This month marks the one-year anniversary of our foray into assisted reproduction. We started with IUIs and after three failed attempts, we moved on to IVF. We’ve been in treatment nearly every cycle over the last twelve months and let me tell you – infertility sucks!
I have found treatment cycles to be so wrought with emotion. They begin on such an intense high – when I am so positive that this will be the month – and end on the lowest of lows – when that isn’t the case. I have spent hours crying. Hours grieving the loss of the child that never was. Hours cursing fate and asking, “Why me?”.
It has been so easy to get wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself – Why do I have to schlep to the clinic at 7am twice a week? Why does so-and-so have three kids while I have none? Why is it so easy for everyone else? It’s not fair!
And it’s not. Infertility is not fair.
There is nothing we did or didn’t do that led us here and it really, truly sucks. When I finally talk myself down from those low moments of jealousy, pain, and anger, I realize this. When I manage to take a step back and take stock of my life, I realize that I am extremely fortunate. And believe it or not, infertility is part of that fortune.
Infertility has changed me. Without it, I would have never known just how strong I was or how resilient I could be. I would have never known how many times I could fall and still pick myself back up. I would have never known the depth of my love – how I could actually ache for a child and do anything and everything for someone who has been conceived only in our dreams. Infertility also strengthened my marriage and deepened our compassion, our love, and our commitment to each other and to our little family. Infertility gave me a voice and forced me to stand up for myself and for others.
Infertility taught me patience, it taught me self-care, and it taught me gratitude.
While infertility sucks and this journey has been so, SO hard, I’m not all that sure that I would change a minute of it. Truth be told, I am a better person for it. When you find yourself asking, “Why me?” as we all do, I hope that you can also take a step back and list the ways in which infertility has changed you for the better. I think you might find that you are a stronger, more compassionate, more loving and generally more awesome person because of it.
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By Kelly, thencomesmaybe.wordpress.com
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