A New Start

It's been around three months since I last updated my blog. I guess for me, my secondary infertility journey is over. Close to six years of hoping to add to our family ended in the earlier part of last year. The months that followed were very much about accepting the outcome, putting it in perspective, healing and moving on.

I finished the first draft for the non-fiction book I am writing about my experience of secondary infertility. I thought I would carry on, churning out a few more drafts before getting to the final edit. But as it turns out, I actually need to detach from the whole secondary infertility deal for now. In time I will come back and write the next draft. But it's almost as though I need a life outside of secondary infertility for a time before I can do that. Secondary infertility needs to be in the past tense for me well and truly before I can put it entirely to bed.  I do believe another level of closure will come for me in time once I've finished my book.

Even though there is some peace and acceptance around how we have ended up, the reality of our family of three status is still a painful one for me at times - especially over the Christmas period. In New Zealand, where we live, we have long Summer school holidays that last six weeks in duration. It is during these times that my only child becomes the lonely child I so hoped she wouldn't become. This is of course complicated by her diagnosis of autism which means social contact with others can be difficult.

The two main families we spend time with have been away/catching up with their own families for the first half of the school holidays this Summer. So even though we had a great week away around Christmas itself, catching up with extended family and the ten cousins our daughter has in the North Island; it was all a bit of an anti-climax for her to come back home and to spend so much time without any other children around.

It pains me always to see other siblings at the beach frockling in the sand together. Even when siblings fight, at least they have each other to fight with!

I've tried to rectify the loneliness and isolation my daughter is feeling these Summer holidays by organising playdates, putting her in a two week intensive swimming programme and enrolling in her in a couple of afternoons in a holiday programme in the last couple of weeks of the school holidays. It all feels a little contrived.

This wasn't the way I imagined Summer school holidays would go as a family.

But having said all that, I've made some steps in my life that are about moving on from the whole painful chapter of secondary infertility. Next week I will be starting a graduate Diploma in Teaching (Early Childhood). It's an online qualification, full-time and one year in duration. It is through a University and I have a three week on-campus block course to complete next month as well as two seven week full-time student-teacher practicums at an early childhood centre and a kindergarten.

My BA (Hons) completed twenty years ago was a double major in psychology and education so I'm very much looking forward to university study again. I'm also looking forward to gaining something at the end of the year! After almost six years of putting so much time and energy into building our family without success, I'm looking forward to a new focus in which I will finally see a tangible result for all my efforts.

For a time I wondered if it would be too close to the bone, becoming a kindergarten teacher (which is where I want to go with it). But I feel this is where God wants me to go and I have healed enough to be able to raise above any triggers professionally. Later down the track I may retrain as an early intervention teacher - you need to have worked at least two years as an early childhood teacher to do this.

So the future, finally, looks bright. Yet so different to how I thought it might be...

At the end of last year I also started up two small at-home businesses. One is an art-based business - art for kids rooms, (cartoon) family portraits and cartoons on canvass. The other is a cv and letter writing service. I am running both on a very small scale, but it is both challenging and rewarding running my own businesses.

For almost three years I have run an infertility support network in the city I live in. I have stepped down from the role for the year and left it open for someone to take my place or for the network to run itself. I really feel I need some space from infertility in every possible way at this point. I also have let go of other community committments for the year as full-time study is my main focus. I will reassess my community activity at the end of this year.

I think I am doing well, actually. Because my daughter isn't happy right now; it makes me feel angry and resentful a bit towards God. I never wanted her to feel lonely. But I guess we just have to learn as a family how to make it okay. It is for this reason - that we are a family of three - that I arranged a trip to the North Island to spend time with family for a week. I will just to continue to make more of an effort for us to have time with extended family who live elsewhere.

I have thought about closing this blog. But perhaps I'll keep it here for a while longer. Perhaps my journey may be of use to those who follow.

At this point I can say that I do feel as though secondary infertility was something that happened in the past. Like I say, I may feel a bit triggered about it right now because it is the Summer school holidays, and my daughter is lonely - but the actual journey - that does feel like it has ended.

That is about the only hope I can give to those who follow - that the peace and acceptance comes - not entirely without pain, but the healing does happen once the letting go begins.

As I sit in the office that I have tidied today in preparation for study next week, the irony is not lost on me that this is the very room that was meant for our second child. It just wasn't meant to be - how many times God has particularly screamed that message at me, I've lost count!!

I do know that although I felt alone for a large part of my journey that I am certainly not alone in the world when it comes to facing unexpected loss. More than ever, I can empathise with most around any big losses in life. I understand what it means to live with loss in the long-term and how long it takes to heal and how we can only ever heal in our own time and way.

I think once a major loss in life is accepted, life changes once again. But how it changes is so individual and a chapter that can only be written by those walking it. Which is exactly where I am now.