My Funeral

This week Kirby and I attended the funeral of my Aunty’s father. He was a lovely man – very kind and patient and full of good humour. The funeral was beautiful. Two of my cousins spoke and it brought tears to many an eye. I was really proud of them – they are strong and intelligent men and very much take after their Grandfather.

The chapel was full of people who loved my Aunty’s father – children, grandchildren, friends and extended family. It made me think – who will be at my funeral? I won’t have children and grandchildren to talk about me and how my life has influenced them. It made me feel sad. Will there be anyone to see me off? Will there be anyone to say I’ve been a positive influence on their lives and that they will miss me?

It was easy to sit back and do a bit of self-pitying, but then when I thought about it seriously I realised that there are children in my life and that they might very well be the ones who care about me and attend my funeral. What I need to do is to continue to care for them and to be an important part of their lives. My nieces and nephews are as close to my own children as I will get, but they will only care enough to be at my funeral if I give them all I can of me.

So, enough self-pitying for me and I need to get my butt into gear and show my babies how much I care for them. And I do. I love Hannah, Ella and Hugo. I also love Jessica, Amelia, Oscar, Oliver and all the other children who may not be related to me, but I would give anything to protect.

Perhaps this sounds like a bit of dreary post – talking about my own funeral – but really it makes me think about truly living. And I plan to be living for a long, long time yet. I want to be the crazy old cat lady at 70 or 80 dancing at my babies’ fiftieth birthdays…

Why, Oh Why?

Okay – so adding onto last week as promised. Last week I wrote that there are other reasons, other than the low chance of us becoming pregnant, that have made us decide not to try IVF again. And IVF is really the only way we could expect to get pregnant.

One of the reasons, in all honesty, is the money that it costs to do a round of IVF. It costs thousands of dollars. We could save up for it, but by the time we did I would be just that little bit older (closer to 40), and the risks to any baby we might conceive would have increased significantly. After 40 the risk of having a baby with Down Syndrome is one in 60 compared to one in 1500 at 25 years of age. The risk of complications in pregnancy is also significantly higher. There is a good website that explains it all, so I won’t go into it further here. http://www.babycenter.com.au/pregnancy/antenatalhealth/ageandpregnancy/.

This is something that we do need to take into account, and there is an additional risk to any baby we might conceive due to health issues that I have. I am currently on five different medications for blood pressure, depression and epilepsy. Epilepsy medication in particular has a significant risk of causing harm to a baby – basically I’ve been told not to get pregnant while on it as the risks are so high. I could go off of the medication while trying to get pregnant, but the risk epilepsy has on an unborn child is also significant – talk about a catch 22!

So these are extra reasons why we aren’t going to do another round of IVF – the cost, my age, and the risks of medications and/or conditions on an unborn child.

Feeling bad and being okay

here’s a book called ‘The Happiness Trap’ that my Mum has ordered and is about to read. I checked it out on Amazon and it seems to be about the myth that we have to be happy all the time. I couldn’t agree more that it is a myth, and I also agree that society repeats this myth to us far too often. One part of the book talks about fairy tales and how they always end in ‘happily ever after’.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve realised that I don’t have to be happy all the time, and I can feel like shit and still be okay. I can feel angry and still be okay. I can feel down and depressed and still be okay. I don’t have to put on a brave face if I don’t want to. I can have my heart torn apart and still I am okay.

The myth of being happy all the time, I believe, does far more damage than good. It puts a pressure on people (particularly when they are already under pressure) to be something that is just not always possible.

I’m not saying that thinking positively is not worthwhile in some cases, but sometimes it just doesn’t cut it. I can think positively all I want – it still doesn’t mean we will have a baby.

I went to a course on writing last year and a lot of it was really about self-help and the power of positive thinking. Their basic message was that with the power of the mind you can achieve anything you set your mind to. I don’t want to completely disregard this opinion, but it truly is not always the case. Think about all the people who are training hard and positively thinking about winning gold in the 100 metre swimming at the upcoming Olympics – clearly not all of them are going to win it, so it kind of blows the idea that positive thinking will get you where you want to be out of the water.

I don’t want to sound negative, and I do believe that positive thinking, along with being realistic, can get you a long way. For example, I am hoping to become a published writer, and I keep envisioning my book written and published and selling. I’m giving it the best shot that I can.

With regard to babies, however, while there is a minute chance that perhaps we could have one, we have come to the realisation that it won’t happen for us, and that it is okay for us to grieve about it.

I think I will leave it there and talk more about why we won’t be trying for a child again next week. There are more reasons than our chances being slim.

What If?

The other night I was lying on the couch watching telly when I had an overwhelming urge to tell Kirby that I wanted to try IVF again. It was completely out of the blue – and it felt desperate, like if we didn’t try again I couldn’t move forward in anything.

I pictured my abdomen getting larger over time, our baby when we first met it, watching the baby grow, take its first steps, speak its first words. Everything would be perfect. And, of course, the IVF cycle would work.

I sat with the feeling for a while – enjoying the possibilities of a child in our lives. I thought about Hugo having a cousin here in Australia (he doesn’t have any and we are his only option for having one – all of his cousins are in Africa). They could pretty much grow up together as they would only be about two years apart.

