Credentials, Please

Have you ever felt like (whether from an outside influence or just in your own mind) that you are somehow not worthy of feeling the way you do about your infertility? I have found that, sadly, sometimes people’s feelings and struggles are dismissed because they are not “equal” to someone else’s. But I’m not in the business of ranking people’s trials and misfortunes, especially when talking about building a family. Let me assure you, if you are struggling to conceive, if you are reading this blog, if you are feeling hopeless about your identity as a parent, you’ve got the credentials!!

There’s no magic amount of time, number of years, number of failed procedures that suddenly gives you the right to have and voice your feelings about infertility. The magnitude of hurt and disappointment you are feeling at any given time is okay, no matter your situation. I think we all go through seasons on this journey, and some days and some months are just harder than others. It doesn’t matter where you are; we all are facing something that leaves us feeling both hopeful and empty. So don’t compare your journey to anyone else’s. Your feelings are real and they are valid.

Let me remind you this isn’t a race or competition. We’re all in it together. And whether you’ve been trying for 9 months or 9 years, the pain of wanting to create life and not being able to is immeasurable. People who have not been down this road LITERALLY do not understand. They just don’t. And we understand each other like no one else possibly could. So the way I see it we need to come together as a community and support one another regardless of our differences. Because in the end we are all facing the same impossible grief.

I still remember my first BFN the first month we were really hard-core trying (ovulation predictors, timed intercourse during my ovulation window, etc). This was almost a year after pulling the goalie and “just having fun” and thinking that’s all it was gonna take. Well of course I was wrong. “But now, NOW that I’m tracking and timing intercourse SURELY I’ll be pregnant in no time!” Boy was I, again, so naïve. The massive disappointment I felt that month was certainly no less than it is now when AF butts her nosey way into my life once a month. To be honest it was almost harder those first few months, maybe because my hopes and expectations were so much greater.

Listen, I don’t pretend to have been in anyone else’s shoes. I get it if people who have been dealing with this hell for years and years maybe don’t see the agony in a shorter journey.  But I’d like to remind you to go back in your mind to your first year of trying and really remember how it felt. And remember that we are all human, and all longing for the same thing. Just because someone has been trying for 14 months and has not tried any type of assistive reproductive procedures doesn’t make their pain is any less than yours if you’ve been TTC for 8 years, done 6 rounds of Clomid with timed intercourse, 8 failed IUIs and 6 failed IVFs. That would be like telling someone who had breast cancer that their feelings weren’t valid because you have lung cancer and the outcomes are statistically worse. Regardless of the circumstances, if your hopes and dreams are to be a parent and it’s not coming easily, it sucks. Plain and simple. So my plea is lets build each other up and support one another in this community without judgment or comparison!!