Our child...

I haven’t written an entry for a while as I’ve been concentrating on getting better, and I’ve also been in a bit of an emotional well and found it hard to write. Though things are improving slowly but surely.

So, on my return to the blog – I present you with a funny story about our nephew.

My mother-in-law was explaining our family tree to our nephew (he is five years old). She started with herself and my father-in-law as Grandma and Pop, and then had two branches down to Kirby and my sister-in-law.

My sister-in-law had a line to her husband (our nephew’s Mum and Dad) and from there a line dropped down to our nephew.

That all made sense to him.

Then my mother-in-law drew a line from Kirby to me (as Uncle and Aunty) and explained that we don’t have any children.

I can imagine my nephew as he stood there, rather indignantly, and stated “They DO have children – they have ME!”

He is a precious, precious little boy and I couldn’t love him more if he was my own son.

Strange jealousy...

This week I want to talk about something that I experienced in the early months of us realising we would not be able to have children.

It seems a strange thing to have thought now, but then, when we are grieving our thoughts are often different to those we would normally have.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we only have photos of our children as embryos. Wow – this is hard to write about…as I feel a bit ashamed about it (although I tell myself I shouldn’t.) I used to be jealous of people who had children, of course, but I also was kind of jealous of people who had had a still born child.

I didn’t, and don’t, actually wish a still born child on anyone and certainly not on ourselves. I can’t even begin to know what it would be like to have a child and for them to have died before they took their first breath.

What I was jealous for is that they got to hold their baby and have photos with them and show the baby to their family and perhaps friends too. Their baby, their child, was real. Ours were just a flicker for a few days and nobody but us and the medical staff saw them. Our parents couldn’t hold them – we couldn’t say “look at this beautiful angel that we created.”

Even now my arms are aching to hold them.

It’s a strange kind of jealousy – actually I’m not even sure, now, that jealousy is the right word. Perhaps it’s more that I wished for something more than what we had – even if it was just to get to hold our child. To have those photos and to see their faces. I wanted to take every part of them into my memory.

We didn’t get to do that and sometimes I think that our loss is not even viewed as a loss because of that. But, we did lose something precious.

It’s impossible to compare losses and it’s certainly not a competition. What am I trying to say here? Perhaps that there was nothing for us to hold out and say “see what we have lost – we created this and we had dreams and hopes for this and we loved this…and now it’s gone.”

Our pain about our loss was ours and the pain my friends have felt about their loss was theirs. There’s no scale to measure which was stronger or bigger or worse – but both losses and the grieving for our children were, and remain, real.

I feel that this entry is a bit all over the place, so let me know if any of it doesn’t make sense. xxx

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.

Aunty Bev...

This post isn’t technically about not have children, but it is about life.

It’s strange that I wrote about all the small things in life last week and posted a collage of some of those small things that are important parts of my life, for this week has made me realise even more how important those seemingly small things are.

Last Wednesday night, the 6^th of May, my Aunty Bev had a massive stroke and collapsed at her home. She never regained consciousness and within a few days the doctors determined that she was brain dead. Life support was removed on Sunday night and she died about fifteen minutes later. She was only 65 years old which is far too young.

Aunty Bev lived in Sydney, New South Wales (which is over 1100 kilometres (or 700 miles) away) with my Uncle Trev. We didn’t get to see her as much I would have liked, but distance and time apart didn’t affect how much she meant (and means) to me.

I’m finding it hard to write at the moment…so instead I will share what I wrote about Aunty Bev on Facebook…

“Aunty Bev always believed in me. She told me she was proud of me and loved my writing. She had a way of making me feel that I was just right just as I am, because she loved me just as I am. It's unbelievable, it's not fair, and it is so hard to think about. But, already I know that her legacy will live on - because she had a way of getting me to see the preciousness of family, friends, and life. And I hope I can pass this on to my nieces and nephews. I love you and miss you Aunty Bev xxx”

It’s the little things that matter – a smile, a voice, a laugh, a hug, and memories that will never fade away.

Uncle Trev and Aunty Bev with my nieces Ella and Hannah

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.

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!

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.

Anniversaries...

Eight years ago I was having a breakfast of croissants, juice, and coffee with my Mum and Dad and three of my closest friends at the old house Kirby and I used to own. After our breakfast we were going to the hairdresser where my friends and I would have our hair and make-up done.

