Mother's Day

It’s been a while yet again! I’ve been in a bit of a fog for the past few months, which I’ll write about in the next entry.

On Sunday, in Australia, it will be Mother’s Day. Along with this day will come all the familiar thoughts and emotions that those of us who can’t have children often encounter. The grief and sorrow, and even bitterness sometimes, and the “why not me?” and “what did I do wrong?”.

Last year I met one of my friends, who also can’t have children, for lunch. She said to me that one of the hardest parts for her is the messages that accompany Mother’s Day that suggest children choose their parents. For example, “thank you for choosing me to be your Mum.” It sounds like a lovely sentiment – but there is a definite sting in there for us.

As my friend said, it implies that there are children who looked at us and went “Nup – not good enough – I’ll head over to the drugged up, abusive couple down the road thank you very much.”

Or, perhaps even more difficult to fathom, the children who did come along, but didn’t stay due to miscarriage, picked us but then changed their minds.

This really hurts. It really, really hurts to think about.

Am I saying that people shouldn’t write this type of message on their Facebook walls? By no means. They should if this is what they want to do. All I’m asking is to be aware that friends and/or family members who can’t have children might find it difficult to read these kinds of sayings, and when they do they may feel their hearts break a little for the millionth time.

Be aware and be sensitive, as it’s a hard enough day for us as it is.

Port Lincoln...

Well – haven’t I been a slacker!

It seems some months have passed since I’ve written a blog entry. I could come up with lots of excuses – such as it was Christmas and I’ve been adjusting my diet to help combat my fibromyalgia (which is helping – yay!) etc. But I’m not going to. I’m just going to get on with this entry!

Between Christmas and New Year, Kirby and I travelled with our friends to Port Lincoln for three nights. The purpose of our trip? To go out on a boat with Adventure Bay Charters to swim with sea lions.

Travelling on the boat to the seal lions

Dolphins joined us for part of the journey

                                                     

Me and one of our friends in the water

It was absolutely brilliant! Sea lions are endangered – there are only 10000 left – so swimming with them was a real honour.

The sea lions lazing around

In the water

I also loved the way the crew of the boat we went on to where the sea lions live were very respectful of the sea lions. We were not allowed to approach them, but rather we were to wait until, and if, they came up to us  –  which made it all the more special when they did.

Sea lions are so playful and cheeky! One of the crew put a floating line as a guide to where we were allowed to swim – one of the sea lions grabbed one of the floats and took it down to the ocean bottom (it was shallow water) and proceeded to lie on it!

Look what I can do!!

You can't see me!!

While we were in Port Lincoln we also visited Coffin Bay National Park, where we were fortunate to see an emu and his chicks (yes – the Dad takes on the child rearing responsibilities!), New Zealand fur seals playing, and a kangaroo. The beaches were so wide and white, and the water so clear. It was stunning.

Baby emus with their Dad

Loving life!

 

Beautiful remote beaches

Kangaroos camouflage so well! 

Fur seals playing...

The ferocity of the ocean

I’m writing about this holiday for a couple of reasons – aside from the fact that it was awesome. And those reasons relate to the fact that we couldn’t, and don’t, have children.

The view from our balcony at the Port Lincoln Hotel

The first is that our friends are in their early twenties – and we are in our early forties. It’s quite an age gap and yet we are good friends and we get along so well. The truth is that if we had children it is less likely that we would spend as much time with these friends, if any, because we would be mixing in quite different circles. People with kids tend to mix with other people with kids – and are less likely to mix with people from very different age groups. Lately Kirby and I have been looking more at what we do have in life, instead of what we don’t, and these friends are part of what we have – and they are a blessing.

The second is that we could just go away. We can go away, work permitting, any time we like. We don’t have to think about school holidays or making sure that the activities we do are kid-friendly. Kirby and I can take off on the weekend, or even just for a day, and do what we want. Of course, we have our fur-kids to think of – but they are so adorable that I think we’ll have to start a raffle with the winner being the one to look after them next!

Lastly – life is getting better. I still get sad about not having children – but what we have is amazing. Kirby and I have changed in the last year. It’s taken a while, but we have become more aware that we have a life well worth living and that we shouldn’t waste. It doesn’t mean we don’t feel a sense of missing our children though – that will never go away.

