Posts Tagged ‘hope’

Feeling Overwhelmed and the Wonder of Autumn

November 6, 2009 | By: Liz

I’ve had a lot going on recently — between travelling for work, representing clients, and getting ready to launch an egg donation agency my plate is pretty full — on top of which I have family issues and a back that doesn’t really want to let me stand up straight (a metaphor for my life if ever there was one).  I was talking to my coach about how overwhelmed I feel and how does a business owner, lawyer, any professional person in general deal with that.  I also feel that a recent visit to Dr. Chung to address my own reproductive issues brought up a lot of memories and feelings which just added to feeling like I couldn’t manage my own life.  I know we all get there sometimes.  The days you don’t want to get out of bed, the days you want to take a mental health day from work, the days nothing goes right and you find yourself digging through your pocket book for chocolate or xanax or both!  LOL!

My coach gave me a lot to think about and work on and I must say that we worked through many of my personal issues surrounding feeling overwhelmed and now I am feeling much more empowered, but the bottom line I think was that I was (1) avoiding facing the issues and work that were bugging me ; (2) I wasn’t taking time for myself (hello Martyr Liz); and (3) I wasn’t taking time to look around me and feel grateful for things.

So this morning, as I do almost every morning, I sat down for my meditation time (which I will admit I haven’t had in over a month because of the demands of work) and I looked out the window of my sun porch and NOTICED the beautiful yellow and orange trees outside my windows.  Literally overnight they had gone from green to the amazing mix of colors, they are blazing with light and color and reminding me of the limitless capacity we all have for change.  Feeling overwhelmed is only a feeling.  Feelings are not facts, and they do not usually accurately represent where we are in our leaves.  If the trees in my backyard can go from spring green to autumn blazing bold orange and gold overnight, than so can we.  We can go from feeling overwhelmed, stuck, frustrated, anxious, or even despair at the stress in our lives presented by childlessness, infertility, infertility treatment, worries about follicle counts and E2 levels, birth mothers not returning our calls, our adoption cell phones not ringing, our agency calling to tell us our referral has been delayed (again) . . . whatever it is . . . to recognizing that we really are all okay, everything is perfect in our lives right now and that we are safe and not alone.  It doesn’t take much.  For me all it took was taking a break and looking and really seeing outside the window of my world.  That tree changed overnight.  Nothing is permanent or forever.  Those leaves will be gone in a few days leaving me with new views to ponder.  Tomorrow your E2 level will be different, you might get  a call that a spot opened up on a dr’s wait list, or your referral might come in from your agency.

Take a moment and look at something outside of your normal consciousness.  Something you take for granted, something you ignore.  Notice how beautiful and miraculous it is.  The write down what you noticed about it, and then write down everything that is making you feel overwhelmed or stuck.

Next, write down the opposite of everything that is making you feel overwhelmed or stuck.  Write down the way you want it to be.  That tree in my yard changed overnight.  In a few days it will change again.  It reminded me that our lives our fluid and constantly moving.  Our feelings are just feelings.  Write them down, then write down what you want the reality to be.  I bet you anything that just like the blazing fire of autumnal glory outside my window that is transfixing me and inspiring me, the thing you look at will change your perspective as well and you will see or remember that the list of what you want is moving closer to you every second.

And if that didn’t work . . . just remember this adage someone once told me.  Imagine you are swimming in the ocean toward the shore.  But the current is so strong that as you swim you get no closer to land.  However, every stroke of your arms and kick of your legs fighting that current is making your legs and arms stronger.  When that current releases you, you will literally fly through the water toward the land at a speed you cannot comprehend right now.  Every stroke is building muscle.  Every breathe is keeping you strong.  Because nothing is permanent and that current will disappear and you will be swimming faster toward your dreams and goals than you can even begin to comprehend now as you fight with that current.  Surrender to the current.

