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.