Time heals all...

At least I was thinking maybe this was the case…

I realised a couple of weeks ago that I hadn’t been thinking about babies and IVF and infertility. And it surprised me, because in previous years I had always experienced feelings of sorrow, guilt, and even anger, as April approached.

I was positive that this lack of conscious thought about April meant the wound of not being able to have children had healed. The scar tissue had become so strong that it wouldn’t tear open again this year to leave my heart and arms empty.

It crossed my mind that perhaps the souls of my babies had moved on. Maybe they had let me go and I had let them go too.

I felt strong.  It was over it. Time truly does heal all.

Then I went to the supermarket.

There were prams everywhere. There were babies everywhere from newborns to almost toddlers.

Parents held the hands of older children, corrected their behaviour, laughed with their children, called them back to their sides when their kids had wandered of, and, sadly, there were also “parents” who seemed to take great joy in belittling their children in public.

That old familiar loneliness and emptiness arrived so suddenly that I struggled to keep the tears in my eyes from falling down my cheeks.  

We didn’t even get to the stage of egg collection with our first round of IVF. No embryo was created. Still, I think about the child we could have had – the little boy or girl who would be turning six this month.

Who would that little person have been?

We’ll never know.

I tend to think about the child that could have been from our first IVF round as their due date would have been our wedding anniversary.

When we married we had a picture of what our lives would be like – and that included having children and raising them as best we could. There were no doubts that this dream would become a reality. After all, our friends and family were having children and never had any problems – so why would we? It never even crossed our minds that we would.

Our wedding day...

And I can never forget those dreams or that potential child, and I don’t think a time will ever come when I feel all okay about it. I will never be “over it”, and time doesn’t really heal all.

I also know that missing my child doesn’t mean I’m not strong. Perhaps it actually means I am strong – because I can think about our children, grieve for them, while still being able to love and feel and live.

Happy sixth birthday angel child.

Hugo and planes...

I was going to do a rather serious and contemplative entry today, but I’ve decided not to. Instead, I’m going to write about Hugo. I can’t believe he is going to be five soon – he’s certainly grown from the photo to the right!

We’ve looked after Hugo for the last two Sundays in the morning, which has been awesome. Each time Hugo brought over DVDs, but only once did we actually sit and watch a ½ hour episode of a show based on the kids’ movie” Madagascar”. The rest of the time we talked and played and had loads of fun.

And both times we made paper planes.

Last weekend we made paper planes from a kit that said “one minute” planes – which we thought meant they would take about a minute to make. Nope! It took us (well, Kirby) about 30 minutes to make the plane that Hugo had chosen. It was a fabulous red jet!

We planned to take the planes to a park a short walk away, which has a large open area. Instead we decided to go to the smaller park just two doors away.

I had also made a paper plane and I think I was almost as excited as Hugo as we headed to the park.

Hugo threw his plane and it went a fair distance across – he was delighted!

Then Kirby decided to have a go flying Hugo’s plane.

He picked it up and threw it.

A gust of wind came at the same moment.

And we stood and watched as the plane was taken by the wind, rose into the air, and flew off out of our sight.

Hugo wanted us to go and get it, but we explained to him that we didn’t know where it had gone. He’s a top little guy and accepted this and then we shared my plane for the rest of the time we were at the park.

I think what they meant, by “one minute” planes, wasn’t that it would take only one minute to make them, but rather it would only be one minute until they would be lost!

We are so blessed to have Hugo, to spend time with him, to watch him grow and develop – and to hear and watch the funny things he comes up with.

While he was at our house he announced to us that he and we had forgotten his four and a half year old birthday party. He was adamant that there should have been a party.

Me and Hugo on a dolphin cruise

Kids seem to go through an age where they believe they know everything. Hugo is at that stage at the moment and he announced to me that he knows everything. I told him he doesn’t and he repeated that he did. I then asked him what the capital city of Nepal is. He thought for a moment and said he didn’t know. Perhaps it sounds mean, but I said “see, you don’t know everything.”

But, I then told him that neither did I and that this is what makes life so much fun, because you always get to find new stuff out and learn new things, and that this is pretty cool. Hugo agreed – but the next time I saw him he again told me that he knows everything.

Hugo and our niece Ella

What can you do!

He is a cool little guy

.

Turning 40...

