It's Christmas Time...

It's Christmas time again. Another festive season in which I've had to deal with my SIF angst. It's not as perhaps as tragic as it once was - or perhaps I'm not quite as tragic as I was with SIF. I'm not in tears, depressed or completely feeling hopeless. But it is there all the same - the pining, the yearning and the feeling of being utterly incomplete.

The reminders that other women, or even most women out there conceive effortlessly are tenfold this time of year - the pregnancy announcements around Christmas time sting just a little more. In a magazine I've bought there is a story about a Mum who has fifteen children and wants just one more. She's 42 - one year younger than me. Interesting that her wishes may be deemed appropriate given she is obviously a Fertile Myrtle. But for me - somehow still - that desire for a second child - and for soooo long - seems to be greedy and so very old to many around me.

So it's Christmas tomorrow and it's just the three of us - myself, my husband and our six year old (who will be seven in March!) As always, it feels as though we are missing someone. I feel it. My daughter feels it. My husband doesn't but he may as well knowing my daughter and I are still very much grieving another child in our family.

It all still feels a bit sad - and unfinished - our family with just the three of us. I pray that next Christmas some finality and closure will have been reached around completing our family.

I have wondered if God created a situation in which I broke my elbow to teach me a lesson. Did He think I wasn't appreciative of my life as it was before? Did He or does He really want me to move on from this painful longstanding dream of mine? I cannot help it; but I do see God as a punishing God right now. The God from my childhood was like this and every now and then He pops up. It is hard to see the positive in having one health issue follow another one.

I really don't understand what life is all about for me at this point. I really am just taking it all one day at a time - it's all I can do.

Merry Christmas to you all out there. I pray that Christmas comes with peace to you this year, wherever you are at in your own lives.

Adoption plans on hold

I haven't blogged for a while. The reason is because I had an accident six weeks ago - I tripped and fell and broke my arm at the elbow. I made a real mess of it and ended up having a three hour surgery that involved three plates being fitted in my arm.

It's my right arm which is my writing arm which has meant I've been out of action . I had a few nights in hospital as well as six days at home with my arm in a cast while I waited to go back for surgery and into hospital for the second time, My hand isn't working yet as the tendons are still healing. I'm having physio sessions one - two times a week.

I was off work for a month. But started working from home from last week - shorter hours for the first couple of weeks. I can't drive and have difficulty doing many things around the house. We have home help in the short-term. Friends and family have helped here and there. My husband is doing a lot around the home on top of his long working hours. I am dependent on others right now and it that in itself has been very challenging!

I spent the first two weeks post-accident virtually on complete bedrest. I'm up more as time goes on but still need a lot of rest/to pace myself. I'm still on pain relief. The physio exercises I do hourly are painful and my arm is very sore at night.

All in all it has been a challenging time for myself, my husband and daughter. My gym membership is on hold til next year. My life has been very small for the past six weeks. All up my recovery will take about a year according to the surgeon and I may never gain full extension of my arm again.

There are life lessons to be learnt from this, I know. But I'm still living life day by day to get through it all so don't have perspective from the whole experience yet. I know my life felt too busy and I was struggling with that - ironically stressing about work and rushing to get to a seminar about autism when I tripped and fell.

I felt as though I was making progress healing-wise about SIF so feel angry with God a bit that I have had another health issue thrown my way. I've had to put our adoption plans on hold as I am in no position to care for a baby right now. Our adoption file expires in April so depending on my recovery, we may only end up with a couple of months in the pool of prospective adoptive parents next year.

I feel as though God is screaming at me that this is not his plan for me - to have another child. Yet I still cannot accept it and my desire to mother again is as strong as ever.

My daughter finished school for the year last week. How heartbroken was I to read in one of her writing books that one day at school she'd written: "I want a brother or a sister because I am lonely." She tells me this stuff regularly but to see it written down was something else... I asked her why she wrote the story and she said because everyone else in her class has a brother or sister. Hmmm.

On Sunday I met up with some of the women from the infertility support network I started, including a new woman. I was able to shed some tears with them about the above piece of writing by my daughter. Normally I hold back my grief as they are all going through or have been through primary infertility. But I felt safe and ok around opening up around this particular group - but I don't feel like that with everyone in the network.

I've no idea where I'm headed in life at this point. I just have to recover from my accident for now and not think about the future too much.

We didn't get picked

I got a call from our social worker on Tuesday to tell us that we didn't get picked as adoptive parents by the birth mother who looked at our profile in Dunedin. It wasn't a surprise, but it brought up a lot of SIF stuff for a couple of days. I certainly shed some tears and felt as if I had failed once again on the adding-to-our-family front.

Our social worker said she didn't know the full story and thought that perhaps the birth mother may have changed her mind about adoption, as all the profiles came back - not just ours.

Still. It's the closest we've gotten to being picked as adoptive parents. It is hard to not take it personally.

It seems to be another era of babies being born around me. SIF is still very much in my face. I continue to apply self-preservation. It is still hard to understand why God didn't want me to have my heart's desire. But I have hope and faith that He has another plan for me, if having another child isn't on the cards.

