Life after secondary infertility

I can't believe it has been three years since I last posted! I guess I have truly carried on with my life and let go of what was a painful and long chapter on many levels. It was something I needed to do (let go) to find my new life - the one waiting for me after secondary infertility.

Since I last posted I completed my training as an early childhood teacher. I am now in my third year of teaching - currently working at a local Kindergarten. It is a challenging job but one that I really enjoy. Without a doubt, working with children under five has helped me greatly in my healing.

Most of my energy over the last three years has gone into study and then launching my new teaching career. I picked teaching - in particular in early childhood - as I felt it ticked many of the boxes in regards to what I need in a job to feel challenged, inspired and fulfilled. I also thought it would be a good match for my creative side.

Now I'm not such a newbie on the teaching-block, I am now making time for my creative pursuits. 2016 is the year to really get my writing and art off the ground again and I've already entered one short story competition, am going to enter a poetry competition next week and several other writing competitions lined up. It's exciting! I haven't gotten into a routine with my art, but I will start making time for that too before the month is out.

Since I last posted three years ago we have shifted house. We moved just over two months ago into what is perhaps the house we'll stay in for many years. It was good to leave our last place as we had a few issues with our last neighbours who were actively committing crimes in the community. Our daughter also changed schools last year so we were ready to move closer to where she now goes to school. My husband and I also both work close to her school. But also the last house was bought in the hope that it would be seen as a house to potentially adopt a child. Somehow the third bedroom never lost what was the ghost of the second-child that never came to us - biologically or by adoption.

In our new home there are no ghosts. It is just the three of us. Ironically enough, we have a house that is almost twice as big as the last one. There would be room for two other children. But that's not our focus or even want anymore. Our daughter is now almost eleven years old - a true tween in search of independence and space. We bought this spacious house so we'd all have room to grow into as she enters her teens and beyond.

My Dad and my two half-siblings aged thirteen and eleven moved to our town a little over a year ago. For that first year we were quite involved in their lives as they settled in and found their feet. They are making their own connections now and we are needed less. For a time nurturing their needs helped the maternal longings I had.

One of the members of the local infertility support group I ran for around two years contacted me recently to say she and a friend were starting up another one. I had been thinking of all those women too at the time. Wondering how they are all doing as most likely they will all be on the other side of infertility too - how ever their journey ended.

I wanted to say something about premature menopause as it is because of this that secondary infertility happened for me. It wasn't an easy time. In fact, quite easily one of the worst times in my life! What made it hard was it went for years - four years to be precise. Although my whole journey with SIF was five and half years in total. My focus in that four years of going through premature menopause was secondary infertility - "fighting it", hoping to find answers and solutions, and praying for a way to add to our family. It was a time where my world was split wide open and it took me a long time to put the pieces together again as they didn't fit in the same way.

But now things have clicked into place. It is now five years since I officially finished going through menopause. I was forty-two when it was all over - when I'd had twelve months of no menstrual bleeding. I'll be forty-eight this year and many of peers haven't been through menopause - women older than myself are just starting to get symptoms. But I longer begrude my journey. I had heard about a new life emerging after going through "the change" - a supposed time of increased creativity and enlightenment. I can testify that for me this is all true.

In fact it is amazing to reflect and to think about how unhappy I was for so long and to be here now, in a place that is the stark opposite. I'm not sure I've ever had so much peace and contentment in my life. A lot of it is because on the other side of my SIF and premature menopause journey I developed a very strong relationship with the God of my understanding. SIF and premature menopause was a time when my faith was tested in a way it has never been tested before. I wasn't sure I trusted God anymore and that only added to my unhappiness. Coupled with this was my focus on things I couldn't have - a fertile body or a second child. Continually focusing on what I couldn't have only made me feel more ingratitude and pain - it was a catch twenty-two and I couldn't get out of it. Until I reached the end of the road for us in regards to adding to our family - that was when I could finally move on.

So I want to say to any women going through infertility, secondary infertility and/or premature menopause - This to shall pass! You will come out on the other side - stronger, wiser and with more serenity and contentment than you every thought possible. At least this was my journey. I believe if the hard parts are faced and endured and the grief is worked through then eventually the acceptance and joy will follow. I know that doesn't seem possible now when you're in it. But it can happen. I have never felt more at peace with my life than I do today. It is not perfect! I still have dysfunction in my family of origin and frequently deal with hurt and triggers. But I have learnt through this enormous time of loss and grief in my life how to just be - to just be with what is, as opposed to what isn't. My journey with SIF and premature menopause showed me how imperfect life is, with heartbreaks and disappointment and losses - and how things don't always go as planned. But the flipside is,when the letting go happens and acceptance moves in, life is seen as it is and the imperfect is embraced.

Also, just because one dream isn't granted in life it doesn't mean others won't be. That's exactly where I'm at now. After just living a life -after-SIF for the last three plus years, I am now in a place of not just resurrecting but also following dreams. The dreams that were overshadowed by my desire for another child.