What Infertility Has Taken and Given Me

Photo by Drop the Label Movement on Unsplash

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Today we are in week 22 of pregnancy. I can happily say that I am really starting to enjoy it. To be honest though, it took me until about week 18 to get there.

Infertility took a lot away from me both before I was pregnant and at the beginning of my current pregnancy.

Before I became pregnant many things triggered me; baby showers, baby aisles at the store, people asking about my future, and pregnant women. I lost friends over this. Mentally I was always in survival mode. Trying to get pregnant for years takes a toll of every aspect of your life. I started drinking heavily to numb any pain I had. I shoved my feelings away for years telling myself, “It is OK. This will happen.”

I once cried in the dentist chair. I had not been to the dentist in 10 years and knew it was time to go. I picked a dentist that was known for compassionate care. He asked why I was there and I cried saying, “If I want to be a mother I need to take care of myself.” This was about 5 years ago and right when we started trying. He was the first medical person I had told and I was so anxious. Little did I know this was just the beginning of my journey where tears would fall alone and publicly more times than I could ever imagine.     

I do not consider myself a “worrier” and I know that pregnancy can do that to people, but during my first pregnancy I was not scared. I felt like, “Of course we are pregnant after IVF. We paid all of this money to get pregnant and now we are… this is the logical thing to happen.” Then we were hit with news that was not part of the plan. Finding out we would have a miscarriage was devastating beyond anything I could imagine. This changed everything for us. This was not part of the logical plan.

With our second pregnancy I was so scared that I didn’t really want to bond with the baby during the first trimester. I was not sure this baby would chose to stay. This new worried and scared feeling was not like me. I am upbeat, happy, and positive. I would start to feel an attachment and bury it immediately.

We all have our our journey and I was quickly seeing that mine was not what I had envisioned it.

But this is something that infertility has given me. Life is not what we picture it to be. It is actually more beautiful that I could have ever imagined.

Infertility taught me to truly embrace what life actually already is.

Dealing with the stress of infertility led me to more self care. I had to do something to be OK. I was losing who I was and did not know how to handle it. Panic attacks were common, cold sores popped up monthly and simple everyday tasks became too much to handle. Self care became a priority.

This led me to setting strict boundaries and meditation.

I began saying no to so many things. This happened mainly at work and I started to have more time to myself. Being a teacher is stressful enough and I was realizing that I did not need to do it all. It made some people upset but that is what happens when you start respecting yourself more. I began to put myself first and while others became disappointed I became stronger. I started feeling like a different person. I felt like a person who cares about myself.

Meditation also changed the way I felt. Dealing with infertility unsettled my brain. So many things to track and remember. I needed a way to shut out the noise. One of my favorite takeaways from meditation is forgiving yourself. I listen to the Calm app and many times the guided lessons acknowledge that your brain will wander during a session and this is OK. You must come back without judgment and start again. It immediately reminded me of my monthly cycle and getting my period. I would start all over again from there to keep motivated. Maybe this next month we would get pregnant! I would look at my situation with no judgment and simply begin again.

Of course this is applicable to multiple aspects of life. I started to use this in any way that I could. I would be constantly forgiving myself. Isn’t this a huge part of life anyway? My past is not perfect and I made some stupid mistakes, but without those would I be where I am now? I have even discovered that I learn best from trial and error. This can be hard to grasp as mistakes and bad choices are definitely looked down upon in our culture. Even in IVF people say things like, “Why didn’t you adopt?” As if doing IVF was a bad choice for us. No one truly ever know how they will deal with something until you are actually in that moment.

Continuing to forgive myself has takes a lot of practice. This act makes me shed light onto the parts of me I do not like to look at. For example, when I still get jealous of women who get pregnant easily. Of course I do not want anyone to go through infertility, but those who have just know. And I have to forgive myself for these thoughts. Another example is when I would get angry when others would give advice. I know it comes from love but with it comes a feeling of inadequacy. I want to be able to acknowledge the pain but then move forward. The most important part of these difficult moments are my reactions to them. Sometimes we feel horrible but what are we going to do about it?

The hardest thing has been forgiving myself. I would act as if I had but then I realized I needed to do the work. I would sit and write down things I was ashamed of. I would read them out loud and say, “I forgive myself.” This feels awful at first, but then a release happens. We all hold ourselves to these high standards which can be good. But when we do not meet these standards we need to give ourselves grace. I remember a friend once saying, “What would you tell your best friend who is going through this?” It was such an eye opening thought as I would give them grace… tons of it… yet here I am not giving any to myself.   

All of this took years of practice. It still takes work on hard days. But with a little bit of forgiveness and lots of persistence we can change our perspective. I have learned to let many things go. I saw that every single person is dealing with unsaid things. We are all battling something that is unsaid… and most of the time is has nothing to do with us. Through looking at the world this way we uncover the dark parts of ourselves as well as in others and embrace them with love and light.  

Infertility has taken away so many happy moments for me. I try not to cringe when I recall some of the ways that I reacted in the past, but honestly I often do. Those moments were hard. Infertility has also given me the power of empathy. I possessed this ability before, but now I often go straight to it. If someone bothers me I will wonder what is happening in their life. Everyone has a story and infertility has given me the power to look for it.