Here’s a very important tip when making a curry. If you are using a hand held blender to make the sauce make sure that the blender is turned off before you try to take one blade off to replace it with the one you need. Otherwise, like me last night, you’ll end up with an interesting cut on your finger which will really, really, really hurt and make you wonder if you are going to spend the night in the emergency department!

Fortunately my finger stopped bleeding quickly and I didn’t need stitches. 

And a positive I can take out of the incident was that Kirby had to finish making dinner!

I think it’s fair to blame my lack of attention to on turning 40 in the past week.  I’m officially over the hill now…so it’s only to be expected…

Of course I’m joking. At times I am just clumsy – I was clumsy in my teens, my twenties, and my thirties.

Turning 40, for me, is a milestone – it is not the end of anything, but is the beginning of something new. I told people before my birthday that it was just a number, but I don’t feel like that anymore. It is more than that – it is a time for changing the basis of my life.

My life was very different to now when I turned thirty. I was living in my lovely one bedroom apartment with my darling girl, Minerva. I was single and wondering whether staying single was a path I should actively pursue. I was in the fifth year of a job as a student advocate – which was a job I adored and I still miss (much of this is to do with the people I worked with). I had my friends and family and I was enjoying life.

But, even though I could see myself staying single I still had that deep desire to meet my life partner and have children of my own. Many of my friends were committing to their partners or getting married and/or having children. The reminder of what I really wanted was all around me.

I had no idea of the mountainous adventure that lay before me in the coming decade. What a ride!

Here’s a quick summary. Ready?

I met Kirby and moved in with him and then we bought an old bungalow together which we planned to renovate. I sold my lovely little apartment. I gained a whole new set of family and friends that came with Kirby. Kirby and I were married. We were blessed with new nieces and nephews (through both family and friends). I lost touch with friends I thought would be life-long and made new friends who I believe will really be life-long. My beloved Nan died. We brought home our gorgeous little Ari (not so little now!) and adopted our funny little Odi. We gave a home to one of my colleague’s cats (Felix). We looked after my sister-in-law’s cat, Frankie, for what was to be a few months, but seven years later she is still living with us. I was made redundant from my advocacy job due to the organization I was working at being closed down. My Dad was seriously ill and nearly died. I tried to run a dog training franchise without much success. I’ve had two or three bouts of serious depression which lasted a couple of months each. I’ve had three or four other jobs all in administrative roles. Kirby and I realized we were having trouble conceiving a child. We lost two babies to very early miscarriage. We tried IVF but the two embryos that were transferred into me died which devastated us. I started working for myself as an editor. We went on a dream holiday to New York. I completed a Masters in Creative Writing. Through some kind of unconscious unfolding we realized we wouldn’t be trying IVF again. I’ve lost touch with family members who I was close to and miss terribly. We moved house to be closer to our nephew, and because we realized our old house and the constant need to repair it wasn’t for us. Our Minerva died after a short illness. I went on a holiday all by myself to Thailand to Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary.

Throughout all of this I have been constantly trying to define my identity and my spiritually. I’ve tried to pick one type of spirituality (or religion) from Buddhism, Hinduism, Yoga, various forms of Paganism, and Christianity. I’ve read numerous books on being happy and on positive thinking. I’ve sat down with pen and paper and tried to draw a path to a life where I would be content and where I would have a constant link to something higher than myself. I tried to get to a place where I would finally have everything about my life sorted out. I thought about myself a lot. I was completely immersed in the self-help movement.

I think much of this trying to define everything has partially been because of being unable to have children. Something so huge that I was sure would be part of Kirby and my lives just didn’t happen and in response I tried to grab hold of the other aspects of my life so they wouldn’t slip away and so that I could find some kind of identity when I realized I wouldn’t  be a mother. I needed a new meaning for my life.

Something has changed recently. I think it started before I went to Thailand but it became clearer while I was in that amazing country. I’ve been spending so much time on myself that I am missing the real life that is all around me. I am missing the people, the experiences, the just being, the emotions, the failures, the success, the chance encounters…it’s true I have seen all of these things but I haven’t been fully immersed in them because I have been afraid that I will be wrong.

It’s utter rubbish really. The whole thing is just crazy. I spent most of my time trying so hard to fit into a mold of what I thought I should be and what I thought my life should be that I ended up twisted and tormented.

