Grief is a process of letting go. Letting go of what was, or what could have been, and accepting what is. After six years of blood tests, injections and procedures related to fertility treatment, my wife, Phoebe, and I arrived at the end of the road. We had to let go of the dream of having our own biological children and accept another future. At the time, the only emotion was immense sadness, but looking back this loss was the beginning of a new adventure we could never have imagined. Several years before this, as we were journeying through infertility, my mind had already started to drift to other possibilities for our future, including adoption. But, as ready as I was to explore other options, Phoebe was not. Unfortunately, the immense grief that she was experiencing was not a solution for me to solve, but a journey we needed to walk together. It can be easy to romanticise what this was like in hindsight, but in reality it was really hard to sit with someone grieving and just listen, rather than jumping to options, possibilities or silver linings.
Time to consider other options A wise counsellor asked us earlier in our journey if we might consider, “What could be in God’s other hand?” At the time we were only interested in the hand that held a conception. However, having arrived at the end of the road, we were willing to finally consider our other options. On a long drive one weekend we started to discuss the possibility of adoption – for the first time in six long years a glimmer of hope pierced through the
darkness. As we began to discuss adoption with family and close friends, hope and excitement for our future finally started to return. Of course, this excitement was also punctuated with fears of the ‘what ifs…’. We reminded ourselves that to be parents is not about enhancing our lifestyle, but
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