Goodbye 2010!

Another short and sweet post to say goodbye to 2010 - a year that has been about letting go on the SIF front - letting go of a dream (to have another biological child), letting go of the outcome of our alternate plan (to adopt a child) and letting go of the last four years of pain, grief, and hope. I know I cannot completely wipe the slate clean in 2011 - the stink of SIF will waver for years to come. But I have done everything in my power to make my life about other things in 2011. SIF will not be my focus; whatever the year brings. I wish nothing but peace and happiness to other women/families out there going through IF and SIF - and hope those that are "through it" continue to heal.

Merry Christmas!

Just a short post today to wish my readers/followers a very Merry Christmas. Thanks for reading and keeping up with my story. I sincerely hope 2011 comes with some good news for you all - in whatever form that may be.

We received a letter from Adoption Services this week to say that our profile has been accepted. So except for a small amount of paperwork that we will need to do in January; we are done and dusted with the adoption process. It's a good feeling. :) Our file is valid until April 2012 - if we want to remain in the "waiting pool" after that we have to send out a new application form, do another lot of medical and police checks plus provide two referees again. It will be interesting to see if we want to remain in the pool when this eighteen month period is up. I thought we'd be in for two years but obviously they start the two years from when the main application form is handed in.

I'm feeling pretty good as Christmas approaches. I'm surrounded by extended family right now which helps ease the pain of SIF that rears it's ugly head this time of year. I do have to apply self-preservation though and have to put a little distance between myself and some families of four that I know.

I left Dailystrength last weekend which was a freeing thing to do. I have also told the members of the local IF support group that I have started that I will be stepping down from hosting nightly meetings next year. I am still keen to organise casual cafe meetings every couple of months but personally need to move on from hearing about IF regularly. I really want and need to heal from it all. I'm hoping someone from the group will step into my shoes and offer to take nightly meetings or organise something so that the women who are still TTC/ going through treatments have somewhere to go.

My daughter was with me when we handed in our profile over a week ago. She has been telling kids and adults that she is "getting a brother or sister." For the most part she understands it is only something that might happen. But my heart does break for her whenever I hear her mention the sibling thing. For that reason I am glad that we have this eighteen month period of time to get through - to wait. I don't think as a family we can wait too much longer for a child to join us as we all need the closure - but at least it's not far now til we will get that. But I don't know what kind of a space we will be in when our eighteen months in the pool is up - perhaps we will want to wait another two years. I've no idea. But for now I have to break it down in chucks - smaller periods of time are easier to manage.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone. xx

No Christmas baby

It's my fourth Christmas of hoping for another shot at motherhood. Four years of praying, living with the grief of SIF, growing emotionally and spiritually because of SIF, accepting and battling my fate, and moving on (ever-so-slowly) from what seemed like a simple desire many years ago - to have another child. It has been quite the journey.

And I still care. - still care and want that original dream to work out. Still want, carve and grieve the loss of the biological child that never came. Somehow Christmas makes the whole thing seem a whole lot worse. It is hard to see others - even others who well and truly deserve that much-wanted second child; get their Christmas bundles. When I revealed to some that we were close to going into the pool for prospective adoptive parents it was too easy and obvious that some would exclaim that we might get a baby for Christmas. I understand that friends are only looking out for us when they make comments like that. Yet the cold stark reality of adoption, and of SIF; is that miracles don't always happen. Yes, we are in the pool now. But there are no birth families looking to adopt out babies right now in our region. It will be another Christmas without a baby in my arms. I cannot pretend that that desire to hold and love another child isn't there. The tears are there this Christmas just like they were four years ago.

Our social worker went on holiday yesterday and isn't back til January 5th. She gave me some more feedback for our second draft of our profile and I've made the suggested changes and then my husband printed it out at his work today so it is ready to drop in to Adoption Services within the week. We still have a small amount of paperwork to do next year when our social worker gets back. So we've done just about everything entailed in the adoption process except for filling out two bits of paperwork. It would have been nice to have it all tidied up for 2010 but I guess things are just working out the way they are meant to - this whole thing has been dragged into 2011.

I feel as though I have been triggered on the SIF front in several ways this week - not just with the whole Christmas thing going on and that being a reminder of broken dreams - but also a few comments this week from my daughter about her "sister or brother" - she still has hope and talks freely about her sibling as if one is really coming - it breaks my heart on the days when adoption doesn't feel very hopeful. One of my daughter's caseworkers who hasn't been in touch for a year asked if another one had come along this week. I brushed that comment off with a "Not yet. Well you never know..." and wanted to kick myself for saying so. But I just couldn't do it - couldn't reveal my SIF as it has been many months since I've had to disclose my SIF to anyone. If feels as though it has gone back to being my dirty little secret as it was for a while before I starting blogging/forming a support group and joining online groups.

