Tuesday 29 October 2013

Sometimes the bright side is hard to find.

If I had to explain my experience with infertility, it would be as follows;

Infertility is very much like living in a constant state of heartbreak. It's like being so totally and utterly in love with someone you've only dreamt of and then being told that you can never meet them. 

Every where I go, there is a Mum feeding her baby or a Dad pushing a stroller or a Grandmother trying to wrangle a toddler. Every time I log onto a computer I see pregnancy announcements, birth announcements and photos of children everywhere. Every time I read a magazine there is a story about some celebrity and their child. Every news program I watch talks about families. Every where I look, there is a some kind of reminder of something that I'm struggling to achieve. 

Infertility is something I can't ever escape. Nothing will ever be able to satisfy my want for my own biological child. I want to be able to look into my child's eyes and know that it's here because I loved his or her daddy so much that I wanted to be connected to him forever.

The hardest part for me is the constant jealousy. I don't hate people that have children, nor would I ever begrudge them their families because honestly, I would never wish infertility on anyone. Not even my worst enemy. But when I see the love between a parent and child it makes my heart ache.

Children have this way of seeing past their parents flaws and loving them anyway. Some parents are awful, some can barely provide food and clothing and others appear to verbally abuse their children. Yet their children love them anyway. 

Thats the worst part, the love. Because as a person going through infertility, I have all this love in my heart and the thought of never being able to cuddle or tell our baby that I love it is often unbearable. 

I see how much love children bring to their families. Not just their parents but their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins ect. It's really hard to cope with the fact that I'm not able to provide that to my family. I can't make my mother a grandmother and I can't make my sister an aunt. I mourn the fact that I won't be able to pass on the things I love about being a sister and an aunt onto my child. It may just end with me. I may be the last link in my chain.

I'm not mad that other people are happy, I just don't know if I'm ever going to be able to be that happy and it breaks my heart. I don't know how I'm going to mend it and find happiness outside parenthood when it's all I've ever wanted.

I've waited patiently for so long and I'm emotionally exhausted. It's a constant hurt and ache that just won't go away. It's relentless. I try so hard to be strong but it's like carrying a rock around and not knowing if you're ever going to be able to put it down.

I know that a lot of people will start asking me about other options. What about adoption? What about foster care?  What about IVF?

We've considered them all and while I won't go into detail right now, the biggest factor relating to all of them is that they all require huge amounts of money that we just don't have. 

IVF was an option until Friday last week when I was informed that our private health fund wouldn't cover any of it because they deem my situation as pre-existing.

So there it is. I'm heartbroken. Completely and utterly heartbroken.

The past few days I've struggled to hold in the tears. I know life goes on and I know that the future is uncertain. I have hope that our prayers will be answered eventually, it might take 5 years, it might take longer. But I will never give up hope that we'll welcome Baby Schneider into our arms one day.

Until then, we're going to try and pick ourselves up and concentrate on building a life without children. I have no doubt that it's going to be difficult but I really don't know what else to do. 

We're still going to go see another fertility specialist in January and see if there is any form of natural or trial treatment available for us and our particular circumstance. If eating weird things and dancing naked in the moonlight had even a slight chance of working, I'll do it. 

I was born to be a mother and I won't go down without a fight.


What heartbreak looks like. - This is so much more than words.

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