I'm well over it. And in many ways I have moved on - emotionally and spiritually. I've carried on with my life and gone on to live it as a Family Of Three. Who knows when exactly I determined that it was best to stop hoping and dreaming for A Family Of Four. I guess it happened in stages. I just couldn't do it to myself anymore.
I've found a new freedom in accepting what wasn't meant to be. Though admittedly a little part of me - (so very, very small) - wonders if at the end of all this, at the eleventh hour, if we might get "The Phone-Call." That is, the call they talk about during the adoption process where the social worker apparently starts the call with "Are you sitting down?" Because what follows are the words that those couples (and singles) in the pool of prospective adoptive parents dream about "You've been picked!" (by a birth family.)
I'm not going to pretend I haven't played out that scenario and had visions of us all hopping into in the car off to some part of the country to collect "our baby." Moments of intense emotion have been anticipated too around taking home "our baby" while comforting the Birth Mum.
Yep, I have lived in hope and fantasy for a very long time.
So in three weeks time I genuinely am pleased that I can finally rid my hands free of secondary infertility. Because by that point I will no longer be TTC, trying fertility treatments. undergoing surgery or waiting for a baby to be adopted into our family in order for our family to feel complete. Secondary infertility will not be relevant - and hopefully will be very much redundant in my life. Because life will no longer be about trying to add to our family or trying to change what perhaps wasn't meant to be.
This period of time is significant not just because our adoption file is about to expire, but because I can now officially say I've been through "The Change." Yep, at 43 I am post-menopausal. I am finally on the other side of what was a very difficult transition - mainly because I did want another child but also because I was only 38 years old when I started going into premature menopause.
Our daughter is now seven years old. She was just 18 months old when I TTC for the second time. Most of her life has been about trying to add to our family. I always told her when she was seven we'd know whether a baby was coming to us or not. In three weeks time, when our adoption file finally expires, I will be able to give her that closure.
She hasn't asked about another sibling for a while. Perhaps her needs have changed or she's accepted her status as an only child. She gets lonely at times and my heart breaks during those moments. But she also, with her autism, needs a lot of space and quiet times. Maybe being an only child is what was best for her - even though it wasn't what I wanted.
We've had my husband's brother staying with us for the last six weeks. It has been challenging for all of us sharing our small three bedroomed home. Fostering for now remains something that may or may not be looked into further in the future. Perhaps it would be too disruptive - especially if it wasn't permanent. For now it doesn't feel like the right track to go down.
I think for anyone who has been through a loss and survived, the only way to move is forward. That is where I've been headed for a while now. But our upcoming closure in three weeks will help me further. I know I will really be able to get my teeth stuck into other dreams - such as writing my book about secondary infertility - once I've been set free.
I've learnt so much over the last five and half years. I know that my experience with SIF is more than just the death of a dream. It has been about opening up to the lessons offered when life throws a lemon - to allow myself to grow emotionally and spiritually at those times. I have mainly learnt that life is imperfect and that the bumps come along at any time. For that reason, I have given up fighting life and am accepting things the way they are - no matter how uncomfortable that is at times.
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