We have a steady stream of visitors coming through from this Saturday til January 8th so I guess my focus will soon be changed around SIF. Not that I have purposefully being dwelling as I have been very busy with work and ASD issues at my daughter's school - I've barely been able to keep up with my life. Yet I feel the heartache of SIF lingering in the background. The fear that our last shot at parenthood for the second time might not happen is right up there right now. I don't feel so blase about the outcome right now. I want it to work out. (adoption). I'm also aware of how much more waiting we have to do - another two years of building our lives quite significantly around the unknown. For the next two years we will have to consider plans carefully in case a baby does come into the picture. I resent living in limbo yet I have made the choice to do so as I cannot at this point let go of this dream.

I know I am overtired and stressed at the moment. My daughter is home sick as she has a stomach bug and I am meant to be work. I have been juggling motherhood and work for several works now as I've been working more in order to meet deadlines. It has made me grumpy as normally I have the work-life balance thing sorted with working 12 hours a week but when it is closer to 20 hours a week; I get exhausted.

I guess the one big thing I have done this week around SIF is I have declared it to be my last week with Dailystrength (til Saturday). I joined three years ago and it is time to move on. So guess I am making progress with all this. It's just at times like this, when the SIF grief feels big and I have to apply a lot of self-preservation and keep my distance from families of many; I wonder if I will ever not have this inner-ache that I feel like I have lived with for way too long. I so desperately want my life to be about other things - to move past all this. But it seems SIF runs so deep that there are times in my life - probably always will be - when it surfaces and takes over.

2nd draft of profile done

I went in for an appointment with our Social Worker on Thursday last week to look over our profile as she and two other staff members at Adoption Services had suggested some changes. I spent an hour or so making the changes and emailed the second draft off to her on Sunday night, so she should have received it this week. But I haven't heard back from her yet so will follow that up next week as I'm aware she is knocking off for Christmas very soon.

Apparently we are considered to be in the pool for prospective adoptive parents - even though our profile hasn't officially been handed in yet. I'm really looking forward to handing over the hand-copy of our profile and just walking away from it all. I'm more than ready to wind up this whole adoption process and this whole trying to add to our family deal. It does feel as though things have started to drag getting the profile to the final stages.

For a few weeks I felt quite positive and hopeful about the adoption process. But at the moment I am concerned about elements of our profile - "our story" as such, that may not be so appealing to some. Afterall, we've had to share our life history warts and all - the past - and the present. After a challenging couple of weeks on the autism front with our daughter; I wonder if the family member who said perhaps we are better off just having one child because of the ASD factor, is in fact, right. I've been asked to elaborate about life with our daughter in our profile. Anyone who understands autism even remotely knows that these children need a lot of extra special care and attention. I guess I have heard one story too many where siblings of autistic children are affected.

There is no perfect family. I know that - especially these days after having survived SIF. But I know the perspective of a birth family must be about aiming for the most perfect family possible since as birth parents they have obviously decided they are not up to the job.

I also worry about having to say that we'd more than likely put our potential adopted child into childcare at some point. Yet I don't know for sure what will happen as I may take maternity leave and then decide not to go back to work - which is what happened with my daughter - I didn't go back to the job I had maternity leave from but took on a different job with lesser hours. I understand about needing to be as clear as possible for the birth family but it is hard to predict how things will go when we don't know the timing of a potential adoption happening, where we will be at financially or what kind of head-space I will even be in to make decisions about work and when and if childcare even enters into the equation.

I guess when our social worker asked if I could work from home I kind of got the vibe that perhaps childcare in the earlier years isn't perhaps an appealing offer for some birth families. I've pointed out in the profile that I only actually work 12 hours a week and have no plans to increase my hours. Sigh. We can only be who we are, I guess. At this point in time I do need to work to help pay our mortgage. But with two kids we'd be eligible to more government support and once you factor in the cost of childcare - we possibly might be in the same boat whether or not I work or not. Perhaps I need to do some calculations to get my head around things and this might lead to some further clarity in our plans for our profile.

I've been busy with work - and still am - these past few weeks. In fact I haven't blogged for well over two weeks as my head has been full of work stuff. I'm looking forward to the Christmas holidays just to slow down and get some r & r.

I am a little anxious about the whole profile deal - that's why I just want it done and dusted so I cannot worry anymore about the content. I also feel my SIF stuff lurking in the background with Christmas just around the corner. I guess Christmas is a time of acknowledging one's dreams in life and when they haven't happened; it can be painful.

Many of the women I've met on my SIF journey are doing well. Babies have arrived or are arriving soon. Or there is a lot of hope in the air as new procedures or treatments are tried. At the same time my heart bleeds for the women I know who have reached the end of the road - who have to rebuild their lives somehow. I still stand somewhere in the middle - we have the opportunity at least to be considered for adoption - but it might not happen. I have no idea how this is all going to turn out. But just looking forward to 2011 being about other things - whatever they are.