Between awake and asleep...

He is in the realm between awake and asleep

Milky eyes try not to slip behind billowy lids

His gossamer hair plays upon my cheek

As I breathe in the smell of him

That precious newly born scent of him

I trace his face with my finger

Drawing his cheeks, his lips, his nose

Into a comfort for when I must yearn

I raise him up higher than I am

Bring him down to nestle at my breast

My heart beats for both of us

My soul is ever bound to his

It is then that they appear

Those angelic diaphanous beings

To gather him into themselves again

I cannot keep him

I beg for just one more moment

But he is already transforming

From the shape of my child

Into a being of dancing mist

I reach out for his tiny hand

Before it disappears

But he slips through my fingers

And back into their light

My own cry awakens me

My arms reaching out for our son

But he has stayed behind

In the realm between

Awake and asleep

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.

Changes...

I went to the doctor recently as I was bleeding excessively around that time…you know what I mean…

I had blood tests and found out that I am on the border line of being anaemic – which, in case you don’t know, means my iron levels are very low and I get very tired. I’m on big time iron tablets now and already, in just a week, I am feeling so much better. It’s only now that I look back that I realise just how awfully tired I have been. It’s a relief, really, to find out that there is a reason as to why I have been so lacking in energy for so long – and that there is something that can be done about it.

The diagnosis I was not expecting, though, is that I am now considered to be in the initial stages of perimenopause. Perimenopause is “around the time of” menopause. It’s like you’re heading toward the ocean for a swim, you’re not quite there yet, but you start to smell the salty air of the sea (but just not as much fun…).

I had actually suspected for a while that something was going on. I’m 41 years old and therefore at the age when things usually start winding down for women.

Ironically – one way to control the excessive blood loss is to have a Mirena (a contraceptive device). Look it up if you want to. Personally, I don’t like the idea much myself and I’ll be looking at other ways first – such as acupuncture. At least now there are choices for me other than to have a full hysterectomy as would have been the case just 15 years ago!

Anyway – I’ve gone off topic as to what I really wanted to write about.

The emotional side.

There’s always been a part of me that believes I could try for a baby again if I chose to. There was still time. I could simply change my mind. Now that choice is being taken away from me bit by bit. I’m getting older and my body is changing and saying to me that the option of having a baby is being removed.

I’ve known for a long time, now, that I won’t be having children – but being able to think that the possibility still exists has provided me with an odd sense of comfort.

I thought I was fine with the whole perimenopause thing – until I started to cry last night after dreaming that we had a child. They were about two years old and I was holding them in my arms as they drifted off to sleep. Our little Jacob had come to visit me in my dreams again.

I woke up with that familiar empty feeling and even reached out in a bit of a panic to try and find our son.

But he wasn’t there.

There are people who say that you “get over” being unable to have children.

But I don’t know that I ever really will. And so long as Jacob keeps visiting me in my dreams I don’t know that I would want to – however bitter-sweet those dreams might be.