for is for the early evenings on a Saturday and Sunday night which suits us just fine. I am really enjoying my weekday job which I have had for five months now. I made a plan a few months back around some things we needed to do before picking up the adoption process again and everything has been ticked off including me getting more work and us buying a home. I do feel as though God has the plan and the timetable and I am in no rush for things to happen - I am allowing things to flow naturally, without me pushing.

Although I remain in a good place around being infertile - as in, I accept that I cannot have another biological child and am trying my best to carry on with my life - I am still trying to make sense of where my body is as far as perimenopause goes. I am going through a phase of experiencing a lot of physical symptoms - night sweats, hot flushes, and sore breasts. It isn't fun and is quite unsettling. I haven't had symptoms for a while but understand that is the nature of perimenopause - symptoms come and go - as it typically takes place over a few years. There is a blood test I haven't had the results for yet as I keep forgetting to phone up. I'm not sure what it will reveal exactly anyway.

Buying our home has been a very positive chapter in our lives. It does feel like a new start yet I think it will take some time to heal completely from the dark days of secondary infertility. There is a MOTH-to-be (mother of three to be) across the road from us that I know from Kindy. If she wasn't pregnant - I might have popped across the road to say hi. But she is and I'm not sure I want to start a connection with a woman who is about to pop out her third child! I am so, so selective around who I befriend as far as mothers go - if I hadn't gone through secondary infertility, my social contact with mothers may have been quite different.

All in all, I feel like I am doing okay. I still need some nesting time in our home to sort out a few things, but overall feel like this is "home." I still feel as though 2010 is going to be a good year for us. I will look forward to seeing what else God has in store for us!

The end of an era

It's the beginning of autumn and change is certainly in the air. We move into our first home in three days and my daughter starts school in a week and a half! It is all good change but some of my SIF grief has come up as a result of letting go of the place we have called home for the last six and a half years and saying goodbye to the preschool years.

This is the house we moved into when we were engaged. Then we got married and five months later I was pregnant with my daughter. There are so many precious memories centred around my daughter's first (almost) five years. All the walks I used to go on with her in her buggy. Walking down the road and taking her to playgroup and music groups when she was six months old til the age of three. Then the beginning of the kindy years....sigh.

Knowing that I won't get to experience pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding again makes me want to scoop up all those memories up and freeze them in time so I will never forget them - I want to pack them up with the rest of our belongings. I loved being pregnant and remember the sleepless nights of trying to get some rest when feeling so uncomfortable with reflux and other pregnancy symptoms. I always thought it was a gift and felt blessed from the start. I am so glad I relished my pregnancy. My husband and I spent a few weeks watching a very hippy-like video to prepare for our daughter's arrival - only to go through an emergency c-section. And then there were three years of breastfeeding. It was exhausting at times but I loved the special bond breastfeeding gave my daughter and I.

The other day I was thinking of my daughter as a newborn, a toddler - all the different ages and stages we've been through in this house. I have shed a few tears just at the thought of my daughter starting school - I will need several tissues on hand when she actually starts!

I am very glad to be leaving three and a half years of SIF behind in this house though. I know SIF will follow me somewhat, as it is simply part of who I am/who I've become - but I do think my days of being consumed by SIF are over. Even so, I still have my times - my days of being triggered.

I went to a kindy AGM the other night. I was only on the committee for a year but I did feel a bit sad as I resigned this week. I shed a few tears as I walked home afterwards. I was painfully reminded of my SIF as all the rest of the committee members stayed on for another term because they have two, three or even four children. It just didn't make sense for me to continue my involvement with the kindy without another child in the wings.

Some MOT (mother-of-two)-envy flared up for me when one of the mums temporarily stepped down from the committee - because she is pregnant with her third child. Everyone was fussing around her, giving her a comfy seat and all that. I used to chat a bit with this mum but just couldn't bring myself to start a conversation with her - although I did tell her her chocolate cake was nice! - I just didn't want to talk to her for more than a few minutes in case we wound up talking about her bump...

So although I will miss my connections with Kindy; I won't miss feeling like the odd (wo)man out at committee meetings where all the Mums chat about their first, second and beyond children - not being to help themselves with comparing notes and swapping Mum-of-many stories. Times like this just make me feel less-than, that I don't have the x factor fertility-wise (well, obviously I don't!), and I feel quite disconnected from Mums as a whole (being the only SI in the group).

Yep, I'm a bit tired and a little touchy today. My daughter has been very unsettled with all the upcoming changes. So we are all exhausted as she has been very wakeful over the last week or so and quite anxious about school. I have some issues around her starting school and being on the autistic spectrum and not having a teacher's aide - it is a tiring process trying to fight for her right to have the support she needs in place.

