Infertility War(rior)

It being national infertility awareness week, one of the infertility organizations posed a question- "How has your infertility impacted your life?"

There are a lot of "impacts" of infertility that no one talks about. No one talks about the war of emotions you feel, and I was completely unprepared for it. Even though it SUCKED and was so so hard- I wasn’t surprised that I felt such extreme sadness and loneliness. But I was surprised with the other feelings I felt, like anger, hate, and jealousy. Infertility brought those more “ugly” emotions into my life. I had to take breaks from social media, because not only did it make me super sad seeing so many people announcing their pregnancies or posting pictures of their babies, but it made me angry and resentful. "They just got married & they’re already pregnant?" "They’re so much younger than me and they’re pregnant?" "Ok, ok, we get it! You have a cute baby! You don’t need to post about it 24/7!"

But then I would feel so guilty for all those thoughts and feelings. Who was I to be angry because they were getting the happiness I wanted? It wasn’t their fault I couldn’t get pregnant. But I couldn’t get rid of my anger/resentment/jealousy with the snap of my fingers. It was also worse with different people. With my family, it was more a combination of jealousy & sadness than anger or resentment. I guess because I knew them more on a personal level, and I saw their lives up close. It was way easier to be angry at someone I wasn’t close with, like people I hadn’t seen since high school or since I graduated BYU. 

That doesn’t mean it was easy with family though. 

When one of my nephews was born, my husband and I were going to go visit him in the hospital. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I knew I would be jealous and emotional. I knew I would cry, most likely uncontrollably, and need to leave the room. I was sort of panic crying just thinking about going. So we didn’t go. I couldn’t even use my words to talk to my family about it, because I didn’t know how. Plus, I felt like my feelings would detract from the happiness of the event of his birth, and I didn’t want to do that. 

Then a few months later, after that nephew’s baby blessing, I had to leave the room during Sunday school. My two sister in laws were both holding their babies a few seats down from me, and there was another lady with her baby in front of me, and yet another behind me. I was literally surrounded by babies and it was suffocating. I felt trapped. Holding back my tears, I ran to the bathroom and sobbed silently. I was so scared someone would hear me crying and ask what was wrong. Again, it was another event that was supposed to be celebratory, but for me it was exhausting and sad. I was confused and didn’t want to have to talk to my family about it, because again, I didn’t know how. So I eventually asked my husband for the keys and I left without a word. I met up with some friends & didn’t come back until hours later. 

When my younger sister announced that she was pregnant, we weren’t really trying to have a baby at that point. I was a little disappointed I wouldn’t have the first grand kid like I was “supposed to” as the oldest, but I didn’t dwell on that and I was happy for her. 

It was harder later, when she was in her 3rd trimester and, after trying to conceive for a few months, I had recently been diagnosed with PCOS. It was hard at random times later when Char was a newborn or even when she was a cute little one year old and we were still nowhere closer to our dream of having a baby. It was the elephant in the room for awhile, the fact that she had what I so desperately wanted, until my sister was super woman and brought it up. I didn’t realize that it would make such a difference to acknowledge those feelings, but it did. 

 I want you to understand though, that I wasn’t walking around with this constant jealousy. It would just hit me randomly. And then the guilt would hit me almost immediately. I love my sister and my niece, and my sister in laws & other nieces/nephews. I didn’t want to feel that jealousy, or have it seem like I didn’t love them! (And most of the time I didn’t feel that way. A lot of the time, being around them is what actually helped me cope with my infertility.)But feeling those “negative” things just made me feel even worse! And that’s something that people don’t think of when they think of infertility. They don’t think of these unseen battles of emotions, these often unspoken feelings and thoughts about family members and friends. It’s not easy to say anything along the lines of “I’m happy for you, but at the same time, you stink!” 🤪Or “I want what you have and I know I can’t have it right now, but sometimes it’s hard to be around you when I’m struggling with those feelings. I often don’t know what to say or do when I’m feeling that way.” 

That being said, if you’re currently in the trenches of infertility, no hard feelings if you feel resentment towards me when I post about my baby. No hard feelings if you’re angry. No hard feelings if you roll your eyes when you see someone announce a pregnancy, or you unfollow them for the time being. No hard feelings if you’ve been dealing with infertility for much longer than I have & you think I should hush up. 
So. You have every right to those feelings. Whatever they may be. 
Infertility is sadness, infertility is grief, infertility is anger. Infertility is loneliness, infertility is emptiness. Infertility is whatever it looks like for you. Most importantly though, in all circumstances, infertility is a battle and you are a freaking warrior! ❤️