Letting go

After a week or so of rather intense grief; I feel as though I am travelling once again in calmer waters. There is a big gaping hole where my dreams of another biological child used to be. I am living with a broken heart. But I am looking backwards now at my three and a half years of SIF. I have perspective and a lot of reflection is going on. This tells me that I am moving forward.

Yesterday I saw an acquaintance I know who was at the education and preparation programme (for adoption) my husband and I went on last year as a parent who has adopted. I have been thinking of her of late as someone I could talk to about the adoption/the adoption process here in New Zealand. Anyway I put it out there and she was open to the idea so I will give her a call sometime soon and meet for a coffee.

I really believe I had to let go of having another biological child on quite a deep level to start up the adoption process again. Here in New Zealand you really are scruntinised as you go through the process and it is made quite clear from the beginning that you need to have finished TTC - it is crucial that you have moved on from that point. Every country seems to be different; but that is the way it is done here.

So I have the paperwork sitting here waiting for me to fill it in when I'm ready. I'm sure I will get to it in the next week or so. I am just so exhausted from all the grief that has come up lately that all I feel like doing is resting. So that is what I'm going to do.

I have reached out to three people over the last week when I was in the depths of despair and terrified of landing myself in another deep depression. This has really helped me. For the first time in a long time, I feel as though I have a wee support crew on hand. They are my husband, and two friends. I have shed a lot of tears and done a lot of talking. I ended up talking with one friend for three hours on the phone a couple of nights ago! SIF nearly ended our friendship more than once (she's a mother of two), so it felt as though some healing really took place between us and I was able to share at a much deeper level around SIF than I ever have before with her. I think it is because I am now post-SIF - not trying and hoping to be fertile anymore - just dealing with the fact that I'm not that I can perhaps be more open than I was able to be when in the midst of SIF. I am like the dumpee in a relationship who needs to talk and talk about it in order to move on. I am trying to get my head around my SIF journey from the perspective of someone who went through it - not somebody going through it.

I feel a Plan C emerging which isn't perhaps as scarey as it once was. Plan A was to have another biological child. Plan B was to adopt a child. And Plan C is just to exist as a one-child family. Basically I want to move on and be content with my life, however it looks. I have been praying to God on a daily basis to take away my desire for another child if that isn't His will for me. I can see a life with just one child would give us some freedom that we wouldn't have with two children. With my daughter now in school, there is opportunity for me to really do things for me during my week - be it through work/study/creative pursuits - who knows. Perhaps we could travel a bit more and I could fly in cousins to spend weekends with us.

Life just doesn't always turn out the way we hoped. Yet peace and contentment can be found once again. I do believe and hope for that.

Today at work a MOO (Mum of One) shared with me that she was worried she was pregnant. She's 45. She said it was "the last thing I need" and proceeded to tell me how awful it would be and how she wished she was in menopause so she wasn't at risk of getting pregnant. She stated that women are fertile until their periods stop - a common misconception (excuse the pun) out there. I kept my mouth zipped around SIF. But I did reveal I was in early menopause and how it wasn't that much fun with the symptoms. She's a bit of an office gossip so I really didn't want her to know our adoption plans.

All in all - I'm getting there. Continuing to take it easy and to treat myself like a friend. I'm pretty raw and feel as if I have just come out of a very turbulent relationship - a relationship in which I was holding it together for so long, only for things to fall apart. I am often amazed that infertility comes with the same level of heartbreak as a death or the end of a relationship.

A friend who finally conceived after 6 IVFs threw the "be grateful for the one you've got" line at me this week. I bit her head off via email! I opened up to her about my SIF - something I felt I could never do when she was going through primary infertility because of that awkward unspoken you-have-one-child-so-why-exactly-are-you-bitching-and-moaning dynamic ; only to be shut down. I hate that SIF is so misunderstood - by most.

I think it is unacceptable that women going through SIF have to mainly do it alone - and end up turning to online support. I worry that more women will end up on antidepressants because they are not supported in the way they need to be. In time, I feel I may instigate something around that - a way of setting up women with SIF with the support systems they need. Watch this space, I guess.