Letting go of my first or perhaps only child

Being back in the throes of the adoption process again has caused me to feel quite vulnerable. I don't even know where I fit. I'm not in the midst of SIF really as to me SIF is about actively trying to TTC. I've been there, done that and it didn't happen for us. But we're still hoping to add to our family via adoption so are there under the umbrella of those trying to add to their families through an alternate method. Yet we have a child already when most going down this route, wouldn't have one.

So once again, I feel as if I am in a league of my own. Just like I did when we were going through SIF - I was somewhere between fertile women and infertile women then. Now I'm somewhere between SIF and adding to our family via an alternate method. I can't put myself in a box and I don't much like it!!

My daughter finishes her first term at school this week. Normally on a Thursday (today) I would take her to her swimming lesson. I would take her out of school and to her lesson and afterwards we would hang in the spa together. But her lessons are finished for the term and today she wanted to stay at school all day. Next term she may end up being at school fulltime - possibly she may come home on a Wednesday afternoon - or we may play it by ear and just bring her home when she seems to need a break from school. With her autism, she does get very tired and so that's why she has slowly being weaned into school fulltime.

But I won't force my daughter to not go to school one afternoon a week if she doesn't want to go home. I feel sad that we may lose our mother-daughter afternoons next term. She is sweet in that she says she misses me when she is at school, yet she doesn't want to miss out on anything. And that's a great thing for a child on the autistic spectrum to say as school can be an overwhelming place for those with ASD to be.

So this could be it for me on the parental front. If we don't get picked by a birth family, there will be no more hanging at home with an under-five. God I miss that. Yet, at the same time, I did cherish those times so absolutely have no regrets about those early years with my daughter.

Our appointment with our social worker at Adoption Services is a week today. I am looking forward to it but cannot help but wonder if we will be a step closer to adding to our family; or a step closer to having to accept we will be a family of three.

I saw the woman who I had a chat with about adoption who has adopted and fostered today and she invited me round for a coffee with a heap of other Mums. I declined because I was genuinely going to the gym and also because I am not yet up to being in a room with women with their completed families. I could not deal with bumps/babies/siblings right now. I have avoided being in situations where there are groups of Mums like this on masse for over two years! And I'm still not ready to go there. I can do school events after-hours of course with other Mums/parents. I don't mind that kind of thing. But an intimate setting with babies crying and breastfeeding perhaps going on - nope, I am so not there yet.

I look forward to two and a half years from now when our time in the prospective adoptive pool will be up. It is our choice to just stay in it for two years. I just personally don't want to wait any longer. Never say never though. Perhaps in two and a half years if nothing has happened, we might decide to wait another two years. But for my sanity and just for today I need to have a time-line. I need to know there is an out - and end to waiting to add to our family.

The comments continue to come in regards to the article in the paper about the IF support group I started. Most people are pretty tactful. Though the office gossip at work did shut the door and blurt "Are you having trouble getting pregnant?!" I just said I had one child and couldn't have another and left it at that. Fine, if she wants to blab about me then so be it.

I guess I am feeling wide-open today in so many ways: the backlash of outting myself as having gone through (S)IF, feeling vulnerable around starting up the adoption process again and saying goodbye to what may be my only child as she settles fulltime into school. I loved being an at-home Mum. Absolutely loved it. I know lots of Mum who complain and feel trapped by being at home with their tribes. They just don't know how lucky they are - or if they do - they seem to often take it for granted. What could be or is more amazing than nurturing another life in this world? I cannot think of anything that tops that. Perhaps that is why SIF was such a blow to my ego as creativity, career, time at the gym - those things can be fulfilling - but they aren't as fulfilling to me as the joy of raising a child. I just feel so incredibly blessed that I got to do it once. Sure, I am still obviously raising my five year old but it does all certainly change once they start school. Autism or not.

Thanks to all my readers out there in cyberspace. It has been a long journey hoping to add to our family and we still have a way to go. I appreciate the support and a place to vent all these feelings that crop up as I continue to pray for another shot at motherhood.