Kirby and I are spending more time with friends and family, going out to different places, and enjoying life. We even spent Christmas Eve putting together Lego – Kirby had a car and I put together Rey’s speeder from Star Wars: The Force Awakens! If that’s not geeky I don’t know what is!

Life – dance, play, work, laugh, love, cry, walk, see friends, listen to music, feel angry, do something.

 

It’s too precious not to.

An old soul...

We took the eleven year old daughter of our friends out on Saturday. We went on a dolphin cruise on the Port River in Adelaide and we even saw four dolphins! We were the only ones to see one of the dolphins which was pretty special!

Jess knew that Ari had died and in the car on the way to the Port she said about how sad she was that Ari was gone and how it must be really hard for us.

She said “He was like your child…so he was like my cousin too.”

Okay – I’ve got tears in my eyes right now.

This beautiful, amazing girl said so simply and honestly exactly how we felt about our Ari. He was our child.

She showed more understanding than many adults would and with such simplicity and honesty.

We adore her so much – she is a pure delight in our lives – and I know for sure she is an old soul.

We love you Jess! 

Me, Jess, and Kirby

The Port Adelaide River

One of the tall ships the "One and All"

Jess with her Dad, and Kirby with Ari when he was a puppy.
Jess can't remember a time when Ari wasn't around.

I don't want a baby...

Surgery is over and I’m on day six of getting better. It all went well and while I’m a bit sore still and can’t do a lot of physical activity I do feel much better energy wise and therefore mentally and spiritually as well.

My surgeon found more endometriosis – quite significant scarring actually. And it may be that the pain I felt before I will still feel in the future. I’m reading a book called “Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain” by Dr Susan Evans at the moment to get some tips on lifestyle changes I can make to help me be as healthy as possible. I may go to the clinic where Dr Evans works as well as luckily for me it’s here in Adelaide, South Australia.

One thing that concerned/s me a little is that my surgeon said that if the pain doesn’t go away then the next step may be a hysterectomy, but from what I’ve learnt about endometriosis, a hysterectomy won’t do anything to fix the problem. I think I’ll get a second opinion before going down that road as it’s not a simple procedure.

Well, as the title of this post says, I don’t want a baby anymore. Really – I don’t.

I no longer think much about holding our newborn or nursing him or her or changing their nappies.

Instead that longing has been replaced by one for our seven year old child. I wish our seven year old Jacob or Ruby were here with us. I wish they were moving from being a small child to being one with more independence and riding around the wetlands on their bikes with their own friends, who is going to school and learning, and perhaps playing sports. Who knows what they would have been interested in? I wish they were here so we could know them.

In my heart my children are growing up as the years pass by. They were newborns, toddlers, pre-schoolers, and now they are seven years old.

A few weeks ago Kirby and I both had gastro – as we were sitting in the lounge feeling sorry for ourselves I asked Kirby if he thought Jacob or Ruby, given they did not have gastro also, would have looked after us as best a seven year old could do. We both thought that they would have – at least some of the time. 

Then Kirby and I held hands and reflected on what might have been.

Sometimes it's convenient...

In the last few weeks I’ve had a big editing project on the go, and I’ve also had the pleasure of a bout of gastro! So I’ve been either busy working – or sick. Now it’s just the working bit that remains (thank goodness!).

While I was sick on the weekend and in bed feeling quite awful, I had the thought that sometimes it is quite convenient not to have children. Wow! This was followed by feelings of guilt – how could I think that? What a terrible person I was! What a selfish person I was!

But, let’s be honest – when you’re sick and all you want to do is sleep in between bouts of (well probably no need to go into detail), not having to worry about anybody else makes it much easier to rest and focus on getting better.

Is that such a horrible thing to think?

I don’t believe so.

It’s a reality.

I’m sure parents wish for peace and quiet when they are sick. And, imagine trying to look after yourself if you and your children all came down with gastro at the same time! But, all in all, I doubt those parents would choose not have their children at all for the sake of peace and quiet when they are ill.  Of course the perfect scenario would be to have both children and peace and quiet in times of ill health.

I wouldn’t have chosen not to have them either. If Jacob and/or Ruby were here I would have managed somehow and I wouldn’t have given them up for the world – even if I was sick and they were constantly waking me up asking about this or that.

I have to say that I admire parents (most anyway as some of them don’t deserve to be called parents) in how they deal with being sick and still caring for their children. I don’t know how they do it. Sure – they kind of have to – there’s no off switch on kids that you can press when you want some time to yourself. Regardless – they are pretty amazing!

