Pineapple Princess - Fertility Warrior

A blog for anyone who finds themselves battling infertility or is interested in learning what it’s like for those of us who are reproductively challenged.

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Just saying! 12 weeks from now...brace yourselves for all the “oops, look what we accidentally made in isolation” announcements.

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I know that the #schoolclosures are going to be a massive headache for most working parents and employers, but as someone who has wanted children for a long time I really struggle to bite my tongue when parents complain about things like school holidays. It’s so hard to stop myself from telling these people to check their privilege. 

It’s all relative, I know that. If I had young children right now I would definitely be stressing about managing to work full time and looking after the children. I know that. I know parenting can be a challenge, I’m not delusional. But sometimes I just want to shake these people until they somehow realise their luck. 

I also get the feeling that those of us childless people who work full time are going to get shafted by having to do the work of our colleagues who will now have their children at home with them. Thanks a lot #coronavirus .

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How many times in your life have you either said or heard the phrase, “You are so lucky”?

Usually we use this rather flippantly, as a way of expressing shallow envy. Someone’s holiday, another persons £10 lottery win, someone else’s ability to metabolise junk-food without gaining weight. 

Now, I'll ask you another question. Since you’ve been trying to conceive, how many of your friends with children have said that your childless-lifestyle makes you so lucky? Probably a lot yes? 

In those moments, it’s really hard to find the correct response. The comment is never intended to make you feel crap and yet it does. My internal monologue immediately lists all of the things that make them so lucky. Their children are inevitably what makes them so lucky. Every time. 

Isn’t it interesting how such a throw-away comment that we use so regularly gains new significance when you’re going through difficult times? In the end it comes down to your definition of lucky. 

I am lucky in so many different ways. I have a happy, healthy, wonderful marriage. I have two cats whom I love dearly. I have a roof over my head, food on the table, regular holidays, a full time job, I am pretty healthy and the list goes on. However, I am unlucky in some of the biggest ways. 

So maybe, we should all stop and think a bit harder before we speak. We don’t ever really know what’s going on in other people’s lives so instead of thinking that other people are lucky then maybe we should just be grateful that they have something good in their lives - because we just don’t know what they could be going through in private. 

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About a week ago we were planning to buy tickets for an event later this year when the conversation turned to when our friends-with-children might be going. I made a selfish comment about not wanting to make our plans based around what they were doing as they would be taking their child and therefore we would end up going to the ‘child-friendly’ portion of the event rather than actually taking the time to enjoy it. I may have also made a couple of other negative comments about not wanting to have my face rubbed in it to which my husband told me “not to be bitter”. Personally, I’m way past bitter. But it did make me think - is it possible to be infertile and not bitter about it? I honestly don’t have an answer to this question. Maybe I am predisposed to have negative thoughts as opposed to some people who might have the strength to find a positive angle in any scenario. Those people exist right? Anybody have any tips to bend your mind into thinking positive thoughts instead of negative ones when something happens? Asking for a friend...

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Sod’s Law - Part 4

The reason for sharing my darkest thoughts is in the hope that someone else will one day read them and realise that they’re not alone. There is nothing unique about being infertile, you don’t really realise how many of us there are until you stop and look. Ultimately it is our actions which defines us, therefore we should not feel guilty about the thoughts we have during our darkest moments as that is not who we are, really. Before this began we were entirely different people and maybe by releasing these thoughts into the universe we can get back to who we used to be.

So, here’s to becoming me again!

21. You worry that you will never be completely happy ever again. 

22. You will never have wanted a drink more in your life. Although it’s probably best that you don’t drink - you’re depressed enough.

23. You are living in a constant state of limbo. The special kind of hell where you can’t plan too far ahead and you’re putting your life on hold in case you are lucky enough to have a baby.

24. The idea that no-one will ever call you “mummy” is fucking awful.

25. You just want to see your husband as a father because you know with every inch of your being that he would be the greatest daddy the world has ever seen.

26. You will realise how strong your marriage is. You are in this together. You are a team. No matter the outcome you are in this together. You just hope that your team gets some new members. 

27. In an attempt to inject some positivity to your life you will start reading body positivity blogs. The difficulty with this is that if you do actually start to like your body the doctors will soon knock this out of you by basically confirming that if you are fat then you are worthless and do not deserve to be a parent. The shame bell rings loud in the NHS!

28. You will swing between moments of extreme positivity where you think you will get pregnant soon without medical intervention (hell, you could even be pregnant right now, yeah?!?!). These moments will be fleeting and it’s never long before you go back to feeling shitty and barren. 

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Inspired my my current guilty pleasure, The Masked Singer, my thoughts have turned to the mask I wear on a daily basis in order to get through each day. For the most part, I disguise myself as someone who hasn’t really thought all that much about starting a family - like the idea has never crossed my mind. But it’s not just that, I think we all wear different masks to get through hard times in our life and there’s no shame in it. You do what you gotta do!!

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Sod’s Law - Part 3

I’m not really sure that the title covers what this is. It’s more than just the cruel twist of fate that life often is. These are things I wrote over a year ago when I was probably at my darkest point so far. I think I'm learning to live with my sadness a bit better than I did back then. I read these points now and I truly realise how dark things were for me. I look back and it feels like I was living in a bubble of my own design, where nothing could get in but also I couldn’t get out.  Times change and although I still experience hours, days and sometimes weeks of deep depression I am definitely in a better place right now. But I will continue sharing these points, if nothing than to put them out in the world as a symbol of what infertility can do to a person. 

