Some days it feels as though the entire world around you is either pregnant or accompanied by children. And odds are, that the days you are thinking this are the days when you are least able to cope with it. Perhaps you just started your period (again!), perhaps you’re in limbo waiting to hear from your doctor about possible options, or perhaps you just had bad news from your clinic. Whatever the reason, sometimes it feels as though the whole world has become a childrens playground.
The reality is, as we all know deep down, that when you are thinking about or looking for something you will see it everywhere. Much as Facebooks algorithms predict what thing you might google next and show you adverts based on this, so your brain also filters out the rest of the world to only show the resident babies and small people all around you (particularly cruelly, Facebook/Google etc also start to show you child related adverts too, seemingly reading your very brainwaves… or bad facebook group choices).
I know from talking to a lot of women over the years that for some this seemingly constant parade of children can get to be too much when you’re dealing with your own infertility, and so the easiest way of managing their own emotions comes in extricating themselves from social situations that involve children. This means avoiding ‘baby showers’, birthdays, Christmas, social media (baby announcements) and so on.
Now before I started having my own fertility issues I intellectually understood why women (and it is mainly women) might do this, but not entirely. Now I get it. I really do. If you are having a particularly sh*t time, lets say your latest attempt was unsuccessful, or you’ve just heard none of your eggs fertilised, or Karen next door is pregnant with her fifth in the same amount of time as you’ve been trying for your first… its hard. Its hard to put on your social face and be happy for those other happy people who are expecting the very thing you are longing for. Particularly when all you really want to do is sit on the floor and cry/eat your bodyweight in chocolate/escape into crap TV.
But, and here is the big but, and the thing that I try to tell myself everytime I feel that I might not be as happy as I should be for the latest piece of good baby related news I’ve heard… you don’t know their story. As much as no one really knows yours, you have no idea on theirs.
Perhaps they’ve been trying for years too (well, maybe not next-door Karen), and been undergoing IVF (but unlike you haven’t told everyone including the postman…) and finally its worked…
Perhaps they’ve had multiple miscarriages and they are only celebrating now they are past the magical 24 weeks when life outside the womb becomes much more possible…
Perhaps they had no success and they had to have donor eggs/sperm and finally (finally!) its worked…
Perhaps they had no success and when they were about to give up/try IVF they just ‘relaxed'(eyeroll) and it worked…
Perhaps they had no success and decided to adopt (not ‘just adopt’, but that this was the way in which they could create their family)…
Perhaps they lost a child at close to birth or soon after, and no, their new baby isn’t a replacement, or a consolation, but a younger sibling to the one that was lost…
Perhaps they have a child with a physical or mental disability or terminal illness but they are determined to have a sibling (and maybe they’ve undergone genetic testing to make sure rogue genes aren’t passed on {again})…
The point is, no one really knows what goes on in other peoples lives, in other peoples relationships, in other peoples homes. All we can try and do is do the best we can and be as compassionate as possible, even when it hurts. Because I am damn sure that if those suffering from infertility manage to have a viable pregnancy that yes we will want to celebrate and enjoy it, but we’ll also remember there are many others still on the same unrelenting journey to try and achieve the same.
But no, this still does not mean I want to borrow your children to ‘practise’ in the interim to be clear.
Thanks for this caring blog. It took years for me to have my miracle baby, and my sister adopted from abroad (also traumatic) after failed IVF rounds.