On Infertility - Other People's children

When you are married / in a couple in your early thirties, it is very hard to avoid children. It seems (because it's true) that almost every week we hear about someone falling pregnant, having a baby.

On the one hand, it's wonderful - I am so happy for my friends and families who are having children, creating or growing their family. In different circumstances I would be leaping with joy, but I can't. It's not their fault. People aren't out there falling pregnant to spite me (I would hope not - that would be weird), in fact very few people know that we are trying to have children. But it still hurts. It's not that I'm jealous of them having their baby. I'm jealous of me not having mine, us not having ours.

This is the best way I can explain it is as follows. One of the defining characteristics of being human is dignity. And what is dignity? Dignity is being complete within yourself, despite your circumstances, despite your position in life, being able to stand up straight, your head held high, knowing that you are complete in and of yourself. A dignified person isn't jealous of someone else. Being jealous of someone else is acknowledging that you lack something, believing that you are not complete, that you lack a partner or a bigger house or better job. After years of maturing and learning not to be jealous of what others have, working towards being dignified, I have lost that. When someone else announces they're pregnant, despite everything, it is a reminder of what we, I don't have. That despite all the trying and working so hard, the appointments, the injections, the vitamins, the life overhauls - they have something, they have achieved something that I can't. I just feel acutely the child-shaped hole that I know is in my life.

I don't want their child, I don't want their life, I want mine. 

On Infertility - Intro

Originally, this was going to be just one post, but I found it difficult to encapsulate everything I wanted to say in just one essay, as this topic, what it means to me, is so wide-ranging that it needs to be examined from a number of angles, in a number of different ways.

It pains me to even write "infertility" because I don't want it to be true, but it has happened. I also can't add it as an adjective to describe me, though that's not just optimism; no doctor has described me as "infertile", it's just I haven't fallen pregnant, or I haven't fallen pregnant and carried to term.
It is something we had made accommodation for ("we'll start trying now, but in x years if it doesn't happen we will seek assistance"), without ever believing that it would happen to us. It happens to other people, not us or people we know, but other mystical infertile couples. But that's not true - it is way more common than I have ever thought possible (around 1 in 6 couples have problems conceiving), it's just not something that is talked about (at least in my world). But it happens. It is something I, we, are in the middle of.

One of the things with it, is that unless you have been through or are going through it, it is very difficult to understand what it's like. Not even the most well meaning, empathetic individual (in my experience) can relate, can know what it's like, but partly what I am trying to do here is give an outsider a glimpse into this world.

Ironically (given it is written as the end point), I found this article articulates a lot of what is difficult about it. When you decide you want to have children, that you're going to start trying, it effectively means choosing to overhaul your life completely. Deciding to have children affects all aspects - what you eat (there's so much guidance on what you should and shouldn't consume when trying to conceive), where you live, how you spend your time, how you spend (or don't) your money, career choices; the article I linked above articulates it so well:
"Pursuing a child is an absolute lifestyle. Some people don’t realize how much time it takes. It affects everything—the food you eat, your daily routine, the phone calls, the red tape, the appointments—it holds you back from pursuing other things. I had been living my whole life with the idea that I would have a baby someday, and it affected everything: career decisions, which car I bought, the home that I bought. I lived my life in a way that centered around a future with a baby."

But then, it doesn't happen. You change so many things in your life, hold back on doing things, and for nothing. You wait. Every month is a cycle of hope and expectation and planning, for it all to come to nought the moment either the pregnancy test shows negative or your period arrives. But then you start again, from the beginning, trying hard not to get too emotionally involved, but it's impossible. You hear things about being positive, and that affecting the outcome, but investing too much of yourself means losing that part of yourself when it fails. You want to give of your all - it would be awful, the guilt, of this round being unsuccessful because you didn't try hard enough, you ate the wrong food, did too much / too little exercise, had too little sex or too much, took the wrong drugs, took the right drugs at the wrong time, slept too little, slept too much, was too stressed. And so you continue on and on, with the hope that one day, it will work.

I'm still waiting for that day.