This is going to be a long one, I apologise in advance…
The journey we had both dreamt would be ours towards parenthood has slowly but very surely fallen away. I had dreams of becoming a mother since being a child and always knew what I wanted it to look like. 3 children, 2 of those being twins (I am a twin so always wanted my own twins), an easy conception, easy 9 months and a dreamy birth. I knew that probably the latter two wouldn’t be as easy as I always dreamt but I never, ever for a moment thought that I would struggle to even conceive, let alone the carrying and birthing of a child.
As a young adult, I knew my incredible mother had an easy, if not just pure surprising journey to have all 3 of us. Without going into too much detail, my parents were using contraception when they conceived my brother. Not too long after he was born, they fell pregnant again. Sadly this ended in miscarriage but within a very short time period they fell pregnant again. This time, it was twins! 9 months later, out popped (maybe not popped!) my sister and then 8 minutes later, I followed. This kind of easy-ness was what I thought must be the plan for me. It’s easy to get pregnant isn’t it? I always thought.
This was reiterated when 26 years later, my twin sister and her husband fell pregnant very quickly after beginning to try for their child (who is absolutely the most gorgeous little human in the whole world!). Surely, with both my mum and identical twin being so fertile, this means I must be on for a quick conception! Yey!
Roughly 3 years ago, I came off the pill. Not because we wanted to try for a baby but because the pill didn’t suit me.
It’s important to state that we weren’t trying for a baby at this point but we weren’t using contraception all the time, and since then I have realised I thought our most fertile time of the month was much later in the month so even less protection around the times I could’ve got pregnant. So we weren’t trying, but had everything been ok, we should’ve gotten pregnant much sooner.
After we moved down south in Sept 2018 we decided that now would be the time to properly start trying. We always wanted a family and felt that as we were moving closer to family and buying a family home, now would be perfect. Great, we thought. And I thought I’d be pregnant by Christmas without a doubt and had planned a great way to reveal it to our families.
Christmas came and so did my period. Devastated. When you have a dream of how it will happen, you truly believe in your head that that is how it will happen. Then when it doesn’t, it is crushing. Especially when it happens month after month. Even the first month of actively trying, when your period arrives, it’s a very bitter pill to swallow.
I remember when we first started trying, thinking that by the following Christmas, when we’d be putting up the tree that we would have a little 3/4/5 month old baby laying there in their little Moses basket staring up at the Christmas tree lights. After each month, this dream of mine became less and less likely.
Something any woman who is TTC will know about is working out each month when their baby that they absolutely will conceive that month will be born. I knew very quickly that the baby would not be here by the following Christmas.
After 6 months of actively TTC, I was beginning to worry that something was wrong. By now, other people, including family members and friends, had announced their pregnancies. All, that I know of, had been trying for less time than us. The worries grow even more.
The idea of getting pregnant was beginning to consume me. It was all I could think of. Literally, ALL. THE. TIME.
Every single month, every single period was devastating. And each month the pain would become even worse.
I just want to point out that my husband has been amazing throughout all of this. Sometimes he would remind me to put things into perspective and sometimes he would just hold me when I was falling apart. And sometimes he would drive me mad because he didn’t have the same emotions as me. (I’ll save this for another post…)
Continuing through our first year of TTC, my mental health started to go downhill. I found myself struggling to enjoy anything and my mind was always pre-occupied.
We began to consider that something may be wrong and that we might eventually have to find an alternative way to start our family. It’s a really tough thought to get your head around when you never thought this would be a part of your life.
Other people were still announcing their pregnancies and I was becoming more and more distraught each month. It really felt so unfair. It still does.
We were trying everything. The different supplements for men and women. Using different tracking apps to find out when my most fertile days were. Tracking my BBT (basal body temperature). Tracking my cervical fluid (gross, I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures). Using special lube. Peeing on a stick to find out when my LH surge happens. I even changed my diet at times of the month to do with my proliferative phase and luteal phase. Acupressure. Most of these things I didn’t even know were a thing until we started TTC. I am sure there are several things I have missed out that became part of my every day during that first year.
And of course, plenty of sex.
It seems so unfair that despite all of this, we still had no pregnancy. That despite all of these things that we must do in order to become pregnant, most couples don’t need to do any of this.
Apart from the sex part, obviously.
It became even more difficult throughout our first year for me to focus on life and the good things that were going on around me. I almost became numb to joy.
Meanwhile, people were asking when it was my turn to have a baby. Oh, this is my favourite part of infertility. Instead of going into this now, I’ll save this for another post too.
So anyway, as it came towards a year, we prayed (as we did a lot throughout the first year and since) and decided it was time to go to the doctors.
This is a pretty terrifying decision. It means acknowledging that there probably is a problem. It crushed my heart and my dreams more than I had expected it to, and that already had been crushed. It was actually too hard for me to call the doctors and make the appointment so my lovely Pete did it for us. And even better, he booked us in with the only female GP at our small village doctors.
The day came for the GP appointment. One whole month after making the appointment. I was so scared. I was scared she would laugh at us and tell us we were ridiculous and wouldn’t take us seriously. If I could explain how opposite it was, I would. But I can’t. She was just amazing. So kind, so gentle and so absolutely caring. She reassured us that it will be okay and that I was totally normal for feeling the way I was. After a year of pain and struggle and fear, the GP’s kindness was overwhelming. I had to hold back the tears as she smiled and told us exactly the tests we needed to begin the next part of our journey and as she reminding us that there was still hope. And that is exactly what I needed to hear.
Throughout this whole journey so far, hope is what people have said I needed to cling onto. It is hope that has kept me going and has given me strength. I haven’t always felt strong and sometimes I have lost sight of the hope I know I have that comes from God. Hope has helped me carry on. And carry on I will until the day I get to hold my children…
Journeying to Family 