It's Christmas Time...

It's Christmas time again. Another festive season in which I've had to deal with my SIF angst. It's not as perhaps as tragic as it once was - or perhaps I'm not quite as tragic as I was with SIF. I'm not in tears, depressed or completely feeling hopeless. But it is there all the same - the pining, the yearning and the feeling of being utterly incomplete.

The reminders that other women, or even most women out there conceive effortlessly are tenfold this time of year - the pregnancy announcements around Christmas time sting just a little more. In a magazine I've bought there is a story about a Mum who has fifteen children and wants just one more. She's 42 - one year younger than me. Interesting that her wishes may be deemed appropriate given she is obviously a Fertile Myrtle. But for me - somehow still - that desire for a second child - and for soooo long - seems to be greedy and so very old to many around me.

So it's Christmas tomorrow and it's just the three of us - myself, my husband and our six year old (who will be seven in March!) As always, it feels as though we are missing someone. I feel it. My daughter feels it. My husband doesn't but he may as well knowing my daughter and I are still very much grieving another child in our family.

It all still feels a bit sad - and unfinished - our family with just the three of us. I pray that next Christmas some finality and closure will have been reached around completing our family.

I have wondered if God created a situation in which I broke my elbow to teach me a lesson. Did He think I wasn't appreciative of my life as it was before? Did He or does He really want me to move on from this painful longstanding dream of mine? I cannot help it; but I do see God as a punishing God right now. The God from my childhood was like this and every now and then He pops up. It is hard to see the positive in having one health issue follow another one.

I really don't understand what life is all about for me at this point. I really am just taking it all one day at a time - it's all I can do.

Merry Christmas to you all out there. I pray that Christmas comes with peace to you this year, wherever you are at in your own lives.

Adoption plans on hold

I haven't blogged for a while. The reason is because I had an accident six weeks ago - I tripped and fell and broke my arm at the elbow. I made a real mess of it and ended up having a three hour surgery that involved three plates being fitted in my arm.

It's my right arm which is my writing arm which has meant I've been out of action . I had a few nights in hospital as well as six days at home with my arm in a cast while I waited to go back for surgery and into hospital for the second time, My hand isn't working yet as the tendons are still healing. I'm having physio sessions one - two times a week.

I was off work for a month. But started working from home from last week - shorter hours for the first couple of weeks. I can't drive and have difficulty doing many things around the house. We have home help in the short-term. Friends and family have helped here and there. My husband is doing a lot around the home on top of his long working hours. I am dependent on others right now and it that in itself has been very challenging!

I spent the first two weeks post-accident virtually on complete bedrest. I'm up more as time goes on but still need a lot of rest/to pace myself. I'm still on pain relief. The physio exercises I do hourly are painful and my arm is very sore at night.

All in all it has been a challenging time for myself, my husband and daughter. My gym membership is on hold til next year. My life has been very small for the past six weeks. All up my recovery will take about a year according to the surgeon and I may never gain full extension of my arm again.

There are life lessons to be learnt from this, I know. But I'm still living life day by day to get through it all so don't have perspective from the whole experience yet. I know my life felt too busy and I was struggling with that - ironically stressing about work and rushing to get to a seminar about autism when I tripped and fell.

I felt as though I was making progress healing-wise about SIF so feel angry with God a bit that I have had another health issue thrown my way. I've had to put our adoption plans on hold as I am in no position to care for a baby right now. Our adoption file expires in April so depending on my recovery, we may only end up with a couple of months in the pool of prospective adoptive parents next year.

I feel as though God is screaming at me that this is not his plan for me - to have another child. Yet I still cannot accept it and my desire to mother again is as strong as ever.

My daughter finished school for the year last week. How heartbroken was I to read in one of her writing books that one day at school she'd written: "I want a brother or a sister because I am lonely." She tells me this stuff regularly but to see it written down was something else... I asked her why she wrote the story and she said because everyone else in her class has a brother or sister. Hmmm.

On Sunday I met up with some of the women from the infertility support network I started, including a new woman. I was able to shed some tears with them about the above piece of writing by my daughter. Normally I hold back my grief as they are all going through or have been through primary infertility. But I felt safe and ok around opening up around this particular group - but I don't feel like that with everyone in the network.

I've no idea where I'm headed in life at this point. I just have to recover from my accident for now and not think about the future too much.

We didn't get picked

I got a call from our social worker on Tuesday to tell us that we didn't get picked as adoptive parents by the birth mother who looked at our profile in Dunedin. It wasn't a surprise, but it brought up a lot of SIF stuff for a couple of days. I certainly shed some tears and felt as if I had failed once again on the adding-to-our-family front.

Our social worker said she didn't know the full story and thought that perhaps the birth mother may have changed her mind about adoption, as all the profiles came back - not just ours.

Still. It's the closest we've gotten to being picked as adoptive parents. It is hard to not take it personally.

It seems to be another era of babies being born around me. SIF is still very much in my face. I continue to apply self-preservation. It is still hard to understand why God didn't want me to have my heart's desire. But I have hope and faith that He has another plan for me, if having another child isn't on the cards.

Deep down I know God has it all covered. There is change in the air yet I'm not sure where I'm headed. SIF has impacted me greatly and has touched every aspect of my being. I have emerged a different person who wants different things. Some things in my life no longer fit so I have to work through the aftermath of SIF and face the reality of where I stand with "the externals" in my life.

I no longer expect my life to be a certain way. Living with broken dreams for so many years hasn't been good for me. I am ready to hand it all over to God and to let him sort it out.

Will I Get A Rose?

Waiting to hear whether or not a Birth Mother is going to choose us or not out of several profiles, is a lot like waiting for a rose from The Bachelor!

I can pretend that life is about other things right now, but ultimately it all comes back to getting a rose.

My gut feeling is that we haven't been picked. I'm pretty sure we'd know by now as the social worker took the profiles from our region down South late this week. Who knows. Perhaps big decisions (well, of course they are!) need to be made by the Birth Mum. Perhaps it takes more than one look to select an adoptive family.

Sigh. The thought of being picked has set me off into a bit of a panic - the timing is not great. I have been doing some extensive recovery work which means I have been confronted by some full-on emotional stuff. It is going to take a while to work through it all. I feel I'm not far away from an emotional break-through that has been sitting at the heart of all my SIF grief, all these years. Yet other women have emotional baggage in their lives and it hasn't resulted in completing their families being put on hold. But I strongly feel that I can not move forward in my life until I face all that has been revealed.

I'm also entering a very busy time at work and have a lot to do over the next couple of months, before the year is out. We also have a Halloween Party next weekend and it would break my daughter's heart to have to cancel it, if we did have to go down to Dunedin.

I've been thinking about how much my life has changed since becoming a one-child family - I went back into part-time work earlier than I perhaps would have (if another one had come along) , have had opportunities off and on to explore my creative side, and go to the gym regularly. I had a day on Friday which was all about me. It was the school holidays and my husband was home for the day so I went to the gym, went to work and had a couple of hours painting with a friend who'd set up a craft afternoon.

I am not naive. I do know that if a baby came along I can pretty much kiss most of these out-of-home activities I do, goodbye. At least to begin with.

I worry as to how I'd cope with two children on my own given my husband works all week and isn't home either until late at night or is on night shift. They say God never gives us more than we can handle. Perhaps I would be in over my head. After all these years of wanting another child, I now question my capabilities.

But I know if a baby arrived, I would make it all work. The truth is I would drop all our other plans in a heartbeat and I would find a way. Just like every other Mum of two (or more) does.

Two babies have been born in my extended family over the last couple of days. I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. The joy of a new baby - is there anything that can compete with that? I'm not sure. Nobody except for a handful of people in my everyday life know about our profile heading South. I will go to work this week as per normal and it will just be another week.

It will be good to get some feedback from the Birth Mother (if there is any) on Wednesday or Thursday via our social worker about our profile.

I know I'm feeling pretty vulnerable right now. I'm feeling a mix of feelings and most of them are "on ice" I think - waiting until I hear for sure that we haven't been picked.

Six months left in the adoption pool

In six months time we will have our answer. The waiting game will be over - we will either be adoptive parents - or not (once our file expires).

I'm at the point now of living life regardless of what happens. As time has gone on, I have let go of the outcome and have settled into life as it stands today.

Yet, change is in the air.

Yesterday I spoke to our social worker as a Birth Mum in Dunedin wants to view profiles from around the South Island. So this weekend our profile is going on a field trip! I know we will be one of several profiles that the Birth Mum will be looking at - but it is exciting to have the opportunity to be viewed.

Our social worker said to call her next week if we hadn't heard anything. In other words, if we got picked as adoptive parents for this baby girl that apparently arrived early, then we'd hear from our social worker. If we don't hear from her, we obviously didn't get picked. But our social worker said it is still good to touch base anyway to see if there was any feedback from the Birth Mum.

I have to admit, despite what I've declared above about being at peace with it all, I have been a bit triggered since we got this news. I have dreamed a little about travelling down to Dunedin to meet the baby girl and the Birth Mum. It is a possibility and dreams are free, afterall...

Interestingly I was in town recently and saw babies everywhere and this time round it wasn't a case of "Why not me?" it was more a case of "Is a baby the right thing for us?"

