I’ve not really felt like writing anything for the past few weeks. I started working from home / social distancing from mid-March, and the ways things look, we (husband and I) will be doing this for at least a couple of months to come.
Added to this, as for everyone else, is the disappointment of things being cancelled, being unable to socialise / go for dinner, and seeing holiday and travel plans cancelled or put on hold. Naturally, these are all #firstworldproblems and pale into insignificance with the very real and much more serious issues facing those who don’t have access to basic human needs – safe shelter, food, clean/safe water/sanitation/hygiene and so on. The day labourers told to stay indoors who then can’t provide for their families, the healthcare professionals putting their lives at risk caring for the sick and so on.
But, there is another group of people that you might not have thought about (unless you are in the same infertility groups as me, in which case, hello!), and that is all those who were hoping that 2020 might be the year they successfully ended their infertility journey. Those couples / singles who were geared up for, or in the middle of fertility treatment which has now been put on hold for the foreseeable future. Women whose fertility rates are declining as the clinics are shut worried about whether they have missed their moment to have a family even during a global pandemic.
These are the same people that are even more bombarded with family photos / amusing things to do with kids / my children are driving me crazy social media posts that normal… and know they can’t do anything about it.
These are people who know that they won’t now have a child in 2020. Perhaps they might in 2021, or perhaps their window of opportunity will have finally closed and they’ve missed their moment.
These are people who know that a global pandemic takes much greater priority than their wish to become a parent, but who might also have spent years trying to qualify / save up / try everything to be get to the point of visiting a clinic only for that plan to be put on hold.
Yes, in the grand scheme of things this is small potatoes, but for some, it might have been their last chance which is now disappearing.
One of the other impacts of the pandemic may not just be the predicted baby boom of first children (hilarious whoever came up with that one), but also an increased incidence of mental health issues.
For me, I’m hoping that perhaps in a few months I can try again, but know that the clock is running down as the world pauses hoping to #flattenthecurve.