A New Freedom

It seems I have been waiting a very long time to end my SIF/family building journey. So unbelievable in some ways that in a weeks time, it will all be over!

Relief has been the main feeling I've felt for the last few months. Relief that life can soon/now be about different things - other things.

I had coffee with a friend this weekend who is going through primary infertility. How nice it was to be able to share with her that there is an end to it all - an end to the emotional torture, regardless of whether a baby comes or not.

We purchased some bunks this week for our spare room. When we bought our house two years ago, one of the reasons was because it was a three bedroom home and could accommodate our hoped-for family-of-four. The social worker from Adoption Services came round and inspected our place. She ticked it off as been a good home for an adopted child.

So for the two years we've lived here, our spare room has been an in-between room - a room that might one day be decorated or kitted out for our addition.

Now that that isn't going to happen, we've accepted that our spare room is a guest room/office (aka my "woman-cave"!). It's not the biggest of rooms so the bunks fit perfectly for guests and I have space to write in the office and do whatever else I want to do (blog, use Facebook...)

The closure around this era feels good. I'm certainly ready for it and embracing it - the end of an era.

There are changes ahead.  I was sharing with the friend going through primary infertility how small my world became when dealing with secondary infertility/going through premature menopause. Well my world is opening up again and I just want to embrace and enjoy life.

I am not happy in my job and am making steps towards finding another one. I have decided I want to do teacher aiding as it fits in with school hours and working with special needs children has always been an interest of mine, even before I was a Mum and ended up with a daughter with autism - that is simply one of life's ironies. 

My current part-time job is demanding and unrewarding in so many ways.  I am done with it. I want to teacher-aide and then find time in my week to write, write, write - because at the moment that (writing) isn't happening as much as I'd like it to. My brain is too full with the stress of my job and I am exhausted a lot with my husband working 12 hour days. 

I want and deserve a more balanced life - especially after enduring a disappointment (understatement) like the one I've been through - 5.5 years of pining is too bloody long, if you ask me. And not in character with how I usually respond to life's u-turns. Normally I get it quite fast in the piece - I back paddle out of situations that don't appear to be working for me. But not with SIF. It was just something I couldn't let go of for a very long time.

But I have no regrets. I TTC, used fertility drugs and went through the adoption process for another child and nothing worked. I can't say I didn't try or didn't give it my best shot.

Now that I have a conclusion, I finally feel I can sit down and spend some time writing my book about my experience. Even though I've been blogging on this topic for four years, and I've wanted to write a book about it for some time and have started editing my blog; I did need an ending to give me a perspective of some sort. I like that I can offer a tale of stamina, strength and honesty based on not getting what I wanted.

I've met a few women - mainly online but also some in real life (through the infertility support group I started), who once they got pregnant after a time of infertility, hoped and even believed that I would too - or later down the track,  believed that we would get picked as adoptive parents. I wanted to have the faith these women had for me after their dreams were realised but I guess at some point reality hit and I knew the chances of me joining them were incredibly slim, for reasons known only by God.

When I drove past Adoption Services this week I could only think it was meant to be part of our journey - going through the adoption process. I learnt a lot and healed too around not being able to have a biological child at that time. I know I could raise a child that wasn't biologically ours now. I probably always could have done that, but after having a biological child it did take a while to make that leap.

Now I'm in a position of seeing the word's children in a different way - it's not just about mothering our own, it's about mothering those that come to us. I know with teacher aiding I will bond with children in some amazing ways. I've been there before, a lifetime ago before I was a mother myself - nurturing children with special needs. I guess this is the direction I am meant to be heading in.