When we first decided that we wanted to have a child together, we thought that we'd just stop using contraception and wait and see what happened. A few months went by, and I didn't get pregnant. Christmas came and went, and we told ourselves, 'maybe this time next year, we'll have a baby.' Since then, another four Christmases have gone by. Many of our friends now have children, while we have gone for appointment after appointment, endured test after test, and been put on waiting list after waiting list. Our conversations about our future have slipped from 'when we have children' to 'if we have children.'
When you are dealing with infertility, Christmas, New Year, birthdays and anniversaries become endowed with a new significance: they remind you that another twelve months have gone by, but you are still no closer to fulfilling your dream of becoming a parent.
This last day of 2007 thus seems an appropriate time for taking stock. Looking back over the past year, I realise how much of my energy has gone into trying - and failing - to conceive a child. I never knew how exhausting infertility could be - and here I don't just mean the countless trips backwards & forwards from the clinic, or else the invasive and painful procedures which many of us have to endure in order to have a child, but also the endless cycle of hope and disappointment that one lives through on a monthly basis.
If infertility has taught me one thing, it is that, even with the best will in the world, you cannot always achieve what you set out to do. This year, I won't be making any new year's resolutions. Instead, I will hope...
I will hope that this cycle of IVF takes us one step closer to our dream of having a baby.
And I will hope that all of you out there who are longing for exactly the same thing will finally get that BFP.
3 comments:
I agree, the uncertainty of it all is exhausting, on top of the physical and other aspects. So I will hope with you. And thanks for yours. ~luna
I can't imagine how exhausting all of the physical procedures must be (as I probably won't do our first IUI until Feb-08) but I understand how emotionally daunting this is. I share your hope for a better year in 2008.
It is exhausting. Especially the hoping, all the waiting. The fact that each cycle is so long doesn't help. I hope this is the year that all that becomes past tense for you.
Kim
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