The feelings I was having – the desperation, the longing – soon began to fade a little, and reality drove its way straight into the lounge room. I had a bit of a cry and a hug from Kirby as I realised that it wasn’t going to happen. For many reasons it wasn’t going to happen – some of these being the cost of IVF now, the impact on my health of doing another round, and that time spent with our child would be time spent away from Hugo. This is aside from the fact that the chances of another cycle being successful were extremely low.

I guess I’m realising that the grief and longing never truly go away. That inner need to have a child will probably be there until I die. I will always wonder about it – about what could have been. But, then, isn’t that true of many things in life, both good and bad. I wonder whether we would have bought our house at all if we’d realised we weren’t going to have children, I wonder what my life would have been like if I’d studied environmental science, I wonder where I would be now if I hadn’t met Kirby.

I guess it’s the mind’s way of showing us what could have been, so we can see what is, and in a way the feelings and grief about not having children do make me see, eventually, what we do have. We have Hugo. I’m guessing by now you’re realising just how important he is to me and how much I love that little guy. I wouldn’t swap him for the world.

A Gift from Hugo...

Kirby and I spent Tuesday with my sister in law Zoe and Hugo. Hugo was asleep when we arrived and so we proceeded to have lunch and chat away. I was making coffee when Hugo emerged from his bedroom and trotted down the hallway. He looked at Kirby and walked by him, then looked at Zoe and walked past her, and then he came up to me with his arms upstretched to be picked up. Of course I picked him up and he snuggled in while he slowly woke up properly.

Sometimes I get a little jealous of other people when their children only want them. When, at the end of the day, their child will go home with them and have bath time and story time. I think that it will never happen for me with a child, because I don’t have a child of my own.

Well, Hugo has taught me that it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. For that moment I was the most important person and the one that could offer him the comfort and security that he was seeking. It was really special.

Other People in Our Lives

I have had two conversations this week that have made me think about the fact it is not only Kirby and me that are affected by us not being able to have kids.

I went out to lunch with one of my dearest friends and mentioned the blog and the book I hope to make out it. She said that the book would be good for relatives and friends of people who can’t have kids as well, as it might give them some insight into what it is like for the couple concerned.

I was talking to my Mum on the phone just now and she mentioned that the daughter of a friend of hers had recently had a daughter, and she felt jealous; jealous for her and jealous for us.

Not having kids does affect Kirby and me, but it also affects our friends and family. They grieve for us and for themselves as well. My friend wonders what it would have been like for us to raise our children together (they would have been about the same age), our Mums and Dads hurt for us, as do our sisters and brothers, when they hear of other people having children. It doesn’t mean they resent other people for having children, just that they wish it could be us as well.

One insight I have had is that, in some ways, it might be easier for us. Sure, we do have moments where we are sad and sometimes angry at the way things have panned out, but for the most part we have got used to the idea and we are filling our lives up with other things such as pets and writing and Hugo and spending time with each other more than we perhaps would have been able to with kids. We see ourselves every day as being okay and moving forward (with little steps backward and times of tears amongst it all of course). Our friends and family know we are okay, but they don’t see every day that we are.

Our family and friends don’t see the alternative life we are creating every day, and instead are more likely to be impacted by news of other people’s children as in how it affects or could affect us. I guess it must seem like there is a hole in our lives that is always there and can never be filled, and it must seem that that hole is so huge to people looking in from outside.

It’s true that there is a hole, but the hole is not as scary as it once was, and we acknowledge its presence and fill it up as best we can while giving it respect. We see our lives as what could have been, but mostly for what it is, and we see that every day.

Bye bye, baby, goodbye...

This is going to come as a complete surprise to our friends and family. A few years ago, for about six months, I thought about leaving our marriage. Kirby knows about this, so it won’t come as a surprise to him. I thought about leaving and being on my own – of having a life where I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, and could define it any way I pleased. I could have my own house and my own things like I did before I met Kirby – I had a gorgeous little apartment for a while there – just me and Minerva.

These thoughts interrupted me quite significantly, and, basically, scared the you know what out of me. I felt so guilty, and I didn’t know who I could talk to about it. I didn’t want to talk to our family or friends because I felt like such a bad person. I didn’t want to talk to Kirby about it because I didn’t want to hurt him and I wasn’t sure what I really felt. At times I wanted to leave, and at times there was no doubt at all that I wanted to stay as Kirby was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Eventually there came a point where I couldn’t deal with these thoughts and feelings on my own – so I fessed up to Kirbs. You can imagine my surprise when he told me he had had similar thoughts and feelings. It was relief that I wasn’t the only one, coupled with fear that perhaps our marriage was going to end.

Kirby and I talked and talked about how we felt, and eventually came to a realisation. For our entire relationship we had pictured a large part of that being parents to our kids. We were going to be a team raising a couple of children – sharing the highs and lows, teaching them, caring for them, standing together for them. We expected this would happen from the first day we met. Now that this wouldn’t happen – what were we? There was a black hole right where the parenting bit of our relationship would have been, and running away from it seemed the only way to deal with it, except that this also meant running away from each other.

We had relief with the realisation that what we needed to do was redefine our relationship as a couple. We needed to work out who we were as individuals and as partners in life, and that is what we have being doing since. There is certainly never going to be a point where we have it all sorted (where would be the fun in that?), but we are pretty damn happy with our relationship now. To be honest, since opening up to each other about our thoughts of leaving, it’s almost felt like we dated again – getting to know each other again. And that was kind of cool.