It Takes A Village
Do you tell your friends and family you are trying for a baby? That you are struggling with infertility? Having IVF? This is a very personal choice for every person and couple. Brimming with excitement, we told our closest family, just parents and siblings, that we were trying. As the months went on, the subject came up a few times, but we were lucky that this select group had the tact not to probe too much.
I told my three closest girlfriends after we had been trying for about six months, and we were all very excited together, with one of them telling us that she and her husband were also planning to start trying soon. We cooed at the thought of both having babies and doing mummy things together and our children growing up the best of friends. As it happens, she now has a two year old; I have skin thicker than an elephant’s hide and a labrador.
You can’t avoid those conversations with the extended family. When you’re settled into a committed relationship, the next question is inevitably, ‘so when are you going to have children then?’ We brushed this off jovially, ‘oh all in good time’, or even, ‘we’re working on it’ when we felt comfortable to tell more people we were actually trying. But I felt a deep and burning sense of shame when it was clear things weren’t happening in the normal way for us. I felt I was not fulfilling my role as a woman; I felt I was letting my family down when I knew they were so excited to be grandparents, great grandparents, aunties and uncles.
As time has gone on, we have opened up to more of our family and friends about what we are experiencing. I have worked through some of my shame and have found other people a great source of comfort. I still find some comments difficult and grating and find myself wanting to say, ‘you don’t know because you haven’t experienced it’. But I feel that if I don’t talk I may explode. I feel the sadness and desperation and hopelessness well up inside me periodically and the only way I can keep these huge, terrifying emotions in check is to let them out, bit by bit. A hug here, a cry over coffee there.
Since we’ve started having treatment, we have been very open about what’s going on, figuring that our families are worrying about us and keeping them in the dark would only add to their anguish. But on reflection, I wish I hadn’t told them exact dates of procedures and pregnancy tests, as the pressure I have felt on those days has been immense. Facing our fourth and likely final attempt at IVF, this is something I plan to do differently, to protect myself and give us some breathing space when we are dealing with whatever has come out of each appointment. I think leaning on others and not bottling up how I feel has been so important for me, but some things need time to percolate before they are publicised to all and sundry.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. I wouldn’t know, but without my village to lean on and support me, I don’t know if I’d be here writing this today.
