Trying to move on (from SIF)

There is still another week of the Summer school holidays here in New Zealand. It has been a busy six weeks - we've had lots of visitors from out of the region, our cat died, we got a new kitten and our daughter has regressed considerably this Summer with her autism. I also started back at work this week. Although I only work part-time (12 hours paid); life feels pretty hectic working and managing my daughter's ASD.

It was just over 10 days ago that we decided to adopt a kitten from the SPCA. It seemed like a good time to do it - our cat had died, it was the school holidays and our daughter is almost six - so a good age to take on (some of) the care of a kitten. She picked a ginger kitten out of a litter of kittens and has called him Buzz. He is one fiesty kitten with lots of spirit providing us with lots of laughs - but he is a bit wild (naturally) at times too.

Frequently my daughter needs space from the kitten - as she does from any long-term visitors that stay with us. I have half-joked with my husband that should we get the opportunity to adopt; then life would be quite similar to what it is now with a new kitten in the house. My husband commented that it would probably be a lot more intense (life) with a baby (than a kitten) - of course he's right.

In fact after having a one year old stay with us recently for four nights that our daughter struggled greatly with - and now a kitten whose erratic behaviour we obviously can't control - I do wonder just how we would cope at times with a human addition to the family. With an increase in aggressive behaviour on my daughter's part; I do worry about our future should we become adoptive parents. Yet I know no family is perfect. After going through SIF I have accepted that well and truly. I guess if we don't get picked by a birth family over the next year and a half (our time in the pool for prospective adoptive parents) then I will accept that perhaps we are just meant to be a family of three.

I haven't had a lot of time to think and reflect lately as it has been a busy Summer with visitors and an intense phase ASD-wise with my daughter. But adopting a kitten just a week after the loss of our cat has given me a taste of how it would probably feel to become an adoptive parent. Because we are still grieving our cat; we were by no means looking for a replacement pet. However the timing seemed right to get a kitten so we have welcomed this tiny fiery ball of fluff into our lives at a time when we are still feeling the loss of the cat I had for 11 years. I know for sure that adoption will not cancel out the pain of SIF. I know an addition to the family of the human kind would bring so much joy and love - but it will not wipe away or fix my SIF pain. Just like this kitten cannot fix the grief we have all felt for our cat. We have a pet again - but in some ways the kitten being here is a reminder of the cat we lost. I'm pretty sure the same feelings would come up if we adopted - we would feel our loss of a biological child while at the same time loving our adopted child.

I have made a decision to live life as fully as possible in 2011. It does feel good to have left Dailystrength (my online support group around SIF for three years), to have made a decision to host casual bimonthly cafe meetings for the IF support group I started and to hand the reigns over to someone else to run the monthly meetings and to make a personal commitment to pencil in regular weekly slots for writing/art once school goes back.

As much as I try to live my life as best as I can post-SIF; the pain is still there - the longing and the loss around having another biological child will probably always be ingrained in me. I still have to apply self-preservation and cannot always view friends photos of their two or more children on Facebook. I am not as out there so much as someone who went through SIF though these days. When someone asked me last weekend if I had another child (since she last saw me) I just said I wasn't able to have any more children. When yesterday a shop-worker talked about her two boys aged 6 and 4 and told me how much easier the second child was I just smiled.

I have to update our profile with our new pet and still have two small bits of paperwork to post in to officially be finished with the adoption process. So I will get those done asap. Our social worker said she will tell us if and when a birth family views our profile - some families don't necessarily want to know unless it's certain but we're okay with hearing about people browsing as such.