Envy

On the eve of our second offical appointment with our social worker from Adoption Services; I find myself riddled with envy. The fear I am living with; that adoption may not work out for us; makes it so very hard to live comfortably alongside all the Mums out there that have what I want - a completed family.

I feel so bad that I haven't yet acknowledged the baby that has been born to the family across the road from us. It is their third child. I kind of know the Mum through Kindy connections. I guess we are acquaintances only so I can get away with not acknowledging her baby for a while longer before it borders on being rude.

The baby must be a couple of weeks old now. On Monday it was the first day back at school and I saw her walking down the street looking so, so proud with her tribe - her five year old, her three (?) year old and her newborn. Her Mum or Mum-in-law was with her. A happy little bunch of family unity - it was almost as though God was directly smiling down on them. The MOTH (mother-of-three) looked like the cat that had gotten the cream. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, how radiant and content she looked. How proud she was to show off her newest addition to the family to all the school-Mums as she dropped her eldest daughter off at school. I was about to say "congratulations" but choked up when I saw all the other Mums swarming in to take a peek at her baby. I was so eaten alive with jealousy - and still am - I just find it easiest to keep a very wide berth right now.

I remember what it felt like to walk around with a new bundle of joy. The attention and the love was incredible. It was as if I had done something pretty incredible by creating a life and it felt so amazing. What Mum doesn't want to recreate that? I still feel so robbed that I will not get a repeat performance of conception/pregnancy/birth.

What I hate about SIF and the aftermath of SIF (well one of the things), is all the self-questioning. The way I have to justify to myself and to others why I want to be a Mum all over again. The Mums like the one across the road never had to. For them it is the norm, just spitting out another one. Yet I am in the spotlight now as an outted woman who went through SIF. I am the greedy one somehow because I am pushing past what is perhaps meant to be my fate - and trying to add to our family via adoption.

I have to plead my case before Social workers, before friends and family, before people I don't even know - and most of all - before God. I feel (once again) that my desire for another child is selfish. Just a couple of nights a go someone I work with commented that he saw my article about the infertility support group I started in the paper. He thought I had been through primary infertility and was quite sympathetic. When I said I had a child he swiftly changed his tune. He pulled out the usual" At least you have one child" card.

It's four days since my half-siblings left. I miss the chaos of three kids in the house together. I won't deny it was challenging having so many kids under one roof - but I felt like I did a really good job of mothering them all - and I enjoyed it. For one week I felt complete.

Some of my family of origin stuff has been triggered post-extended family visit. I wonder if my desire for another addition to our family is about healing old wounds. I get angry that I should even have to question why I want another child. Surely the want and desire is enough? It's enough for the majority of families out there.

I just feel as though I am missing something. It is as if there is one giant piece of the jigsaw puzzle has been lost and the pieces I have so far around my quest to add to our family don't make sense.

I desperately want to move on from being in this holding pattern and the only way I can do so is by completing the adoption process - I need to be done and dusted with that before I can completely start to make peace with this rather looooooong chapter in my life. I keep losing me throughout this process - first through SIF and now in the aftermath/the adoption process - I don't know who I am or what I want to be anymore.

If God doesn't grant me my wish to have another child, then I cannot help but take it personally that I am not good-enough in God's eyes to parent two children. And out of all the careers and various jobs I've had over the years; motherhood is the only job I have felt like I have really fitted in. I have heard some women say that they were born to be mothers. I felt like that when my daughter came along. But now she is fulltime in school and while I'm working part-time I still have time free in the week to do whatever - what exactly, I'm not sure. Sure, I enjoy going to the gym/having coffee with friends and making watching pre-recorded episodes of my favourite NZ soap. But there is a part of me that wants to keep doing the Mumsy stuff. I cannot quite accept that there isn't this other little one in tow at home getting under my feet and in my way as I do all the nesting stuff I enjoy.

My life feels like one big fat mystery at this moment in time. But I don't want to permanently be miserable. So I will do everything in my power to endure this trying life - I will apply as much self-care as I possibly can - and I will try to smell the roses. Despite of myself and what life has (or hasn't) offered me at this point of time; I do have fleeting moments of feeling connected to God. Like sitting on our backdoor step in the sunshine in the weekend and remembering how once we thought we were so priced out of the property market that we would never own our own home. Well we are now four months into home ownership and I am extremely grateful for that. It is a dream that came true and I have to remember that some good stuff has happened over the last (almost) four years since we started trying to add to our family. God has delivered some miracles.

I don't know what the future will bring. I know big disappointments in life often leave me afraid to dream too big for a while. I am back in that place. Scared and hurt that because we cannot conceive again; that I will not be a mother again. It has been like going through two separate deaths. The first one was so personal - that biologically my body was unable to make a baby again. It took such a long, long time to comprehend that. Now I'm having to accept that we may possibly not get picked by a birth family - we might - or we might not. I'm sure once we've been through this adoption process, I will have healed and accepted the status quo a little more. There is still so much more to take in - to digest. I'm trying to be gentle and to just roll with the punches. One Day At A Time - it always comes back to that.