Christa, I want to thank you for taking the time to share this letter. I think many will resonate with what you have to say. I've followed your story and I am so happy that your little girl is here.
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Our story:
Our story:
My husband
and I started TTC in Spring of 2011. After a hard year of no success month
after month, we started seeing doctors to try to diagnose the problem. We were
diagnosed with combination infertility; my husband had some male factor issues
and I had delayed ovulation. We had tried Clomid for my husband with no
improvement, so our doctor suggested IVF as our best route, but told us that we
could try Clomid for me with an HCG trigger first if we wanted. Reluctant to
pursue IVF for religious reasons, we felt that Clomid was our last chance. We
were very blessed to get pregnant in January 2013 with our little miracle baby.
Our daughter was born in October 2013.
Follow our
story : http://learningtotrustjourney.blogspot.com/
Dear Well-Meaning Friends,
Some of you were very supportive when you found out about
our struggle with infertility. All of you were thrilled with us when we found
out we were expecting our little miracle. Thank you, thank you all for your
support and kind words, for your prayers, and for sharing in our joy as we welcomed
our little daughter into the world.
It’s ironic that sometimes the things that are said
intending to give comfort can actually give so much pain. I know how hard it is
when you’re talking to someone going through a struggle that you haven’t experienced
yourself. How do you know what to say? I am sure that I have made many mistakes
myself. Some things that friends said to me sound so encouraging on the
surface, but can actually hurt a lot deep down. Here are two in particular:
“You’re young! You have so much time!”
As someone trying to conceive in her early 20’s, this may
appear to be a categorically true statement. But just because something is
true, doesn’t mean you should say it. Here’s the thing – I know how old I am. I
know how much time I have. My fear as a 20-something-year-old dealing with
infertility is not necessarily that I’m going to die childless, but rather that
I’m going to have to wait years for what I desire now. Or that I’m never going
to have the big family that I hoped for. Or that all my friends will have their
babies and years will come and go and I will have to look on and try to be
happy for them. Because I want to be happy for then, but it’s so hard
when battling infertility. I always knew that I could adopt, and I never thought
I was “running out of time.” Telling someone that they have time just minimizes
their current feelings. It may be true, but that doesn’t make the present any
easier. Just because tomorrow will come doesn’t mean today doesn’t hurt.
This statement can also be misleading. Fertility decreases
with age, so if I struggle to get pregnant in my 20’s, it should not be assumed
that it’s going to be easier in my 30’s or 40’s. It can be terrifying to
realize at the age of 22 that you may not be able to make a baby with your spouse!
I always knew I had time, but I still grieved for what I lost. I lost the joy
of spontaneously seeing a positive pregnancy test and getting to surprise my
husband with it out of the blue. I spent years working so hard for something
that is supposed to come effortlessly at our age. I live with the knowledge
that if things had gone according to “my plan” we might have two kids by now. And
I lost the carefree ease of knowing that “we can always have another baby.”
Because even though we were successful, for me it isn’t completely over.
After giving birth to my daughter, I sometimes feel like I’m
not allowed to feel sad about infertility anymore. I get the impression that
achieving pregnancy and having a baby is considered to be a “cure” for infertility.
But it isn’t. I’m still technically infertile. And that still saddens me.
Another thing that people have said, asked, or suggested since my little girl
was born:
“Maybe with the next one it will just happen.”
Or something along those lines. I have to admit, I think
this and hope it sometimes too, in my own secret thoughts. I still find myself
fantasizing about that surprise positive pregnancy test that no one was
expecting. I hope and pray that I get to experience that. And I hear that some
people do. But medically speaking, it is very unlikely. And one thing that
infertility has taken from me is that carefree certainty about the future. I
can’t just “plan” to have another baby. It’s going to in all likelihood involve
so much work, effort, and emotional strain. And having been through it all
before might make it better, but I can also see it making it worse. I try to
guard my heart by refusing to think in statements like this one.
If you know about my infertility struggle, please don’t
minimize that by asking me a question as seemingly innocent as, “So when will
you have your next one?” Because that question just brings to mind all my fears
and insecurities that I might not be able to have “my next one,” or it might
remind me that I have very little say over it. I always imagined a 2 year or
less age gap between my children, and now I feel like I have no control over
that. Yes, I could try fertility treatments again, but I don’t know if I will
still be breastfeeding and be unable to do that. I don’t know what my cycle
will do or when it will regulate. I have no control. It might not happen.
That’s scary. That’s not fair. It’s not fair to me and my husband, and it’s not
fair to my little girl that I don’t know if or when she might have a sibling.
It’s sad. So please, don’t minimize my journey by implying that I should “be
over it.”
If you have said either of these things to me, know that I
don’t hold it against you. I realize you want to encourage me and you want me
to be happy. And if we are very close friends, I probably don’t even mind that
you said them, because they probably lead to a good talk. But in the spirit of
honesty, I just want to let you know some of the things that run through my
head when people say things like this.
I am a very blessed person. I did not have to try for as
long as some people who experience infertility did. I haven’t suffered the
devastating loss of miscarriage. My little girl was born healthy after a very
easy pregnancy. And I do have time to have more kids. I know that I am blessed.
But I still grieve over infertility. I still feel sad when I think about the two
years that we tried month after month. I wish I hadn’t cried for an hour after
getting a call that my friend was expecting when all I wanted was to feel joy
for them. I wish when I heard a pregnancy announcement today that I didn’t feel
that twinge of jealousy because it happened easily or quickly. I wish I could
just have carefree, joyful happiness for my friends and pure optimism about the
future. But I don’t feel that way. It’s still hard. It’s still a part of who I
am. Today I am happy. Today I hold my 5-month old little girl, look into her
eyes, and feel joy. But that doesn’t erase the past, or make me confident about
the future. Infertility doesn’t go away.
Sincerely,
Christa
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