This time last year...
We do a May Pole dancing event at work (pre school) and this year it sparked powerful flashbacks of unhappiness. I soon realised it was at this time last year that our IVF had failed. It was our second fertility treatment and we knew it was our last, our nhs funding was over but this wasn't the reason, somehow the fertility treatment didn't sit well with us. I couldn't handle the uncertainty, the feeling as though I was stuck in some weird waiting room that had closed, waiting for my life to start, the feeling that our future was in the hands of a Petri dish. I could also see the potential damage continuing with it all could have on our souls, it would be easy to become bitter with the world, I had had a taste of it and didn't like it. Going through fertility treatment is all consuming, there's no space for anything else, normal life continues obviously but there's no opportunities to live in the moment and hence enjoy life. We didn't want to risk looking back in 5,10 years and regret not living fully so we had already made the decision to not continue with it if this one failed. Everyone has a completely different threshold for the amount of fertility treatment they can go through, ours was very low, or at least we wanted a different solution to our 'problem'.
When we did the test and saw the negative result the pain was immense, like the sting of grief, I spent the following hours sleeping in exhaustion and howling with the pain of my broken heart. Then Mr K was there when I opened my eyes looking down at me he took my hand and smiled, a genuine smile, and said calmly 'it's over now'. Remarkably given the situation, I felt instantly soothed, he was right it was over, we had no idea what was next but at least we knew there would be no more fertility treatments and this made us feel better. I got up that day, brushed myself off and felt alive again, 'in the moment' again perhaps, rather than waiting, anticipating, dreading, hoping. I expected that this would pass and at some point a depression would hit... but it didn't. In fact the following few months were some of our absolute happiest, it was a constant wonder and surprise to me how since the day of the result I hadn't looked back. We felt liberated and bullet proof I guess - we'd been through our personal hell and come out alive, and our relationship was stronger.
We had talked about adoption as being an option for us but decided to give ourselves a six month break from everything, time to enjoy ourselves again and re group. During this time we talked more about it and felt like it could be right for us, it was important for us to approach it as a positive decision we had actively made rather than a 'last resort', I felt that this was a vital part of our decision and something that would really help us to be the best parents we could be to an adopted child. Again coming to the decision to adopt happens at completely different times and for different reasons for everybody, this is simply how I felt. Another key thing during this time that helped with the progression of our decision was the realisation that we were yearning for a family, not a pregnancy. It was of course devastating to think we'll probably never experience the magical time that is pregnancy and new born babies but to realise that we could have a family of our own in a different way was really great, families come in all shapes and sizes and believe it or not in a variety of ways aside from planned pregnancy between two people. Once we had processed this in our heads we felt the first hurdle of the journey was over. Thats not to say that over the last 12months we haven't had to process a lot of different emotions in coming to terms with not having biological children as it brings up many sad feelings; not passing on our genes, not having a child who looked like us, not being able to give a child a name we had chosen etc. All hard things to face and let go of, especially because we are surrounded by our friends and families baby boom, so many beautiful new borns who look just like their Mum or Dad, or a perfect mix of the two! But we got there over time and overcame it all. Everyone says that the adoption process is such a journey, i really feel that now. It involves a lot of processing emotions and thoughts and along the way you learn and change and its so magnified that i can see and feel it happening to us as we go along. Stage one had different things for us to face head on and learn and now at the beginning of Stage Two we are processing a whole new set of feelings and challenges - Mainly to do with the realities of becoming parents soon; How will we feel without all the freedom we have now?, how will we deal with challenging behaviour when we are sleep deprived?, how will I let go of my OCD tendencies when a child is smearing the walls with peanut butter? How will we get parenting an adopted child right? How much blind faith do we need to go through with this? etc etc. Luckily in Stage Two we formulate answers and coping strategies to all of our vulnerabilities, so already I feel we will be so well equipped as parents before we event start, not everyone is lucky enough to do all of this preparation!