For reasons that are too personal even for this blog, I cannot disclose exactly what is going on with me except to say a lot of soul-searching about my life and the way I want to live it. Who knows if a baby is the right fit at this point.

We recently had family visit which meant we had my nine year old half-sister here for five nights. She has her own issues and a lot of behavioural problems. It was incredibly stressful and challenging having her stay. My husband I have agreed that as far as fostering goes; we aren't prepared to foster a child who is older than our daughter as it was a confusing time for her.

When I picked up my relatives from the airport a woman who was in the same antenatal yoga class as me was there picking up her husband. She told me she was pregnant with her fourth child. Her first child is my daughter's age - six - and is in the same class at school.

I no longer know if motherhood for the second time round is part of my destiny. I am leaving it all up to God now. Perhaps a life much different to the one I had dreamed of and planned for is waiting just around the corner. I will just have to wait and see.

Five Years Ago

Five years ago

I had a dream

Another baby for our family

Fairly simple, you would think

I knew I was lucky

To have the one I was blessed with

But I wanted another

To fill my nest with

Quite early on

It was plain to see

That it might not happen

It became my life tragedy

But most people out there

Didn't get my pain

Meanwhile so many other women

Added children to their clan

I tried so many things

But nothing worked

Acupuncture and herbs

Fertility drugs - the works

Next we went through

The trials of the adoption process

Medical and police checks

And several interrogations

Adoption in this country

Doesn't happen much these days

It's an unlikely scenario

Our hopes could all be in vain

My daughter wants a sibling

And asks most weeks

For a sister or a brother

To play with in our street

Pregnant bellies

Are still hard to see

So are siblings playing together

And women with more kids than me

"Be grateful for the one you have"

I hear them say

Because somehow wanting two children

Is a form of shame

"Think of those

Who are worse off than you"

Well I know I am blessed

But I'm entitled to dreams too

Five Years On

It's now five years since we started the quest to add to our family. Our daughter was just eighteen months old when this journey started. Because I'd had a c-section, I was advised not to start trying for a second child too early on. But I'd been forewarned by the obstertician who delivered our daughter, that because I'd lost an ovary at the same time, that early menopause might be a possibility so I was urged to not leave it too late. I was 38 years old.

I knew my age was "up there" yet I had several friends and acquaintances who conceived at the same age - and even older. I did conceive pretty fast - only for it to end in an early miscarriage. I had a sinking feeling that this was the last pregnancy I would ever have.

Shortly afterwards it was clear there were issues with my fertility. Deep down I knew it was serious. Yet I thought I could conquer this thing called secondary infertility and somehow find the magic formula to make my body do what I desperately wanted it to do. I tried everything. I tried alternative therapies - acupuncture and a herbalist. I was told it was stress, it was normal, and that my wonky cycles could be fixed. I trusted, I hoped, I prayed.

But I wasn't getting any younger and time was running out so I stepped it up a notch and got medical help. I was prescribed clomid which didn't work, followed by an operation to remove a cyst that was meant to improve my fertility. Once again I trusted, I hoped, I prayed. When this didn't work I was referred to a specialist.

About this time we started going through the adoption process. I knew that the specialist wasn't able to help me so held off on going to an appointment for a while. Blood tests, my own research and monitoring as well a gut instinct all led to the painful revealation that I was indeed going through early menopause. I was so far gone that not even IVF was an option - not with my own eggs anyway.

When I finally went to a specialist for closure more than anything, my self-diagnosis was confirmed. Donor egg was the only way I could experience a pregnancy ever again.

As we had already gone down the adoption route, the donor egg option didn't come into it. I knew that this was our last chance to add a child from birth into our family and I just didn't have any further energy to explore any other alternatives.

It took us almost two years to go through the adoption process. It was intense and we chose to put things on hold for several months as the leap from biological to adoptive child is big for many, and it was for us.

There is a small chance that an addition to our family could still happen as we are currently waiting in the pool of prospective adoptive parents. Our file expires in April next year and although we could renew it, we have chosen not to. Fostering is a possible option but we don't know yet whether or not that is the right fit for our family. Time will tell.

Our daughter is now six and a half years old.

In the last five years our daughter has started and finished Kindergarten, and has almost been at school for two years. We've bought a house. I've changed jobs. Twice. Our cat died that we had for several years And we now have new pets - a kitten and a dog.

We've travelled to Australia, to the North Island several times and have had four Christmases.

I've changed my hairstyle several times, lost weight, put in on again, lost it again - and so on.

Externally family-life has altered several times. But the desire to have another child has not.

I've no idea how many pregnancies and births I've heard about in the last five years but there have been many. If I could have a coin for every birth announcement in the last five years, well I'd perhaps not be rich, but I may have enough for a good meal out!

Secondary infertility has been the strangest, loneliest and most maddening journey of my life to go through. How many times I wished I was happy with just one child over the last five years, I can't say. But I have certainly prayed and willed my very deep-set desire to go away. Although I have been unable to see that it was all for the best, I have after all this time ever-so-slowly started to embrace my fate.

Well-meaning comments over the last five years have centred around the dreaded "Be grateful for the one you've got." and "Perhaps it's for the best." (Our only child is autistic).

The thing with secondary infertility, is you learn pretty fast that the child that did come to you is an incredible blessing. Knowing I will probably only get to go through all the milestones and ages and stages once, has been bittersweet. It is like saying goodbye to the child that is changing before my eyes while at the same time grieving the child that was meant to follow in her footsteps.

I have slowly been letting go of these wasted years over the last few months. In mind, body and soul it was time to move on. Five years has been too long for me to live a life on hold. With a child in the mix who desperately wants a sibling, it is hard to accept it may be just her. But adoptions are rare in this country and the reality is it is more likely to not work out, than happen.

I'm looking forward to April next year as the waiting game will finally be over.

It has been tiring. I'm ready for something new and ready to let go of a dream I held on to for a very long time. The thing is, five years on it is still there. It is a dream that I suspect will linger for the rest of my life.

The End Of An Era

So I've been selling and giving away our under five gear over the last month or so. Several items are on TradeMe (NZ online secondhand selling and buying site). I've sold our buggy and our booster seat so far. I have to say I burst into tears once the buggy left. My daughter used it for a good five years and there was of course a lot of history with that buggy - numerous walks on the beach, walks in town, and we took it to Australia for a family trip when our daughter was 11 months old. For so long I had hoped another baby would get to use it and that when my daughter was at school, I'd be wheeling her sibling home after dropping her off. That of course didn't happen.

I gave an electronic baby gym we were given to Amelia's teacher who has a three month old. He was pleased with it and I was happy to give it to a good home.

If I can't sell the rest of the gear or find homes for it within the next couple of weeks, then I guess I will just take it all to an op shop. I could have done that to begin with but I like to take my time processing things and letting go of all this under five gear has been quite emotional.

But at the same time, the feeling still sits very clearly with me, that this is the right thing for us to be doing. It really is time to let it all go. There is something powerful in letting go.

I ended up having a lovely 43rd birthday, despite having laryngitis. I wasn't well but had a nice day with my husband including a relaxed lunch out at a cafe followed by cupcakes at our place. We had fish and chips for tea followed by more cupcakes with our daughter. I felt at peace that day - and free from SIF. Free from living with a broken dream. It really does feel as though the sky is looking blue again.

Yet despite my more contented state of late, I seem to have had a couple of weeks where pregnancies have been thrown in my face. And through lovely, lovely women who of course deserve to have babies. But it's always hard to hear about babies that were "accidents" or who were unplanned as I always feel old and inadequate. I cannot help but feel envious and probably always will when I hear about a pregnancy.

There is a terrible "joke" going around Facebook right now within New Zealand for Breast Cancer Awareness - females get forwarded a message from female contacts and basically it consists of two lists that match your birthday month and birthday date. You have to choose from the list the matching numbers and fill in the following with "I am _ weeks and craving_." Hmmm. One of my friends did it and the joke (?) is, males aren't meant to know what it's all about and just read the status. So my husband saw it and yelled out Is such and such pregnant?! I read it and assumed this friend of mine was and felt so hurt and angry that she'd announced her pregnancy like this - without telling me - only later to find out it was a joke....So not funny and so not a cool way to raise awareness for what is meant to be a good cause. I don't think so, anyway.

I found out one of my good friends had a miscarriage recently - with her second child. She went through primary infertility and has been through a lot already. Despite our history and closeness around so many topics; somehow it isn't quite there around infertility. It is interesting how taboo infertility actually is - even between good friends! I was surprised to hear she'd miscarried a few months back. She cried on the phone and shared how much she wants another baby. At least I was able to say that it is so, so natural to want another sibling for your child. Because it is.

It has been an interesting process adopting a dog who is seven years old and comes with a lot of history - some we know about, some we don't. We've had her for a month and at first she was quiet. Pretty settled, but quiet. But now her true colours are coming out and she barks and is cheeky - even friends have noticed that she is happier. She must miss her previous owners and was probably wondering what was going on at first.

