It's funny when you have the willingness to change, to accept things as they stand and to stop pushing and hoping for life to go the way you had planned; that peace has the opportunity to seep in. I have learnt so much from this chapter in my life and am still learning. The obvious lesson has been about living with loss and life throwing the unexpected at you. I seem to know a lot of women who have been widowed this year. I just have a lot more empathy and sympathy for them than what I would have, had I not been through SIF. Sure, losing a husband probably doesn't compare to losing the ability to have another child. But there are parallels.
I did get quite triggered post our recent family trip up to Wellington. I guess a bit of family of origin stuff came up. But it turned out that it was an opportunity to filter through another layer of stuff. It certainly cemented for me that Nelson is where we are meant to be living right now.
Over the last few months members of my antenatal class have come into my life again. I'm good friends with one of the women from antenatal class and she is the only one I have kept in regular contact with throughout SIF. Another one works at the same college (high-school) as me. But I haven't seen the others for ages. I used to be the one who organised coffee groups. A couple of women have turned up at the gym I go to and three others also have daughters in the same ballet class as my daughter. Most of these Mums do have two children. I pretty much let go of the group when it was obvious I was infertile. But now these women have reappeared in my life. It as though God feels I am ready to be exposed to the circle of Mums again out there that I used to be part of.
We are planning a Halloween BBQ. We have invited around eight/nine families. Some are new families that I've met through my daughter's school. It feels good to be organising a get-together like this as it is something I have always done - brought people together. Fancy dress will be compulsory for adults and children so it should be fun!
I've enrolled in an art class starting November 1st. I did an art class (for the first time) maybe two years ago and ended up selling some paintings (for children's bedrooms) at a few markets one Summer. A work colleague/friend who is very creative has suggested we have a stall at a market January 2nd which I'm keen to do.
As for writing our profile (for the pool for prospective adoptive parents) - I haven't done a thing! A lot of it will be cutting and pasting from some of the paperwork we submitted during the adoption process. I hope to make a start this weekend. I'm not in a big rush to get it done/don't feel any pressure even though I know I will feel hugely relieved when we are finally in the pool. Perhaps I have more faith and trust in God at the moment - it certainly is not urgent that we get it done. There are a few things I want to get sorted at work before revealing to my boss that we are in the pool. I guess I need to tie up some loose ends over the next few weeks.
So by the time I get our profile written and submitted it will no doubt be two years of going through the whole adoption process. We haven't rushed things - we have taken our time. Soooo much has gone on over the last two years. We needed to take our time to deal with things and to get ourselves sorted in some areas.
Last weekend I organised a cafe get-together for the IF support group I started as it has been running for a year. It was good and nice to do something informal. I felt as if I really bonded with the women outside of the structured meetings we usually have. I would like to continue meetings in 2011 but perhaps we will have bimonthly ones with a cafe meeting inbetween. I guess I will just see how things go.
It has been really good for me detaching more from Dailystrength - my online SIF support group. I let go of several "friends" there a few weeks back. I now have half a dozen or so friends and most don't check in much themselves. I guess eventually it will be time to move on from Dailystrength. It is taking a while to wean myself out of there as I have used it as a form of support for close to three years!
But letting go of my online support has caused me to be more present in my daily life. I don't tend to go online in the weekends now which means I get more done around the house! I don't necessarily mean housework either - just general sorting out stuff. I guess my loose plan is to sign off from Dailystrength by the end of the year. I want 2011 to not be about SIF at all. It will be a new life. I feel it coming - however it all turns out.
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