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.