After just a week of having her, it was obvious she had some issues with one of her legs so I got that checked out with the vet. We were told she has a torn knee which will one day get worse. When the time comes, we will have to make a very hard decision. Her previous owners emailed me not long after I got the news so I passed it on. We exchanged a few emails and I know they were sad about the prognosis as are we. They loved their dog a lot but weren't about to keep her with their new lifestyle. (living in a motorhome).

Being in touch with our dog's previous owners and going through this whole dog adoption has of course been uncanningly like going through an adoption for a human child. It has in fact changed my perspective around the relationship between birth and adoptive families.

When one of the previous owners dropped their dog off to us for the last time, I gave her a hug and said she was welcome to be in touch as much as she wanted and that I'd leave it up to her. It feels so right and natural that we have an open adoption with this dog. If anything bad happened to her, I would tell the previous owners. Somehow I have been given a lesson about ownership. This dog isn't one hundred percent ours. She lives with us now but she has a past.

Our profile needs to be updated - my husband has been in his new job for a while and we now have a dog - and now, I'm just processing my thoughts around contact with the birth family with an open adoption. Perhaps we have the capacity to be more open than we thought. God is helping me with this one so I am just sitting on it and will update our profile all in one go when the time is right.

One morning recently my husband and I woke up early - somehow before our daughter, kitten and dog! - and talked about fostering. I guess once we get to April next year we will reassess things. I can't do this again - this waiting in the pool of prospective adoptive parents. I don't want to reapply to be prospective adoptive parents when our time runs out. But fostering is possibility. Maybe.

We think we couldn't take on a child older than our daughter as she is our firstborn and also would be influenced by any behavioural challenges an older child may have. A toddler also wouldn't work as that is the age group our daughter struggles with the most - it would be different if a baby came into our home and grew up but to just bring a toddler into the mix is asking for trouble! So we agree it would have to be a child that was around four or five years old.

I guess I would be interested in going through the fostering programme next year if an adoption doesn't happen for us, just to hear more about it. There are all kinds of fostering - respite, short-term, long-term - and for life. I'm not sure if any of them would be the right fit for us. But I guess we've gone this far that we may as well look into fostering as well if it comes to that.

I can't imagine a baby in our homes anymore. It feels as though that ship has sailed. But we have a spare room and lots of love to give and space in our family - it just seems fostering is something we ought to at least consider.

Some Days It Stings

Letting go of a dream is an interesting process as it seems to be (for me) about a whole realm of emotions. I was ready to do this. That, I know. Yet some days it stings. It's just the way it goes.

Despite adopting a lovely doggie who needs my care and attention - owning a dog won't one hundred percent replace the longing I have for another child.

This morning when I was in town I was triggered by the sight of party gear for children's birthday parties. My daughter is almost six and a half and as we sell and giveaway a lot of her under five gear; I cannot help but feel hurt that we are saying goodbye to her early years as well as the early years I had hoped to share with another child. It does break my heart.

Despite moments like this, I know this is where I'm meant to be. Letting go has brought a sense of freedom and relief I haven't had for a long time. Holding on was hurting me. It is a process and it is going to take time to move to the next chapter.

In some ways it feels as though the next chapter is already here. Our dog Meg is very much part of the family already. She does complete us - as I knew she would. If this is how our SIF story ends; then I know we will be okay.

But even when sitting around having lunch last weekend on a sunny Winters afternoon on our deck with the five of us - me, husband, daughter, dog and kitten and it felt for a moment right, peaceful and complete - my daughter still out of nowhere said "I want a brother to play with!" Ouch. She struggles as an only-child. Having a dog has made a difference - it's the best substitute we could come up with for a sibling. But nothing of course can truly replace having a sibling.

Despite some tears falling over the last couple of weeks as I let go in a significant way of what I had hoped for, I do have more acceptance than ever around my fate. I will be 43 tomorrow. I know there are great things in store for me in the future - they are just different to what I had hoped for so long. I can't look back anymore. I can't live with broken dreams. It's time to find some new ones.

I seem to have made my way back into the local Mum's circle. For a while there most Mums I knew had two or more children who were younger than my daughter so their coffee groups were all about being Mums. Although I was invited to one once, I didn't feel comfortable attending without a child.

A lot of the younger siblings are at Kindy or preschool now so a new coffee group has started up for Mums who have mornings free. I was invited to go yesterday but declined this time round as I am sick at the moment, but will probably go another time.

I guess I am out there again - back in the world and being invited to a few social things. I am starting to feel more connected to the local Mums I know, despite the majority of them knowing nothing about my SIF history. I suppose for so long my grief kept me so distant from so many people.

As I move on the best I can, self-preservation still needs to applied. I cannot view photos of completed families right now - I have to ignore them on Facebook at the moment. I know there is some raw emotion simmering beneath the surface and I need to give myself the time and space to work through it.

Therapy - in the form of a dog

We officially adopted a dog last weekend! I have been on the look-out for a few weeks and found one on TradeMe (the New Zealand version of EBay). Her name is Meg. She is seven years old and is a bearded collie (crossed with cattle and whippet dog). Her previous owners sold their house and have moved into a motorhome.

It was love at first sight when I first met her. But we took the whole adoption process slowly, making sure Meg and all the members of our family were happy before taking her on for good. The previous owners also wanted to take it slow as they were emotional about giving up their dog. Meg has settled really well into our family a week on - our daughter adores her and even our nine month old kitten follows her around the garden and seems overall pretty content in her company.

I have wanted a dog for a while and knew it would help with the SIF healing. Owning a dog for a week so far has been a very positive experience - it has obviously given me something to love - to cuddle, to nurture and spend time with. Our family feels more complete with a dog in it. When the four of us are out walking (including Meg) - it feels right. Our daughter now has a playmate - someone to play and spend time with.

Every morning this week Meg came with my daughter and I on our walks to school. It's just a short walk - just five or ten minutes up the street but it's been such a positive way to start the day - for all of us. My daughter has had some difficulties at school over the last week or so and so having a dog to walk to school has been a great incentive for her to go to school. She is so proud of her and asks her peers after school to come and meet our dog.

I know owning a dog is God's Will for me - for us. There have been so many coincidences in the last week since Meg came into our lives - even acquiring her was a "meant to be" kind of a story.

One afternoon earlier this week I took Meg for a walk before picking up my daughter from school and I saw another Mum with a daughter in the same class also walking her dog. We ended up taking the dogs for a walk together. As we chatted about dog things (and other topics!) I noticed two women with bumps across the road from us pushing buggies. They were going in the opposite direction to us. I had a very distinct feeling from God that that wasn't His Will for me - to be wheeling a baby in a buggy at that moment in time - it was to be walking a dog. The Mum I was walking with has two children and it didn't even enter into the equation - it was about two Mums walking their dogs - it didn't matter how many kids we had.

A new peace has entered my being. Perhaps acceptance on a deeper level. I will be turning 43 in a couple of weeks. Almost five years ago when it was obvious I was most likely infertile at 38 I was heartbroken - it seemed so unfair and I felt as though I was too young despite late 30s being quite late in life to be adding to a family. But five years on I'm okay I think with being infertile at 43. In fact, I would expect to be infertile at 43. I certainly couldn't imagine carrying a baby anymore in my womb even though I wanted that for so long.

As for mothering - I've no idea if that will happen again for me. But I'm shifting away from that being a focus these days. I'm still wading through all our under five gear. It has been freeing and satisfying passing on gear to others knowing it has been greatly appreciated. I finally feel like I am really letting go in mind, body and soul. I'm ready to see what God has in store for me - even if it is a very different plan to the one I had hoped for (and held on to) for so long.

I can't do it anymore

I am sitting in our spare room - the room I had once envisioned as being the bedroom for our second child. It is a non-descript room at this point - half an office/half a bedroom and is currently strewn with over five years of baby, toddler and preschool gear. It is absolutely heart-breaking to sit in the middle of it all as it represents years and years of hopes and dreams and only illustrates just how long I have wanted another child - it will be five years next month.

I am absolutely devastated as I know I have reached the point of letting go as I cannot hold on any longer to this desire I have lived with for so long. It is time to move on, to let go for once and for all and it is utterly painful.

We will be remaining in the pool of prospective adoptive parents - and have another eight months in the pool. But my hopes are dashed that that will work out. I see adoption as something that is unlikely to happen and need to start moving on and working on facing and accepting things as they stand today. Perhaps I got spooked by the BM (Birth Mum) I know as in the end, she did end up "giving up" her baby and it was obviously a very difficult thing for her to do.

We had a garage sale in the weekend. It was all a bit spontaneous. Our neighbour has sold his house and we share a driveway so we thought we may as well sell a few things too. I put in some of our under five stuff. It was hard to see the highchair go and a few tears were shed about that. Also women were buying bags of girls clothing and it was difficult to see my daughters old clothes being purchased. I have boxed up all her clothes and have found homes for them according to sizes - either as hand-me-downs to other families or charity. It does feel good to be helping others out, knowing clothes and toys etc are being used rather than gathering dust in the garage.