Deep down I know God has it all covered. There is change in the air yet I'm not sure where I'm headed. SIF has impacted me greatly and has touched every aspect of my being. I have emerged a different person who wants different things. Some things in my life no longer fit so I have to work through the aftermath of SIF and face the reality of where I stand with "the externals" in my life.

I no longer expect my life to be a certain way. Living with broken dreams for so many years hasn't been good for me. I am ready to hand it all over to God and to let him sort it out.

Will I Get A Rose?

Waiting to hear whether or not a Birth Mother is going to choose us or not out of several profiles, is a lot like waiting for a rose from The Bachelor!

I can pretend that life is about other things right now, but ultimately it all comes back to getting a rose.

My gut feeling is that we haven't been picked. I'm pretty sure we'd know by now as the social worker took the profiles from our region down South late this week. Who knows. Perhaps big decisions (well, of course they are!) need to be made by the Birth Mum. Perhaps it takes more than one look to select an adoptive family.

Sigh. The thought of being picked has set me off into a bit of a panic - the timing is not great. I have been doing some extensive recovery work which means I have been confronted by some full-on emotional stuff. It is going to take a while to work through it all. I feel I'm not far away from an emotional break-through that has been sitting at the heart of all my SIF grief, all these years. Yet other women have emotional baggage in their lives and it hasn't resulted in completing their families being put on hold. But I strongly feel that I can not move forward in my life until I face all that has been revealed.

I'm also entering a very busy time at work and have a lot to do over the next couple of months, before the year is out. We also have a Halloween Party next weekend and it would break my daughter's heart to have to cancel it, if we did have to go down to Dunedin.

I've been thinking about how much my life has changed since becoming a one-child family - I went back into part-time work earlier than I perhaps would have (if another one had come along) , have had opportunities off and on to explore my creative side, and go to the gym regularly. I had a day on Friday which was all about me. It was the school holidays and my husband was home for the day so I went to the gym, went to work and had a couple of hours painting with a friend who'd set up a craft afternoon.

I am not naive. I do know that if a baby came along I can pretty much kiss most of these out-of-home activities I do, goodbye. At least to begin with.

I worry as to how I'd cope with two children on my own given my husband works all week and isn't home either until late at night or is on night shift. They say God never gives us more than we can handle. Perhaps I would be in over my head. After all these years of wanting another child, I now question my capabilities.

But I know if a baby arrived, I would make it all work. The truth is I would drop all our other plans in a heartbeat and I would find a way. Just like every other Mum of two (or more) does.

Two babies have been born in my extended family over the last couple of days. I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. The joy of a new baby - is there anything that can compete with that? I'm not sure. Nobody except for a handful of people in my everyday life know about our profile heading South. I will go to work this week as per normal and it will just be another week.

It will be good to get some feedback from the Birth Mother (if there is any) on Wednesday or Thursday via our social worker about our profile.

I know I'm feeling pretty vulnerable right now. I'm feeling a mix of feelings and most of them are "on ice" I think - waiting until I hear for sure that we haven't been picked.

Six months left in the adoption pool

In six months time we will have our answer. The waiting game will be over - we will either be adoptive parents - or not (once our file expires).

I'm at the point now of living life regardless of what happens. As time has gone on, I have let go of the outcome and have settled into life as it stands today.

Yet, change is in the air.

Yesterday I spoke to our social worker as a Birth Mum in Dunedin wants to view profiles from around the South Island. So this weekend our profile is going on a field trip! I know we will be one of several profiles that the Birth Mum will be looking at - but it is exciting to have the opportunity to be viewed.

Our social worker said to call her next week if we hadn't heard anything. In other words, if we got picked as adoptive parents for this baby girl that apparently arrived early, then we'd hear from our social worker. If we don't hear from her, we obviously didn't get picked. But our social worker said it is still good to touch base anyway to see if there was any feedback from the Birth Mum.

I have to admit, despite what I've declared above about being at peace with it all, I have been a bit triggered since we got this news. I have dreamed a little about travelling down to Dunedin to meet the baby girl and the Birth Mum. It is a possibility and dreams are free, afterall...

Interestingly I was in town recently and saw babies everywhere and this time round it wasn't a case of "Why not me?" it was more a case of "Is a baby the right thing for us?"

For reasons that are too personal even for this blog, I cannot disclose exactly what is going on with me except to say a lot of soul-searching about my life and the way I want to live it. Who knows if a baby is the right fit at this point.

We recently had family visit which meant we had my nine year old half-sister here for five nights. She has her own issues and a lot of behavioural problems. It was incredibly stressful and challenging having her stay. My husband I have agreed that as far as fostering goes; we aren't prepared to foster a child who is older than our daughter as it was a confusing time for her.

When I picked up my relatives from the airport a woman who was in the same antenatal yoga class as me was there picking up her husband. She told me she was pregnant with her fourth child. Her first child is my daughter's age - six - and is in the same class at school.

I no longer know if motherhood for the second time round is part of my destiny. I am leaving it all up to God now. Perhaps a life much different to the one I had dreamed of and planned for is waiting just around the corner. I will just have to wait and see.

