Lovelies,
It’s summer, the weather is nice, the days are long and I am just DONE with this whole messy business of infertility. At least for right now.
I am suffering from some serious infertility burn out.
I feel like I have had it up to here with where I am in my journey right now. We have been actively trying to conceive again since January. Started out just slowly using no protection. Then started charting again. Then started obsessing over when I ovulated and how our timing was. I am not going to use OPK’s this go around (they never work for me), and I am not going to temp (even though I loved it last time). You see, we have 3 gorgeous frozen embryos on ice from our IVF in 2015, so I’m not willing to kill myself trying naturally. I just can’t. I was methodical and exacting when we tried naturally before and I just don’t have it in me to be that intense about it again. Especially as the 3 years of intense tracking lead to no natural pregnancies. So I have been doing as much as I can emotionally handle trying to get knocked up the old fashioned way but NOTHING is happening. I mean… nothing, nothing.
Not a whiff of a pregnancy.
So we started looking into doing a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) in the spring, because I wasn’t getting pregnant naturally and that’s what you do when you have the option of embies on ice. At first we had fully intended to transfer by early summer. But now early summer is here. And I just can’t. I want my life back! At least for the moment. I want to swim in the ocean and breathe the salty air without wondering about injections or beta blood tests or even timed intercourse. I want to have a gorgeous glass of wine while enjoying a romantic dinner with my husband and not wondering if it will lead to magical sex that will miraculously knock me up. I want to enjoy every moment with my son on our holiday to the coast, inhale every peal of laughter, see all the excitement without it being tainted by our wondering about a second or if the FET round worked. I want to jump off my father’s boat and water ski and not be afraid that it would knock a potential embryo loose.
Fuck it.
Fuck all of it. I have given up so much of my life to infertility and I just cannot even stomach having this upcoming summer added to the list. I need a moment to re-center myself in my life. I need to look deeply within myself and rediscover joy. I want to have a blissful summer like when I was younger. I want to really live it. I don’t want to think anymore. Because, even though we have not been killing ourselves to time everything perfectly each month… I hope every month. I think. Every. Damned. Month. I swing with the highs and lows anyways. Even those months where it is virtually impossible for me to be pregnant- I wonder, I dream, I fall, I cry.
I am exhausted.
I am burnt out and I don’t want to care anymore. So, I am giving myself permission not to. I am giving my family permission to just enjoy this little slice of summer as a glorious family of 3. Because I am allowed to be burnt out by the roller coaster that is trying to conceive while infertile. I am allowed to not want to feel that anymore. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know if or when we will do that FET. And that’s ok. Right now I only know one thing…and that’s that I cannot abide infertility this summer. And so I won’t. I am giving myself permission to be Kaeleigh this summer. And put infertility to the side. There is more to my life than trying for a second. It’s time to remember all of those things again.
XOXXO,
this is awesome. we ended up taking a year off, we have been trying for 6 years now for a second child. and in february 2016 my mind and body had had enough. so we took 2016 as a sabbatical year from everything. we are just in the early stages of trying again…we had a brutal run around for the first few years, and so we really only started trying with medications 2 years ago. we have chosen not to do IVF, but we are going to do IUI and superovulation later this year…it is terrifying. But I appreciated reading about others taking time off from this stressful journey.
Absolutely love what you’ve said here, so good to hear someone else feeling the same. I’m coming to the end of my (third) 2ww from my only fet. I don’t know what we’ll do if it fails but I do know I need to find me again, somehow. I’m hopeful it will work (third time lucky and all that), but if not I agree with you. I want a glass of wine! I don’t want to think about injections or blood tests, I just want the be Jess again for a while. Thanks for writing this, it’s really helped me see that it’s ok to be suffering from infertility burnout.