After that we would come back home and I would put on my beautiful white dress which reminded me of autumn, and my friends would put on their stunning pale green dresses.

Dad and I would then get into a 1957 Bentley and my friends would get into a Royal Daimler Limousine which would take us to the Adelaide Town Hall where Kirby and I would be married in front of our family and friends.

I can’t believe it has been eight years already, but at the same time when I think of everything that has happened it couldn’t possibly be less than eight years because there wouldn’t have been time for it all.

Our anniversary is always a strange kind of day. A celebration mixed with tinges of wistfulness. I love Kirby so much and the 8^th of April is a celebration of that love and the day that we committed to each other for exactly who we were and who we were to become. But there are two shades of wistfulness that come about as well, and one of them I’ve only realized exists in the past year or two.

The most obvious source of wistfulness is that if we had been successful with our very first round of IVF our baby would have been due on about the 8^th of April 2009. We did not get to the stage of egg collection and there was no embryo transfer, but nevertheless I think about the “what if”. It would have been awesome to be celebrating the fifth birthday of our child as we celebrate the eighth anniversary of our marriage.

The other font of wistfulness, which I have only realized in the past few years, is that our anniversary is cause to look back at a time when we were certain about what our lives would be like today.

We were sure that by now we would have children, that we would still be in our old house and have renovated it, and that we would both have satisfying careers (I thought at the time that I could be working in human resources) which would also give us a work/life balance for our kids. We saw family holidays, children’s birthday parties, kindergarten, mess, finger paintings on the fridge, little tiny beds and teddy bears, and toys everywhere.

Sometimes I think we were very naïve when we got married, but we weren’t really. There was no reason for us to think that we wouldn’t have children. We actually still have no reason as to why we couldn’t have children. We assumed that it would happen, just like it had for so many couples we knew.

We really had a fairy tale romance during those first two years. After so much time searching we had found each other. We bought a house together within three months, were engaged two months after that, and we were married within eighteen months of meeting each other. Our families got along so well, and I felt I belonged with Kirby’s friends immediately, as did he with mine.

Why would we even dream, when everything was so amazing and we knew we were soul mates, that we wouldn’t be able to have children?

Yet, here we are. Eight years later and we don’t have the children and the life we thought we would have.

We are happy with our lot. We have an honest, trusting, and loving relationship. We have wonderfully supportive family and friends. We have new dreams and plans. We have our crazy fur and fin kids. We have our nephews and nieces. We have our friends’ children. We have a lovely home, live in a beautiful area, and we have food on the table. Life, compared with those of so many, is good.

Still, I think it is okay to feel happy for our anniversary and wistful for our children every year on the 8^th of April.

I will be writing two more blog entries this week as there are two other topics I want to talk about. One will be about dates and the other will be about stars.

Before I end this blog entry I want to share something beautiful that happened in this past week. My friend was over with her three year old daughter. Out of nowhere the little girl threw her arms around my neck and said “I love you”. This is what makes life good.

Nothing good comes from giving up...

There is a fantastic website called Mama Mia, which has articles on many different issues – societal, health, fashion, relationships, etc.

One of the stories in the past week was on a celebrity who has had a baby after 20 rounds of IVF and at the age of 49. I wrote about this in a blog entry last year. She and her husband were interviewed after the birth of their child and one of the comments was “nothing good comes from giving up.”

When I read this I was deeply upset and angry at this comment. I wrote the following on Facebook to share my distress with my friends and family:

“Sorry - feeling hurt right now. I'm glad that Mary Coustas has had a healthy baby after 20 rounds of IVF, but her saying that "nothing good comes from giving up" is a bit of a kick in the guts to those like me and Kirby who have had no success in having children - even with IVF. I guess it's different if you have endless money...but we don't have a spare $70000 to spend on trying and trying again...and, yes, we still have lots of good in our lives, even though we "gave up". We have each other, we have our nephews and nieces, we have our fur-kids...we have lives that are different to what we thought we would have, but we still feel blessed. But we still hurt sometimes, and we do have the endless wound of "what if", and statements like this feel like someone is sticking a needle into that wound and jabbing it around. Okay - rant over!”

