Involuntary Childlessness: A Journey of Acceptance
What are those little yellow kissing PAC-men anyway? I suddenly stop in my tracks – another evening obsessing over the infertility forums. What had I been reduced to? A poor, pathetic shadow of my former self.
28-year old Lucy would have laughed in the face of this lunacy and yet here I am, scanning response after response for some kind of definitive answer.
Mature, grown up women who probably have terribly grown up jobs building a personal fertility profile with mini PAC men to keep them sane! Negative pregnancy results (sad face), positive result (happy face), and worst of all, miscarriages – PAC men with wings! I suddenly feel overwhelmed with embarrassment – have I lost my mind?
The world has shifted, and women are evolving with it – Emily Pankhurst set our dreams on fire but perhaps I paid the price for that identity – drove upon drove of women who have waited too late to start a family are feeling the full force of the reality that is infertility. Our eggs are shrivelling up because we chose cocktails and commuting and ‘kudos’.
We feel that there is a void in our lives – we feel desperate and useless.
Our reserves are decreasing because the lure of money and holidays and social petting hindered our values. We have problems fertilising, implanting and then when it does implant – we can’t keep it. We feel that there is a void in our lives – we feel desperate and useless. We are no longer empowered women but social outcasts and would do anything to go back. Hand me the apron and lock me in the kitchen, forget the vote, to hell with my career just give me a baby. But we can’t change course.
My personal journey consists of endometriosis, a question mark on quantity, quality and implantation – six failed rounds of CLOMID, four failed IVFs, one marriage and two devastating miscarriages; including one at 13 weeks, alone and scared on the M25.
But my desire knew no bounds and my hope was endless.
I’ve been poked and prodded within an inch of my life, I have spoken to more doctors and physicians and nurses than I can count, I’ve changed my diet, I’ve cut out drinking, I’ve taken a bucket full of vitamins and supplements, I’ve liquidised green slop and travelled to Thailand to restore my ‘soul’. I’ve had needles stuck in my skull – I’ve done yoga, meditation, hypnotherapy and I’ve stood on my head after sexual intercourse (I mean, talk about humiliation).
Friends tell you to “relax” and share stories of friends of friends who, against all odds finally had a baby
The truth is, in twelve years and with all this input, my body still can’t (or won’t) produce the child I have so desperately longed for. Medical intervention is a wonderful but frightening thing and we are pushing our bodies further than it wants to go and the question is, to what end?
Friends tell you to “relax” and share stories of friends of friends who, against all odds finally had a baby – it makes you frustrated and far from offering hope, sadness sets in.
There are comments about adoption and questions about surrogacy and egg donation – an offering of empathy from the friend with the 2.4 kids playing in the back garden. You start to ostracize yourself – you avoid social gatherings with children and friends that talk endlessly about their child’s development. You want to burst inside but you smile and reason with yourself that you are being irrational.
The question is, when do you empower yourself to STOP?
The truth is, you don’t have to settle for pain, regret, misery and eternal longing. The dream of a child of your own, is exactly that, just a dream until the moment it becomes a reality. Settle for reality.
Settle for the reality of this moment and don’t let the joyous things you do have be clouded by the things you don’t.
Yes, it’s a different life than the one I imagined, but, so what?
Infertility rules your body but we are letting it affect our minds – obsession and control is like a disease and forums only spread it. When you are alone at night, does the fact that a stranger on the other side of the world shared their story and sent a smiley pac man really relay your fears? Will it really tell you the truth about your situation? For me, the answer is a most resounding no! Instead, it’s time to stop and grab my life with both hands.
Yes, it’s a different life than the one I imagined, but, so what? My actual life is here, by the sea, with my wonderful supportive family and friends and where I’m no less happy as a consequence of the failings of my body.
Acceptance is a funny feeling – it immediately calms and releases you. No amount of blood work, symptom-googling or knicker-checking will offer me the peace I so desperately long for but acceptance might. The sooner we grab it, the sooner we can really say that if it is supposed to happen, it will!
