Flying solo

During one of my recent counselling sessions, my counsellor commented that some losses we are just meant to go through alone in life. It is an opportunity to grow - and we wouldn't grow quite so much if we didn't have to delve so deep. She said words to that effect, anyway.

Well three and a half years of SIF certainly has been all about flying solo. It has been the strangest time of having to accept that for the most part, my friends and family have been unable to support me in the way I would have liked and hoped. My SIF angst has caused me to feel so desperate and needy in many of my close relationships - and when I realised my needs weren't going to be met - I shut down.

I have been blogging for two and a half years and joined Dailystrength around the same time. My regular online posts and journals have given me a space to vent and share and to connect with other women in similar positions. I am so grateful to have made some pretty amazing friendships in this time. Yet it has always hurt and bothered me, that those outside of my cyber-world; have not being able to be there for me. Don't get me wrong; I have been supported by most in the best way they have been able to. But I have often felt alone for weeks and months in my SIF funk because many were unable to comprehend the true devastation I was going through and how long-term it was.

Now, as I go through this post-diagnosis phase, I am alerting those who love and care for me in my everyday life that I am going through an intense period of grief. It is only a handful of people I am disclosing this too - as I feel I need a support system. In the meantime I am letting go of a lot of people for now out there - the ones that neither I nor them feel comfortable having exchanges about SIF. Those friendships may or may not pick up again once all this is over (whenever that might be!) - I'm not sure. I just need to give myself as much time and energy at the moment and am having to be selfish within my relationships.

But this self-care is paying off. I know it is. The night before last I had a huge gut-wrenching cry with my husband around my diagnosis - around not being able to conceive again. And then I had another one later that night around losing my ovary. I don't think I have grieved losing my ovary before. I didn't know it was going to be removed - so it was a total surprise to wake up from a c-section to find out it had gone. Five years on and I'm still processing that loss.

Yesterday I made two phone-calls that symbolise the beginning and the end of a two different SIF chapters. One was to the infertility clinic I went to. I wasn't sure if I was meant to have a follow-up appointment as after my last consult, in which a diagnosis of perimenopause was given, I had a couple of blood tests. I got the results which confirmed my diagnosis. The Dr I saw is leaving soon so I asked if he could write me a letter with my diagnosis on it. I haven't had anything in writing and think it's important to have that for future contact with the medical world - especially if I end up seeking help for my menopausal symptoms.

The second phone-call was to adoption services. I didn't end up talking to the social worker we were assigned to- but to the receptionist. She has sent out two forms (that we already have, but misplaced during the shift) that we need to fill out before we can have our next consult with a social worker. Because there has been a gap in proceedings; we may end up with a different social worker which is okay - we have met both of them (there are only two). The forms we have to fill out are quite involved - one is a financial one and the other is about our extended families - where we come from, basically.

Originally I was going to wait til June til we picked things up again but I am at the point of wanting to get this adoption process over and done with. I want to be on the books by the end of the year. By then we would have tried everything in our power - trying to conceive naturally, trying to conceive with using alternate methods and also with medical help - and then adoption. In September it will be four years of praying for another shot at motherhood. In two years time - the time-frame we plan to be in the prospective adoptive parents pool - it would have been six years of waiting to add to our family. I really don't think I have it in me to wait much longer than two more years. Surely Gods Will will be speaking volumes if in two years we aren't picked by a birth family!

There are so many emotions in the mix right now. I am not particularly excited to be starting up the adoption process again - for me it does open up a huge can of worms. I know there is the possibility of a baby joining our family at the end of it all - but there is also the possibility that that won't happen. The possibility we might not get picked causes me to feel extremely vulerable as I feel as though we are playing our last card to parenthood for the second time. After that there are no more options for us and that is pretty scarey.