Five Years Ago

Five years ago

I had a dream

Another baby for our family

Fairly simple, you would think

I knew I was lucky

To have the one I was blessed with

But I wanted another

To fill my nest with

Quite early on

It was plain to see

That it might not happen

It became my life tragedy

But most people out there

Didn't get my pain

Meanwhile so many other women

Added children to their clan

I tried so many things

But nothing worked

Acupuncture and herbs

Fertility drugs - the works

Next we went through

The trials of the adoption process

Medical and police checks

And several interrogations

Adoption in this country

Doesn't happen much these days

It's an unlikely scenario

Our hopes could all be in vain

My daughter wants a sibling

And asks most weeks

For a sister or a brother

To play with in our street

Pregnant bellies

Are still hard to see

So are siblings playing together

And women with more kids than me

"Be grateful for the one you have"

I hear them say

Because somehow wanting two children

Is a form of shame

"Think of those

Who are worse off than you"

Well I know I am blessed

But I'm entitled to dreams too

Five Years On

It's now five years since we started the quest to add to our family. Our daughter was just eighteen months old when this journey started. Because I'd had a c-section, I was advised not to start trying for a second child too early on. But I'd been forewarned by the obstertician who delivered our daughter, that because I'd lost an ovary at the same time, that early menopause might be a possibility so I was urged to not leave it too late. I was 38 years old.

I knew my age was "up there" yet I had several friends and acquaintances who conceived at the same age - and even older. I did conceive pretty fast - only for it to end in an early miscarriage. I had a sinking feeling that this was the last pregnancy I would ever have.

Shortly afterwards it was clear there were issues with my fertility. Deep down I knew it was serious. Yet I thought I could conquer this thing called secondary infertility and somehow find the magic formula to make my body do what I desperately wanted it to do. I tried everything. I tried alternative therapies - acupuncture and a herbalist. I was told it was stress, it was normal, and that my wonky cycles could be fixed. I trusted, I hoped, I prayed.

But I wasn't getting any younger and time was running out so I stepped it up a notch and got medical help. I was prescribed clomid which didn't work, followed by an operation to remove a cyst that was meant to improve my fertility. Once again I trusted, I hoped, I prayed. When this didn't work I was referred to a specialist.

About this time we started going through the adoption process. I knew that the specialist wasn't able to help me so held off on going to an appointment for a while. Blood tests, my own research and monitoring as well a gut instinct all led to the painful revealation that I was indeed going through early menopause. I was so far gone that not even IVF was an option - not with my own eggs anyway.

When I finally went to a specialist for closure more than anything, my self-diagnosis was confirmed. Donor egg was the only way I could experience a pregnancy ever again.

As we had already gone down the adoption route, the donor egg option didn't come into it. I knew that this was our last chance to add a child from birth into our family and I just didn't have any further energy to explore any other alternatives.

It took us almost two years to go through the adoption process. It was intense and we chose to put things on hold for several months as the leap from biological to adoptive child is big for many, and it was for us.

There is a small chance that an addition to our family could still happen as we are currently waiting in the pool of prospective adoptive parents. Our file expires in April next year and although we could renew it, we have chosen not to. Fostering is a possible option but we don't know yet whether or not that is the right fit for our family. Time will tell.

Our daughter is now six and a half years old.

In the last five years our daughter has started and finished Kindergarten, and has almost been at school for two years. We've bought a house. I've changed jobs. Twice. Our cat died that we had for several years And we now have new pets - a kitten and a dog.

We've travelled to Australia, to the North Island several times and have had four Christmases.

I've changed my hairstyle several times, lost weight, put in on again, lost it again - and so on.

Externally family-life has altered several times. But the desire to have another child has not.

I've no idea how many pregnancies and births I've heard about in the last five years but there have been many. If I could have a coin for every birth announcement in the last five years, well I'd perhaps not be rich, but I may have enough for a good meal out!

Secondary infertility has been the strangest, loneliest and most maddening journey of my life to go through. How many times I wished I was happy with just one child over the last five years, I can't say. But I have certainly prayed and willed my very deep-set desire to go away. Although I have been unable to see that it was all for the best, I have after all this time ever-so-slowly started to embrace my fate.

Well-meaning comments over the last five years have centred around the dreaded "Be grateful for the one you've got." and "Perhaps it's for the best." (Our only child is autistic).

The thing with secondary infertility, is you learn pretty fast that the child that did come to you is an incredible blessing. Knowing I will probably only get to go through all the milestones and ages and stages once, has been bittersweet. It is like saying goodbye to the child that is changing before my eyes while at the same time grieving the child that was meant to follow in her footsteps.

I have slowly been letting go of these wasted years over the last few months. In mind, body and soul it was time to move on. Five years has been too long for me to live a life on hold. With a child in the mix who desperately wants a sibling, it is hard to accept it may be just her. But adoptions are rare in this country and the reality is it is more likely to not work out, than happen.

I'm looking forward to April next year as the waiting game will finally be over.

It has been tiring. I'm ready for something new and ready to let go of a dream I held on to for a very long time. The thing is, five years on it is still there. It is a dream that I suspect will linger for the rest of my life.