No, no, no – and just - NO…

This week I came across two blogs by mothers who have children. Each mother has written an entry on other options available to those who can’t have kids – such as adoption, fostering, IVF, babysitting, and even becoming a primary school teacher.

I’m sure they are well-intentioned, but, no. No. NO!!!

Having someone who has had kids tell us how it’s not all that bad because there are other ways to “have kids” in our lives is just not right and completely inappropriate – to my mind.

I’ve had close friends and family talk to me about other options available to me and Kirby, but they know me and often the conversation has been started by me. And even when my friends or family were the ones to start the conversation, they understand me well enough to know, most of the time, when to talk about certain things about not having children and when not to.

The problem I have about blog entries such as the above is that these women are writing about something so personal to many of us, so painful to many of us, and they don’t know us. They have not had the experience of facing the truth that biological children are not going to come along.

One of the entries even ended with the phrase that “being told you can’t have kids is not the end of the world”. Well…yes it is. It’s the end of the world in which we will look into the eyes of our children – it is the end of the world in which we will watch them grow up – it is the end of the world in which we will get to hold them.

I do believe these women were well-intentioned, but no – they do NOT get to tell us that we have choices, and options, and that it’s not the end of the world.

They have your eyes...

This week (give or take) the baby from our final round of IVF would have turned six years old. They most likely would have loved riding bikes with their cousin, played every day with our dogs, and perhaps been interested in music like me, computers like their Dad, or both. Today they would have been waiting in excitement to see their older cousins this afternoon, who arrived from Sydney yesterday for Dad’s 70^th birthday, and they would have been a handful and an angel at the same time.

I’ve long wondered what our children might have looked like. So, yesterday I used one of those programs online to “morph” Kirby and my faces to find out what our babies might have looked like.

Here they are:

Jacob Arthur

Ruby Grace

I think they are adorable of course!

I know that these programs are not entirely accurate, but it’s kind of bitter-sweet to have a picture of what our children might have looked like. The only photos we ever got of them were these:

So, call me silly for using the program, but I like having those pictures to look at and wonder about.

We are family...

Last night I was remembering the trip that Kirby and I took to the United States in June and July of 2009. It was fantastic – Connecticut and New York are amazing places. So different from each other and each with its own character.

It was a very long trip from Adelaide, Australia to New York. It was about seventeen hours in planes all up with a stopover of a couple of hours in Sydney and about a six hour stopover in LA. Needless to say we were extremely tired by the time we boarded the American Airlines plane to New York.

We collected our boarding passes in LA and I noticed that Kirby and I were not seated together for the next leg of our journey to New York. We went to the American Airlines counter and questioned this and we were told to talk to the steward as we boarded the plane.

So we did. And the response we got?

“We seat families together first.”

Hmmm…

My response?

“We are a family too.”

It was clear that the steward wasn’t prepared to help us, and I was almost in tears. Fortunately a lovely woman swapped seats with me so that Kirby and I could sit together.

Before our IVF round in December, 2008, we had decided that if that round didn’t work we would take a holiday to the United States and then talk about IVF further when we got home. The wound of another IVF cycle which didn’t bring us our baby was still raw when we went to America – and being told we weren’t considered a family was like knitting needle being plunged into my heart.

It really hurt – and I was really angry and defensive. And I questioned whether Kirby and I were really a family if we didn’t have children.

Years have passed and I no longer have the same doubts. We are a family. There is no doubt in my mind about that now. But, it still hurts sometimes to think that other people might consider us as less of a family than those families which include children. That is their problem though.

I often take a moment to look at Kirby, and at our Felix, Frankie, Odi, and Ari, and I feel quite content with our little family.

You know the funny thing? We were seated separately on the way from New York back to LA as well. And, yet again, a kind person offered to swap with me.

Some airlines may not understand that Kirby and I are a family – but it seems there are people out there who do.

Stuck in a rut...

When I started this blog I made the conscious decision that I would be honest in sharing the different things I experienced – including emotions and thoughts that might be considered negative.

Well – a few weeks ago I had a meltdown. I was going to write about it just after it happened, but instead I have waited until my thoughts have become clearer and the emotions I felt are not so intense.