My distress has diminished greatly, and I have been amazed at how my comment has been received.

Many of my friends and family have shown their support through liking my Facebook post, commenting that it is not fair that we can’t have children, and even sending hugs over the internet if they are live far away from me. I realize just how blessed I am that I can speak my mind, from a place of pain, and receive comfort and love from my friends and family.

I also posted this comment on Mama Mia, and many of the responses to my comment, as well as many (though not all) of the comments by other people, have made me realize that I am not alone. Sometimes I feel like my thoughts are nasty – that I am terrible for thinking what I do, and that I am even more horrible for writing down my thoughts and making them public.

But, I’ve realized this week that what I write, what I have written above, speaks to many people who are struggling with the same thoughts and feelings.

Sometimes it seems like such a lonely journey in which I feel like a villain for what I think and how I feel, but I have realized I am far from alone. And I’ve realized that I am not a villain. I am just human.

Tattooed memories…

Photo by Gina Minton Kearns

I’ve been planning for a long time to get a tattoo on my shoulder blade for my children. It is based on this beautiful photograph by Gina Minton Kearns. The tattoo will be based on a close up of these children’s hands. I’ve often dreamt about my children holding each other’s hands and looking after each other, so this picture is a perfect representation of them.

Skyla on Odi's day bed...

This past week my cousin Alicia, her partner, Pike, and their two year old daughter, Skyla, were over from Laos visiting family. It was the first time we had met either Pike or Skyla, and they both won us over very, very quickly. Pike is such a lovely man, and Skyla is a real character – as you can see from these photos of her.

Skyla and me

There was a family gathering on Wednesday night which Kirby and I couldn’t go to, but we were lucky enough to have Alicia, Pike, and Skyla stay with us on Tuesday night – so we got them all to ourselves!

Pike, Skyla, Alicia and the kangaroo

Alicia, Skyla, Pike, and the pelican

The next day I got to take Alicia, Pike, and Skyla to Cleland Wildlife Park so that Pike and Skyla could see their first kangaroo. Skyla has no fear of animals at all and was fascinated by everything she saw. Alicia, Pike, and Skyla got a photo of them holding a koala, and we fed birds in the wetlands in the park, and went face to face with emus.

Hugo doesn’t have any cousins here in Australia and so we like to get him involved with the children on my side of the family – we tell him that they are not really his cousins, but that we can say they are anyway. Hugo came over on Tuesday night to meet Alicia, Pike, and Skyla, and the two kids got along really well. It’s true that Skyla bopped him on the head with a toy car when he wouldn’t let her put her car on the cat’s scratching ramp, but overall they played together and laughed together and danced together all evening.

Skyla and Hugo

When it was time for Hugo to go home Skyla and Hugo gave each other a big cuddle. Kirby headed down the hall to the front door, and you’ll never guess what happened next.

Hugo and Skyla followed him, hand in hand, chatting about something that only they understood. 

It was an incredible, magical moment. It was not only adorably cute, but it was the photo above, my tattoo, come to life. I was really touched and it is a picture I have stored in my memory bank so that I can take it out and cherish it for the rest of my days.

Life passes by...

Twenty one years ago, almost to the minute, I was studying for my final high school exams which were being held the following day. My parents were both at work and I had books, pens and papers scattered over the dining room table.

Suddenly the roller door to the garage went up. I looked outside to see Mum and Dad in the car – Mum’s face was white and Dad’s expression was grim. Something was wrong.

Mum and Dad came inside and told me to sit down. I didn’t want to because I knew when I did I would hear words I didn’t want to hear. I had no idea what, and I didn’t want to know.

I sat down and Dad said “Ben was killed in a motorcycle accident last night.”

I remember feeling like I had been punched in the chest, I couldn’t breathe, and there was no sound from my mouth – no scream, no cry, nothing.

Ben and me

 Ben was (is) my older cousin. We actually didn’t know he was my cousin until after he died – Mum and Ben’s Mum found that we had a common recent ancestor about four years later. Even so, I had always felt that he was like a cousin to me.

Ben was only twenty one when he died.

Ben has been gone now for the same number of years that he was on the Earth. I wonder what he could have and would have done by now if he had lived. And, it’s made me reflect on what I’ve done in the past twenty one years, and who I am now.