Letting go feels like the right thing to do. I have reached the point where I am so burnt out by SIF in mind, body and soul that I do not know who I am anymore. I have ridden the roller coaster ride of SIF for almost five years and I need to get off, even if it means letting go of a dream I desperately really wanted for so long. Ironically, sometimes holding on can cause more pain than letting go as although this is all terribly painful, I know in time I will feel lighter and freer again. But it's not going to happen overnight.

Our neighbour ended up buying some of our baby gear at the garage sale as he and his partner are newly pregnant with their second child. How ironic. Boy was there a lump in my throat around that one.

I know there are some big tears on the way but I'm afraid to open the flood gates. Afraid to release the emotion that has kept me trapped in my own SIF prison for so long because one day it may seem I never wanted another child because I will be okay.

I know I will be okay - but will I ever be good again? Will I be truly happy? I want to be - and that is why I'm choosing to move on at this point. But I fear this is has been too big, too painful, too disappointing and too long to get past. I wish I never wanted a second child. I wish I could have been happy with the one child I have. I have wasted so much time and energy living for what wasn't instead of what is. I hate how much it has affected my whole life.

There is a lot of emotion churning away right now - mainly anger. I don't understand God's Will for me. I am beaten in mind, body and soul and feel a fool for hanging in as long as I did. I feel bitter and twisted, depressed and flat - I've lost all hope and I really hope it returns one day.

It will take me a few days/weeks to sort through the rest of the kids stuff I am sitting amongst. I want to sell the big items like car seats and buggies on Trademe (the New Zealand equivalent of EBay). It's like I just want it all gone as fast as possible. The physical reminders are painful. Even our neighbours partners Mum at the garage sale commented about all the old baby stuff we had and obviously wondered why. I told her it had been five years and nothing had happened. She was quiet after that.

I know every woman or couple gets to a point in their IF or SIF journey where they know it's time to stop. We are all different around that. I just think it will not be good for my mental health if I continue to wait and hope that a baby is coming our way. I cannot put all these emotions that are beneath the surface that need to come out on hold as we wait for another eight months. They need to come out now. This chapter is coming to a close in my life. It will be the best thing for all of us. It is just going to hurt and I'm bracing myself for the fall-out.

Letting Go Of A Dream

It's been a few weeks since I last posted. So much seems to have gone on. My husband started his new job a couple of months ago and we've all been adjusting to his new hours as a family. At first he started off working 12 hour shifts Monday - Friday. But as of a couple of weeks ago he now works alternative weeks where one week it is 12 hour shifts Monday - Thursday and then three nights (also 12 hours) the following week: Monday - Wednesday night. Night shift is going to take a while to get used to as basically my husband comes home from work and goes to bed around the time my daughter and I are getting ready for the day.

For the first six years of my daughter's life my husband came home from work at a little after 4.30pm and was a big part of the dinner/bath/bed routine. Now all that has changed as I do it all weekdays. It has been a lot more tiring doing it on my own during the week and as a consequence, I have less spare time in the evenings. But it feels like I've gone back to the days of early motherhood where motherhood came first and everything else came second and that I'm at home more, which isn't a bad thing.

My daughter and I went away up to the North Island for four nights a couple of weeks ago. We hadn't been up that way for two years and caught up with a good friend of mine, my family and my in-laws. It was a good way to check in to see where I was at in regards to SIF as when I was last up that way and catching up with the same people, I was a bit of a mess. (not openly - just behind closed doors once I had been around Mums of Two in particular.)

This time round I found I was in a different place. We stayed two nights with the Mum that has two children and I was okay. I was also okay seeing in-laws with the families I had hoped for for so long. Somehow the trip was about cementing the fact that a big part of my being is moving on from SIF.

Yet while I am able to be around families of many in a way I never used to be able to, I find that I am now living in a very cynical space. I no longer expect life to be great or for miracles to happen. I have lost hope and am at the stage where I can no longer wait for this want of mine to happen. I have talked with my husband and we have made a decision to let go of most of our under five gear - by either selling it or giving it away. I know it will be a painful process in some respects, but at the same time living with a garage full of expired baby, toddler and preschool gear just doesn't feel right anymore. I am giving myself a couple of months to slowly work through all the piles of clothes, toys, books as well as sorting out the bigger items such as the highchair, car seats and buggy.

I know an adoption could happen for us; but I do think it is most unlikely. The birth mother whose son is in the same class as my daughter at school decided to keep her baby. I wasn't surprised. I'm not sure what the lesson around that was/is for me. But I know I cannot hold on til April next year (when our adoption file expires) to see what happens. I have to act as if it won't happen and just carry on. Our lives have been on hold for five years this September and that feels way too long. It is heartbreaking that we have waited this long with no result but equally as heartbreaking is all we have lost as a family in that time as well. It's time to claim our lives back again.

Part of going away up to the North Island with my daughter was about celebrating my one-child family. It feels as though I am making a living amends to her in lots of ways. It is not fair for her either to be waiting for months and months for the sibling that may never come. It just feels like the kind thing to do to is just to move on as a family at this point in time. I have a whole pile of photo albumns that I want to create - of my daughter's early years. I made one of our trip together up North for her. I don't want her to ever think that five years of her life were spent waiting for another child and that she wasn't good enough.

I have organised a couple of get-togethers with the infertility support group I started over the last couple of months. Although it was good to go to them, I am at a point where I think I may not attend all the get-togethers I organise . The network I have started locally is kind of split in two as those with primary infertility want child-free get-togethers and those who went on to conceive, want child-friendly get-togethers so I end up going to both, not really fitting into either. When I catch up with the women who are going through primary infertility, I always feel guilty for being a Mum already and for wanting another child. And when I meet up with the Mums who went on to have the child or children they wanted - even though it was through an alternate means for most of the women in our network - I feel I do not fit with them either.

Meanwhile, my daughter's social world has been expanding which means I am getting to know some new families through her - most have two or more children. But I've been okay with it. It is just really wierd to have been through something as big as SIF and to just carry on within these Mum circles as if all I ever wanted was one child. I was asked to a social get-together with some of the school Mums recently and I declined as it was a last minute invite, but I said I would go next time. In a way it feels as though I am reconnecting with the Mum networks I used to be part of, before the ugliness of SIF interfered with many of my Mums circles.

I have been doing some recovery work with a friend and that has revealed some pretty big stuff around my family of origin that lies beneath my desire for another child. It is pretty painful and uncomfortable but I know I need to face it in order to heal and move on with my life. There is a lot going on. I'm moving on, letting go and just living life as it is today - instead of how I wanted it to be.

Finding hope again

What is interesting about living with long-term loss is the different ebbs and flows that come with the territory. It seems even almost five years into this; I still don't know how I might feel on any given day, week or month. I can never say I am "done" with it - as in infertility. It's unlike any other grief I've ever experienced.

I think back, for instance, to a former boyfriend who broke my heart a lifetime ago - and I feel total indifference for him now. I healed from the pain that relationship caused me. Even just weeks when it was over, I could see progress, despite the fact it took a while to mend my broken heart. The point is, I could see I was moving forward in little steps. Likewise, when I've lost a loved one I've experienced that awful heart-wrenching feeling of raw emotion that comes when a life ends - but after days, weeks or months of tears, I've been able to put that death in perspective and appreciate the life that was lost.

With secondary infertility, I have wondered for some time if this is the thing - the big life event - that has finally broken me. I seem to have survived so many things in life - typically bouncing back stronger than ever after a period of mourning. But this time round - I have lost myself and my faith and hope in a way that has caused me to feel almost dead inside at times. It hasn't been a nice way to live at all.

But after starting working through the (12) steps again; a new hope has emerged. I have been reminded that although in the past some of the trials I've been given threatened to break me deeply - I did survive. I faced whatever came my way and eventually turned things around. I am starting to think that I can do the same again. I have hope emerging that I won't feel broken forever - that peace, acceptance and a feeling of wholeness will be mine once again. I have accepted that after the earthquake of my inner being struck - infertility - I am now still cleaning up the emotional debris. It is going to take time. But I have to trust that better things are ahead - that I won't feel empty and incomplete forever.

Somehow finding hope again has given me some peace with my life as it stands again. It is by no means perfect, but according to the God of my understanding - it simply is as it is meant to be. I don't have to fight it or try to find an alternative to the dreams I had. This seems to be a time of just being.

For the last five weeks my husband has been working 12 hour days, five days a week. At first it was a big adjustment for my daughter and I. It is hard for her to not see her Dad five nights of the week and I am essentially a solo parent during the week.

But we have survived the transition - my daughter and I have our own routine and are doing ok. In many ways it reminds me of when I was a full-time at-home Mum and it was just the two of us during the week. I think it is strengthening my relationship with my daughter as I am home a lot more during the week now. Before my husbands new job I was out a couple of nights a week with work and meetings. In many ways I was searching for a way of filling that hole that was meant for my second child. Now I feel like I'm accepting on some level that it is just the two of us - just my daughter and I and that that in itself can be great. It's like making amends to her for the years of craving for another child.

Not that I still don't want that - I absolutely do. But since it's coming up to five years of living with a lost dream - I just can't do it to myself much longer. I see five years of baby, toddler and preschool gear piled up in the garage and it just breaks my heart - not just because another child didn't come to us - but for all the wasted years of holding on to that stuff, in the vain hope that it will be used one day.