13. You spend a lot of time in your own head. Your husband will think that you're never listening to them or focusing on them. This could be true...it’s hard to hear anyone over the sound our your biological clock ticking. 

14. You will realise how exhausting it can be not to cry. You will find yourself blinking back tears a hundred times a day.

15. You will find yourself planning more events as a way to limit the time you will have to spend worrying and thinking about your infertility.

16. Although you are completely aware how crazy you have become, you feel helpless to stop it.

17. You should be asking all of your pregnant friends all the standard questions but it feels like the words get stuck. You can feel yourself being cut off from the rest of the world. You know you could be seriously damaging your friendships you are just completely stuck for words. If your friends ask you what you’ve been up to you have nothing to say - you won’t want to talk about all the time you’re spending going to doctors appointments but in that moment it’s all you can remember. 

18. You start to worry about the miscarriage statistics. You could go through all of this, finally get pregnant and then lose it all in a second.

19. Your arms ache.

20. You have a lot of time to imagine the llimd of child you may never have and the type of parent you long to be.

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More and more often I find myself thinking about adoption. Even from a younger age I’d always considered that one day I might try to adopt a child. Maybe not being able to get pregnant is the Universe telling me that this is how we are supposed to become parents. I don’t think I would ever stop trying to TTC but I don’t see why that would mean that adoption isn’t a viable option for us. I genuinely don’t believe that the love for a biological child would be different to an adopted one - am I being naive? In my gut I feel a lot more positive about the idea of adoption as opposed to IVF - I just don’t know if IVF would be right for us. I don’t see adoption as an easy route to starting my family as I know it’s not. If anything it’s probably harder than any other way of becoming a parent due to how invasive the process needs to be in order to find suitable parents. I know I don’t need to be related by blood to love another being - the ferocity with which I love my husband tells me all I need to know about that. I guess we need to do our research and think about how is best to move forward...

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I think anyone suffering through infertility knows how to put on a good show. We become amazing at hiding our pain from others in order to get through each day. 

What I didn’t appreciate until the other day is how good my husband is at putting on a good show in order to protect me... After a lengthy heart-to-heart at the weekend I discovered just how much my pain is hurting my husband. What I sometimes see as his ambivalence towards having a child is actually him hiding his feelings from me to try and make my life a bit easier. Him finally showing me the sadness he feels at not being a father, although completely gut wrenching for me, is exactly what I’ve been needing from him. I needed to know we were on the same page and that it was something he is willing to fight for. Because ultimately, that’s what trying to become a parent when you’re infertile is, a fight to get over every obstacle in order to reach your goal. 

So, I have asked him to take some time to look into adoption. To give it some serious thought and then let me know what his thoughts are in a few weeks time. As difficult as it will be for me to not bring it up, I’m trying to be respectful and give him the time he needs to weight it all up. .

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I happened to be looking through some old photos the other day from shortly before we started trying to conceive and my husband commented on how big my smile was back then and how happy I looked. Looking at the photos more closely I had to agree. I do look really happy in those photos. Not a care in the world. 

Obviously I still smile and have happy times now but if I look at photos of myself from the past two years it’s like there’s something slightly different, my smile doesn’t quite look genuine. It’s something very subtle that no one else would ever notice. But it’s there. I can see it. I can still make my face go through the motions but there’s no light in my eyes. 

It was so strange seeing pre-TTC me and I felt so sad for my husband. What must it feel like to know that your person is so sad all of the time and there’s nothing you can do to fix it? 

So, I would like to find my smile again. I want my life to be an adventure where I can feel all the feelings and experience whatever wonderful things come my way without feeling like it’s all a massive consolation prize for not having a family. I don’t know how to do this or where to start but I’d like to try...for my person .

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Sod’s Law - Part 2

A continuation of my previous post. Maybe a better title would be ‘musings’ or ‘dark thoughts that you could never say out loud’ but for now I will stick with ‘Sod’s Law’.

6. You start to think that every change in your body is either a sign that you could either be pregnant or infertile. It turns out that their symptoms have a lot of similarities. If you decide to Google said symptoms it will confirm that you could indeed either be pregnant or infertile. 

7. Every boob-twinge, stomach cramp and middle-of-the-night pee makes you think that you could be pregnant. These hopeful thoughts will soon disappear behind there ever-growing black-cloud of your thoughts. 

8. A negative pregnancy test feels like your life is ending - even if you know it’s going to be negative. Doctors will suggest you take pregnancy tests as a way to ‘rule it out’. Funnily enough the casual way they say this doesn’t make it feel like less of a big deal or soften the blow when you inevitably don’t see that second blue line. 

9. When you’re struggling with infertility you start to realise how few friends you have to confide in about something so personal. For obvious reasons friends with children are ruled out which really doesn’t leave that many other people once you also leave out friends who you suspect are also trying to conceive. In fact that will probably leave you with no-one. 

10. You will be all-consumed by your need to have a child. You will struggle to sleep, concentrate or be motivated to do anything. You will have very dark thoughts. None of this is exactly going to ‘get you in the mood’ to do the baby dance. 

11. In your darkest moments you will struggle to see the point in your life. 

12. Every second of every day that passes feels that little bit harder. This really is not an exaggeration. It’s not until this time that your realise longing can truly be a physical pain. 

To be continued...