The instigator to this meltdown was hearing one too many times from mums that their lives were never-ending chores, and day after day they had to do the same stuff. Clean the bathroom, go to work, and feed the kids...being busy, busy, busy…

It’s true that the lives of parents can be insanely busy, and that days seem to go past in a blur of doing the same things again and again. But, just because I don’t have children does not mean that my life does not do the same. The never-ending dishes, the floors that need sweeping, the bills that have to be paid.

Some might say that I have it easier as I have more time than parents do, although this is, in some cases debatable, given I have numerous health issues that have made me exceptionally tired a lot of the time (although recent good news is that there might be an answer to my tiredness!!).

The contest between who has the most to do is not really the point of this blog entry. The meltdown came to the fore when I had an adult tantrum and cried and asked Kirby how parents could really say that their lives were the same day after day when every day they get to see their children develop and grow a little bit more, and they get to watch as their kids learn new skills and become their own people. “At least they get something out of it! They have no idea!” I remember saying as tears rolled down my cheeks.

If anything – I said to Kirby in far more angry words than I am writing here – we are the ones that have the same drudgery day after day because we do all the housework and the bill paying and this and this and this, for what?

Is that the truth though? After some reflection I realised it is not – or at least it doesn’t have to be. Kirby and I can choose to have the same day over and over again and get stuck in a rut of our own making – or we can choose to seek new activities and adventures.

We can also choose to watch with delight, wonder, and interest as, not only the children in our lives, but all the people we care about and ourselves develop and grow and have adventures and become more authentic (all of which never stops as long as we live).

Just in the past few months:

• One of my nieces has achieved top grades in maths (we definitely do not share that talent – one plus three equals eleven, right?)
• Another of my nieces has been put up a level in swimming (she is part dolphin just like her Dad!)
• Our nephew, now five years of age, created a card game for us to play (I love his imagination!)
• Our friends have been on a holiday throughout Europe (I can’t wait to see their photos!)
• Kirby has done up another BMX bike (before and after photos below)
• And Kirby and I have both started mountain biking (I fell off and bruised my leg the first time I tried it!)

Before...

After...

Even just writing those four examples has put a smile on my face and a sense of excitement in my heart.

Life doesn’t have to be a rut if we make it an adventure!

Baby girl...

In the past month my cousin has given birth to her and her husband’s first child – a baby girl.

And I have been thrown around in a sea of emotions in a way that hasn’t happened in quite some time. I was on edge even before my little second cousin was born.

I had dreams about holding my own baby daughter, and one night I awoke in a panic because I reached out and couldn’t find her crib at the side of our bed.

Another night I sat bolt upright in bed and said aloud “I want to try again.”

I felt angry that we didn’t have a child that would be an elder cousin to the new little baby that was about to be born. I wanted our child to be there to play with her and cuddle her and show her how to get away with as much mischief as possible.

I wondered what it would be like to feel life growing inside of me, to feel those kicks and movements, and to give birth and experience that pain that would bring our child into the world.

Would our cousins’ baby and ours share any features like my cousins and I do? Perhaps eye shape or hair colour or love of animals or interests in music or art or who knows – and we will never know.

In writing that last sentence I have just realised something. We will never know, but I will think about it from time to time and I like the thought of that. As our new baby cousin grows and starts showing her own personality (although I suspect she is already doing that…), and we learn what she likes and what she doesn’t, I will think about what interests our baby might have shared with her.

Of course our baby would no longer be a little child – they would be seven years old if the second round of IVF had worked (where we had an embryo put into my womb) or six years old if the third round had worked. I love the thought of our child, our nephew (almost five years old), and the new baby spending time together. I think my cousins’ little girl would have been quite well looked after and spoilt by her two older boy cousins.

I don’t really know if our baby would have been a boy, but I always thought that it would be – our little Jacob Arthur, Samuel Kirby, or Caleb Maxwell. It’s odd, therefore, that I dreamt about having a daughter before my cousins’ baby was born, but my cousins did know their baby was going to be a girl before she was born and I guess my subconscious decided that in my dreams we would have a girl as well.

I felt guilty, at first, about some of the feelings of anger and, I’ll say it, jealousy I had, but I have remembered, yet again, that it is quite normal to have them. And it is also true that, at least for me, I will, from time to time, feel let down by life and sad about not having our own child.

I want you all to know that as well, and that way when you experience those emotions that you feel are wrong or even shameful perhaps you will recognise that they are actually quite normal and then not be so hard on yourself – as I have been somewhat hard on myself lately.