Last week I stood outside the assembly hall and watched my daughter in a class performing Kapa Haka with her peers. A couple of Mums - one of two children and one of three children commented how glad they are that they are past the nappy era. I didn't say anything. All I know is, I see Mums with babies and I just want to be in their shoes. Still. I have wanted this for so many years - unbelievable that the desire has never wavered. Even during a business lunch this week I thought I'd much rather be the Mum carrying her baby around the cafe than me - talking with a work colleague.

This afternoon as I watched my daughter in her jazz ballet class three lots of Mums of Two did the comparing-their-kids game - as in how different their two children are in personality and hair etc. It always hurts being a by-stander to conversations like that - ones I had hoped to be part of.

The Birth Mum (BM) whose son is in my daughter's class at school has had her baby - I saw her walking with the baby in a front pack yesterday. In New Zealand the baby isn't legally adopted until 12 days after the birth - so the BM has the choice of either keeping the baby until then or putting it in foster care until the adoption. I just about cried when I saw that baby - not because of me and my hopes - but for the BM and what she must be going through. She has the option to not adopt - who could blame her for changing her mind. Somehow crossing paths with her has given me a greater understanding of BMs and what they go through to make such a difficult decision.

Perhaps we are all a little bit broken

It's been a reflective couple of weeks. After the bizarre incident of crossing paths with a birth Mum (BM) recently (she is the mother of a son in my daughter's class at school) and hearing a bit about her side of her story, it has caused me to question our suitability as adoptive parents. A friend of mine knows the family the BM has picked to adopt her baby to which makes it all feel a little too - close.

The other day I was disciplining my daughter in the playground after school and let's just say things weren't going smoothly. The aforementioned BM was seated next to me and I found it all to be a bit uncomfortable, as if her knowing that I am a hopeful adoptive parent somehow leads the impression that I think I am or could be a better parent than what any given BM could be. But I don't think that's what it's all about at all - who is the better parent when it comes to adoption. It is about timing and circumstances and the kind of space a BM Mum is in.

The thing is, as a Mum of a six year old daughter with autism, I am challenged. I am no super-Mum. I am out of my depth frequently. There are days in which I feel trapped. Days I want to escape. I'm not sure these traits - although human ones - aspire me to the super status of being an adoptive Mum because I don't feel I can necessarily do a better job than a BM. Now that I know a BM who is already a parent - I can see she is a Mum who probably has similar struggles to me. I guess God wanted me to meet a BM I knew vaguely through my daughter - but the whole exchange has been a little unsettling.

My daughter has been talking every day for at least a month about a sibling. I just don't think it is good for us all as a family to be in limbo land for so long. I carry guilt around not being able to provide my daughter a sibling and guilt around that I couldn't just let it go - that I had to put us all through the adoption process and now endure this tiresome waiting.

At the gym I go to there are two men who have recently had some serious health issues - one man has a muscular deterioration of some kind and the other has had a major stroke. I used to play sport (dragon-boating) many years ago with the guy who has had the stroke. He used to be fit, an astute businessman, enjoyed travelling and having adventures and liked a good laugh. So when I saw him in the gym the first time after his stroke I was surprised. But it wasn't until we actually had a conversation the other week and I found I could barely comprehend what he was saying due to the physical changes in his face which has made his speech very hard to understand - that I felt truly shocked and saddened for him. When he described a little of what he went through, my eyes started to well up.

The other man has travelled to the USA to have treatment for his muscular condition. However he looks like he's come out on the other side of it all as he was wheelchair bound at one point and now strolls around, almost back to his old self. But appearances don't fool me; this man has been changed forever. He went from a fit forty-something year old to a man who could barely move. He's not going to forget his experiences in a hurry and even though he looks good right now; I'm he lives with his health issues every single day.

I don't find it hard to identify with these men at all after my own experiences of SIF. I guess life doesn't go as planned for most of us in some form. We all have our stories to tell, even if one person's story is seemingly more dramatic than the next. I don't believe in downplaying a persons pain. When people say "There is always someone worse off than you." I don't think that's a fair comment. True, there will always be someone worse off - but we each hold our own pain and deserve to be heard and acknowledged whatever our story may be.

I sometimes feel as if life throws a series of events at us that causes us to feel unhinged. Sometimes there are gaps between these triggers, which allows us time to settle into life and to find our way again. But before we know it, something else comes up and we are once again left to desperately find our place in the world again. Perhaps we are all born a little bit broken and things happen to us in life that cause that brokenness to be exposed - to bring out that raw human vulnerability that lives in the centre of all of us.

I know for myself I still hold a lot of pain around my family of origin and my parents divorce fifteen plus years ago which resulted in our family - my parents, my sister and I, scattering ourselves all over the world. I still have a lot of healing to do around that and get that part of my desire to have a second child was a bit of a feeble attempt at creating the family I always wanted ie: a happy one. Ironically the family I have now - although beautiful - is very different to the one I had hoped for. Instead of two kids playing happily in our home, I have a daughter with autism who is lost a lot of the time in the world. My grief on the family front is doubled - for my daughter and the challenges she and we face with her autism - and for the sibling/the family of four we aren't.

There was a time when I thought I would come out on the other side of SIF. That I would one day be able to forget it ever happened. That I would feel like "me" again. But almost five years into this and I know that I have changed forever - that I will probably feel broken for the rest of my life. And just like the men I mentioned in the gym - life will never be the same again.

I still feel stuck in my life and unable to move forward very much which is the other part of waiting (in the prospective adoptive parents pool) that frustrates me. It's almost as though once I know for sure what is going to happen, I will be set free.

My job could fizzle out at the end of the year which means it isn't the most rewarding job to be in. It doesn't feel like it has a lot of meaning when it may not last much longer. I guess I have been feeling a little lost in my own life of late - if I'm not meant to be a Mum again (perhaps) and my job isn't stable then what am I meant to be doing? I am going to do another round of the (12) steps with a friend which will help things - guess I just need some spiritual direction and meaning in my life again.

My daughter and I are heading to the North Island in three weeks time for four nights - the main event is my Great Aunt's 90th. We are staying with a good friend of mine for two nights and then are spending two days catching up with extended family. It's quite a big step for me to stay with my friend as she has two children and we've had some hard times during our friendship when she went through her second pregnancy and went on to have her second child. Sometimes I cannot read posts or view photos of her second child or her two children together, so it will be interesting to see how I go staying with her. I stayed with her two years ago and woke up in the night crying after seeing her then three year old with her baby sister.

On my husbands side of the family, I will be seeing eight of my daughter's cousins and one of her Aunts has her third child on the way. Two years ago one of her other Aunts had had her second child. Most of the cousins have siblings. It was hard last visit but I expect and know I will probably get triggered - it's just the way it goes. But it feels right to go up and see everyone - I cannot hide from the people I love and care about forever - even if they have the babies/families I had hoped for.

Waiting in the adoption pool

Last weekend I organised a get-together with the women who have had babies from the local Infertility Support Network I started. It was really nice. Three women have had babies over the last eighteen months and the babies are aged between three and six months old. Another woman has a baby on the way. I wasn't sure how I would feel going along to this morning tea, as although I invited everyone from our infertility network; there were only two of us who went who haven't had babies since the group started. But I felt okay. More than that - it felt good to hold and comfort some of the babies. It was the first time in a long time I had been in a situation with a lot of babies in a room all at once as I have avoided such scenarios for years. I actually found it to be healing. I'm not sure I would feel the same holding babies in a room full of "fertiles" - and am probably in no hurry to find out!

Seeing all the success stories as such together has inspired me to keep going with our infertility network - to keep putting the word out there so I have been doing that - creating a page on Facebook and advertising in more than one newspaper now. I just want to keep the group alive. It will be two years since I started the group in October.

I had a rather wierd situation this week. One of the Mums of a boy in my daughter's class at school is pregnant. She told me when she first found out about the pregnancy how much she didn't want the child. I was so hurt and angry about what she said - for all sorts of SIF reasons - that I have kept my distance from her. However we were sitting next to each other in the playground after school yesterday as our kids played and she shared that she only had two more weeks to go. There was a bit of an awkward silence and then she said she was giving the baby up for adoption. She then told me who the family was - a family with eight (!) children that had strong Christian beliefs. I said to her it must have been very hard to make that decision and she revealed that it was an open adoption and that she and her son would be able to have a lot of contact with the baby. She then said she had seen our profile! Hmmm. That was very wierd. I just joked how small our town was and she said she hadn't told anyone that she'd seen it. She also said our profile had been to Christchurch as after the earthquake some more profiles needed to go down there. Interesting. I haven't heard anything about our profile been viewed or travelling out of the town we live in.

I have felt a bit triggered around the above. I mean it's good to know that our profile has been looked at. But obviously the content hasn't interested any prospective birth parents yet. I cannot help but wonder or tick off the reasons in my head why there is a lack of interest: Is it because our daughter is autistic? Is it because I was on anti-depressants for six months? (during my dark days of SIF). Is it because I said I might have to put our potential adopted child into child-care? Do we not earn enough money? Are we not outdoorsy enough? Does our profile not read well?

