Will we be successful?
Sometimes there is still a glimmer of hope along this emotional journey.
It has been a long journey. I had a dream of having my husband's baby - a beautiful
intelligent child. That dream could never be. Now my dream of having my genetic child has
disappeared as I am much older now and I have had my six cycles and more. It doesn't seem
to matter that I look young - my ovaries and womb don't seem to know. I have asked others
to donate eggs to carry on my dream but this has been hard to do. My sister and many
friends are much older, other friends still wait to have their children and other friends
are just coping with their first or second. Perhaps I will try again and again because my
dream is still of a beautiful baby - in my eyes. Of course I may never have the success of
having a baby. I may have to accept that as I no longer have the control.
Perhaps we can still be successful even if we can't have a child as we have had
to cope with many losses of infertility. When we started the infertility merry-go-round
many years ago we both realised we needed to learn how to express our needs by asking many
medical questions and in return learn how to listen to others with respect even in
difficult situations. We learned about assertiveness. Our eyes were opened to finding many
community classes, books and articles written about personal development something we had
been unaware of. Later we learned we needed to know how to improve our marriage and
relationships with others as we dealt with our stress so we learned about communication
and more about listening. We also realised we had many difficult decisions to make and
conflicts to deal with so we learned about conflict resolution. As we worried over many
situations we knew we needed to learn about positive thinking and controlling our emotions
so we did another course on this and read a few more books. We realised it was going to
take time and effort to change our old ways and patterns and some reinforcement.
We also really wanted to know why we felt so isolated at times, why people were
different and saw things differently and could not see infertility like us. We were to
learn that people have differently personalities, experiences and values and so perceive,
interpret and see things differently. We now realise that we may also not be able to
understand everyone as well even with infertility as they may see things differently too.
However we were to learn that we could learn to listen, accept and allow them to be
different and this would also help. As we sometimes felt isolated and misunderstood
because we were different to everyone else we realised we also needed to know how to make
ourselves feel well so we learned about self-esteem and how to talk gently and kindly to
ourselves as we might talk to our future child. Finally we learned we needed to know
desperately how to deal with the loss of infertility and our baby after miscarriage so we
learned about grief and loss, forgiveness and finally acceptance.
Perhaps we now need to learn to accept that whatever happens in our journey we are a
success and have an even stronger love for one another even if we can't have a child. We
need only to believe we can cope with whatever happens even if it is not in our control.
We have been tested many times and survived. Then perhaps our success as everyone on this
journey may also be simply be to adapt to the present and accept our past losses and to
remember the many good things that we do have whilst maybe still hoping. It may also
hopefully be to share with you, to listen to you and hopefully hear your
"success" - whatever that may mean for you.
Wishing you every success wherever you are on this journey.