I met my little baby girl cousin just over a week and a half ago, and to say I am smitten is a complete understatement. I am completely and totally head over heels in love and besotted…which I think might be quite obvious in the photo below…

Me and my new cousin...

Friends without kids...

Yet again I’ve been a bit slack with writing blog posts…but I have a good reason…

I’ve had whiplash…from slipping over in the shower…not the smartest thing to do, but I now know that our shower screen is rather strong and our bathroom tiles are rather hard!!

And onto today’s post…

Over the past four to five years we have “collected” a group of friends who don’t have children. 

Together we are four couples of around the same age – more or less. We have dinner at one of our homes every six months or so – although we will now be adding some hikes on the Waterfall Gully to Mt Lofty Summit trail which I am really excited about!

The interesting part of this group of friends is that I have no idea what the story is behind each of the other three couples not having children. Could they not have them? Did they decide not to have them? I don’t know and it’s not something that we’ve talked about or felt the need, so far, to bring up.

I think they know our story, but again we haven’t talked about it directly with them.

It’s clear that all of us love children. Much of the conversation together is about our respective nieces and nephews and how we much we adore them…so it sometimes seems odd that we haven’t talked directly about our own situations.

I would absolutely be happy to talk should any of our friends wish to, but at the same time it’s nice to have a group of friends who don’t have children and with whom we talk about many other things other than why we don’t have children – topics such as travel, hobbies, and so forth. And that we are not “distracted” (that sounds horrible, but I can’t think of another word at the moment) by children.

Does that make sense?

It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with my friends who have children – I most certainly do – but having this group of friends kind of makes it feel like it’s completely normal to not have them.

I am very, very grateful for this group of people!

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

.

Bathurst with our boys...

Kirby, my husband, could possibly be the biggest motor racing fan in the world. You name the race and he will be there – and if he can’t be there then he will be watching it on the television.

For his fortieth birthday Kirby wanted to go to the Bathurst 12 hour race in New South Wales, and this is precisely what we did in the past fortnight. Some people may think I was dragged along to the race, but I actually enjoy motor sport too – although after three days of it in a row I could quite happily not see any motor sports for a while.

We had a fantastic time watching the cars, meeting some of the drivers, walking around the Bathurst circuit including going to the top of Mount Panorama. I do not know where the drivers get the nerves to drive down that part of the track! It is so steep!

We were sitting in the grandstand on the first day watching the enhanced performance cars in their qualifying race. A man and a woman walked by in front of the grandstand with two little boys in tow. I looked at Kirby and said “we would have been good parents to boys – how much would they have loved this?!” Then started to cry a little and Kirby sat and held my hand for a minute.

Six years since our last IVF round and I still get those moments when the reality of not having children is like a raw wound. I still wonder “what if”, I am sad that we don’t have our own children to share experiences like Bathurst with.

So, the more the years go on, the more I know that not having children is going to come back and sting me from time to time. I will cry and I may feel angry because we don’t have kids or guilt because I am enjoying my life even though we don’t have children.

It’s something I am going to have to accept, and in some ways embrace if I can. After I stopped being upset I thought about how it would have been to have our children with us. I imagined their faces lighting up as the cars roared down the track, how they would have had the energy to run about on the top of Mount Panorama while Kirby and I struggled on behind them, and the photos we would have got of them with their favourite drivers. It made me smile.

I can’t have my children in my real life, but I can have them in my dreams.

Bathurst was brilliant...

Going down Mount Panorama
- and this is not the steep part...

The 12 hour race is about to start...

Cookies...

Cleland and children...

There is a wonderful place in South Australia, in the Adelaide Hills, called Cleland Wildlife Park. Whenever we go there, or anywhere where there are animals to be truthful, my inner child comes out to play. I love animals and quite often ask random strangers if I can pat their dog.

A few weeks ago Kirby and I took the daughter of our friends, Jess, and one of her friends from school, Georgina, to Cleland. It was for Jess’ birthday, which was actually in June, but the year was so unexpectedly busy for all of us that we were only able to find a day to go recently.

I love spending time with the children of our friends and family. The children are all different ages – from six months old to thirteen years old. The stages they go through, the interests they develop, the characteristics they have, are all so fascinating.

