After writing about 10 adoption positives, I decided to keep going with my search for positivity. So, today, I am thinking critically about things that have left a positive impact on my life and my soul as a result of expecting Recurrent Pregnancy Loss and having 5 consecutive miscarriages.
I will readily admit that this list has been hard to write. When I think about watching and waiting for our little babies die, waiting for my body to reject and pass them, going through surgery and medical procedures, I am usually left feeling pretty devastated by all of it. But, upon deep reflection it is nice to know that some good has come from all of our losses and struggles.
First, I truly understand that life is not fair. When my mom and sister died, I had a small lesson in this. But, then my own 5 babies died, and I learned that nothing about life is fair. But, I think anyone who has lost a child, and anyone who has terminated for medical reasons, has an entirely different perspective of the cruelty of life. No mother or father should ever lose her child, and they most certainly should never have to choose to terminate the life of their child. Life is cruel, I now understand that in an entirely new way, but the amazing thing is that learning this lesson has not killed me! Today, I stand here, and I am proud to wear my survivor badge of honour.
Second, my marriage with Mr. MPB is stronger today then I could ever have imagined. Through every single loss and every single decision we have made the decision to get through this together. We have made the decision to be there for each other. We have made the decision to learn how to express our differing opinions in respectful ways. Our love for each other is just as strong, if not stronger today than it was before. This will undoubtedly serve us and our future children well.
Third, I am proud of the fact that today, no matter what happens next in our lives, I know I am a mother. And I know that I get to wear that title with honor even if others around me do not acknowledge it. And I would re-live every single second of each pregnancy if it meant I could hold onto each one of them for just a tiny second longer.
Fourth, I am learning to put myself first. This is still clearly still a work in progress, but I am actively working on doing it more often. And with this, I am learning to lower my expectations of others.
Fifth, I’ve lost some friends on this journey, but I’ve also started to make some amazing blogging friends and some pretty awesome in-real-life friends too. I am thankful that over the last few years, and even more so in the last month or two, I have started to learn the real meaning of friendship and the importance of nourishing on the relationships that really matter.
Sixth, this experience has forced me to learn more about human nature and society’s response to miscarriage. With every day I write, and every day I share our story, I am becoming an advocate for sharing our infertility struggles to reduce the secrecy and shame associated with infertility, miscarriage and baby loss. Further to just speaking about our losses to raise the cover of secrecy and shame, by sharing our story I am able to help those around me who have gone through losses. I never intended to become an expert in baby loss, but I am thankful I am able to share what we have been through and help others.
Lastly, a part of me really believes that if I can survive losing my mom and sister years ago, and now survive losing 5 babies that I can survive almost anything that life throw’s at me. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t want to keep experiencing significant loss in my life. But, I believe that I will be able to learn to survive under most circumstances. In fact I know I will survive anything and will make it!
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Lately we’ve been feeling a little frustrated with the adoption process. Rather, I’ve been feeling a little frustrated with the adoption process and Mr. MPB seems to be a bit more relaxed about it all then I am. (This is normal with us, some days I’d give anything to be a little more relaxed and chill like Mr. MPB, but instead I just keep telling him that if we were both that way, then nothing would ever get done).
So, recently we decided that with every big adoption milestone we are going to start buying something for our future child. I’m currently thinking our other big adoption process milestones will probably include:
- Home study completion
- Official approval by our province
- Official approval by the USA government
- Completion of our adoption book
- Officially waiting
This is a pretty darn big step for me, the girl who:
- just unpacked a little green rocking chair which has been in storage for years,
- has nothing to signify any of our losses; and,
- has not bought a single thing for any of our lost 5 babies, not even our first when we should have been innocent to the possibility of miscarriage.
Really, I had been paralyzed by fear. Recurrent pregnancy loss took away so much from me, including my innocence and excitement for a future baby. Rather, I let RPL do that to me. While I’ve tried hard to fight to see happiness throughout, and find hope when I could, the fact is it hasn’t always been easy and sometimes it’s been downright hard.
But, since we’ve chosen to move forward with our family with adoption, I have finally starting to feel like I can live again. I’ve been slowly reclaiming my life by exercising again, not looking at a calendar and automatically calculating my cycle day or simply making travel plans for whenever we want to. And by living again, I’m finding it a lot easier to be more hopeful.
But I still have another area that I need to start reclaiming – hope for our future child, and our future family. Honestly, I feel like it’s time to start thinking beyond the RPL fears of loss and start embracing the excitement of our future child who will join our family through adoption.
In my mind one of the benefits of adoption over any other form of having a child (i.e. surrogacy, gestational carrier, natural pregnancy, etc.) is that we know we will get our child eventually.
Knowing all of this and having a desire to start building our excitement, I’ve suggested to Mr. MPB that we start actually buying a few things for our child. Mr. MPB agrees.
So, to celebrate our home study we bought a picture for our child’s room that is special to us and will hopefully be special to them one day too.
Ingenuity Washable Playard
To celebrate our completed home study we are going to buy a pack-and-play playard/playpen of some sort (we are currently eying the one in the photo). We figure this is a pretty reasonable purchase to make early because then no-matter when we get a call we will have somewhere safe for our baby to sleep. And by buying a travel one, we will also have somewhere for our child to safely sleep when we are in the USA. For us, two very practical people, this seems like a very good purchase to make early.
So, here it is, we are going to take some baby steps, and start filling the nursery with more than a little green chair. When the fears start to rise within my chest, I will just focus on the future, our future child and our future family. It will all be worth it.
Any suggestions for what else we should get as we reach our future milestones? As we have the time to shop around, we hope to buy second-hand whenever possible (keeping in mind that not everything should be purchased second hand for safety/sanitary reasons).
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My Perfect Breakdown 