I have done many things – got three degrees including a Masters, owned my own apartment, worked at different jobs, fought my way through different health conditions – even if it is to the point of living with them rather than getting rid of them. I’ve found my soul mate and got married. Obviously, with Kirby, I’ve gone through trying to have children and the hope, fear and grief that accompany that journey.

This is all important stuff, and I’m not dismissing any of it as every single thing I’ve done has brought me here and helped to make me the person I am.

The only thing I wonder about now is – if this is me, is this the me I want to be? Without a doubt I want to be married to Kirby, I love my friends, my pets, my family – but who am I really in all of this? What do I want to do with this life?

I think I’m going through the kind of crisis that most people go through when they are around my age – the kind of crisis that leads one to wonder, “Is this it?” A few months ago one of my precious friends said to me “this isn’t what I signed up for.” I can relate with this right at the moment. Life is good, don’t get me wrong, but I want to do something more – I want to be something more.

The only problem is that I don’t really know what something is.

I’ve always thought that since we can’t have children I would do something else – something that matters – with my life. In the past few years I’ve thought about it, talked about it, made some steps towards it – but then I seem to get a bit scared and run back to hide behind a rock or disappear behind a grove of trees.

My brother, Paul, me and Ben

Well – enough already. I need to get some gumption and start doing. I need to stop thinking and start acting. I need to stop worrying about whether I’m on the right path, what people will think, and anything else that is holding me back.

I need to do this for Ben and I need to do it for our kids.

Kirby got chocolates...

And I ate half of them!

Last Sunday was Father’s Day here in Australia. It is a day that does remind Kirby and I that we don’t have our own children – there are no children (human at least) that give him a card and a present and make breakfast in bed for him.

Before Hugo was born Father’s Day was about us kids (Kirby, Zoe and me) celebrating our two Dads. We were the children – the next generation. When Hugo came along Father’s Day changed. We had a gorgeous little boy who celebrated his Papa (his Dad) and his Pop (Kirby and Zoe’s Dad). Our little nephew is of the next generation – the generation to which Kirby and my children would have belonged, and it became a little difficult to face Father’s Day.

Three Father’s Days on and it’s not nearly so emotionally difficult, and here’s why:

Father’s Day 2013

When I woke up after a little bit of a sleep in, Kirby was relaxing in the lounge watching a car race that he had taped the week before. He was the picture of relaxation in his pyjamas with Felix, one of our cats, sitting on his lap. Felix barely opened his eyes to look at me and in his state of bliss at being on Kirby’s lap I’m not sure he even registered that I was standing there!

I went and made a yummy breakfast of fruit muffins and coffee and brought it into the lounge. Frankie and Minerva (our other cats) came in and tried to convince us that they needed muffins for breakfast too! It didn’t happen…

After we had eaten I went and got an envelope and gave it to Kirby. This is what was written in the card:

Dear Daddy,

We meant to go and get you a present, but Ari and Odi chased the cats,

 the cats chased the fish, and the fish hid. So nobody went to the shops.

Okay – lame excuse, but we are animals! So go and buy a move or some music.

Lots of love,

Minerva, Frankie, Felix, Ari, Odi, Ursula, Dylan, Calypso, George, Sydney,

Harriet, Holly and the seven fish yet to be named.

Yep – our fur and scale kids had given a card to their Daddy. Although, because they are slackers and wouldn’t go to the shop, I had to organise the card. Kirby was delighted with his card and put it up on the wall unit.

The next few hours were spent changing cat litter, doing dishes, vacuuming and mopping the floor and setting the table for our guests. Kirby tried to use the card the kids gave him to get out of house work, as it said he should relax and take it easy. Nice try, but wasn’t going to happen!

My Mum and Dad arrived first, bearing caramel slice and a potato bake. Then Kirby’s folks, Zoe and Hugo turned up with sunshine salad (look up the recipe with jelly and pineapple in it – yum!) and a cake. We sat around the table and grazed on the dips and biscuits Zoe had brought.  Hugo was determined to play cars straight away, and feed the fish, but we told him we would do so after lunch.

Then it was present time. We gave my Dad his card and present first and then Kirby and Zoe’s Dad was given his. Both Dads loved their presents and their cards. Hugo’s Papa is currently overseas so Hugo didn’t get to give him his present on Sunday.