When I was in Thailand, especially when I was at the elephant sanctuary, I saw people who had very little but they were happy. Sure they strived to have the necessities of life and they had goals, but they were happy while they were waiting to see what their lives would bring. They didn’t need some book telling them how to work themselves out. They didn’t need some self-help guru harping on about how positive thinking and intent would ensure everything they wanted would come to them. They just got on with it. They worked, they smiled, they wept, they helped each other out, they shared with each other and with me what little they had, and they spent time with their families and friends just being in the open spaces under their home-made homes.

It’s opened my eyes to just how self-centered I was being. I was constantly thinking about what would be in it for me if I did something or shared something. I kept my stuff to myself and worried about whether the curtains we had were okay and whether the house was clean enough to meet other people’s standards (which were imagined standards by me). It just doesn’t make sense to me, anymore, to live like this.

While I’m not going to let our house become a dirty mess, and from time to time I will reflect on what is going on in my life, I won’t be letting these things get in the way of living.

It’s okay to reflect and to read books on improving life, and it is definitely okay to have a connection to that something greater than me, but at some point I have to get on with living. I have to take risks in reaching out to people, I have to let things go, I have to love the people in my life, I have to let people go when they need to, I have to weep and laugh, be angry and be at peace, and let my emotions have a healthy reign on me sometimes. All I have to do is be and love people and animals and life – just the way it all is. I have to let go of controlling everything in my life and taking responsibility for things that are just not in my control, while having passion for those things I choose that I can perhaps do something about.

I have tried hard, in my thirties, to sort myself out.  But, I realize now that nothing in life is ever irrevocably sorted out. And I mean absolutely nothing. At the beginning of my thirties, and especially when I met Kirby, I thought I knew where my life was going.

At the beginning of my forties I have no idea what life has in store for me.  So it’s time to let it go and just see what happens and not be so serious about myself. It really is liberating.

Friendships...

Late last year I was working through some issues that were particularly painful for me. There were more than a few nights lost to tears and sleeplessness. I am very lucky that I have Kirby to talk to and share my thoughts and feelings with, but what I wanted most at that time was a friend to talk to. I wanted to go and have a cuppa with a girlfriend I had known for years and cry my heart out. But I didn’t. I couldn’t think of who to call, or rather I could think of friends to call but I never picked up the phone. I never let them know what was happening and that I needed them.

When we were younger it was easy to catch up with friends on the spur of the moment. A morning phone call, “Coffee?”, and we were ready to go that afternoon. This was especially the case with my friends who were also my colleagues early last decade. Around lunchtime, a head would pop through my office doorway and no words needed to be said – we headed out of the office for lunch or coffee or just a quick walk.

Now it’s different. Most of my friends, especially those I made in early adulthood, have children of their own. They are busy – and I mean really busy. They don’t have as much time as I do and their priorities are, as they should be, their families. Many of their activities and social outings are with other parents with children of similar ages. This is very important, of course, because parents need the opportunity to talk with each other and share the experiences, knowledge, joy, and frustration of parenting. Their main source of support in this time of life, in raising children, is friends who also have children.

But, sometimes I struggle with that, in that I feel I am not part of the group because I don’t have children.

I really hope that my friends with children don’t get upset at this, as I love them all dearly, but there are times when it is very, very hard for me. And I do feel excluded sometimes even though I know that is not the intent – and in thinking about it that exclusion exists solely in my own mind – it isn’t real. But, I’ll give you a couple of examples so you know what I mean. A few years ago we were trying to catch up with two families at the same time, both of who have kids, but it was difficult to come up with a date that we were all free. The months passed by, and we found out that the families we wanted to see had caught up together without us at the beach. We had no idea and at the time I wondered if we had done something wrong. Another example is that it is very rare for us to be invited to our friends’ children’s birthday parties. I sometimes think that if we had kids we would be invited. I do understand that there has to be limits to numbers at parties, and that many of our friends are torn about inviting us as they don’t want us to be reminded of what we don’t have – which, in thinking about it, really is thoughtful.

I guess, from all of this, I feel different to my friends who have children. They have a different type of life to me, and lives that are often far busier than mine. And that is where my problem lies – I say “my” problem because the problem rests entirely with me, and not my friends.

