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.
