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.