It is true that we would have loved to watch our own children change, develop and grow over the years. I often think about what they would be doing now and one of them, the child that would have come from our first cycle of IVF, would have been starting school next year. I can never forget our children and I wouldn’t want to. As the years pass I will think about them and how they would have been turning thirteen, eighteen, forty, and sixty. I will wonder what they might have done with their lives and what they would have been interested in. I will always wonder about them and keep them in my heart.

We are so fortunate, especially because we can’t have our own kids, to have so many children in our lives – children that we love so very much.

Jess and Georgina absolutely amazed me with their imaginative play in the car on the way to Cleland, with their tender attention to the different animals at the park, with their humour, with their sense of adventure, and with the knowledge they have about wildlife and the environment.

Both girls are nine years old, but they quite capably told the koala keeper, when they were getting a photo with a koala, what koalas eat and how they only eat certain eucalyptus trees, and how koalas use their noses to know which leaves they should eat. The koala keeper looked at us and said “Well I guess my job is done!” I think she was pleased with how much the girls knew.

I don’t know what our children would have been like or what they would have been interested in, but I suspect they may have loved animals if they took after me even a little bit. Whoever they would have been, I would have been delighted if they had the loving, interested, compassionate, and funny characteristics that both Jess and Georgina have.

I would have been absolutely delighted.

I love you Jess and Georgina.

A tune up...

I’m not sure what people in other countries call a car service, but here in Australia we often refer to it as a tune up. A tune up can apply to people too.

Earlier this year I was down hearted about many aspects of my life, and these feelings carried through over the following months. Minerva had died, my trip to Thailand was over, and new health issues had arisen. In October it was ten years since Kirby and I met and where we are now, with no children, is not what we expected when we first met. My self-talk told me I was not good enough – I don’t have a nine to five job, I couldn’t have children, I have stupid health issues that require numerous appointments with doctors and specialists, I couldn’t even keep our house clean and tidy as I thought it should always be, and Kirby could have done so much better than me.

I was a failure, failure, failure.

In Australia we have a great program where if your mental health is not good you can go to a general practitioner and get a referral to a psychologist or counsellor for six free sessions in a year – with the option of six more if needed.

I didn’t want to go to a psychologist – I just wanted to feel better and I thought that I should already know how to do that. But, I started seeing a psychologist in July, if anything to get Kirby off my back about going.

It seems I had fallen into the trap of thinking that I could reach a place where my life was sorted out once and for all. That I would reach a place where the hurts of the past would fade forever, and where I would accept my limitations or, even better, I would overcome them to live life exactly as I wanted to.

I know that there is no such place. Life is a series of peaks and troughs and it always will be. I know this, but I forgot. And my psychologist helped me to remember what I already knew. She helped me to realise that I had grief to work through still, and that grief is not a set process with a defined end. I may be ninety years old and still grieve for the children we never had and the life I didn’t lead for various reasons. This was my tune up.

After the first session I told Kirby I wasn’t going back as I didn’t like it and I didn’t think the psychologist would be any help. Deep down, though, I knew I didn’t want to go back because my psychologist was challenging me, and I didn’t want to be challenged. I didn’t want to think about certain things and I didn’t want to admit I didn’t have it all together.

My psychologist recognised that I tried to be strong and positive all of the time – even to the point of excusing the behaviour of people who had hurt me. Even when I talked about issues that bothered me I was set on convincing my psychologist that I was strong and could deal with it. The truth is that I am not always strong – I was putting up a front.

The most important thing I learnt is that the life I thought I wanted, in terms of a nine to five job, a big social life with lots of parties and lots of people, and a perfectly clean house, wasn’t the life I actually wanted.  I like my work at home, I like being with one friend or a small group of friends, and I love my pets so I will never have a spotless house. I’ve been working through my anxiety, particularly around house work.  I consciously left the dishes unwashed overnight and, lo and behold, the world didn’t fall apart!

I can sit with anxiety much more easily now and I can be honest with my family and friends when I’m not okay – I don’t feel the need to put up that front.

What has this all got to do with not having children?

Not having children is a major life crisis. It brings up so many fears, feelings, and uncertainties about what life is going to be like. You’re not going to be a parent. What does that mean for other areas of your life? What are you going to do?

There will be grief.

There will be times, long into the future, where you doubt yourself and whether you are good enough.

There will be times when you think all the pain and grief should be done with already.