Next, Hugo brought over a present for Kirby. A lovely carton of chocolates! The card that accompanied it had a photo of Hugo with his toy elephant, tiger and zebra on it. Inside the card read:

Uncle Kirby’s Day

Dear Uncle Kirby

Best wishes for Uncle Kirby day.

 I love you and your cars.

Hugo

Hugo's photo on Uncle Kirby's card

After the present giving we organised a BBQ lunch and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the day with our families and with our darling nephew, Hugo.

You see – on the first Father’s Day after Hugo was born, my mother-in-law organised a present from Hugo to Kirby and named Father’s Day as Uncle Kirby’s Day as well. It was a true gift from her. It makes Kirby feel special (and me on Mother’s Day, or Aunty Kate’s Day, too!). We are celebrated by Hugo as very important and much loved people in his life.

Father’s Day has become easier with each passing year, but more importantly, it has become a day for Kirby to be celebrated. His fur and scale kids celebrate him as their Daddy and Hugo celebrates him as his Uncle Kirby.

How could you not enjoy a day like that?

Especially given there were chocolates! 

*

Our fur kids...the fish refused to be photographed...

Felix

Minerva

Frankie (Francesca)

Ari

Odi

This is MY life...

One of the hardest things about not having kids is sharing your plans and dreams with those who do have kids. We’ve had to rethink our lives and create new dreams that don’t include having our own children. Our dreams include travel, me being a writer, Kirby developing computer games, doing volunteer work and pursuing other adventures. Many of these ambitions would be very difficult, if not impossible, if we had children.

A year or two ago we were out to dinner with a few friends (all who have children) and the conversation was mainly about children. Kirby and I had recently decided that we would like to go to Alaska to see the glaciers. I was very excited and wanted to share this with my friends and did so. It is a long term dream, but one we are steadily working towards. The response from the group was to say how they couldn’t do that because they had kids, and then the conversation turned straight back to being about their children.

I love hearing about the children our friends and family have, but it is not our life. The life Kirby and I have is different to what we thought it was going to be and we have worked hard through our grief at not having children and have worked hard to develop lives that have meaning, goals and happiness.

I want to share our anticipation about our plans with our friends and family, but sometimes it feels as though because we don’t have children our news and our plans are not interesting enough. Sometimes I want to share what’s going on in my life – and sometimes listening ears are not there, or they are there only for people who have similar lives to them  – in that they have children.

Don’t get me wrong – most of our family and friends are very keen to hear about our plans and excitement at those plans and we are very, very lucky.

Perhaps I’m just in a down mood today – you know – when you see the negative rather than the positive.

One of our babies would have been five in a few weeks. I can’t talk about him or her and their first day at school and their attempts at calisthenics or swimming or whatever else they would have been interested in. I can talk about all the children in our lives who I love so much. But, sometimes I feel very lonely in this life – so very different to most of those around us.

Next time I will be more positive – I promise…

Totally besotted...

I met Ruby Grace (my second-cousin) last Friday, and I am completely in love.

She is a sweet little girl – so tiny and snuggly. Dale handed her to me as soon as I got there and I got to hold her for quite a while. It was wonderful. She started to fuss a little when she was getting tired and didn’t want to go to sleep. It was lovely to be able to settle her by moving her dummy slightly from side to side and gently patting her. Her eyes flickered while she slept and I wondered what she might be dreaming of.

Dale commented that I knew about babies and I said that I had had a lot of practice over the years – including with her fiancé, Josh! I was ten when he was born and I remember changing his nappies! Below is a photo of Josh and me when Josh was checking to see if my Cabbage Patch doll, Cleo, was really asleep – I have already told him that if Ruby is asleep he’d best not check by poking at her eyes.

It was the first time I met Josh’s fiancé, Dale, as well. We hit it off instantly – big hugs as soon as I walked in the door. We even share the habit of accidently putting on odd socks on a regular occasion! Dale and Josh are besotted by Ruby (understandably), but are so relaxed with her as well. That little girl has been born to two wonderful people.