I didn’t call any of my friends last year when I was struggling because every time I thought I would call one or the other I thought they would be too busy, I didn’t want to burden them with my problems, I didn’t want them to think that I only wanted to see them when I was in difficulty, and I was afraid. It sounds ridiculous now that I have written it down. I can see very clearly how all of this is my issue and not theirs. I know that if I had called any of my beautiful friends they would have, if they possibly could have, been there for me.

I sometimes feel that because I don’t have children I should have everything sorted out – that I should be the one who provides the support to my friends, rather than the other way around. In a way this is an insult to my friends, who love me and don’t need me to put across the facade that my life is all good. I realise that I need to trust them more. That I need to remember that they are my friends – that they care, and that they are willing for me to call up and say “help” sometimes.

I need to learn how to ask for help. That is what friendships are for.

What kind of mother...

This morning my emotions feel like they are debris on the ocean. I am in a secluded bay and I don’t know what is going to roll in with the waves. I feel okay, I feel angry, I feel upset, I feel pathetic, I feel okay again, I feel ashamed – and then another emotion floats in with the waves.

I wasn’t planning to write about what I will write about this week, because I didn’t know about it until this morning. I had no idea. Well, that’s not true – I must have known at some stage, but somehow it slipped away and I lost it. And now I’m wondering what kind of mother I really would have been.

Last week I found my journal that I began when we first started IVF. I read the words of the first entry and I wished I could go back and give that naïve girl who thought everything was going to work out a hug of strength for the years to come.

I read a few of the other entries and then I looked at the dates. The first entry was dated the 10^th July 2008 – the beginning of our first cycle of IVF, which ended up being cancelled.

July, 2008 – so what? Well, our next round of IVF, where an embryo was created didn’t stay, was in January 2009. This was the baby that I wrote about a few entries ago – the baby that would have been five this year. Except they wouldn’t have been five this year. They would have only been four this year – they wouldn’t have been going to school yet. I’ve completely screwed up the dates and the ages my children would have been.

What kind of mother does that? I can’t have children and I can’t even get the dates of what would have been their births right. I feel sick to the stomach when I think about it. I feel so angry at myself.

I don’t even know what to write in here right now. Except to say to my children – I am so, so very sorry.

Special Moments

The older I get the more I realise that childhood is very, very short. In the last month the daughter of one of my friends turned eight, the daughter of another friend turned ten, and my niece will turn twelve at the end of the year. Even our little nephew will be three two days’ time.

As the children in our lives grow up I often think about the things I wanted to share with our children – the things I wanted to show them. I wanted to go to the zoo with them, to go to concerts and the theatre, and I wanted to share with them my love of old movies – particularly “Singing in the Rain”.

On the weekend I got to see what sharing special things with our own children might have been like. I remember the first time I saw Amelia. She was only a few days old and I fell in love. Already it was easy to see that her hair would be auburn. She had lovely chubby cheeks that I just wanted to cover with smooches.

Over the past ten years I have watched her grow from a baby, to a toddler, to a young child, and now to the beginnings of a young lady. She is intelligent, funny, kind, and I adore her. I don’t want it to go too fast, but I am going to love watching her grow into a woman and become the amazing adult I know she will be.

For her tenth birthday I decided to throw her a high tea – just for her Mum, Amelia and me. We had a little cupcakes and cucumber and cheese sandwiches. And, I put on the DVD of “Singing in the Rain”. It was so lovely. Amelia loved the dancing and singing.

Just before Amelia and her Mum were going to go home I gave Amelia her present, which was a copy of the DVD. Her face lit up and her first question was “How did you do that?” I told her that I had a copy of the movie and I wanted her to have one too.

This was a very special day. I got to share something I loved with one of the beautiful children in my life – something I had hoped to share with our children. No – it’s not the same as if we had our own, but it’s pretty awesome nonetheless. I love the children in our lives and I hope they always know how special they are to me.

Kicking butt...

Then again – since the last entry – I’ve realised that sometimes I do need to be a bit harder on myself. There are times to hold my emotions and thoughts like little, fractious children, and times when they need some boundaries and a reality check.

On the weekend we went to a picnic to celebrate the first birthday of our friends’ little boy. It was held in the Botanic Gardens in Adelaide and, despite the weather people telling us it would rain, the sun shone through the entire afternoon. Our friends organised a wonderful afternoon tea with cupcakes, dips, savoury biscuits, and fairy bread. There were carrots and healthy food, but it was a party – and I tended toward the fairy bread...