We do a May Pole dancing event at work (pre school) and this year it sparked powerful flashbacks of unhappiness. I soon realised it was at this time last year that our IVF had failed. It was our second fertility treatment and we knew it was our last, our nhs funding was over but this wasn't the reason, somehow the fertility treatment didn't sit well with us. I couldn't handle the uncertainty, the feeling as though I was stuck in some weird waiting room that had closed, waiting for my life to start, the feeling that our future was in the hands of a Petri dish. I could also see the potential damage continuing with it all could have on our souls, it would be easy to become bitter with the world, I had had a taste of it and didn't like it. Going through fertility treatment is all consuming, there's no space for anything else, normal life continues obviously but there's no opportunities to live in the moment and hence enjoy life. We didn't want to risk looking back in 5,10 years and regret not living fully so we had already made the decision to not continue with it if this one failed. Everyone has a completely different threshold for the amount of fertility treatment they can go through, ours was very low, or at least we wanted a different solution to our 'problem'.
When we did the test and saw the negative result the pain was immense, like the sting of grief, I spent the following hours sleeping in exhaustion and howling with the pain of my broken heart. Then Mr K was there when I opened my eyes looking down at me he took my hand and smiled, a genuine smile, and said calmly 'it's over now'. Remarkably given the situation, I felt instantly soothed, he was right it was over, we had no idea what was next but at least we knew there would be no more fertility treatments and this made us feel better. I got up that day, brushed myself off and felt alive again, 'in the moment' again perhaps, rather than waiting, anticipating, dreading, hoping. I expected that this would pass and at some point a depression would hit... but it didn't. In fact the following few months were some of our absolute happiest, it was a constant wonder and surprise to me how since the day of the result I hadn't looked back. We felt liberated and bullet proof I guess - we'd been through our personal hell and come out alive, and our relationship was stronger.
We had talked about adoption as being an option for us but decided to give ourselves a six month break from everything, time to enjoy ourselves again and re group. During this time we talked more about it and felt like it could be right for us, it was important for us to approach it as a positive decision we had actively made rather than a 'last resort', I felt that this was a vital part of our decision and something that would really help us to be the best parents we could be to an adopted child. Again coming to the decision to adopt happens at completely different times and for different reasons for everybody, this is simply how I felt. Another key thing during this time that helped with the progression of our decision was the realisation that we were yearning for a family, not a pregnancy. It was of course devastating to think we'll probably never experience the magical time that is pregnancy and new born babies but to realise that we could have a family of our own in a different way was really great, families come in all shapes and sizes and believe it or not in a variety of ways aside from planned pregnancy between two people. Once we had processed this in our heads we felt the first hurdle of the journey was over. Thats not to say that over the last 12months we haven't had to process a lot of different emotions in coming to terms with not having biological children as it brings up many sad feelings; not passing on our genes, not having a child who looked like us, not being able to give a child a name we had chosen etc. All hard things to face and let go of, especially because we are surrounded by our friends and families baby boom, so many beautiful new borns who look just like their Mum or Dad, or a perfect mix of the two! But we got there over time and overcame it all. Everyone says that the adoption process is such a journey, i really feel that now. It involves a lot of processing emotions and thoughts and along the way you learn and change and its so magnified that i can see and feel it happening to us as we go along. Stage one had different things for us to face head on and learn and now at the beginning of Stage Two we are processing a whole new set of feelings and challenges - Mainly to do with the realities of becoming parents soon; How will we feel without all the freedom we have now?, how will we deal with challenging behaviour when we are sleep deprived?, how will I let go of my OCD tendencies when a child is smearing the walls with peanut butter? How will we get parenting an adopted child right? How much blind faith do we need to go through with this? etc etc. Luckily in Stage Two we formulate answers and coping strategies to all of our vulnerabilities, so already I feel we will be so well equipped as parents before we event start, not everyone is lucky enough to do all of this preparation!