I dunno. At the time when we carefully put our profile together, I felt we did the best we could and that it was an honest account of who we are. It just does hurt that we may not be what prospective birth parents are looking for. I haven't even updated our profile yet but need to do that since my husband started his new job. Our social worker didn't seem to think there was much of a hurry to do so. I also needed to settle into our new working week now my husbands work hours have changed so I know what I want to write there.

For the first six years of our daughter's life my husband worked until 4.30pm which meant he was very hands-on with the whole dinner/bath/bed routine. Now, in his new job, he is working 12 hour days - from 7am - 7pm. It means sometimes when he gets home our daughter is asleep. She is missing him and so am I. I feel as though I am solo parenting during the working week. It is a good change for us financially - this new job of his is much more secure. He is working extra days too - over 60 hours a week while the overtime is there.

It feels like another new era. In a way it is like going back to the early years when I was a fulltime at home Mum as it is just me managing the house and cooking tea and taking care of our daughter during the week. Even though my husband was home at 4.30pm, I still had long days at home with my daughter before she started Kindy. I do wonder how I would go with a baby on board knowing it would be mainly me doing it all during the week.

I'm not sure how to take the strange situation of crossing paths with a birth Mum whose son is in the same class as my daughter's! What is God trying to tell me? That we aren't viable candidates as adoptive parents - or that we have a chance. I guess it's nice to know that an adoption is about to happen locally - but it hurts that it wasn't us - even if I know in my heart there is no way adoption would have been right with this particular birth Mum.

For many months it has felt "secret" being in the pool of prospective adoptive parents - now it feels kind of like we've been exposed. Not only that, the birth Mum mentioned is the Mum of the son who put a skipping rope around my daughter's neck a few weeks back in the playground. I've always been wary of this Mum anyway - now especially so. Even when she first told me she was pregnant and that she didn't want it, I knew it would be wrong to mention we were hoping to adopt. It would not be right obviously to have two children in the same class, at the same school being connected by adoption. Apparently the birth Mums son, six years old, is quite upset at losing his sibling. I understand that. It would not be fair to have a classmate calling his sibling her sibling - too, too wierd in so many ways! The birth Mum is a solo Mum and doesn't want to be a solo parent again.

If anything this encounter has given me an insight into a birth Mum's situation. I guess it was interesting too hearing what she was looking for - some things we aren't/can't offer. Not that she said that of course but just from the descriptions given of the families she was interested in - there were two in the end - and they sound quite different to us. It is easy to feel that we don't compare. I know I shouldn't do the comparing game - but it is hard not to.

I know she is just one birth Mum - but the fact that we are so close to an adoption happening - as in by degrees of separation - is bizarre. My daughter still talks daily about a sibling. Sometimes I don't know what to say to her. I can't say I enjoy waiting in the adoption pool all that much. Obviously I'd probably see it differently if we'd been picked - or a birth family was interested in us. I suppose at this point it just feels like rejection once again - rejection from God initially that we couldn't have another child - and now a possible rejection about being adoptive parents.

Despite all this, I have been doing okay. I have biked to work a few times - a half hour each way over the last couple of weeks. This simple act has brought a new energy into my week. I also feel like bits of the old me are merging with the post-SIF me. I feel lighter. My daughter is befriending kids with siblings and I'm okay with it. I don't have envy around every Mum of Two I cross paths with. I still apply self-preservation and won't always view photos of completed families on Facebook. I know what my triggers are. And some aspects of SIF are less painful than they used to be. So I must still be moving forward and healing in my own time - ever so slowly. AF has been visiting for two and a half weeks - very odd - and quite unexpected. I have been applying estrogen internally and that could be contributing to my well-being - not sure. It feels as though I have accepted my SIF/early menopause fate at least, using a cream that I was resistant to using for quite some time.

SIF affects the whole family

It is not just me who is affected by SIF. It is a family disease. My husband seems to have accepted the status quo for the most part - but still has to live with a wife who remains dissatisfied with her family of three. Therefore he lives with the ghost of SIF, even if he is okay with things being the way they are.

My six year old daughter is feeling the loneliness of being an only-child at the moment. For the last two days the promise and the hope of a sibling has been a big topic with her. I never instigate such conversations - it all comes naturally from her. It breaks my heart. She would prefer a sister and has plans for the two of them to share a room and with bunk beds. She wants to read to her little sister and to teach her things. She wants to show her round school and play with her at lunchtime. She wants to share her toys and help look after her.

It is hard to know what to say. I tell her that by the time she is seven years old we will know if a baby is coming to us or not. I say all we can do is pray for a baby and wait and see if God wants that for our family too.

I know underneath it all my daughter is lonely for other reasons - she is going through a phase of feeling disconnected at school with her peers and playing alone at lunchtime sometimes. She no doubt thinks having a sister could be the answer to all her problems. But of course having another little person in the house although joyful on so many levels, would also be a challenge and a big adjustment, no matter how much she claims to want it.

I went for a half-hour appointment in town this morning with a Dr (not my usual one) around menopause. Nothing new really came out of it. I just got a script for vaginal creams to help with er, lubrication and hopefully the estrogen deficiency I have. I'm also to take Vitamin D as a calcium supplement. I had a good talk with her and it wasn't that easy - I don't much enjoy having to relay my SIF history. She suggested I go for grief counselling. I said I'd consider it. But then I have been for counselling FOUR times over the last almost five years. I don't think SIF is something I can ever completely get through or finish processing. It is such a big part of me now that I know it will stay with me for life.

The Dr was sympathetic though about what 'd been through and particularly SIF. I don't get sympathy or understanding often and it opened me up. I left the appointment in tears.

I contacted our social worker this week via email as my husband starts a new job on Monday which means we will have to update our profile. We have made a decision that I will leave my job if we get picked as adoptive parents which I feel good about. I was an at-home Mum with my daughter all the way through, just working evenings and weekends until she was six months off from starting school and then I got a part-time day job that worked in with her school hours. I hope to be able to do that again if there is another child in our family. The idea of putting a child in childcare - especially one I've waited almost five years for just didn't feel right. Our social worker said there was no hurry to update our file as she would let us know if somebody wanted to view it. So no views or interest yet and we have been officially in the pool for prospective adoptive parents for five months.

It's a vulnerable day. After the appointment around menopause and the conversations with my daughter around a sibling, I wish I could once again change things. Obviously I can't change what is but if I could change my own attitude and stop this longing for another child, I would do it in a heartbeat. Eleven more months to go and we will have our answer as to whether or not we will be adoptive parents. I guess I can wait a few more months. What's another year or so tagged on to the long wait I've had already.

Footnote: I suggested my daughter write a letter to God after she came home from school exclaiming "I cannot live without a brother or sister!" Where does this come from?! When I asked her who she played with at lunchtime, she said no-one - and that she pretended to play with her sister and today asked a classmate if she would be her sister. When I told her I had a morning tea planned this Sunday with some Mums that would have babies (it's a get-together for the infertility group I started in town - for all the women that have had babies since the group started and any other members of the group that want to come) she asked if any of them might like to give us a baby! It feels so awful how hard she is feeling what I think is a very real loss at this time. Her note to God read: "Dear God, I would like a brother or sister to play with at home." So it is no longer just me praying for an addition for our family.

Empty Nest Syndrome

Mothers of Many don't get a lot of time to themselves. They often can only dream of time-out from their families. I know some Mums would envy the downtime opportunities I have in my week for myself. But today I envy them.

I have just been into town - had a meeting and a cuppa with the women from the autism group I am connected to. I went shopping - I bought card and stickers for sticker charts for my girl and art canvasses on sale for myself. I also bought my husband some new pants (as in trousers) for his job interview tomorrow and some clothes for my daughter.

I'm home now. The washing machine is going and I have stuff to do. But I feel it today - that lingering gnaw of an emptiness inside that was meant to be filled by another child.

I feel as though I am moving forward in my life in some ways - there is movement happening on the creative front. I don't feel completely stagnant like I did for so long. But the desire of another child coupled with the reality of one not being here - and possibly not coming any time soon - is painful today.

Even in town I found myself wondering what my daughter would think of the clothes I bought her - how she would of course have input around which coloured pieces of card I purchased for her sticker-chart. But she wasn't with me. Her second year into school, she flew the nest well over twelve months ago. Yet I miss the early days, when we did have our trips into town and cafes and did our own thing on our own schedule.

I found out this week that a workmate is pregnant with her third child. She would be about my age. It was an unplanned pregnancy, apparently. It still feels like a new shock some days - that my body cannot produce another child. It is very hard to get past the feeling of feeling very old.

I have made an appointment to see a doctor next week for a half hour appointment about (early) menopause. It will be good to have the whole half hour appointment to have the opportunity to discuss the various menopausal symptoms I have.

I have organised a morning tea with the women from the infertility network I have started up in a weeks time. One of the women from the network is hosting it and it is child-friendly this time so some of the babies who have arrived since I started the network will be there. I was in a good space when I suggested the get-together - I'm just hoping this vulnerable phase will pass before the morning tea.

It still amazes me how SIF can throw me off in an instance. Today it was about simply coming home to an empty house after some time in town missing my daughter's company.