I gave Ruby a gorgeous little romper suit from Eternal Creation, but it will be a while before I get to see her in it as it is size three to six months – but I reckon with her light auburn hair she will look so gorgeous in it! Check out Eternal Creation if you haven’t already – their clothes are beautiful and the company is doing such great work in India. http://www.eternalcreation.com/

I was only planning to stay for about an hour, but two and a half hours later I finally had to tear myself away. I offered to take Ruby with me, but Josh and Dale said no…hmmm…perhaps I should have just snuck her away? Just kidding…kind of…

As I was leaving I told Josh how proud I am of him. I really am so proud of Josh – he is a great Dad and no doubt will continue to be so.

Ruby and me

The romper suit for Ruby

My little cousin, Josh, and me.

***

I wanted to briefly mention the next blog entry I have planned. I will be writing it over the weekend or early next week. It will be about something that happened this week that I am not proud of. I have thought long and hard about writing about it, but this blog is meant to be about all the experiences and emotions I have now I can’t have children. That must include those experiences that are difficult to talk about because they have made me ashamed, because other people who can’t have children may well have similar experiences and I want them to know they are not alone.

Not having children brings about such a range of emotions and the darker ones can’t be ignored, especially by me in this blog as I want to be honest and I want to share things that might help other people to realize that the darker emotions are normal.

One of my favorite writers, Thomas Moore, says in his book “Care of the Soul”:

“The soul presents itself in a variety of colours, including all shades of gray, blue, and black. To care for the soul, we must observe the full range of all its colourings, and resist the temptation to approve only of white, red, and orange – the brilliant colors.” Moore, Thomas (1994) Care of the Soul, HarperCollins, New York

So, next time my entry will be a little bit darker.

A Piece of Heaven...

On Saturday my Mum and Dad, Kirby and I, our nephew, Hugo, and our friends’ eight year old daughter, Jess, went to the Beach House. The Beach House is a two storey building by the seashore with waterslides, a carousel, a little train, mini golf, bumper boats and much more.

Mum and Dad had decided that instead of giving Hugo a gift for his third birthday they would take him there – and then Kirby and I were included and then Jess, who Hugo adores, was invited too.

It was a magic day. The kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves at the Beach House and afterwards flying a kite on the beach.  Although I’m not sure who enjoyed the kite the most – the kids or Dad!

When Kirby and I realised that we weren’t going to have children one of the things that hurt most was that we were not going to be giving Mum and Dad grandchildren that they would be able to live close to. My nieces live in another state – a two hour flight or a three day drive away – so Mum and Dad only get to see them a few times a year. I was looking forward to Mum and Dad being able to have grandchildren nearby.

But, perhaps it is that very hurt that has made Saturday so very special and precious. For a day we had a glimpse of what it might have been like if we’d had children. Kirby and I looked like every other couple who were there with their children and parents – nobody who didn’t know us would have thought twice about whether Hugo and Jess were our children or whether Mum and Dad were the doting grandparents.

It was nice. It was better than nice. It was a blessing to spend a day in this type of heaven.

The best bit, though, is that even though Jess and Hugo are not our children, they love us and we love them so very much. We get to spend time with them and every minute is precious. And Mum and Dad love them too.

Sometimes it’s hard not to have what other people have, but when we get a little piece of heaven like we did on Saturday, it is such a beautiful thing.

Introducing...

In 2003, about a year before I met Kirby, I had a very special dream about my Grandma – my Dad’s Mum. I dreamt I was in a long hallway and she was standing at one end and me at the other. Between us was a little girl who looked about two years old, who was toddling towards me. Grandma looked at me and said “This is Ruby – you will look after her now.”

My Grandma had died on Boxing Day 1999.

I met Kirby in October 2004, and not long after we met I told him about the dream. We had already talked about having children, and he thought that Ruby would be the perfect name for a daughter if we had one. Kirby even bought me a necklace with a ruby stone for our first Christmas together.

Not long into our relationship I found out that Kirby’s Grandma, his Mum’s Mum, was called Grace. It was just right for the second name for our Ruby. Ruby Grace – it sounded beautiful.

We never had our Ruby Grace, or our Jacob Arthur either (Arthur after my Dad).

I have eleven cousins, and one of them is Joshua. It often seems strange to me that he is a well and truly grown up man now – I used to change his nappy and bath him when he was a little baby! Although I suppose I was only ten when he was born. I haven’t seen Josh for quite a few years.