As more people arrived the number of children grew exponentially, including a few children that were about the same age as our child would have been (even one sweet little girl who had was born on the same day as our child would have been due – she had a dinosaur birthday party – how cool is that!).

I wanted to get into it all – to play with the kids – but I felt fragile and uncertain. It came to a point where my eyes became disobedient and the tears started. I caught Kirby’s eye and said I was going for a quick walk. He was straight onto it that something was wrong.

We found a little secluded seat and sat while I cried a bit. I felt guilty and told him not to make a fuss and not to tell anyone where I was or that I was crying. It wasn’t about me that day – it was about the beautiful little boy whose party it was.

I asked Kirby if he could get some money from my purse and go and get a coffee – to give me time to calm down. He walked back to the party, but returned fairly quickly without coffee to say that they were opening presents and did I want to come back to the party. I was still upset, and I didn’t want anybody to see, so I said no. I told him he should go back – particularly as he was chief photographer for the day.

I sat there for a few more moments feeling miserable. We had bought a gorgeous little book about animals, with different materials for each animal that could be petted, and Batman pyjamas (I’m Batman…shhh! (Big Bang Theory reference…couldn’t help myself…)), and I wanted to be there to see our friends’ little boy open the present – to see his reaction and those of his parents.

My higher self – or whatever it is – suddenly piped in and said “Snap out of it!” It was very firm and I was a little shocked, but I did, in fact, snap out of it. My eyes were still red, so I was thankful for sunglasses, but I went back to the party in time to see our present opened and the fascination our friends’ little boy had for of his new little book. It was heart-warming and I’m so glad I didn’t miss it.

After that I thoroughly enjoyed the party – not that I didn’t before, but I did feel out of place. I was able to interact with the children for whom they are and smile and play and talk to other people with happiness and contentment.

I don’t know if anybody noticed my disappearance and realised why I took some time out, but I think some of my friends did. I am so thankful for them. They didn’t make a fuss, they didn’t ask if I was okay, and that was exactly what I needed at that point in time. I didn’t want be the centre – I wanted to get on with enjoying the party. But, at the same time I know they love me and understand and that I always have their support. I am a very, very lucky woman to have these people in my life. And I am very, very lucky to have a husband that loves me and is my rock. And I am very, very lucky to have so many gorgeous children to love and cherish. 

And I am very, very lucky to have a higher self to kick my butt when I need it.

Two days later...

I’ve just reread my blog entry from two days ago. I really was in a bad place and it was very difficult at the time to see how I was going to get myself up and going again. It was almost as if I didn’t want to be happy – how could I be happy when our child was missing from our lives? How could I care about anything else? It all seemed so superficial. Everything I was doing was worthless if I couldn’t have my baby.

Yesterday I had a bit of an insight. I was still feeling angry – at myself mostly – for not being able to have a child and for feeling so down and pathetic and not having the stamina to get up and see what I do have. I resented where I was and I resented myself for being there. I thought I was wallowing a bit, but I couldn’t seem to shake it. Then, clear as a bell, the words popped into my head “If you can’t be compassionate to yourself, how can you expect to be compassionate to other people?”

It was a wakeup call. I didn’t need to fight the feelings I was having, I just needed to give them a bit of space without becoming attached to them. Trying to fight them was only giving them fuel to burn on. Letting them be, watching them, and feeling compassion for them, as well as for myself, took away the power they were having over me. I watched my feelings – my sorrow, grief, anger – like they were children who were tired and fractious. I opened up to them and let them know it was okay. I imagined myself and my feelings as small children who didn’t need to be yelled at – they needed to be comforted and reassured.

That is when my mind cleared.

With this clarity I’ve realised why I was feeling so disconnected – why I have been so unhappy and why I have been thinking that my life is worthless. I was expecting too much.  Before I went on the trip with Conservation Volunteers I knew that when I got back it would be close to the time when our baby would have been turning four, but I had the expectation that because I would have been on the trip with Conservation Volunteers I wouldn’t feel the sorrow and anger like I had in past years. I figured that because I had built a life where I felt valued and content I would not feel sad this year. I would feel nostalgic, but content with my life as it is.