I have been trying to live my life simply with no expectations and for the most part that works. In four months time it would have been five years of hoping for another shot at motherhood. What a long, long time. I cannot believe I have had an unfulfilled dream for so long. The dream - the longing and the wanting - has never changed. I have never once over the last four and a half years felt as if I have moved on from this dream. Many times I have wished I would - but it is still a very real desire - as it was all those years ago when we first TTC our second child.

Apparently there is a programme on tv at the moment about reuniting people and it features adoption stories - New Zealand ones - called Missing Pieces. I'm not quite ready to watch that, I don't think. Another workmate commented about parenting a newborn in her forties - that she'd find that hard and she didn't think she could do it (in reference to the work colleague who is pregnant in her 40s). I think I would find it hard too, with my menopausal symptoms going on - and that worries me. That perhaps the reality is I couldn't cope with a young baby. I'm glad I haven't disclosed to work that I am hoping to adopt. I couldn't handle being questioned about it - however well intentioned. I'm glad I've kept it quiet.

Mothers Day - a bittersweet occasion

It's Mothers Day here in New Zealand. It is the fourth Mothers Day I've had since trying to add to add to our family. Our daughter was two years old when I had my first Mothers Day within this SIF era - she is now six.

Every single Mothers Day for the last four years has been the same - bittersweet. There is that sheer appreciation and gratitude of having the one child that I know many dealing with primary infertility would kill to have. But it is tainted by the pain and heartache caused by a longing that has lingered for too long - to have another child.

In some ways I am in a good place - or at least a better place around SIF. In other ways the ongoing angst of living with a broken dream makes it hard to push on and live life on lifes terms. Days like this - Mothers Day - are what I consider to be milestone days for those of us that fall into the infertility bracket. No matter how healed or how much acceptance there might be around infertility - it tends to flare up at times like this.

Perhaps it was a blessing that today when my husband and daughter decided to take me out for a Mothers Day lunch that because we hadn't booked, we ended up driving around and having more of an afternoon tea at a venue that wasn't overloaded with Mums of many. I know today is one of those days that I needed to not be around completed families. So it was nice to end up in a cafe that wasn't so child-friendly (but still very nice).

My SIF guilt rares it's ugly head on Mothers Day. Especially because my daughter was so excited about it this year - she woke up at midnight and stood at our bedroom door and asked if it was morning yet! She had bought a present with her Dad and had planned a special in-bed breakfast - pancakes which she bought in on a tray for me. We sat in bed and shared them together. A lovely morning and I felt truly pampered.

I started off the day after that feeling hopeful that perhaps this Mothers Day the emotional backlash wouldn't occur - that I'd feel good all day and that SIF would remain in the background. But the feelings are up there - the hurt and the longing for a dream that wasn't to be. I cannot help but wonder where we will be a year from now - it will be the Mothers Day after our file expires in the adoption pool. At least we will have an answer on where things lie around adding to our family by then.

I emailed our social worker recently and said to her my husband and I want to just keep to our original plan - to see what happens over the next 11 months. We will review/reassess things next year to see if we want to venture down the fostering route. At the moment fostering doesn't feel like the right option for our family so we will have to wait and see what happens.

I have had a bit of grief surface of late and it's more to do with a life on hold and all the pain that has caused me/my family over the last four and half years than the pain of not having a second child. Although my life feels as though it is becoming unstuck - that I am moving on from a life in standstill - I feel so much remorse for the pain my SIF grief has caused my family - even if it is only subtle.

It seems so unfair that for most of my daughter's life I have been grieving for an unborn child. I really feel this today - on Mothers Day - that my grief has overshadowed the joy of having my beautiful daughter. Oh how I wish I never desired a second child.

I have had a lot of positive feedback around an article I had published in the local paper lately. I am making a real effort to focus on my creative ambitions - my writing and art. Coincidentally that focus all halted once SIF hit - and SIF was all I wrote and thought about for over four years. Now I am writing about other things and painting again. So I am moving forward in my own way once again.

Acceptance

It's been a while since I last posted - around three and a half weeks - which is quite a gap for me. But I have been busy focusing on other stuff (besides SIF) in life.

Firstly I have spent any spare time I've had on writing an article about autism for the local paper (which was published) as well as getting some paintings done for the stall I had at a Fair over Easter. I have been creatively-focused!

It has also been the school holidays here (two weeks) and we went away for two nights to my Mum's holiday home. The day we left there to come back my Dad and half-sister, aged nine, arrived to stay for five nights. So I had almost a week of "mothering" two children. It was good but with my daughters ASD and my half-sister with behavioural issues; it was certainly challenging at times!

I believe I have had a shift around the whole SIF deal/adding to our family. I have mentioned the three "As" in recovery before - awareness, acceptance and action and how to get to action you need to move through awareness and acceptance first. I find myself very much moving into acceptance. I think for most of my SIF journey, I have sat within awareness - I was just not able to accept my fate for a very, very long time.

I believe I have accepted what God has dished out - early menopause and as a consequence of that - SIF. I still am a big WIP though around some aspects of acceptance - body image being a big factor. Yet I was able to talk to a friend who went through POF (premature ovarian failure) at a much younger age than me, around some of the stuff that comes up as a woman going through menopause so much earlier in life than anticipated. I had to cancel my appointment with the clinic in town that specialises in menopause last term but will reschedule that. I am also considering going for some counselling around early menopause and what a big impact that has had on my life.

My husband and I have mutually decided to not pursue the permanency (long-term fostering) route at this point. It took us two long years to go through the adoption process (our choice to take that long) so we really just want to give adoption a chance so will wait and see what happens over the next year. Fostering may or may not be in our future - I really don't know. It would be easy to force a solution and to go down that track but our preference is to parent from birth - in an adoption situation rather than as foster parents.

Also after having my half-sister here this week, it is a reminder of how difficult it can be for my daughter to share her space with another child. She had four full-blown meltdowns this week (including two in one day). Although she enjoyed having a playmate a lot of the time, she was out of her depth dealing with some of my half-sisters emotional outbursts. We did all learn from these scenarios - and talked about them. But I just have to trust that God will ultimately make the right decision for us and will guide us to fostering if that is the way we are meant to go. Obviously if it doesn't feel right; we won't go there.

In the meantime, while waiting it out in the adoption pool, I will continue to focus on my creative goals. I want to do more freelance writing and am aiming to have a permanent stall this Summer selling my art. Although I occasionally look at other jobs out there, I have a sense that I'm meant to be in the job that I am in right now. My daughter was exhausted in the last three weeks of last term and I ended up having her home a lot. I'm lucky that my job for the most part works around that.

I have noted that creatively I have pretty much picked up from where I left off four and a half years ago - when we first TTC our second child and SIF was obvious early on. For the last four and half years even my writing has been focussed on SIF and not much else. So it feels good to be moving out of focusing on just that and to be reclaiming parts of myself that I have lost over the years - little things like humour entering my art indicate that a lightness is coming back into my life again.

I also have to be realistic around my energy levels and menopausal symptoms - to accept the fact that I would be very challenged going through sleepless nights all over again with a baby. Perhaps God knows this already and is giving me time to come to this awareness and to therefore accept it.

I think also that fairy-tale endings just aren't always the way things go. Just because I've been through all I have with SIF; it doesn't mean I will get to be a Mum again. Perhaps it just simply isn't God's Will for me. From the outside when people go through their own trials and tribulations, it is easy to say that one event happened to lead to another event. But it is not always so obvious why things happen in life - especially losses. Perhaps sometimes they just do happen - to make us stronger or more emotionally and spiritually resilient and that's all.

Turning Things Around

After what has felt like a rather long SIF slump; it feels as though I am turning a corner. However after having living with the ups and downs of SIF for soooo long - I know that an "up" phase isn't necessarily the end of all the grief and pain that comes with SIF. It's more about being in a place of acceptance.

But I did try really hard to get myself out of what was a bit of a depression around this limbo-land state I am in around adding to our family. I talked to God a lot and had to question whether it was all even worth it - a life that seemed so badly tinged with pain. It scared me that the pain had somehow overshadowed the joy in my life and that I felt like this. I guess I have to get quite low before raising up again and it feels as though I have had many lows over the last few years. But I do learn from them - eventually.

I feel as though I am beginning to let go of my expectations around other people. For so long I have expected and assumed that people should and ought to meet my needs. The lonely experience of SIF has taught me that ultimately I only have myself and God to rely on. Because even my close friends haven't been able to support me completely throughout SIF because of tricky dynamics (completed families, primary vs secondary infertility) as well as a lack of understanding - I have not had a BFF to turn to in my time of need. Although I have thankfully met some great supportive friends in cyberspace - I haven't had anyone in real life to turn to - not regularly, at least.

This gap in support has made me strong and caused me to reassess relationships. I see relationships more as flowing interchanges between two people. I've learnt that sometimes exchanges, even between close friends, may not happen as frequently as I'd like. But that's okay. I've spent days, weeks and even months feeling emotionally isolated and unsupported within SIF. For so long that angered, depressed and even confused me. But this experience has taught me to just take people as they come and to accept what they are able to give. God is the only one who can fill a God-shaped hole afterall.