A few days ago Josh and his partner, Dale, had their first child. They had a little girl, and they called her Ruby Grace. Out of the millions of names they could have chosen, they chose the exact name that we were going to call our daughter if she had turned up. Joshua and I have never spoken about names, and he had no idea about our intentions.

I have seen a photo of Ruby Grace and will be going down to visit Josh, Dale and Ruby in the next few weeks. She is beautiful – as you can see from the photo below.

Little Ruby has already made a wonderful difference in my life, as she will be the reason that I will see Josh again – I have missed him and can’t wait to see him because of who he is, as well as for his daughter and Dale of course.

I’ll admit that when I found out Josh and Dale had called their daughter Ruby Grace a part of my heart hurt a bit. It didn’t last long and now you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if you tried!

It would have been wonderful if there were two Ruby Graces in our family – I’m sure our Ruby would have led baby Ruby astray…but, having Josh and Dale’s Ruby Grace arrive this week is incredible and she has made the world a more beautiful place.

I’ll definitely do a blog entry after I meet her for the first time.

Ruby Grace – how awesome is that?

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.”

My Legacy

I can’t believe it is already six days into March. It really doesn’t feel like two months of 2013 have passed already.

This year, in July, it will be two years since my beloved Nan passed away from leukaemia. I miss her every day, and when I drive past where she used to live, I catch myself thinking I will call in on her. Then I remember that she is gone.

Every day there is something that I wish I could tell her – that I’m going to Thailand, that last week my two year old nephew told me it was nice to meet me, that my dog, Ari, fell into the lake and was embarrassed. Often I tell her anyway. I don’t know how it all works when we die, but I like to think our loved ones are around at least some of the time – that they check in on us. I can almost hear Nan’s laughter when I tell her that my cat, Minerva, was chasing her tale or feel her arms around me when I tell her about the waterhen I found who was sick and that I took to a bird sanctuary, but then it died.

I won’t have any children or grandchildren to remember me when I am gone. At times I feel sad about it. In centuries to come, if any of my brother’s descendants are researching family history I will be the name on the side – Paul’s sister, not the direct ancestor. I am not sure how interesting I will be – unless, of course, I am one of the first people to colonise Mars.

I am not certain what my legacy will be, but I know it won’t be from my body – at least not directly.

In some ways I feel like this makes me try harder to find a way to do something that matters, to leave the world a better place even if it’s just in a small way. Whether I’m remembered or not, I want to leave something that might be passed on not only through my nieces and nephews, but through other people that I meet and even just because I helped plant trees that have grown into centuries old beauties.

It might be the case that I am forgotten as the years, decades and centuries pass by, but in reality, how many of us will be remembered whether we have had children or not?

All I can do is do what I can do. And I intend to. I want to give something back for this amazing life I have been given and leave a legacy – even if my name is never spoken again.

Wear a Star Day

I’ve often thought about ways that I could honour the memory of our babies – the two I lost in early miscarriage and the two that didn’t stay during IVF. There was nothing I could think of that seemed right. I thought about having a ceremony somewhere and inviting family and friends, but I’ve never got around to organising it and the more time that passes the less appealing that idea has become.
I even thought about getting a tattoo of two little hands holding one another, but again it just didn’t feel right. I don’t need something like a tattoo to remember them.

Still – the yearning for some way I could remember them remained.
One of my friends invited me to check out a Facebook page called “Wear a Star Day.” I had no idea what it was about and wasn’t that fussed about going to the page (I get a lot of suggestions for pages I should look at!), but I did and I was blown away.

The creators of this page have set aside the 12th April as “Wear a Star Day”, where people who have been affected by the loss of a child can wear a star to remember them. This means the loss of any child, from miscarriage to stillbirth to losing a child any time during their lives. The creators of the page were hoping for 10,000 people to sign up, but there are already 22,000 – this, to me, just shows how many people are affected by the loss of a child.

For me it is a way that I can remember and celebrate our babies once a year.
People can wear any type of star (necklace, earrings, brooch, sticker…) and I’ve chosen to wear a brooch that I’ve bought off of a website called Etsy.

I’ll finish with the comment I put on the “Wear a Start Day” page:

“Thank you for giving us a day where we can say they were here and they were loved.”