There will be times you need to talk to someone and get some direction.

And, everyone needs a tune up every now and then.

It’s okay.

Don't tell Hugo...

My parents have jetted off to New Zealand for a bus tour around both of the beautiful islands that make up that country. I am somewhat jealous!

Before they left Mum said to Hugo that they would send him a postcard. He thought about this and suggested that perhaps they could put a postcard in a bottle, and then lower the bottle down to the ocean using a rope so it didn’t break, and then the bottle would float here to Adelaide. Mum and Dad are going on a boat tour for a day, but recently Hugo went to New Zealand and went on a cruise ship, and therefore he believes everyone who goes to New Zealand must be going on a ship.

Obviously putting a bottle in the water in New Zealand doesn’t guarantee it will float to the shores of Australia (although you never know!), and that Hugo will be down at the beach at the exact moment it arrived (again, you never know!).

Mum and I believe in letting children have the joys of imagination and adventure and letting them believe in things that might not be real. Some people may think this is “lying” to children, but some of my best memories from childhood are those that I now know my parents, or other adults, set up for me to have some magic in my childhood days. To me the effort they went to is a show of love.

So, we have a plan. When Mum and Dad get back from New Zealand we are going to find a bottle and put a postcard in it that Mum and Dad will bring back with them from New Zealand. It is nearly summer time in Australia and so the beach is the place to be. We will take Hugo down to the beach one day, and attempt to put the bottle somewhere along the water line without him seeing. I say “attempt” because he is very observant and generally doesn’t miss anything. One idea I’ve had to meet this challenge is for Mum and Dad to put the bottle under the jetty near a pylon before Kirby and I arrive with Hugo. We’ll then let him find it.

It will be magic to see his face when he discovers the bottle that has traversed the seas to him from a faraway country. He will be so excited. So very excited.

I think I will be too – I tend to get wrapped up in the excitement and imagination that the children around me experience. After all, I still believe in fairies and also that plants talk to me. Though that last belief may be supported by research soon – check this out!

I’ll let you know how it all goes, with photos of course! But, in the meantime – don’t tell Hugo!

Convoluted arteries and crowded nerves…

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been as regular with my blog posts lately. It doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about you!

In the last couple of months I have been diagnosed with a condition called Hemifacial Spasms (HFS). My neurologist, before he saw the spasms first hand, thought they might be a form of epilepsy, but I actually had them while I was in an appointment with him and he immediately recognised them as HFS.

So, what is it? It is a rare condition where an artery in the base of my brain is pressing on nerve/s that control facial movements on the left side of my face. The pressure is making the nerves misfire and I am having spasms on one side of my face. At first they were only every few weeks and were minor (i.e. a small twitch near my mouth, kind of like an Elvis impersonation, for a few minutes at a time), but they have steadily gotten worse in the past couple of months and now I am having them most days, they are contracting the entire left side of my face (and sometimes go over to the right side a bit too), and they can last up to a couple of hours.

Initially I had Botox (yes – I was a celebrity for a while!) to try and stop the spasms, but that hasn’t worked and it left me with the side effects of not being able to open my left eye completely and of having facial droop.

The next option, one that is scary and has risks, is to have surgery. I won’t go into that right now as I have to talk to a neurosurgeon to find out more. I do know the recovery time is lengthy and can be very difficult. Activities after the surgery can be quite limited and are gradually reintroduced over a period of four to six weeks.

Anyway, the spasms make me very tired and I am having trouble getting a lot of things done at the moment. But, I promise I will do blog entries whenever I am able to.

I have been thinking lately that looking after children would be very difficult after the surgery. In some ways it is better that I don’t have children if I have the surgery, but that makes me sad. I am sad to think that not having children could be a benefit in this circumstance.

I also feel angry sometimes. I could have much worse health conditions to be sure, but I sometimes wonder why I have HFS, as well as major depression, as well as a rare skin condition, as well as epilepsy, as well as unexplained hot feet at night that stop me from sleeping, as well as infertility. It just doesn’t seem fair – but then who said life was fair…

Well – that’s enough of me sharing my despondency.

I will finish on a lovely note. I was outside by my fish pond having a cry the other day and my dog, Ari, came to comfort me. Sometimes pets make the best therapists.

One of my three boys...Ari...

Leaving baby behind...

There have been two stories that are similar to each other in the news in the past two months. I have cried at reading both and I have felt a powerful anger while reading both.