When I got home from the trip I was stunned when strong feelings of anger and sadness started showing themselves, and I tried to fight them off by pretending everything was okay and that I was happy, happy, happy. As I’ve already said – fighting these kinds of feelings doesn’t work, at least not for me. It only makes them stronger and leads to them being so huge that I have no idea what to do with them.

I’ve recently been reading about Yoga (as a spiritual practice), Buddhism and Hinduism. I’ve started meditating and at first I struggled with it as every time I meditated my mind threw thoughts and emotions up left, right and centre. I thought that was wrong and that in order to achieve peace I should either be completely calm and centred, or at least have an empty mind. I expected that my trip with Conservation Volunteers would contribute to my ability to meditate and be at peace.

It didn’t and I’ve started to think that my understanding of peace and being centred has been misconstrued.

I’m going to leave it here for this entry as I realise I’ve written quite a lot already (and I want you all to memorise it word for word! Just kidding…) Next time I will talk more about my understanding of emotions, peace, being centred and all that jazz and how it relates to thinking about our baby turning four.

Times like these...

I’m not going to sugar coat today’s blog entry. It has been a very tough day and I don’t see the point in pretending otherwise – I want people to know that days like these do happen.

Early this afternoon I found myself in huddled in our back hallway unable to move. I was crying so hard that I almost threw up. I wanted to punch a hole in the wall. I wanted to inflict some injury on myself that would represent the pain I was feeling inside. I told myself over and over again that I was useless, stupid and pathetic, and that nothing I would ever do in this world would amount to anything.

It took me quite a while to stop crying, to recognise the feelings I was having and to acknowledge them enough to give them some space to play out, and then to be able to get up off the floor.

It’s strange how after this kind of day happens I can see how my mood, my thoughts and my actions of the past few days were building up to it – they are kind of like clouds that move together to become a storm. And like a storm, it eventually dissipates leaving me exhausted, but somehow clearer.

Today’s storm began at the end of last week. I went on a three night trip with Conservation Volunteers Australia to the lower part of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. We helped the local school children clean up their plant nursery area, got rid of weeds in a coastal reserve, and put tree guards up on some little trees to prevent rabbits from eating them. It was great. I had been looking forward to it very much.

When I got home I thought that I would suddenly have a different view of my life. I had done something out of my comfort zone, something that mattered, and something that would give me a sense of identity.

I was shocked when the sense of achievement and the sense of self that I expected to have weren’t there when I got home. If anything I felt completely disconnected from my life, my writing, my home, and even my family and friends to an extent.

As I tend to do, I put on a brave face trying to convince myself that everything was just fine, and I almost convinced myself it was until today.

Just before I crumbled in the hallway I was sitting at the dining room table with my head in my hands and repeating over and over “I want my baby”.  You see, our baby from our second round of IVF would have been turning four around the 8^th of April this year. If they were here we would have been organising their fourth birthday party – friends, family, games, dress ups, cupcakes.

I can almost see them blowing out their candles and I can almost feel their little hand in mine.

But they’re not here. I can’t give them a birthday party. I can’t hug them and kiss them and tuck them into bed, with an overwhelming awe that such a child came from Kirby and me.

It hurts. It hurts a lot sometimes. And it isn’t fair. And I feel like a failure because I couldn’t bring our baby into this world.

Feeling like I am a failure because I cannot have a baby is not nice, but even worse is when that sense of failure leaks over into the rest of my life. I am a failure at something that is supposed to be so natural and this expands to encapsulate myself as a wife, a friend, a writer, and now as a conservation volunteer. It all gets so big that I am scared and I have to hide away in the back hall for a while.

I don’t know if times like these are ever going to leave me alone forever. I doubt it. Actually, I doubt that any of us will go through life without experiencing self-doubt and fear.  It seems to be a condition of being human.

I do hope, though, that somehow I can find a way to face those feelings of failure and fear without being so overwhelmed by them. I don’t know how yet. All I can do for the moment is ride them out until they are done wreaking havoc, pick myself up and get moving, and get my life back on some kind of track.

This isn’t a happy blog entry. I was going to write about how all of this has meaning and how I grow through experiences like this, but, quite frankly, I’m too tired to think about that right now. So, all I will say is “I want my baby” and “it just isn’t fair.”