I’m always interested to observe the reactions of people when they find out we’ve been trying to have a baby.
The obtuse ones – surprisingly most often women – will say “I knew it!” like they’ve won some long standing internal guessing game.
Others will note that I’ve spoken in the past about not wanting children. That part is true – it was a narrative developed around my future back in my 20s, for two reasons.
Prior to meeting my husband, Rich, I had had a couple of serious relationships, one of which was passionate and tumultuous and dysfunctional, and the others were…nice.
I didn’t know back then that I’d experience a love that is as exciting as it is consistent with a person so secure in who he is that it would open up a future I previously couldn’t picture.
The second reason was based on my mental health (which I have written about in the past). It took until my late 20s to work out, through trial and error, the relatively strict parameters in which I can live my life which means I’m safe and stable mentally. I knew that having a baby would lead me far outside those parameters. I also feared passing on my complexities to my children.
But with the love and support of Rich and after many hours of talking through it he made me feel confident that together we could handle life outside the invisible safe lanes I’d laid down. And so, we made the decision – and at that time it felt like this surrender was a tough enough hurdle to overcome – to have a baby.
Of course, that was just the start.
And I’m writing this now because it’s cathartic, and because I hope it to become to some women what I needed to read when I was going through it.
I so desperately wanted to write it then, and throughout, but treading the waters of pregnancy loss and infertility is so exhausting and painful and at times undignified that it took all my energy to keep kicking and keep my head above water. At the time I couldn’t find the sides. There are no sides, when you’re in the middle of treading these waters, so you just try to keep kicking.
So I’m writing this now. About months and years. About no heartbeats and heartbreak. About energy healers and fertility doctors and surgeries and syringes. About acronyms and chatrooms. About friendship. About trying to find the sunshine when there is no rainbow.
This is our story.
*I respectfully ask that you refrain from offering any treatment advice – medical, alternative or otherwise – throughout this blog series. I know it comes from a good place but it is not helpful.