The first is about a little boy named “Gammy”. Gammy is the twin of a little girl called Pipah, but they don’t live in the same house, or even in the same country – thanks to their selfish “parents”. An Australian couple used a surrogate from Thailand to have their twins for them. Pipah was born healthy, but Gammy was born with Down Syndrome.  So his “parents” left him behind in Thailand. 

Little Gammy has been adopted by his surrogate mother and will be raised in a loving home. I have to wonder what is in store for Pipah – will her “parents” expect her to be a certain way? What happens if she gets sick? Will they give her up too? Will they think she is not good enough if she doesn’t meet their expectations and standards? The Thailand story...

The second story, which came out this week, is about another Australian couple who used a surrogate in India. They had twins – a boy and a girl. They brought the girl home, but left the boy in India. They didn’t want him because they already had a boy. It seems they may have sold the baby to another family in India, but nobody really seems to know. The India story...

I wonder how many other times children have been abandoned by their Australian “parents” in other countries because they weren’t wanted.

Frankly these people make me sick to my stomach. I do not understand how any parent could leave their child behind. How could anyone decide their own child is not good enough or does not meet some ridiculous criteria?

A couple only wants a baby of a certain gender. Responsibility is withdrawn for a child because they have a medical condition. These type of people do not deserve to be nor should be called parents. They are pathetic.

And it makes me angry that such people have children when there are so many of us who cannot. We would have loved our babies no matter what because we know how precious they are. We would never have left them behind.

How could they?

Hair...

I always pictured myself as one day being an old woman who had grown old gracefully and embraced grey hair and wrinkles as part of being a crone.

Now, what I have to share with you today is not really a big deal in terms of serious life problems, but it has brought up for me another of those “Really, life? You’re throwing this at me as well?” moments.

One of the loveliest parts of growing old was that I thought I would have long grey hair which was in a plait down my back, or in a bun on my head, or even free flowing over my shoulders. I even have some of those grey hairs now – although being honest I still hide them under a covering of henna from time to time.

During these past few weeks I went to a dermatologist to have some dodgy looking moles taken off and assessed in case of skin cancer. Fortunately there was nothing to be concerned about. But, in the process of looking at my other moles for any suspicious ones the dermatologist mentioned that my hair was quite thin at the crown of my head. I knew it was thin, but it wasn’t until I came home that night and looked at it with a mirror that I realised just how thin it had become.

The dermatologist did a puncture biopsy of my head and a week later we had the results. I have alopecia, which is a genetic thinning of the hair over time, and another thing which I can’t remember the name of where my hair follicles are dying and I will lose my hair.

The dermatologist was keen for me to go on medication – like three lots of it – to try and stop my hair loss, but I have decided not to go down this path as I am already on five medications for epilepsy, clinical depression, and high blood pressure. I don’t want to add to that mix really and the side effects of the hair loss medication and the monitoring of levels of different things like potassium are fairly full on. Instead I’m going to use scarves and hats, a thing called a topper that would go on the top of my head and blend in with my own hair to create the look of a full head of hair. And eventually I guess I may use a wig.

So, what has this got to do with not having children? Well, it is a reminder that I am getting older, albeit in a way I hadn’t expected. It is true that some women have babies in their forties, but the chances of this are very, very slight through both natural conception and IVF.  And for Kirby and me it is particularly remote.

I have realized that somewhere in deep down I believed I could still change my mind and we could try IVF one more time. We were young. We were still in that “baby bearing” age group.

The reality has hit that this is not so. We are being taken out of the realm where trying IVF one more time is a choice we truly have. The choice is gradually being taken away from us.

Even though we know we won’t ever try IVF again it is still hard to come to terms with. We have not got as much control as we once did, although I guess we never did have that control. Does this sound all mixed up?

I feel like I am entering another stage of having to say “farewell” to our children. I could hold them here, my fingertips could grip theirs and keep them here, but now letting them go completely is on the horizon.

I don’t feel ready to get older. I don’t feel ready to have grey and thinning hair. I don’t feel ready to accept that the choice, that perhaps we never really had in the first place, is being taken away from me, from us.

There is a scar in my heart from not having our children, and this sudden certainty that I am moving beyond child bearing years, is a splinter that has wedged its way into the tissue that lightly covers the wound I have. And I feel like I am bleeding.