02/03/2024
A few weeks ago we welcomed our little boy into the world. Instead of posting the usual photo, I thought I’d share how hard it was for us to get here. It’s a vulnerable post, but one which I hope might help others going through the same thing, because this is a topic still shockingly shrouded in mystery. Many of us struggle through it, feeling isolated & alone.
Getting here took 4 years, 5 months, 1 miscarriage, 1 serious hospitalisation, months of difficult drugs, countless unpleasant medical examinations, & many, many tears.
We were in that group who had ‘nothing medically wrong’ with them. Meaning that the doctors didn’t know how to find the cause…because there always is one. I count myself as lucky - through my training I was able improve our fertility & enable the helping hand from modern medicine to be successful. But so often IVF can feel like a roll of the dice.
Fertility treatment is incredible but brutal. As a woman you generally take the brunt of it - you are poked, prodded & pumped full of hormones which leave you feeling like a shell of your former self. All the while trying to cope with holding down a job, being a good friend through the painful pregnancy announcements & trying not to scream when people say “when are you two having babies?”
I once heard Gabby Bernstein talk about her fertility journey & she said, “once I had surrendered, I realised I had to surrender some more”. Although it was terrifying, learning how to do this was what got us through. We held on less tightly, blocked out the external noise & hoped that our path would open up in the end.
I wish I could say things have been easy since getting pregnant, but the truth is I held my breath for 9 months, suffered extreme sickness, had a difficult birth & found myself in A&E with my 6 day old baby. I’ve had to fight for this little boy every step of the way, but here we are now & everything has changed. Life can change in a heartbeat.
To all those who have travelled this path & survived, & to all those who have found other ways to bring children into their lives, I salute you for your strength. To all those who are still on the road, I send love for your journey to come.