Filed under: Peace to Parenthood

Tags: adoption, Birth Family, Domestic Adoption Planning, Economy, Homework, hope, Inspiration, intent, Peace to Parenthood, success, visualization

The Perfection Of It

January 7, 2009 | By: Liz

I have frequently told this story — and heard others tell it as well (and perhaps better than I do) — about how the journey through infertility and adoption “perfects” itself.  I must talk to at least one client each week and share this story.  Someone suggested a long time ago that I should blog about it.  I haven’t been able to because it seems like such an emotional and private story.  I share it with people who are going through trying times; my way of giving them a pep-talk.  One that I know has worked from the letters people have sent me after they finally got their baby and realized the perfection story isn’t just a pep talk.  But I seriously have been blocked about writing this blog.  Maybe I am afraid I can’t do it justice in print?  There is something intangible in the story that needs to be adapted to each person’s own journey which I can do when I know what YOU are going through; and I hope that as you read this that you can find that piece that resonates for you, as I do not know what each of you are going through or what your friends or family members may be experiencing.

I am a spiritual person.  Of that I am certain, and I have always believed that everything happens in the perfect time and the perfect way.  I didn’t like the time and the way my motherhood came to be, at first.  But then things started happening that made me realize it all really does have meaning, and that the process of going through infertility treatment or adoption does “perfect itself.”  That is, at the end of the day when you are pacing the floor of your home holding your beautiful, screaming baby, you realize in a moment of complete and utter clarity, that everything you went through . . . every needle, every sonogram, every miscarriage, every failed donor cycle, every failed donor or surrogate or birth mother match, needed to happen for you to be holding

THIS child in YOUR arms in THIS moment. 

And you realize that you wouldn’t change one needle, one miscarriage, or one failed match if it meant that you wouldn’t be holding

THIS child in YOUR arms in THIS moment.

The process isn’t fun. Understatement of the century.  It is often frought with too many setbacks, financial hardships, lengthy and unwanted delays.  And for each and every one of you wrestling with the process of trying to become a parent you have my heart and soul there with you.  I KNOW.  I really know.  7 attempted IVF cycles, 5 IVF miscarriages, 3 miscarriages on my own, two failed adoption placements (one of which occurred several days after we brought our son home).  But I also wouldn’t trade any of that, or re-do a single moment or a single injection (and I am beyond horrified of needles) because without everyone of those awful moments I wouldn’t have my two beautiful babies.  I wouldn’t have my daughter if my second son hadn’t gone back to his birth mother.  A day without my daughter in it . . . is NOT what the Universe intended for me.  I don’t understand why it had to be so hard.  I know I have an amazing new career (from which I am gradually digging my family out of the debt we incurred from all those attempts at becoming a family) and I get to help people have babies and build families every day.  That is perfection at work too. 

But what really shows me that everything that happens in the perfect time and the perfect way and that the journey is truly perfect . . . is that my husband and I were blessed with the unexpected gift of knowledge that our oldest child, whom we adopted, was conceived on THE day that I chose to become an adoptive mother.  I am not kidding or exaggerating.  There are details I cannot share because they are private pieces of my son’s life (and I think we’ll all agree that I have “outed” my family in my books, so you’ll understand that I want to preserve sacred pieces of his adoption story for my son), but there was a very specific day in time that I chose to adopt.  The world shifted on its axis that day and I realized I wanted to be a mother more than I needed to be pregnant and so when my husband came home that night, I told him I would follow him on his desired path, to become an adoptive father.  The following day I submitted our application to an adoption agency.  

A little over a year later, we learned rather coincidentally (thank god for science) that our son was conceived on the day I agreed to become an adoptive mother.   That information showed me, with scientific proof, that everything does happen for a reason and that everything that comes before isn’t meaningless.  It is perfect.

You may not have your baby yet (you may choose not to have a baby), and I can’t promise you what will happen today or tomorrow.  I can’t promise you that you’re donor is going to pass her screening, or your carrier will get pregnant, that your birth mother will sign her relinquishment forms, or that you will make peace and move on to something different.  But I can promise you that when you get there, you too will know in your heart that “but for” everything that came before, you wouldn’t be in this wonderful place now. 

And you wouldn’t change a thing.

Filed under: Thinking Out Loud

Tags: hope