A time to heal

To Every Thing There is a Season - Ecclesiastes 3. 1-8

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

I just searched online for the above bible verse as I feel it is exactly where I'm at right now. In particular the line "...a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up".

I also found the song by The Bryds based on this verse and listening to it affirms I am exactly where I'm meant to be in my life right now - sifting through my grief.

I have been simplying my life over the last little while to give myself time and space to heal. The more I free up time or allow myself to be - the more my true feelings - my deepseat grief has come up. It seems I am busy Monday - Wednesday being a part-time working Mum and there isn't much time to think or be. Then I get to Wednesday night (which is like my Friday) and I start to let go of the busy few days I've just had and my feelings come spilling out. Not surprisingly I end up in tears on most Thursdays or Fridays at the moment. This is the time I have to myself - my agenda is mine when my daughter is at school.

I had my crying release last night (Wednesday) so have let go of a few emotions this week. At the gym earlier that day I was aware of how angry I felt. So, so angry. So I just allowed myself to feel the anger as I lifted weights and accepted it, despite it being a very uncomfortable emotion for me to feel. Accepting and feeling through hard emotions helps release them. I certainly know this from past experience.

Over the last couple of months it has transpired that two women from the infertility support group I started are pregnant as well as two women from my online support group. This has been very hard to accept and digest despite the fact that I am genuinely happy for all of them. It is just strange to have started a support group in particular in "real life" and to feel left behind. I have been thinking a bit about how to handle all these pregnancies. It seems after so many years of running way from or at least hiding myself from swollen bellies; I have nowwhere to go. Either I cut myself off from women I care about or I learn to live with what feels like an uncomfortable dynamic for me a lot of the time. I have chosen to go with the latter option and will just have to be a WIP around that one.

I constantly have to remind myself I am on my own journey - I don't know how it will end - but it is different to many of the women I have crossed paths with over the last two and a half years that I have been blogging/seeking support online with. Friendships are ever-changing in the SIF world. Sometimes it is because of pregnancy - sometimes women tire of journalling/sharing about SIF and choose to move on. God only knows I will look forward to the day when I am writing about something else.

At the same time, I am aware and also annoyed that some of my infertile friends who are now pregnant or have made peace with their journey through a Plan B seem to expect me to be "over it." I am being brutally honest here. What I've come to realise is that women going through IF come in all shapes and sizes - as in - we are all so very, very different. Some women going through IF are so private that you won't even find them on-line. Some are open-books. Some roll with the punches. Some feel things very, very deeply. That is me - I feel things at a very deep level and get so, so frustrated when people don't know that about me! Every woman is different. Some will process their losses in weeks, some in months - some will take years.

I am taking years to get through this. And I am choosing to accept myself for who I am and where I am at. I don't have a lot of support within my family - and only with a couple of friends in my everyday life - so I sure as hell don't want to feel judged in cyberspace. This is meant to be my safe place, afterall. If I continue to feel unsafe, and/or misunderstood then I will have to look at how I share/where I share.

I went for a walk on the beach today after dropping my daughter off at school and thought perhaps I am just meant to really turn to God right now. I have been leaning on women - or trying to get the support I have felt I have needed for almost three years on-line now. But everything has a season - even friendships. Perhaps God thinks I need to do the next bit of healing on my own. It is like learning to ride a bike. I have needed my online friends to help me through a rocky patch of grief - they have been my training wheels as such . But the wheels have come off now - or dynamics are changing - and so I feel alone in my grief and know that if I allow myself to "be" in my grief - as I am right now - I will learn to ride my bike just fine.

My life feels as though it is as balanced as it could be right now. After toning down the exercise and allowing myself to have caffeine and sugar again; I have discovered through reading "Mind Over Menopause" that I do need to keep exercising and that caffeine and sugar do not help my mood swings or hot flushes. So I am back at the gym doing cardio three times a week, weights twice a week and my yoga/pilates class twice a week. I will also walk when I can - like I did this morning. It's all about time for me - time to release some of this pent-up emotion I have and time to be - time to accept my fate and life as it stands today.

For three and a half years I hid my SIF pain from my daughter as I didn't think it was fair for her to see it. Of course she would know on some level - kids pick up on things - especially a sensitive soul like my daughter. But as I cried last night with my husband I asked him if it was time to include her - to brief her on what is going on with me. He agreed. So I simply told her that mummy was sad because she can't have any more children. No questions asked, she accepted it and then decided a puppet-show was needed to cheer me up! So she sat me in the lounge and put a blanket on me, and a cushion behind my back (just like I do with her when she is tired and/or a bit low) and put on a wee finger-puppet show with my husband for me with a box he made on the spot with a hole cut-out and a couple of makeshift curtains. It was a bittersweet moment - but I did laugh and had enormous gratitude for my five year old daughter that I have such a strong emotional and spiritual connection with.

This morning she asked me if I was still sad and then asked me why I was sad last night (as she doesn't normally see me cry). I said it was because mummy could have just one child and some mummies could have more children like two, or three "or four or five" she piped up. And then I said some women can't have any children and she said something along the lines of "and they have dogs or cats or chickens." How apt!! And the funny thing (in a way) is I have been hankering for a dog and have said to my husband if adoption doesn't happen for us; then I want a dog - plus it would be good for our daughter. Good for us. A way to achieve a family of four - a bundle of fur to love. We have a mature cat so will let that one sit for a bit.

I hosted our nineth IF meeting last night. It was a good meeting and within that meeting we established a few boundaries about pregnant women attending the group. I am meeting up next week with the local paper to do a piece about the IF support group I started. My photo will be in too but I am ready to be more open about SIF. I am truly trying to move on from it (despite the opinion of some). But I want to send the message out there that it takes time to heal. It really does.