I have been turning more to God of late - and to less to the people around me. I am on Facebook less and somehow this is freeing up my relationships. For a while I thought if people couldn't connect with me around SIF - the biggest and most awful life experience I've been through to date - then I needed to find another way. Facebook became my way of keeping in touch with lots of people and although at times I have enjoyed the lightness of connecting in that way - it isn't real enough for me. So although I will use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family around sharing photos and updates - I will endeavour not to use it to fill up the moments of loneliness that strike with SIF.

I think would even go as far as to say that because of SIF I no longer have a best friend. I have close and good friends - but no longer a friend in my life who understands me one hundred percent. That was a big loss to go through. But now I accept I have people around me who I mutually identify with in different ways. It seems I am destined to spend periods of time alone doing my own thing as so many friends are busy and live in a different town or country even. Perhaps this is what it is like as a 40-something woman - connections with friends are precious snippets of time that don't happen nearly often enough.

I am heading off to Wellington for a two-day conference for work tomorrow. I fly back Sunday night. I will be staying with my Mum and we're hoping to catch a movie and maybe go out for dinner on Saturday night. On Sunday night I'm having brunch with one of my close friends which I'm looking forward to.

I'm sure this is all one big ramble but the point I'm trying to make is, I am really noticing how sometimes people appear in our lives at the times they are meant to - not when we think we need them. Perhaps God wanted/wants me to experience SIF primarily on my own in order to be able to process things on a deep level spiritually and emotionally. Somehow seeing things like this has helped me let go of some of the resentments I've lived with for so long around some of the friends and family members who I felt disappointed me/let me down when I craved support and understanding with SIF.

I have also been thinking too that I shouldn't see life as a family of three as a bad thing if that's the way it ends up. I feel I have let go a little around another child coming into our family after realising that holding on so tight and for so long has caused me so much pain. I have even seen a job advertised that would interest me if we remain a family of three. It doesn't quite fit at the moment - but maybe in the future when my daughter is a year or two older I may increase my working hours if she's our only child.

I have also some creative stuff on the go - an article to write for a paper (unpaid) and paintings to paint for a stall I will be having at a Fair on Easter Sunday.

I also phoned up a clinic today in town that advertised appointments for women around menopause. I am living with many symptoms still that haven't professionally been addressed so it feels good to give that to myself - a whole half hour appointment to talk to a Dr who specializes in menopause about what I've been through/am going through. Ironically I went to the same clinic in 2004 when I was at the beginning of trying to conceive the first time round. It's like closure. Seven years of starting a family and then finally accepting that I won't be able to biologically finish our family.

Our social worker today phoned as well - after a month or so of playing phone tag. It was about permanency/long-term fostering. We ticked some boxes saying we were interested. So at some point we will go in for a chat about it. If it is something we want to pursue, we will have to go for another training day. I said to her on the phone that we would have to consider ages of the child if we went down that path - that toddlers for example wouldn't work with our daughter - a non-verbal child coming in and touching all her stuff right off the bat would not be good! Ideally a baby under six months - before it was mobile so our daughter got a chance to bond (before it started touching all her stuff!) or a child three or four years old would be the best fit.

I have been going for walks on the beach once or twice a week. Last week I followed tracks down the beach made by a buggy and it felt as though I was following God. Yesterday I followed the footsteps of a child down the beach that gave me so much hope. Both times I really felt God's presence.

Grieving in reverse

After I wrote my last post I ended up on the bathroom floor in tears begging God to take away this desire for another child if it's not meant to be. It was the first time in 4.5 years that I have actually resorted to going on to my knees. I truly hope this results in God answering my prayers sometime soon. I'm just not sure it is good for me, my family or the relationships around me for me to be in limbo in the long-term.

I have been thinking how living with SIF/hoping to add to our family again in the long-term is like your average grief turned on it's head. In other words - it is grief in reverse. Most forms of grief - death, the end of relationships, job redundancy - you name it - have an obvious end. There may be a process to go through with most major losses in life - but most of those processes occur in a fashion which leads to a clear ending. With SIF - with hoping to be a mother for so long - it feels as though I have been grieving for the end before the end is a sure thing. Of course the whole thing has so many layers to it all - I will probably be dealing with all the issues that come with early menopause for a while yet as well as the grief of not being able to conceive again. But I cannot completely grieve for the whole thing - early menopause/SIF/ and not being able to add to our family as I don't know yet if we will be able to add to our family. I cannot sell or giveaway all our baby, toddler and early childhood stuff until I know we won't be needing it. It is all so - unresolved.

Anyway, since my meltdown last Sunday night I have been making a real effort to connect more with God on a daily basis. I've been going for walks on the beach alone, listening to music that I find spiritually uplifting and just trying to find space and time to just be so I can centre myself and find peace. I appreciate that I am probably in another depression. Perhaps it is time to get some more counselling - if so, that would be the fifth go at counselling in 4.5 years...

It seems SIF is just beneath the surface most days. I may not always actively be thinking about it but my hormones certainly remind me of it as I continue to go through "the change." I have changed spiritually, emotionally and physically because of early menopause and this has meant adjustments in my daily living. This change has equated to lifestyle changes which at times make me feel so old - especially because my eggs are all dried up and no use now. I am still a WIP in accepting I went through this major hormonal change in my life so much earlier than my peers. I still feel in shock that this hiccup (a rather big one!) came along and I somehow haven't been able to completely find my footing since.

I have been signing into RESOLVE recently. There is a good adoption group there - it's great to meet other women who have either been through the adoption process and have adopted or are waiting and hoping to adopt like me. DAILYSTRENGTH was great for three years but the adoption group wasn't that active and I outgrew the SIF community in the end as that community was about women TTC/going through fertility treatments to have their second children and didn't really cater for those who were looking at other ways of adding to their families.

I found a website for prospective adoptive and adoptive parents in New Zealand - but there only seem to be five members at this stage so perhaps it's new. Not sure. I will check in again sometime and will have a proper look around.

My daughter has been asking a lot about a baby coming into our family. Sometimes I think she would find it hard given she needs a lot of downtime with her ASD. But she said she'd like a little sister for company - to have a friend. I know she gets lonely sometimes. She seems to understand we are waiting for a baby and that it might not happen. But she likes to have rather in-depth conversations about what life would be like with a baby in the house. I wish we could have a conclusion for her too in the near future - it doesn't feel like we can settle properly as a family when there is a talk of a possible addition who may end up just being that - all talk.

I have found Facebook a hard place to be of late. When pregnancy symptoms are mentioned it is just too much, I"m afraid. As it is many completed families regularly display photos of their children, which is okay, but I cannot always comment on these photos as I cannot be part of conversations in which several Mums of Two or more start talking about their children. I just feel like the odd one out. Once again. But I do so genuinely love to see photos of the children and families of my good online friends who went through SIF and eventually added to their families. It's inspiring and gives me hope.

There are some former online SIF friends (on Facebook) I think I have recently let go of as it was all about their families - and updates and no connection with me. I know that sounds so terribly selfish and bitter but I didn't feel supported and therefore it didn't feel right being in touch with these women when I am still struggling/still not close to a resolution around completing my family.

Relationships can be hard as it is - add secondary infertility to the mix and it's no wonder SIF becomes a subject most don't want to broach because of all the complexities that come with it (as in what to say/not what to say). I know how it must seem from the outside. But still. I find it hard living with an ongoing loss so intensely, in the long-term and for the most part not having it acknowledged by those who are meant to either understand and/or love me. If I had cancer surely friends and family would acknowledge I had it - that I was ill? I have a disease with SIF. It still hurts that I feel I have to limit my social interactions because of self-preservations reasons, mainly. I did however have a great chat with a Mum of three recently who was open to hearing about the adoption process. I was okay hearing about her three children - I think it is different when the children are older than my daughter. But for the most part even the few that know about our adoption plans don't ask and I do feel quite lonely because of that. It seems it is assumed that because we are at this stage that we are all done and dusted with SIF - that we are casually waiting to add to our family in the prospective adoptive pool.

It seems there is always something going on with me around daily/weekly around:
1. Getting triggered around seeing a bump/baby/siblings/Mums with completed families

2. The unknowingness around whether or not we will get picked as adoptive parents

3. My grief around early menopause and my"broken" reproductive system

I just want to feel normal again - not like this person who walks around with a big gaping hole who feels so displaced in life.

I missed our social workers call again. I guess we will catch up in God's time. She said it was "nothing urgent."

It doesn't feel as if anything will happen this year for us on the adoption front. I'm off to Wellington for work next this weekend. I'm still busy with my part-time job. I know that's where I'm meant to be right now yet sometimes I am not so keen on God's Will! I have volunteered on a very small scale to help out at my daughter's school Gala this Sunday - just serving hot chips. When I went to one of the meetings about the Gala it was filled with stay at home Mums with two or three or even more children. I know they'd like me to help more but I am doing all I can given my schedule. I wish I was like them - that I was just at home with my kids - with my completed family - but it's not the way it is.

I feel as though I haven't written a "positive" update for a while. Sorry about that. Guess I am going through another SIF slump. Better days have to be ahead. In the meantime I will keep close to God and will continue to pray for healing and acceptance.