Wednesday 7 November 2007

A blogging hiatus

When I started this blog, I was thinking a lot about infertility, and wanted to create a space where I could explore those feelings. But then I realised that, slowly and insidiously, it was taking over my life. So much of my energy was going into trying, and wishing, and hoping for a baby. My sense of self was becoming more and more bound up with my failure to conceive.

And so I decided to take a break from it all - the charting, the endless monthly cycles of hope and disappointment. I tried to push it to the back of my mind, and get on with other things - teaching and writing. I decided to stop Trying, and have sex for recreational, rather than purely procreational, purposes. Maybe other people were right - if I could relax a little more, it might 'just happen.'

But then I realised that it doesn't work like that. Once infertility has you in its clutches, it doesn't just let you go. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of not thinking about it, but then it crept up on me in the supermarket. In the queue for the checkout, a baby girl looked at me and smiled, and suddenly the grief, the anger and the futility of it all hit me again, square in the guts. And that's when I realised - this isn't going to go away.

2 comments:

lub said...

Yeah, it doesn't go away. It sucks but it doesn't go away. I wish you peace!

Lollipop Goldstein said...

Aaaah, no truer words were ever spoken. I feel like it's the big elephant in the room that you can't ignore.