Infertility Sucks

I'm not exactly sure how to express how I'm feeling but let me just start by saying infertility sucks.

I have a friend who is trying to eat gluten free and when people ask her about it she says "it's a journey" I think the same holds true for infertility. I don't know for sure because I've never been pregnant but I imagine even if we have a child biologically I will still always be affected by this experience. Sure I could write about all the positive ways it has changed my life, like when we do finally have a child in our lives I will be more grateful and more aware of the experience than perhaps someone who never had to consider how much they wanted children. But let's just set those happy thoughts aside for the moment and talk about the other side.

My work has this awesome plan where I can go to acupuncture for almost nothing and so I recently decided to start seeing someone. My aim was to help balance my body and feel good. The interesting thing is she is always asking me about my cycle. Of course my cycyle is tied to my health as a woman but this whole process has brought up a lot of emotion for me. I so closely coorelate that part of my life/body with trying to get pregnant that I find myself confronted. Just by going to acupuncture I'm confronted with my infertility yet again.

Lucky for me, the woman I'm seeing is really great and is willing to hold space for me to talk about my feelings, even though she's really only getting paid to poke me with some needles (ouch! - just kidding you don't even feel it much at all). She has worked with other patients who have struggled with infertility so she has a keen sense of the emotions it brings up. Anyway, on the way to my appointment this week I started thinking, she's going to ask me X, Y & Z...and I found myself getting really angry and frustrated. not because she's going to ask me the questions, but because in just asking the questions I begin to feel less than.

It boils down to: I feel like there is something wrong with me. I am afterall a woman, isn't it my birthright to get pregnant? I always thought so. Sadly this thought process has permeated into various other areas of my life. I am less likely to take risks because I see the possibility of failure, I mean I couldn't get pregnant, even though I tried super hard and wanted it more than anything, so why should this (whatever the venture may be) work out? It's like I've lost that faith in myself of thinking I can do anything if I just set my mind to it. Not only have I lost the faith but I also don't try as hard because I start out feeling like it won't work out anyway and if I don't try super hard than at least I won't be as disappointed. So dumb. And honestly I'm pissed about it.

When I got home from my appointment my hubby and I spent some time talking. I was considering quitting acupuncture just because I don't really want to be confronted with my infertility anymore. I mean I get it, can't have babies, moving on to adoption...but the reality is I need to deal with it and I think the reason this woman came into my life (the acupuncturist) is to help me do just that.

Can I change the past? No. But can I find a way to heal myself and reclaim a sense of faith in myself? I hope so.  Like I said, "it's a journey".

More of my story

My hubby and I have tried in total for over four years to get pregnant. Man, that's a long time. We've tried all sorts of things including 7 IUIs and 3 months of clomid. I know compared to many this is not much but for us it was enough. We knew we wouldn't be able to handle the potential disappointment that could come with IVF, not to mention the potential cost. When I went to the meeting about the infertility treatments offered by our health providers, they basically told us it was only a 20% chance of success for someone my age (35 at the time). That just didn't seem like very good odds to us, considering it would cost somewhere in the ball park of $10,000.

I'm not saying adoption is cheap, it certainly isn't (I'll leave that for another post), but at least with adoption your odds are much better...80% better to be precise. We know we will become parents through adoption, where the path of infertility treatments couldn't give us that kind of assurance.

We spent a lot of time talking about which road we wanted to take and every time we talked about IVF we both had the same feeling, it was like we were rabbits and someone was dangling a carrot out in front of us, we wanted to just hop on up and grab the carrot, but instinctively knew the minute we did, the carrot would be yanked away. When we talked about adoption we felt a variety of things; fear, excitement, and possibility. I like to describe it this way, infertility treatments felt like we would be trying to shove a round peg into a square hole and adoption felt like we were opening ourselves up to something bigger, giving more of ourselves and expanding. Plus 100% is a much better number.