Dear IVF babble, I have really enjoyed reading the letters from your readers, sharing their raw thoughts and emotions, heightened by the cruel disease that is infertility. As a woman who is still waiting for my turn to become a mother, it is really comforting to see that I am not alone
I am in what I can only describe as a “blinkered” state of reality. Over the 3 years that I have spent trying to conceive, I can say that I am not the person I used to be before I started trying. I am less patient. I am less confident. I am less happy, whilst being more angry at the world, more angry at myself and more angry at the women who have achieved parenthood already.
If I’d had a glimpse in to the future at the woman i have become, I wouldn’t have recognised myself. I was never the kind of person who compared herself to others, or who felt envious that someone had something that I wanted. I lived my life and let others live theirs. My business was mine – theirs was theirs. I remember me and my husband desperately needing a new car as our beloved little fiat just couldn’t get us from A to B anymore. Sadly though, our funds were tight, so we resorted to the tube and bus for a year until we had saved enough for a new (second hand and slightly battered) Fiat. During that long year of public transport, my best friend bought the most beautiful new Volvo – “a proper family car” she said. It really was beautiful, but because I was myself back then, I squealed in delight as she pulled up in my drive. “I love it!!!” I said. “Jump in then!” she replied. We turned up the music and drove around town. Me, my friend and her brand new car. I was so happy for her.
Fast forward 3 years, and my friend’s car is now the proud owner of a car seat with it’s very own chubby little baby
When my friend pulled in to the drive in her beloved Volvo with her beloved new baby, I can honestly say, my squeal was nothing like it was the day she showed my her new car.
Even reading this back I can’t believe the woman I have become. I know the real me is in there – deep inside my body, but the emotional weight of infertility keeps me down. The old me would have cartwheeled over to the baby, full of sheer joy, but the current me – the desperate mother to be who fears she may never be a mother, is just too damn sad and weak and lonely to fight the emotional weight of infertility. I gave it everything I could, but it wasn’t me, and that makes me feel even more sad.
I have a beautiful friend though, who understands. She knows that no woman, or man, can be expected to “be themselves” following multiple failed rounds of IVF with a drained bank account. She understands that I have worked so damn hard, but that I am currently broken. She knows that I am in there, deep down.
To all the women, and men, who aren’t feeling themselves – it’s OK. You are not a mean or bitter person, you are just hurt and exhausted. I know that you care, and that you aren’t angry at other men and women for having children, it’s just that you don’t have the emotional resources to lift yourself up right now. You will get there though, you will become a parent. The weight will lift, the blinkers will come off and you will be yourself again.
All my love, Dee.
Would you like to share your story? Drop us a line at mystory@ivfbabble.com.
