Acceptance

Wow the last week has been an interesting one. I made a decision to really make an effort to move on from SIF/the adoption process/the last four years a week or so ago. It was a hard decision to make on some level as I felt as though by letting go of my pain and grief around having another child - I was showing myself and the world that I had moved on. But I needed to start moving on as four years was too long to live in limbo. Way too long. We still haven't received a confirmation letter from Adoption Services saying we are officially in the pool for prospective adoptive parents even though we got the unofficial ok four weeks ago. Obviously adoption could happen for us but I'm at a point where I have to live my life as it stands today - with or without another child. So I truly am in a phase of moving on and letting go of a desire, a dream that I have lived and breathed for four years.

It hasn't been easy logging into Dailystrength in particular a little less. But at the same time, I know I have outgrown the SIF support group there. I have a handful of friends that I cherish and will continue to keep in contact with. However it seems right now I do need to focus on me and give myself the time and space to heal.

I have been talking and praying to God a lot. Begging almost to be freed from the pain and grief that has almost defined me for so long. By sitting in my pain and not expecting others to take it away; I have somehow been slowly moving through it. It has taken me a long time to accept that my husband, family of origin and close friends cannot help me heal from SIF. Sure, contact with women who have been there helps - mainly through my online friends. But at the end of the day, it is God and only God who can heal me.

I've had some cringe-worthy SIF moments over the last week or so. Casual accouncements of second children being born - that kind of thing. My daughter continues to ask about a sibling regularly. It is hard. Especially because she's interested in the birds and the bees and now knows my eggs "don't work."

We had a parent-teacher interview this week and it went mainly well but when we had an appointment with the special needs coordinator a reference was made to how my daughter is my one and only while I was indirectly labelled as an anxious and over-protective Mum - of a child with high-functioning autism. I was angry about this perception of myself for days - and still am - but can't do much about it. It annoys me that just because I am a Mum of One I am seen in a certain light. I know Mums of many with autistic kids who would act exactly as I do...

I have actually been journalling privately off-line the old-fashioned way with pen and paper which has been good over the last week. I have journalled for years and stopped doing so when I started this blog almost three years ago. It feels good to get back into journalling just for me again. I have had some awarenesses come up over the last week as a result of giving myself some time and space to heal - a realisation just how deep the wounds still are at having lived with alcoholism in my family of origin and how there is still some hurt around my family splitting through divorce, even though I was twenty-five at the time. I know that I part of my desire for a second child was about recreating my childhood family. I cannot expect an adopted child to heal my childhood and SIF wounds. That really is quite unfair. I also have a lot of remorse for all the absent emotional times I've had with my daughter as a parent going through SIF. That makes me so very sad. But I'm trying to make it up to my daughter - and myself - by being more present in her life now. I know I was the best mother I could be throughout my SIF experience but she didn't deserve to be affected by my pain and grief. I guess it is something we can talk about when she is older.

There is a lot to face and accept as I move on. I feel relieved to finally be moving out of this painful chapter in my life. I'm ready. It is like saying goodbye to the secondary infertility world I have created over the last few years. I'm not sure what will replace this gap that exists as I let go of this chapter - but I know that God will continue to guide me to the next thing.