Anyway, I am looking forward to being on the other side of our shift in just a few days! My next update will probably be from our new home!

Dreams are free!

When it became clear around two years ago that my likelihood of conceiving another biological child was slim - I started to give up hope. Not only that, I also stopped dreaming. I felt it was too cruel to myself and my family to dream of another child. Yet I continued to carry around the desire for another child while denying myself the space to dream: it was a hard place to be. I just didn't want to live with false-hope.

Since getting the closure from the infertility specialist I saw, I have somehow opened up to dreaming about another child being added to our family again. Sure, I had hoped for a long time that I would have another biological child, but for whatever reason, that wasn't meant to be. But adoption could be a possibility for us so I am going to let myself have hope and dream of another child. I will only stop dreaming and hoping when our time runs out on the adoption front.

In New Zealand you can stay in the prospective adoptive parents pool for two years. After that you have to renew your interest. My husband and I agreed way back when we started the adoption process that we wouldn't renew our interest after two years as we feel like two years is long enough for us to wait as it doesn't feel like too long to wait - there is an end in sight - and by then our daughter will be seven years old and we would pretty much be established as a family of three.

My TTC plans for a second child fell to the wayside. But our plans around adopting a child have gone relatively smoothly. I had a wee "to do list" before commencing the adoption process again after putting it on hold - and two big things off that list have already occurred - they were me getting a second job and us buying our first home. Although it took me six months to find a part-time job that fitted in with family life; I did find one. And it's a great job with a good pay rate. And the house - that totally worked out in God's time.

It is only a week til we move into our home and it feels like it is meant to be - the timing, the house - it feels so very right. I guess this has helped me gain some perspective around my SIF experience - I will probably never understand the whys of it all. But, it was a personal tragedy that I went through in life and well, it was simply something that I was completely powerless over. It was horrible and all that and I will always carry a bit of that SIF pain in my heart; but it's over now. I don't have to try and figure it out anymore. I have finally moved into acceptance.

I am a great believer in events in life leading to things. If it wasn't for SIF; we wouldn't be going down the adoption route. This means of adding to our family just feels so much more full of promise than what TTC ever did.

I went to an autism course today which was held in the same building that one of the information meetings for adoption was last year. It brought back a lot of memories and reminded of how intense it was attending such a meeting. I am glad that we took a break from the adoption process as there were several things we needed to work out and I did need some time to process things. It was the right thing to do for us.

My daughter asked the other day if she could give away a gorgeous red dress she has outgrown to a friend's second child the other day. I hesitated and as if she read my mind she said "Should we keep it for when the baby arrives?" and I said yes. Our daughter is almost five so I am not going to get into adoption with her until we are perhaps in the prospective adoptive parents pool. She doesn't need to know how a baby might be added to our family at this point in time. But I am not going to take away her hope - and I am going to enjoy having mine back - that we may have another addition in the future! Afterall, when we were looking at houses we talked about how we hoped to buy our own home one day with our daughter. Once we are further down the line, I think it's fine and healthy to include our daughter in our adoption plans.

For a while I almost tried to discourage the sibling conversations from my daughter as I really feared it wasn't going to happen for us. But we have two and a half years to dream of another child coming to our family - the rest of this year to complete the adoption process and then two years to wait and see what might happen while we sit in the prospective adoptive parents pool. I really believe if we aren't picked after this time-frame that it wasn't meant to be for us.

I chaired the fifth infertility support group meeting that I started up on Wednesday night. There were five of us and it went well. It is great to know some women in real life dealing with IF in the same town. I still have that SIF-thing of feeling a bit guilty of my pain/sharing in a room full of infertile women who don't have any children. And I have now signed up our meeting with a national organisation which means my contact details will be on the internet and I'm not sure it's appropriate to have my almost-five year old's voice on the phone message when women dealing with infertility phone up.

I guess the SIF-IF dynamic is just part of the whole SIF deal - always feeling somewhere between the fertile and infertile worlds, never quite fitting in. The other day at the gym one MOT (mother of two) and one MOTH (mother of three) from my daughter's playgroup days asked about my daughter. One knows about my SIF: the other doesn't. And I'm pretty sure the one who doesn't know about my SIF perceives me as being a woman who only wanted one child. It was on the tip of my tongue to say "I did want more than one, you know!" But I left it. I'm sick of all the conversations I've had in my head around SIF over the last three and a half years. It's time to let it go. I'm on my way to greener pastures!